Authors:Katarina Papera Valente; Marina Abelha Barreto, Naira Marceli Fraga Silva, Valdete Regina Guandalini Abstract: Malnutrition is commonly observed in the hospital setting and is associated with increased morbidity and mortality, length of hospital stay and hospital costs, and worsening of response to treatment. Identifying the presence of nutritional risk or malnutrition in hospitalized patients is essential so that individualized nutritional therapy can be instituted early. One of the main methods of evaluation of nutritional status is Subjective Global Assessment (SGA), and associated with it, anthropometric measures complement the evaluation. The thickness of the adductor pollicis muscle (TAPM) is a measure that can evaluate the muscle compartment and indicate changes in body composition in a simple, practical and noninvasive way. This study presents the main studies that used the TAPM measure with the objective of identifying the capacity to detect hospital malnutrition when compared to the classic nutritional status assessment instruments. The results showed that TAPM is a promising and reliable, easy-to-perform, low-cost measure with the potential to identify malnutrition and nutritional risk in hospitalized patients, in order to accelerate and facilitate the nutritional diagnosis of these patients, as well as to detect protein depletion. However, new studies must be performed to identify the reasons for different findings in the literature, especially regarding the cutoff point for this population, taking into account the age range and gender. PubDate: 2020-03-28 Issue No:Vol. 3 (2020)
Authors:Tetsuro Horie; Tomoko Kawamata, Yoshinori Ohsumi Abstract: Autophagy is a bulk degradation process, widely conserved among eukaryotic organisms. Since elucidation of autophagic machinery, there is a growing number of reports about diverse physiological roles of autophagy. The diversity of physiological roles of autophagy is caused by dual roles of autophagic process, either in providing deficient nutrients by degrading cytoplasmic components, or in removal of harmful or unnecessary components. Autophagy produces a variety of compound, and influence cell metabolism. These make the physiological roles of autophagy extremely complicated. Adaptation of starvation is one of the physiological roles of autophagy. In this research highlight, we summarize and discuss the known physiological roles of autophagy across various organism and propose unsolved problems of the physiology of autophagy in yeast. Then, we introduce our recent findings regarding the roles of autophagy in recycling the trace metals. PubDate: 2020-03-28 Issue No:Vol. 3 (2020)
Authors:Jin Kwon Jeong; Hoon-Gu Kim, Byung Ju Lee Abstract: A neuron-enriched secreting protein, NELL2 is a highly conserved molecule between rodents and human. With its several functional motifs, NELL2 has been suggested to play a critical role in embryonic neural development and neuronal protection. However, NELL2 function in adulthood brain has not been clearly understood until recently. To uncover NELL2-associated brain physiology in adulthood, we recently performed an experiment ablating hypothalamic NELL2 production over a short time period in adult rats. We observed that NELL2 signaling in brain is tightly associated with an animal’s appetite behavior and metabolism regulation. NELL2 is expressed in several hypothalamic nuclei, including the paraventricular nucleus, ventromedial hypothalamus, and the arcuate nucleus, all of which are known to be important in whole body energy homeostasis. Hypothalamic NELL2 was upregulated by fasting, and removal of hypothalamic NELL2 resulted in reduction of daily appetite behavior under normal chow conditions and without changes in water intake. Therefore, rats with hypothalamic NELL2 ablation showed an attenuated body weight gain compared to the control. These data clearly suggested that NELL2 plays an orexigenic role in metabolism regulation. However, the brain regions involved in NELL2 activity for the regulation of metabolism are still uncertain. Furthermore, the effect of NELL2-specific receptor, and NELL2-dependent cellular signaling on metabolism regulation have not been delineated. Therefore, future studies aiming to challenge these issues are necessary to clearly understand contribution of NELL2 on energy homeostasis. PubDate: 2020-03-28 Issue No:Vol. 3 (2020)
Authors:Kazutaka Aoki Abstract: Diet therapy is important for treating obese subjects and patients with type 2 diabetes to prevent complications. Regarding eating speed and obesity, several studies suggest that eating fast increases the body weight and eating slowly decreases the energy intake. Recently, we evaluated the effects of ingestion of enteral formula (liquid meal) slowly or fast on glucose metabolism in ten Japanese patients with type 2 diabetes. Postprandial levels of glucose, insulin, and gastrointestinal hormones such as active glucagon-like peptide 1 (GLP-1), total glucose-dependent insulinotropic polypeptide (GIP), total peptide YY (PYY), and active ghrelin did not change significantly after fast or slow ingestion of enteral formula. We hypothesize that eating slowly prevents the excess energy intake and body weight gain over a long observation period and improves insulin resistance and glycemic control in patients with type 2 diabetes. PubDate: 2020-03-28 Issue No:Vol. 3 (2020)
Open Access journal
