Background It is important to differentiate takotsubo cardiomyopathy from other types of transient ventricular dysfunction. These guidelines, resulting from a workshop sponsored by the Ministry of Health, Labour, and Welfare, Idiopathic Cardiomyopathy Research Committee, outline the steps necessary for diagnosis of takotsubo cardiomyopathy. Methods and Results The survey was conducted by mailing a questionnaire to the researchers of the 203 institutions that had made presentations on this disease at scientific meetings of the Japanese Circulation Society from November 1989 to October 2002. The questionnaires were sent and collected on January 10, 2003. Based on the results of the questionnaire, the first edition of the guidelines for diagnosis of takotsubo cardiomyopathy was prepared and evaluated at the 2003 group meeting of the Research Committee. Out of 33 researchers in Japan who had published research papers on this disease, 21 responded to the request and provided their opinions. The guidelines were revised and were approved at the 2004 group meeting. Conclusions This summary provides standard guidelines for patients with takotsubo cardiomyopathy.
Dilated cardiomyopathy (DCM) is characterized by dilation of left ventricular cavity with systolic dysfunction. Clinical symptom of DCM is heart failure, often associated with cardiac sudden death. About 20-35% of DCM patients have apparent family histories and it has been revealed that mutations in genes for sarcomere proteins cause DCM. However, the disease-causing mutations can be found only in about 17% of Japanese patients with familial DCM. Bcl-2-associated athanogene 3 (BAG3) is a co-chaperone protein with antiapoptotic function, which localizes at Z-disc in the striated muscles. Recently, BAG3 gene mutations in DCM patients were reported, but the functional abnormalities caused by the mutations are not fully unraveled. In this study, we analyzed 72 Japanese familial DCM patients for mutations in BAG3 and found two mutations, p.Arg218Trp and p.Leu462Pro, in two cases of adult-onset DCM without skeletal myopathy, which were absent from 400 control subjects. Functional studies at the cellular level revealed that the DCM-associated BAG3 mutations impaired the Z-disc assembly and increased the sensitivities to stress-induced apoptosis. These observations suggested that BAG3 mutations present in 2.8% of Japanese familial DCM patients caused DCM possibly by interfering with Z-disc assembly and inducing apoptotic cell death under the metabolic stress.
Coronary vasospasm may provoke vascular injury that leads to the formation of neointima in VAP patients similar to that seen with restenosis. Coronary spasm may thus play a key role in the rapid coronary stenosis progression in certain patients with VAP.
SUMMARY:The myocardium may be the target of several types of viral infections. The importance of hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection has been recently noted in patients with myocarditis and in patients with dilated or hypertrophic cardiomyopathy. The present study sought to detect HCV genomes in formalin-fixed paraffin sections of autopsied hearts from patients with myocarditis and patients with dilated or hypertrophic cardiomyopathy. Paraffin sections were deparaffinized, RNA was extracted, and the positive and negative strands of HCV RNA were detected by performing reverse transcription and nested polymerase chain reaction. The polymerase chain reaction products were cloned and sequenced. -actin gene was used as a control for the successful amplification of a housekeeping gene. Among 106 hearts examined, -actin gene was amplified in 61 hearts (57.5%). Among the latter, HCV RNA was detected in 13 hearts (21.3%), and negative strands in 4 hearts (6.6%). HCV RNA was found in 4 hearts (33.3%) with myocarditis, in 3 hearts (11.5%) with dilated cardiomyopathy, and in 6 hearts (26.0%) with hypertrophic cardiomyopathy. The sequences recovered from nine patients were highly homologous to the standard strain of HCV. HCV genomes were not found in either 35 hearts from patients with myocardial infarction or 20 hearts from patients with noncardiac diseases. These HCV RNA positive samples were obtained from 1 heart in 1979, 7 hearts between 1980 and 1989, and 5 hearts since 1990, indicating that HCV RNA can be amplified from paraffin-embedded hearts preserved for many years. This method of detecting HCV genomes in formalin-fixed paraffin cardiac specimens has enabled us to widen our research into HCV infection and has been helpful in identifying the presence of HCV infection in cardiac myopathic disorders. (Lab Invest 2000, 80:1137-1142.
Human intestinal microbiota are influenced by various factors viz. diet, environment, age, gender, geographical, and socioeconomic situation, etc. among which diet has the most profound impact. However, studies investigating this impact have mostly included subjects from diverse geographic/socioeconomic backgrounds and hence the precise effects of dietary factors on gut microbiota composition remain largely confounded. Herein, with an aim to evaluate the association between dietary habits, specifically yogurt consumption, and the gut microbiota in healthy young adults sharing similar age, lifestyle routine, geographical setting, etc., we conducted a cross-sectional study wherein 293 collegiate freshmen answered a questionnaire about their frequency of yogurt consumption over the last 2 months and provided stool specimens for microbiota analysis. Fecal microbiota were analyzed by highly sensitive reverse-transcription-quantitative-PCR assays targeting bacterial 16S rRNA molecules. Fecal organic acids were measured by HPLC. Overall, the gut microbiota were predominated (97.1 ± 8.6%) by Clostridium coccoides group, Clostridium leptum subgroup, Bacteroides fragilis group, Bifidobacterium and Atopobium cluster. Interestingly, after adjusting the data for yogurt consumption, females were found to have higher total bacterial (P = 0.013) and Bifidobacterium (P = 0.046) count and fecal pH (P = 0.007) and lower fecal concentration of total organic acids (P = 0.030), succinic acid (P = 0.007) and formic acid (P = 0.046) as compared to males. Altogether, yogurt consumption showed positive linear association with Lactobacillus and Lactobacillus gasseri subgroup in both male and female subjects; however, several gender-specific disparities were also detected in this yogurt-microbiota association. Yogurt consumption demonstrated a negative association with L. sakei subgroup, Enterobacteriaceae and Staphylococcus in males but shared a positive association with L. casei subgroup and succinic acid in female subjects. The study manifests the association between yogurt consumption and gut microbiota in a healthy homogeneous cohort and show how this association can differ by host gender. The findings should be helpful for prospective studies investigating the diet–microbiome interaction in human health and disease.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.
hi@scite.ai
10624 S. Eastern Ave., Ste. A-614
Henderson, NV 89052, USA
Copyright © 2024 scite LLC. All rights reserved.
Made with 💙 for researchers
Part of the Research Solutions Family.