Kidney international
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Kidney international · Feb 2006
CommentHypertension, race, and glomeruli: more than simply a numbers game.
Incidences of hypertension and hypertension-related renal failure are considerably higher in African-Americans than in white Americans. One explanation offered for this is that African-Americans have a higher incidence of low birth weight, the latter associated with lower numbers of glomeruli. However, although studies show a clear association between hypertension and glomerular number in whites, the situation in African-Americans appears more complex.
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Kidney international · Feb 2006
Elevated resistin levels in chronic kidney disease are associated with decreased glomerular filtration rate and inflammation, but not with insulin resistance.
In the present study, we explore the role of decreased renal function and a genetic polymorphism on the recently discovered protein resistin, apparently able to inhibit hepatic insulin action in mice. We also investigate possible links with inflammation and the insulin resistance present in patients with chronic kidney disease (CKD). This is a post hoc, cross-sectional study comparing 239 prevalent CKD patients with varying degrees of renal function impairment with an age- and gender-matched randomly selected control group of 25 individuals. ⋯ Circulating resistin levels are strongly associated with both GFR and inflammatory biomarkers in CKD. As the significant relationship between plasma resistin levels and insulin resistance was lost following the correction for GFR, resistin is not a likely mediator of insulin resistance in patients with CKD. Renal function is an important factor to take into account in clinical studies relating insulin sensitivity to inflammatory biomarkers in CKD as well as in patients with diabetes mellitus, who often have an impaired renal function.
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Hypoxia-inducible factor (HIF) is a family of transcription factors that regulate the homeostatic response to oxygen deprivation during development, physiological adaptation, and pathological processes such as ischemia and neoplasia. Our understanding of the function of different HIF isoforms is being advanced by understanding the processes that regulate their activity, learning where and when they are expressed and what genes they regulate.