The Women’s Health Initiative Calcium/Vitamin D Trial To the Editor: We appreciate the excellent review of research pertaining to vitamin D and hypertension by Vaidya and Forman in the recent issue of Hypertension.1 We agree with nearly all of their comments regarding the limitations of the Women’s Health Initiative Calcium/Vitamin D Trial regarding the effect of vitamin D supplementation on bl...

Bone marrow (BM) hematopoietic cells are selectively sensitive to polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAH) in vivo. 7,12-Dimethylbenz(a)anthracene (DMBA), but not benzo(a)pyrene (BP), depletes BM hematopoietic cells in C57BL/6 mice. This difference is due to a BP-selective aryl hydrocarbon receptor (AhR)-mediated recovery. Colony-forming unit assays show suppression of lymphoid progenitors by eac...

INTRODUCTION Obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) is associated with cardiovascular morbidity, including hypertension. Beyond the severity of nocturnal hypoxia, other factors such as metabolic abnormalities but also sedentary behaviors and insufficient physical activity may contribute to elevated blood pressure (BP). To clarify the respective role of these factors as determinants of BP in OSA patients...

BACKGROUND Dietary protein intake may help to manage blood pressure (BP) and prevent complications associated with elevated BP. OBJECTIVE The objective of this study was to determine whether 4 wk of increased protein intake (∼25% compared with ∼15% of energy intake that isoenergetically replaces carbohydrate intake) lowers office and daytime BP compared with increased carbohydrate intake. D...

Fossil, archaeological, and morphometric data suggest that indigenous red foxes in North America were derived from vicariance in two disjunct refugia during the last glaciation: one in Beringia and one in the contiguous USA. To test this hypothesis, we conducted a phylogeographical analysis of the North American red fox within its presettlement range. We sequenced portions of the mitochondrial ...

We hypothesized that NRH:quinone oxidoreductase 2 (NQO2) is a candidate susceptibility gene for breast cancer because of its known enzymatic activity on estrogen-derived quinones and its ability to stabilize p53. We performed case-control studies to investigate the contributions of genetic variants/haplotypes of the NQO2 gene to breast cancer risk. In the first hospital-based study (n = 1604), ...

BACKGROUND Several small-scale clinical trials have suggested a potential beneficial effect of short-term soy consumption on blood pressure (BP). Data are scanty on long-term effects of the usual intake of soy foods on BP in general populations. OBJECTIVE Our aim was to examine the association between usual intake of soy foods and BP. DESIGN The usual intake of soy foods was assessed at bas...

Fibroblast growth factor-23 (FGF-23) has been recently identified as playing an important pathophysiological role in phosphate homeostasis and vitamin D metabolism. To elucidate the precise physiological regulation of FGF-23, we characterized the mouse FGF-23 5'-flanking region and analyzed its promoter activity. The 5'-flanking region of the mouse FGF-23 gene contained a TFIID site (TATA box) ...

Previous studies have suggested that some patients with large-scale mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) deletions also presented a heteroplasmic 260 bp tandem duplication in the mtDNA D-loop region. Such duplications were observed not only in patients with mitochondrial pathology but also in aged subjects. However, the percentage of duplicated mtDNA did not exceed a few per cent of the total mtDNA, excep...

In this communication, we describe several features of the D. melanogaster gene which codes for ribosomal protein 49 (rp49). Nucleotide sequence analysis in conjunction with primer extension and S1 nuclease protection experiments show that the structure of the rp49 gene consists of a 102 bp 5' exon, a single 59 bp intron, and a 420 bp 3' exon, encoding a total of 132 amino acids. The rp49 gene ...