This study was conducted to determine the association between place of residence (grouped into neighbourhoods), and 25-hydroxy D (25[OH]D) levels of individuals of Karachi. Addresses of 4788 individuals tested for 25[OH]D at the clinical laboratory of the Aga Khan University (AKU), Karachi, from January 2007 to June 2008 were reviewed. The neighbourhoods were categorized into ten, based on loca...

Norman C, Miles J, Bowers CY, Veldhuis JD. Differential pulsatile secretagogue control of GH secretion in healthy men. Am J Physiol Regul Integr Comp Physiol 304: R712–R719, 2013. First published March 13, 2013; doi:10.1152/ajpregu.00069.2013.—Pulsatile growth hormone (GH) secretion putatively reflects integrated regulation by GH-releasing hormone (GHRH), somatostatin (SST), and GH-releasing pe...

β-Alanine (BA) supplementation improves human exercise performance. One possible explanation for this is an enhancement of muscle contractile properties, occurring via elevated intramuscular carnosine resulting in improved calcium sensitivity and handling. This study investigated the effect of BA supplementation on in vivo contractile properties and voluntary neuromuscular performance. Twenty-t...

Castrated male goat kids (20 Alpine, 12 Angora) were individually fed isonitrogenous and isoenergetic diets containing 2.28% N and S (added as CaSO4) at either .11 (basal), .20, .28, or .38% of dietary DM. Sulfate supplementation during the 8-wk growth trial quadratically increased ADG (P < .05) and tended to increase quadratically the DMI (P < .07) of goats, with a peak value for the .20% S di...

Gastrointestinal dysmotility frequently occurs in cancer cachexia and may result from damage to enteric innervation caused by oxidative stress, especially due to glutathione depletion. We assessed the effect of dietary supplementation with 20 g/kg l-glutamine (a glutathione precursor) on the intrinsic innervation of the enteric nervous system in healthy and Walker 256 tumor-bearing Wistar rats ...

Teff, Karen L., and Raymond R. Townsend. Early phase insulin infusion and muscarinic blockade in obese and lean subjects. Am. J. Physiol. 277 (Regulatory Integrative Comp. Physiol. 46): R198–R208, 1999.—The effect of early phase insulin on postprandial levels of insulin, C-peptide, glucose, and glucagon was investigated in lean (n 5 10) and obese (n 5 12) subjects. Subjects underwent four condi...

Coenzymes participate in many of the enzyme analyses performed in the clinical laboratory. Supplementation of assay systems with optimal levels of coenzymes has recently been recommended as part of efforts to achieve interlaboratory standardization of enzyme measurements. Aspartate aminotransferase and alanine aminotransferase require pyridoxal phosphate for expression of enzyme activity. The r...

BACKGROUND Vitamin D (vitD) supplementation may prolong remission in Crohn's disease (CD); however, the clinical efficacy and mechanisms are unclear. AIM To determine changes in intestinal permeability (IP), antimicrobial peptide (AMP) concentrations and disease markers in CD, in response to vitD supplementation. METHODS In a double-blind randomised placebo-controlled study, we assigned 27 ...

Pulsatile growth hormone (GH) secretion putatively reflects integrated regulation by GH-releasing hormone (GHRH), somatostatin (SST), and GH-releasing peptide (GHRP). GHRH and SST secretion is itself pulsatile. However, how GHRH and SST pulses act along with GHRP to jointly determine pulsatile GH secretion is unclear. Moreover, how testosterone (T) modulates such interactions is unknown. These ...