Life sciences
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Despite impressive survival benefits from new agents to treat metastasized prostate cancer (PCa), progressive drug resistance hinders long-term response and restricts the efficacy of subsequent therapy. Due to reported antitumor activity of amygdalin and growing popularity for complementary and alternative medicine the potential of this natural, widely used substance to exert antineoplastic effects on prostate cancer cells has been assessed. ⋯ Amygdalin exhibits significant antitumor activity in both castration-sensitive and castration-resistant PCa cell lines and merits further evaluation for therapeutic purposes.
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Comparative Study
Comparison between electronic cigarette refill liquid and nicotine on metabolic parameters in rats.
Nicotine is known to promote body weight loss and to disturb glucose homeostasis and lipoprotein metabolism. Electronic cigarettes, as a substitute to nicotine, are becoming increasingly popular, although there is no evidence regarding their safety. Considering the dearth of information about e-cigarette toxicity, the present study was designed to compare nicotine alone to e-liquid with or without nicotine on metabolic parameters in Wistar rats. ⋯ While some features observed in rats may not be observed in human smokers, most of our data are consistent with, e-liquid per se i.e. without nicotine, not being neutral from a metabolic stand point since disrupting glucose homeostasis in rats.
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Clinical studies have shown that very low protein diet (VLPD) has negative effects on long-term survival. It remains unclear why VLPD induces premature death. The present study determined the underlying mechanism whereby VLPD exerts its harmful effects on uremic rats. ⋯ VLPD enhances inflammation, malnutrition, and vascular calcification in uremic rats, among which only vascular calcification is prevented by dietary phosphate restriction.