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- Carrera-Bastos, Pedro, et al.
(author)
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Serum Zonulin and endotoxin levels in exceptional longevity versus precocious myocardial infarction
- 2018
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In: Aging and Disease. - 2152-5250. ; 9:2, s. 317-321
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Endotoxemia-induced inflammation has been associated with insulin resistance and atherosclerosis, ultimately increasing the risk of coronary heart disease. Increased intestinal permeability is an important event leading to endotoxemia. This study aims to elucidate the possible association between endotoxin (lipopolysaccharide) and zonulin (a biomarker of intestinal permeability) levels and the risk of coronary heart disease, and thus healthy aging. Serum levels of zonulin, lipopolysaccharide and soluble CD14 (a protein that binds lipopolysaccharide) were measured in disease-free centenarians, young healthy controls and patients with precocious acute myocardial infarction. Disease-free centenarians had significantly lower levels of serum zonulin (P < 0.01) and lipopolysaccharide (P < 0.001) than young patients with acute myocardial infarction, and had significantly lower concentrations of serum lipopolysaccharide than young healthy controls (P < 0.05). No significant differences were found for soluble CD14 between groups. Our findings may stimulate further research into the role played by intestinal permeability and endotoxemia not only in coronary heart disease but also in lifespan modulation.
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2. |
- Fiuza-Luces, Carmen, et al.
(author)
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Exercise benefits in cardiovascular disease : beyond attenuation of traditional risk factors
- 2018
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In: Nature Reviews Cardiology. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 1759-5002 .- 1759-5010. ; 15:12, s. 731-743
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Despite strong scientific evidence supporting the benefits of regular exercise for the prevention and management of cardiovascular disease (CVD), physical inactivity is highly prevalent worldwide. In addition to merely changing well-known risk factors for systemic CVD, regular exercise can also improve cardiovascular health through non-traditional mechanisms. Understanding the pathways through which exercise influences different physiological systems is important and might yield new therapeutic strategies to target pathophysiological mechanisms in CVD. This Review includes a critical discussion of how regular exercise can have antiatherogenic effects in the vasculature, improve autonomic balance (thereby reducing the risk of malignant arrhythmias), and induce cardioprotection against ischaemia–reperfusion injury, independent of effects on traditional CVD risk factors. This Review also describes how exercise promotes a healthy anti-inflammatory milieu (largely through the release of muscle-derived myokines), stimulates myocardial regeneration, and ameliorates age-related loss of muscle mass and strength, a frequently overlooked non-traditional CVD risk factor. Finally, we discuss how the benefits of exercise might also occur via promotion of a healthy gut microbiota. We argue, therefore, that a holistic view of all body systems is necessary and useful when analysing the role of exercise in cardiovascular health.
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3. |
- Fontes Villalba, Maelan, et al.
(author)
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A healthy diet with and without cereal grains and dairy products in patients with type 2 diabetes: study protocol for a random-order cross-over pilot study - Alimentation and Diabetes in Lanzarote -ADILAN.
- 2014
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In: Trials. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 1745-6215. ; 15:1
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Research on the role of nutrition in type 2 diabetes has largely focused on macro/micronutrient composition and dietary fiber intake, while fewer studies have tested the effects of differing food choice. Some observational studies and short-term intervention studies suggest that a food pattern mimicking the diet with which humans evolved positively influences glucose control and associated endocrine systems. Such a food pattern mainly differs from other common healthy food patterns in its absence of cereal grains and dairy products. The primary aim of this pilot study is to determine the effect of two healthy diets with or without cereal grains and dairy products on glucose control, while keeping participants' weight stable and other food parameters, such as macro/micronutrient composition, dietary fiber and glycemic load, the same in both diets.
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4. |
- Fontes-Villalba, Maelán, et al.
(author)
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Palaeolithic diet decreases fasting plasma leptin concentrations more than a diabetes diet in patients with type 2 diabetes : A randomised cross-over trial
- 2016
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In: Cardiovascular Diabetology. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 1475-2840. ; 15:1
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Background: We have previously shown that a Palaeolithic diet consisting of the typical food groups that our ancestors ate during the Palaeolithic era, improves cardiovascular disease risk factors and glucose control compared to the currently recommended diabetes diet in patients with type 2 diabetes. To elucidate the mechanisms behind these effects, we evaluated fasting plasma concentrations of glucagon, insulin, incretins, ghrelin, C-peptide and adipokines from the same study. Methods: In a randomised, open-label, cross-over study, 13 patients with type 2 diabetes were randomly assigned to eat a Palaeolithic diet based on lean meat, fish, fruits, vegetables, root vegetables, eggs and nuts, or a diabetes diet designed in accordance with current diabetes dietary guidelines during two consecutive 3-month periods. The patients were recruited from primary health-care units and included three women and 10 men [age (mean ± SD) 64 ± 6 years; BMI 30 ± 7 kg/m2; diabetes duration 8 ± 5 years; glycated haemoglobin 6.6 ± 0.6 % (57.3 ± 6 mmol/mol)] with unaltered diabetes treatment and stable body weight for 3 months prior to the start of the study. Outcome variables included fasting plasma concentrations of leptin, adiponectin, adipsin, visfatin, resistin, glucagon, insulin, C-peptide, glucose-dependent insulinotropic polypeptide, glucagon-like peptide-1 and ghrelin. Dietary intake was evaluated by use of 4-day weighed food records. Results: Seven participants started with the Palaeolithic diet and six with the diabetes diet. The Palaeolithic diet resulted in a large effect size (Cohen's d = -1.26) at lowering fasting plasma leptin levels compared to the diabetes diet [mean difference (95 % CI), -2.3 (-5.1 to 0.4) ng/ml, p = 0.023]. No statistically significant differences between the diets for the other variables, analysed in this study, were observed. Conclusions: Over a 3-month study period, a Palaeolithic diet resulted in reduced fasting plasma leptin levels, but did not change fasting levels of insulin, C-peptide, glucagon, incretins, ghrelin and adipokines compared to the currently recommended diabetes diet. Trial registration: Clinical Trials.gov NCT00435240.
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5. |
- Palmqvist, Oscar, et al.
(author)
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Policy Parsing Panthers at Touché: Ideology and Power Identification in Parliamentary Debates
- 2024
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In: CEUR Workshop Proceedings. - 1613-0073. ; 3740, s. 3451-3477
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Conference paper (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Political debates are vital in shaping public opinion and influencing policy decisions. However, understanding the complex linguistic structures used by politicians to ascertain their orientations and power dynamics can be challenging. In this paper we explore Natural Language Processing techniques for identifying political orientation and power structures in parliamentary debates. We introduce a Located Missing Labels-loss in order to train jointly to predict both power and ideology. Furthermore, our proposed method also trains to predict a third synthetically generated polarity label. Finally, we combine this training method with pre-processing steps including back-translation and meta data inclusion. Our results show that our method manages to improve upon conventional methods of fine-tuning.
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