Current pharmaceutical design
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Opioid-free anesthesia is revolutionizing anesthetic practices for its potential benefits in selected patients. Opioid-free anesthesia represents a step forward in anesthetic practice as it has been suggested to provide potential clinical benefits for selected patients. Opioid-free anesthesia spares the use of opioids and involves the administration of multiple adjuvant anesthetics, which may have an impact on cancer progression. ⋯ Assessing the role of anesthetics in immunomodulation in the surgical setting is challenging, and results are often contradictory. Indeed, there is a scarcity of data of studies on humans, which hinder the interpretation of results. However, promising evidence has been published that cancer progression can be delayed by the administration of specific anesthetic agents.
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Insulin resistance, dyslipidemia and chronic inflammation are important risk factors for cardiovascular diseases (CVD). Hence, vitamin D supplementation might be an appropriate approach to decrease the complications of CVD. This systematic review and meta-analysis aimed to determine the effects of vitamin D supplementation on glycemic control, lipid profiles, and C-reactive protein among patients with coronary artery disease. ⋯ This meta-analysis demonstrated the beneficial effects of vitamin D supplementation on improving glycemic control, HDL-cholesterol and CRP levels among patients with CVD, though it did not affect triglycerides, total- and LDL-cholesterol levels.
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Vasodilatory shock is a life-threatening syndrome in critically ill patients and is characterized by severe hypotension and resultant tissue hypoperfusion. This shock state requires the use of vasopressor agents to restore adequate vascular tone. Norepinephrine is still recommended as first-line vasopressor in the management of critically ill patients suffering from severe vasodilation. ⋯ The objective of this review is to give an overview of the current available vasopressor agents used in vasodilatory shock. A thorough search of PubMed was conducted in order to identify the majority of studies related to the subject. Data on the outcome of several drugs and future perspective of possible management strategies for the therapy of vasodilatory shock are discussed.
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Long noncoding RNAs (lncRNAs) constitute large portions of the mammalian transcriptome which appeared as a fundamental player, regulating various cellular mechanisms. LncRNAs do not encode proteins, have mRNA-like transcripts and frequently processed similar to the mRNAs. Many investigations have determined that lncRNAs interact with DNA, RNA molecules or proteins and play a significant regulatory function in several biological processes, such as genomic imprinting, epigenetic regulation, cell cycle regulation, apoptosis, and differentiation. ⋯ The aberrant expression of lncRNAs in malignancies contributes to the dysregulation of proliferation and differentiation process. Consequently, lncRNAs can be useful to the diagnosis, treatment, and prognosis, and have been characterized as potential cancer markers as well. In this review, we highlighted the role and molecular mechanisms of lncRNAs and their correlation with some of the cancers.
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High ethanol intake induces a neuroinflammatory response resulting in the subsequent maintenance of chronic alcohol consumption. The melanocortin system plays a pivotal role in the modulation of alcohol consumption. Interestingly, it has been shown that the activation of melanocortin-4 receptor (MC4R) in the brain decreases the neuroinflammatory response in models of brain damage other than alcohol consumption, such as LPS-induced neuroinflammation, cerebral ischemia, glutamate excitotoxicity, and spinal cord injury. ⋯ High ethanol consumption produces an increase in the expression of MC4R in the hippocampus and hypothalamus. The administration of a synthetic MC4R-agonist peptide prevents neuroinflammation induced by alcohol consumption in the hippocampus, hypothalamus, and prefrontal cortex. These results could explain the effect of α-MSH and other synthetic MC4R agonists in decreasing alcohol intake through the reduction of the ethanol-induced inflammatory response in the brain.