Alpha-melanocyte-stimulating hormone (α-MSH) is processed from proopiomelanocortin (POMC) and acts on the melanocortin receptors, MC3 and MC4. α-MSH plays a key role in energy homeostasis. In the present study, to shed light on the mechanisms by which α-MSH exerts its anorectic effects, extracellular neuronal activity was recorded in the hypothalamus and the dorsal vagal complex (DVC) of anesth...

We studied the effects of the glycemic index (GI) of preexercise meals on metabolism and performance when carbohydrate (CHO) was ingested throughout exercise. Six well-trained cyclists performed three counterbalanced trials of 2-h cycling at approximately 70% of maximal oxygen uptake, followed by a performance ride of 300 kJ. Meals consumed 2 h before exercise consisted of 2 g CHO/kg body mass ...

The functional gastrointestinal disorders (FGIDs) are an enigmatic group of maladies of the GI system which, until recently, were poorly understood and often neglected by clinicians. These disorders present with a constellation of GI tract systems, such as nausea, vomiting, abdominal bloating and diarrhoea. Following detailed clinical and imaging evaluation in the search for organic disease, if...

We establish the validity of the heavy traffic steady-state approximation for a single server queue, operating under the FIFO service discipline, in which each customer abandons the system if his waiting time exceeds his generally-distributed patience time. This follows from early results of Kingman when the loading factor approaches one from below, but has not been shown in more generality. We...

The prognosis of 142 patients with myasthenia gravis (MG) was clinically investigated. Forty-nine (35%) had clinical remission (CR) and 23 (16%) good improvement (GI), while 70 (49%) remained in poor condition. Favorable clinical factors for CR were the onset of MG before the age of 20 years, a pre-thymectomy period of less than one year, and a post-thymectomy period of six years or more. Singl...

BACKGROUND A growing amount of scientific evidence suggests that microbes are involved in the aetiology of irritable bowel syndrome (IBS), and the gastrointestinal (GI) microbiota of individuals suffering from diarrhoea-predominant IBS (IBS-D) is distinguishable from other IBS-subtypes. In our study, the GI microbiota of IBS-D patients was evaluated and compared with healthy controls (HC) by us...

The gastrointestinal (GI) effects of three different dietary fibre (DF) sources: wheat bran (WB), oat bran (OB) and pea fibre (PF), were compared with a low-fibre diet in a 4-week trial with rats (initial bodyweight 210 g). The DF sources varied widely in chemical composition, solubility and water-holding properties, and particle size. The DF sources were mixed into diets to comprise the same a...