Association between dietary phylloquinone intake and peripheral metabolic risk markers related to insulin resistance and diabetes in elderly subjects at high cardiovascular risk

Background: Vitamin K has been related to glucose metabolism, insulin sensitivity and diabetes. Because inflammation underlies all these metabolic conditions, it is plausible that the potential role of vitamin K in glucose metabolism occurs through the modulation of cytokines and related molecules. The purpose of the study was to assess the associations between dietary intake of vitamin K and peripheral adipokines and other metabolic risk markers related to insulin resistance and type 2 diabetes mellitus. Methods: Cross-sectional and longitudinal assessments of these associations in 510 elderly participants recruited in the PREDIMED centers of Reus and Barcelona (Spain). We determined 1-year changes in dietary phylloquinone intake estimated by food frequency questionnaires, serum inflammatory cytokines and other metabolic risk markers. Results: In the cross-sectional analysis at baseline no significant associations were found between dietary phylloquinone intake and the rest of metabolic risk markers evaluated, with exception of a negative association with plasminogen activator inhibitor-1. After 1-year of follow-up, subjects in the upper tertile of changes in dietary phylloquinone intake showed a greater reduction in ghrelin (-15.0%), glucose-dependent insulinotropic peptide (-12.9%), glucagon-like peptide-1 (-17.6%), IL-6 (-27.9%), leptin (-10.3%), TNF (-26.9%) and visfatin (-24.9%) plasma concentrations than those in the lowest tertile (all p<0.05). Conclusion: These results show that dietary phylloquinone intake is associated with an improvement of cytokines and other markers related to insulin resistance and diabetes, thus extending the potential protection by dietary phylloquinone on chronic inflammatory diseases.

On the impact of independence of irrelevant alternatives: the case of two-person NTU games

On several classes of n-person NTU games that have at least one Shapley NTU value, Aumann characterized this solution by six axioms: Non-emptiness, efficiency, unanimity, scale covariance, conditional additivity, and independence of irrelevant alternatives (IIA). Each of the first five axioms is logically independent of the remaining axioms, and the logical independence of IIA is an open problem. We show that for n = 2 the first five axioms already characterize the Shapley NTU value, provided that the class of games is not further restricted. Moreover, we present an example of a solution that satisfies the first five axioms and violates IIA for two-person NTU games (N, V) with uniformly p-smooth V(N).

Camino a la jubilación: alquiler versus compra de vivienda

Las previsiones del número de personas mayores en España para el año 2050 se han disparado. Un aumento de la población mayor que supondrá grandes dificultades para un sistema público de pensiones cuya viabilidad está en duda. España es un país en el que la cultura del ahorro a través de la vivienda en propiedad está muy arraigada. Sin embargo, en la actualidad existe un auge de las personas que optan por el alquiler como forma de residencia. Por ello, durante este trabajo se analiza la vida de una persona que optará bien por la compra de una vivienda o bien por el alquiler de una vivienda para complementar su futura pensión pública. Mediante la compra de vivienda, y una vez amortizado el préstamo hipotecario que deberá soportar, se le presentaran los productos denominados vivienda pensión e hipoteca inversa para financiar las posibles necesidades que puedan surgir en su jubilación. Por otro lado, el arrendatario optara por un producto de ahorro a largo plazo, cuya rentabilidad variara a lo largo del tiempo en función de su aversión al riesgo, de manera que llegado el momento de la jubilación disponga de un capital.