Intra-abdominal obesity and metabolic risk factors: a study of young adults

OBJECTIVE

To assess the relative importance of the extent and regional distribution of fat for metabolic risk factors in young adults.

DESIGN

Cross-sectional study of findings from a hospital-based case-control study.

SUBJECTS

A total of 46 adult Danish Caucasian patients (40 men and six women, aged 34-54 y). Of these, 22 had had non fatal acute myocardial infarction before 41 y of age and 24 were age- and gender-matched controls without coronary heart disease.

MEASUREMENTS

Four measurements of fat: body mass index (BMI, kg/m(2)), body fat percentage measured using a dual energy X-ray absorptiometry (DEXA) scanner, waist/hip circumference ratio (WHR), and intra-abdominal adipose tissue area measured using computed tomography (CT) scanning, and eight metabolic risk factors: systolic and diastolic blood pressure, HbA(1c) percentage, fasting concentrations of capillary whole blood glucose, high-density lipoprotein (HDL) cholesterol, serum triglyceride, plasma plasminogen activator inhibitor 1 (PAI-1), and urinary albumin:creatinine excretion ratio.

RESULTS

Of 46 participants, 10 were obese (BMI >30 kg/m(2)), 12 were abdominally obese (WHR >0.90 for men and >0.85 for women), and 20 were intra-abdominally obese (intra-abdominal adipose tissue area >135 cm(2)). Men had a higher intra-abdominal adipose tissue area than women (P=0.0053, Mann-Whitney U-test). In multiple regression analyses of the four fat variables, only intra-abdominal adipose tissue area significantly predicted the levels of six metabolic risk factors: systolic blood pressure, diastolic blood pressure, fasting concentrations of capillary whole blood glucose, serum HDL cholesterol, serum triglyceride, and PAI-1. The intra-abdominal adipose tissue area had a linear relation with the six metabolic risk factors.

CONCLUSIONS

For young individuals, intra-abdominal fat is the important component of the body fat for six of the eight metabolic risk factors. Intra-abdominal fat might contribute to that most patients with acute myocardial infarction at a young age are men.

Interdependent chemical-electrochemical steps in retrometabolism-based drug and safer chemical design

An extension of the retrometabolic based drug (chemical) design concept, specifically the soft drug approach, to the family of nitrone compounds is presented. Nitrones oppose oxidative challenges by virtue of their ability to very rapidly trap free radical species that are more stable and biochemically less harmful than the original molecular fragments. Moreover, the spin adducts may undergo further transformations including reaction with a second radical and decomposition (hydrolysis) to hydroxylamines and carbonyl compounds. Nitrones and their spin adducts may generate nitric oxide in vivo, which, like nitrones themselves, exerts a number of diverse activities in phylogenetically distant species as well as opposing effects in related biological systems. It was described as a major messenger in the cardiovascular, immune, and nervous systems, in which it plays regulatory, signaling, cytoprotective, and cytotoxic effects. Nitrones play an important role in the synthesis of drugs belonging to chemically and pharmacologically very different classes. A combined chemical-electrochemical synthesis of nitrones has been elaborated. These compounds may be obtained from aldehydes or ketones and N-substituted hydroxylamines. These reactions were performed directly, in situ in the electrochemical cell, where phenylhydroxylamine obtained by electroreduction of nitrobenzene derivatives reacts with the carbonyl compound introduced in the cell. The kinetic and thermodynamic parameters of the processes were determined by analyzing the adequate polarographic curves. Differences between purely chemical and mixed chemical-electrochemical methods are discussed. Analysis of the experimental data permits optimization of the investigated process from a preparative point of view. Effects of structural factors were systematically evaluated. The proposed method may be useful for combinatorial chemistry as well.

[Pharmaceutical preparations from plant products employed in stomatologic diseases]

Two preparations for stomatological use have been introduced, obtained from vegetal extracts of Ocimum basilicum L., Tilia sp., and Symphytum officinalis L. Their stability in time was evaluated, and the microbiological activity was assessed in vitro on microbial strains involved in stomatological affections. In clinical experiments good results were obtained in parodonthopathies, in the therapy of lesions developing under prostheses, and in other affections.