Biomedicine International Journals
Volume:2 Issue: 1, 2011

Biomedicine International grants an annual Young Investigator Award to any author under the age of 40 who submits a manuscript of outstanding novelty and scientific quality, as judged by the journal editors. The Award includes an honorarium of $1000 (US). Its main purpose is to encourage high-quality young researchers to continue in a scientific career.

Energy drinks have become popular recently. One of these, Red Bull™, has been shown to increase endurance. To our knowledge, the effects of this energy drink on dexterity have not been evaluated. Therefore, the present study aimed to evaluate the effects of drinking one can of Red Bull™ energy drink on dexterity. Eighteen volunteers (adults and children) were asked to perform a standardized dexterity test two times with both their left and right hands. Once this was performed, a 250 mL can of Red Bull™ energy drink was consumed. The standardized dexterity test was repeated after a wait period of 30 minutes. Dexterity performance was then compared between hands for pre and post drink consumption. For controls, five volunteers underwent the same testing procedure but drank 250 ml of water instead of Red Bull™. For all pre-consumption right and left hands, the mean times for completion were 15.92 (SD 1.98) and 16.6 seconds (SD 2.02). For all post-consumption right hands, the mean times to completion were 14.9 and 15.83 seconds. For controls, pre-consumption means for left and right hands were 16.9 and 18.8 seconds, respectively. Post-consumption means for left and right hands were 17.8 (SD 2.5) and 17. 3 seconds (SD 2.1), respectively. No statistical significance was found between sides or sex or between controls and study participants. Based on these findings, there are no short-term effects of drinking Red Bull™ energy drink on dexterity. Larger studies are now necessary to confirm these findings.

Sodium sulfonamides are drugs extensively used for the treatment of certain infections caused by several kinds of microorganisms. Although sodium sulfonamides are widely used nowadays in therapeutics, the physicochemical information about their aqueous solutions is not complete at present. In this context, solubility values of some of these drugs were determined at temperatures from 278.15 to 308.15 K in ethanol + water cosolvent mixtures. The drug solubility is greatest in neat water and lowest in neat ethanol at all the temperatures studied. This behavior shows the negative cosolvent effect for this electrolyte drug in this solvent system. The Jouyban-Acree model is used for mathematical representation of the generated data and also other available solubility data for salts and zwitterions in aqueous mixtures of ethanol at different temperatures. The mean relative deviation (MRD) is used as an error criterion and the overall MRD value for solubility correlation using the Jouyban-Acree model is 31.6 ± 39.5 %.

The aims of this study were to determine the analgesic dose of holothuria extracts and compare the extract effects with dynastat, cyclooxygenase-2 inhibitor, on pain behaviour in rats injected with formalin. Thirty nine Sprague-Dawley male rats (220-300 gram) were used and they were given intraperitoneal injection of either saline, holothuria 2 mg/kg, holothuria 4mg/kg. or dynastat (20mg/kg). The rats’ behaviour was recorded for one hour and behaviour data were analysed using repeated measures analysis of variance (ANOVA) with post hoc Scheffe’s test and significance level was taken as 0.05. The study has demonstrated that intraperitoneal administration of 4mg/kg of holothuria extracts significantly suppressed the pain behaviour in formalin injected rats compared to 2 mg/kg of holothuria extract and dynastat, a cyclooxygenase-2 inhibitor, in both phase 1 and 2 of formalin test. Results from this investigation throw some light as to the possible use of holothuria extract as an analgesic.

Fractures and dislocations are common manifestations of shoulder girdle injuries (SGI) throughout life. Conventional radiography is often times sufficient for the evaluation. To examine SGI in relation to the mechanism of trauma, age and sex, and projects in region with limited access to imaging technology, the degree of diagnostic errors that could occur from evaluating SGI without imaging. Two consultant’s radiologists for evidence of fractures and dislocations retrospectively analyzed 572 shoulder radiographs of 293 patients for age, sex, radiographic indications, aetiology, clinical diagnoses, cadres of the requesting physicians and the reporting radiologist. There were 87 shoulder fractures with 44.4% following road traffic injuries (RTI). Scapular fractures occurred predominantly in males age 20-39years, p = 0.031, all followed high-energy trauma and majority had associated other shoulder girdle and extra-shoulder fractures. Falls and RTI accounted for 50% and 61.5% of fractures below 20 years and 20-39 years respectively (P=0.001). Without imaging clinical evaluation of SGI were imprecise in 52 of 72 (72.2%) patients. Fall is a common cause of SGI in girls below 10years of age and scapular fractures thought to be rare is relatively common in our environment. Plain radiography is invaluable in SGI evaluation.

Malignant gliomas are the most common type of brain tumor in adults. These tumors are highly invasive and despite multi-modality treatment the mean survival of patients is still less than 1 year. The present study was aimed to investigate the antioxidant potential of Sesamol in glioma induced rats. Experimentally glioma was induced in adult male Wistar rats (250–300 g) by intracerebral injection of C6 cells (4x104 cells /rat). The effect of oral administration of sesamol (20mg/kg B.wt) on AST, ALT, LDH, CK and oxidative stress biomarkers in the brain tissue of normal and experimental animals were analyzed. Glioma induced rats showed a significant increase in the activities of enzymes (AST, ALT, LDH, CK and GST) and TBARS. The levels of ascorbic acid, tocopherol, reduced glutathione and activities of superoxide dismutase, catalase, glutathione peroxidase and Na+-K+ ATPase were significantly decreased in the brain tissues. Treatment with sesamol restored the above mentioned changes in glioma induced rats. These preliminary findings suggest that sesamol exhibits neuroprotective effect against glioma induced changes in the rat brain.

About 30% of epileptic patients do not respond to the usual antiepileptic drugs (AEDs). There is accumulating evidence demonstrating that multi-drug transporters such as P-glycoprotein (P-gp) are over-expressed in capillary endothelial cells and astrocytes in epileptogenic brain tissue, resulting in impaired AEDs access to the site of action. Also it has been indicated that glutamate release is critically involved in the over-expression of P-gp at the blood brain barrier (BBB). Glutamate signaling via the N-methyl-D-aspartate (NMDA) receptor is coupled to elevation of Ca+2, generation of intracellular reactive oxygen species (ROS) and activation of cyclooxygenases-2 (COX-2), increase protein expression and transport activity of P-gp in isolated rat brain microvessels endothelial cells (BMECs) capillaries. In addition conditions that generate ROS have been shown to increase P-gp expression in cells derived from liver and kidney. Minocycline, a second-generation tetracycline, has been reported to exert neuroprotective effects over various experimental and clinical models. It has been indicated that minocycline inhibits p-glycoprotein (g-gp). The involvement of antioxidant system, prevention of the activation of Ca+2 dependent intracellular pathways, as well as a marked decrease in glutamate release, blockade of inflammation pathway inhibiting molecules such as COX-2 and inflammatory mediator such as reactive oxygen species (ROS) and Prostaglandin E2 (PGE2) have been reported as neuroprotective effects of Minocycline. Therefore it is hypothesized that minocycline is a reasonable choice for combination therapy in management of pharmacoresistant epilepsy.

Chemodectomas (Paragangliomas, Glomus tumours, Carotid body tumours) are extra-adrenal chromaffin tumours that develop at the expense of neuroectodermal cells of the autonomous nervous system. Historically, in the year 1743, von Haller first reported a gross description of a structure lying at the bifurcation of the carotid artery, which he termed the "ganglion minutum." The microscopic appearance of this organ was described by von Luschka in 1862, and the first tumour of this body was surgically removed by Riegner in 1880 and described by Marchand in 1891. In 1950, Mulligan renamed this type of neoplasm as a chemodectoma to reflect its origins from chemoreceptor cells. In 1974, Glenner and Grimley renamed the tumour paraganglioma on the basis of its anatomic and physiologic characteristics. Presentation is normally history of a slow growing mass. Most cases are benign with scant record of malignant variants. There is no report of chemodectoma from this centre in literature. We present three cases of chemodectoma seen in this centre within one year.

Hairy cell leukemia (HCL) is a rare chronic B-cell lymphoproliferative disorder characterized by splenomegaly without lymphadenopathy, pancytopenia, and bone marrow infiltration by an atypical cell with circumferential prominent hairy cytoplasmic projections. A high index of suspicion in such situation (splenomegaly with few atypical lymphoid cells) made us to go for bone marrow examination that revealed characteristics morphological findings of hairy cell leukemia (HCL) with increased reticulin framework. The diagnosis was confirmed when flow cytometery demonstrated positivity for hairy cell markers like CD11c,CD103, FMC-7 and negativity for splenic lymphoma with villous lymphocytes (SLVL) markers like CD19,CD25. Accurate diagnosis of this entity and its differentiation from other lymphoproliferative disorders is essential because of therapeutic and prognostic consideration.