BACKGROUND The aim of the study was to examine the role that melatonin production plays in the regulation of sleep consolidation in a population of shiftworkers working and sleeping in their natural environments. METHODS 253 locomotive engineers (249 male, 4 female, mean age = 39.7 years) participated in the study for a 2-week period whilst working their normal roster patterns. Participants r...

Determination of the ratio of testosterone to epitestosterone (T/E) in urine is used to detect testosterone administration in athletes, with a ratio > 6 considered as evidence of an offense. We show that administration of ketoconazole, which inhibits testosterone biosynthesis, may be useful for differentiating between an athlete who is using testosterone and one who naturally gives a ratio > 6....

The nature of microproteinuria in the early years of insulin-dependent diabetes was investigated in a cross sectional study of 80 children with insulin-dependent diabetes and 40 normal children. Urinary excretion of three low molecular weight proteins: alpha-1-microglobulin, beta-2-microglobulin and kappa light chains was used as an index of proximal renal tubular function. The first urine samp...

Basal 24 hour urinary kallikrein excretion of 20 patients with uncomplicated essential hypertension did not differ significantly from that of 18 normotensive age-matched control subjects. 4 of the 20 hypertensive patients, however, had low kallikrein excretion. Furosemide (40 mg i.v.) caused an increase of urinary kallikrein excretion in the normotensive subjects and in most of the patients wit...

Amino acid precursors of dopamine and serotonin have been administered for decades to treat a variety of clinical conditions including depression, anxiety, insomnia, obesity, and a host of other illnesses. Dietary administration of these amino acids is designed to increase dopamine and serotonin levels within the body, particularly the brain. Convincing evidence exists that these precursors nor...

Excretion of digoxin-like immunoreactivity (DLIS) was measured by RIA in timed overnight urine collections from 91 normotensive nondiabetic subjects and 104 normotensive insulin-dependent diabetic (IDDM) patients. The mean +/- SD DLIS excretion rate for the diabetic patients significantly exceeded that for the controls (73 +/- 41 vs 63 +/- 36 pg/min, P = 0.024). In both groups, the mean DLIS ex...

Apricitabine (ATC) is a novel deoxycytidine analog reverse transcriptase inhibitor in development for the treatment of human immunodeficiency virus infection. Studies were performed to characterize the excretion of ATC and its metabolite, BCH-335 (-1-(2-hydroxymethyl-[1,3]oxathiolan-4-yl)-1H-pyrimidine-2,4-dione), in the isolated perfused rat kidney (IPK). A second objective was to investigate ...

Clearance experiments were carried out in pair-fed rats to examine the long-term effects of adrenalectomy and selective adrenal corticosteroid replacement in physiological amounts on renal potassium transport. To this end, clearance studies were conducted in rats that were sham operated, or adrenalectomized (ADX). ADX animals were given either vehicle, aldosterone (0.5 microgram/100 g body wt p...

1. To evaluate tubular damage in diabetic patients, we measured the 24 h urinary excretion of five enzymes (N-acetyl-beta-D-glucosaminidase, gamma-glutamyl transpeptidase, dipeptidyl aminopeptidase IV, alanine aminopeptidase and alkaline phosphatase) that originate in renal proximal tubular cells. 2. Studies were performed on 118 non-insulin-dependent diabetic patients, 59 non-diabetic patients...