The Tohoku journal of experimental medicine
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Tohoku J. Exp. Med. · Feb 2009
Randomized Controlled TrialResponsive measures to prehabilitation in patients undergoing bowel resection surgery.
Surgical patients often show physiological and metabolic distress, muscle weakness, and long hospital stays. Physical conditioning might help recovery. We attempted to identify the most responsive measure of aerobic fitness from a four-week pre-surgical aerobic exercise program (prehabilitation) in patients undergoing major bowel resection. ⋯ There was no change to maximal or submaximal measures in the control group. The distance walked over six minutes improved in both groups (by approximately 30 m), but the effect size and t-statistic were higher in the exercise group. Heart rate and oxygen uptake during submaximal exercise, and peak power output are the most responsive measures to four weeks of prehabilitation in subjects with low initial fitness.
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Tohoku J. Exp. Med. · Feb 2009
Blockade of glutamate release from microglia attenuates experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis in mice.
Multiple sclerosis (MS) is a chronic inflammatory demyelinating and neurodegenerative disease of the central nervous system. Despite a variety of anti-inflammatory or immunomodulation drugs including interferon-beta are effective to reduce relapse risk, most patients have progressive neurological deterioration due to axonal degeneration. Accumulation of activated microglia is a pathological hallmark of active MS lesion. ⋯ Here we show that the gap junction blocker carbenoxolone (CBX) and the glutaminase inhibitor 6-diazo-5-oxo-L-norleucine (DON) decreased glutamate release from activated microglia and rescued neuronal death in a dose-dependent manner in vitro. In EAE mice, treatment with CBX or DON also attenuated EAE clinical symptoms. Thus, blockade of glutamate release from activated microglia with CBX or DON may be an effective therapeutic strategy against neurodegeneration in MS.