BACKGROUND & OBJECTIVES Tumour necrosis factor-alpha (TNF-alpha) has been suggested to play a key role in insulin resistance (IR) in obesity and may contribute to the development of type 2 diabetes mellitus. Recently, studies are focused on the effect of antihypertensive drugs on insulin sensitivity and cytokines. We undertook this study to evaluate the effect of amlodipine, a long-acting dihyd...

OBJECTIVE To compare BMI with abdominal skinfold thickness (ASF), waist circumference and waist-to-height ratio in the prediction of insulin resistance (IR) in prepubertal Colombian children. DESIGN We calculated age- and sex-specific Z-scores for BMI, ASF, waist circumference, waist-to-height ratio and three other skinfold-thickness sites. Logistic regression with stepwise selection (P = 0·8...

INTRODUCTION Mast cells participate in atherogenesis by releasing cytokines to induce vascular cell protease expression. Tryptase is expressed highly in human atherosclerotic lesions and the inhibition of tryptase activity hampers its capacity to maintain cholesterol inside macrophague foam cells. We aimed to investigate the association between circulating tryptase levels and subclinical athero...

A large proportion of the increased mortality in Turner syndrome (TS) is related to cardiovascular complications. Increased arterial stiffness may be an important predictor related to cardiovascular complications in TS patients. A novel method of evaluating arterial stiffness, which is relatively independent of changes in blood pressure (BP), is the cardio-ankle vascular index (CAVI). The aim o...

Background: Previous evidences support to inflammatory process associated with the IR those important factors in the development of fibrosis and hepatic damage in patients with HCV infection. Objectives: Determine the presence of immunological or histological differentces between hyperinsulinemic and non-hyperinsulinemic chronic HCV-infected patients with at least 10 years of evolution. Materia...

Genome-wide linkage analyses were performed using a multipoint variance components method in eight study groups from four multicenter networks (whites and blacks in GenNet; whites, blacks, and Mexican Americans in GENOA; whites and blacks in HyperGEN; and Asians in SAPPHIRe) that comprise the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute Family Blood Pressure Program (FBPP), in order to identify qu...

Objective: Visfatin is a novel adipokine initially reported to exhibit insulin-mimetic effects that increase insulin sensitivity. Further studies indicate it may also be associated with obesity, serum lipids, and systemic inflammation. At the current time, the role of genetic variation in the visfatin gene (NAMPT) on these parameters is not clear. In the present study, we examined the associati...

Background: Insulin resistance (IR) is frequently associated with hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection, and development of IR can occur early in the course of HCV infection and promote hepatic fibrosis. Aim of the Study: We aimed to assess the impact of IR on the development of oesophageal varices (OV) in HCV-related liver cirrhosis. Subjects and Methods: We enrolled 80 HCV-related liver cirrhosis...

R ecently, the International Diabetes Federation (IDF) has formulated a new worldwide definition for the metabolic syndrome (1). In contrast to the previous World Health Organization (WHO) and National Cholesterol Education Program (NCEP) criteria, abdominal obesity was considered as a prerequisite (2,3). Population-based epidemiological data on the metabolic syndrome in Europe are rare, and th...