Yo u 've known about your heart va l ve " murmur " for years. What you don't k n ow is whether you'll ever need surgery to repair or replace the va l ve. M a ny people with heart va l ve problems are concerned about the possibility of someday needing open-heart surgery. Fortunately, the majority of people with heart valve problems won't suffer any ill effects or ever need s u r g e r y. In addi...

Type I juvenile diabetes mellitus is characterized by the infiltration of activated T lymphocytes and monocytes into the islets of Langerhans of the pancreas, resulting in inflammation and progressive destruction of the insulin-producing beta cells. We hypothesized that feeding nonobese diabetic (NOD) mice diets rich in polyphenols or vitamin A, both known modulators of immune function, would d...

The Office of Nursing Services of the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) piloted implementation of the clinical nurse leader (CNL) into the care delivery model and established a strategic goal in 2011 to implement the CNL role across the VA health care system. The VA Office of Nursing Services CNL Implementation and Evaluation (CNL I&E) Service was created as one mechanism to facilitate that g...

D. Anez,1 E. Brash,2, ∗ D. Day,3 C. Djalali,4 R. Ent,5 D. Gaskell,5 S. Gilad,6 R. Gilman,7 D. Higinbotham,5 G.M. Huber,8, ∗ Y. Ilieva,4 X. Jiang,9 M. Jones,5 C.E. Keppel,10 M. Kohl,10 W. Li,8 G.J. Lolos,8 S. Malace,11 P.E.C. Markowitz,12 M. Paolone,4 Z. Papandreou,8 C. Perdrisat,13 E. Piasetzky,14 I. Pomerantz,14 A. Puckett,9 V. Punjabi,15 R. Ransome,7, ∗ G. Rosner,16 A.J. Sarty,1 A. Semenov,8 ...

Our previous studies have shown that vitamin A (VA) status is associated with antiviral immunity and pathogenic conditions in enterovirus 71 (EV71)-infected children. In the present study, we established an in vitro model to investigate the effects and potential mechanism of the antiviral activity of VA. Human monocytic U937 cells were cultured in vitro and infected with EV71. All-trans-retinoi...

Epidemiological studies show that particulate matter (PM) is the principal instigator of some adverse clinical symptoms involving cardiovascular diseases. PM exposure can increase experimental infarct size and potentiate myocardial ischemia and arrhythmias in experimental MI models such as ischemia-reperfusion (I/R) injury.The present study was aimed to evaluate the effects of particulate matte...

Valeriana officinalis (valerian), as a nutraceutical herb, is widely used for its sedative and hypnotic properties. It is known that C15 sesquiterpenoid valerenic acid (VA) is the active ingredient responsible for pharmacological effects of V. officinalis. To evaluate the effect of methyl jasmonate (MeJA) concentrations (50 and 100 µM...

Background and Objective: Diabetic macular edema (DME) is one of the common complications of diabetes which significantly accounts for preventable visual impairment and blindness. Central macular thickness (CMT) is a feature found in DME patients. This study aims to determine the relationship between optical coherence tomography (OCT)-measured CMT and visual acuity (VA) in patients with DME bef...