Effect of dietary sodium restriction on body water, blood pressure, and inflammation in hemodialysis patients: a prospective randomized controlled study

Purpose: Accumulating evidence suggests an association between body volume overload and inflammation in chronic kidney diseases. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effect of dietary sodium reduction in body fluid volume, blood pressure (BP), and inflammatory state in hemodialysis (HD) patients. Methods: In this prospective controlled study, adult patients on HD for at least 90 days and those with C-reactive protein (CRP) levels ≥0.7 mg/dl were randomly allocated into two groups: group A, which included 21 patients treated with 2 g of sodium restriction on their habitual diet; and group B, which included 18 controls. Clinical, inflammatory, biochemical, hematological, and nutritional markers were assessed at baseline and after 8 and 16 weeks. Results: Baseline characteristics were not significantly different between the groups. Group A showed a significant reduction in serum concentrations of CRP, tumor necrosis factor-α, and interleukin-6 during the study period, while BP and extracellular water (ECW) did not change. In group B, there were no changes in serum concentrations of inflammatory markers, BP, and ECW. Conclusions: Dietary sodium restriction is associated with the attenuation of the inflammatory state, without changes in BP and ECW, suggesting inhibition of a salt-induced inflammatory response. © 2013 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht.

Development and validation of an environmentally friendly attenuated total reflectance in the mid-infrared region method for the determination of ethanol content in used engine lubrication oil

Lubricating oils are crucial in the operation of automotive engines because they both reduce friction between moving parts and protect against corrosion. However, the performance of lubricant oil may be affected by contaminants, such as gasoline, diesel, ethanol, water and ethylene glycol. Although there are many standard methods and studies related to the quantification of contaminants in lubricant oil, such as gasoline and diesel oil, to the best of our knowledge, no methods have been reported for the quantification of ethanol in used Otto cycle engine lubrication oils. Therefore, this work aimed at the development and validation of a routine method based on partial least-squares multivariate analysis combined with attenuated total reflectance in the mid-infrared region to quantify ethanol content in used lubrication oil. The method was validated based on its figures of merit (using the net analyte signal) as follows: limit of detection (0.049%), limit of quantification (0.16%), accuracy (root mean square error of prediction=0.089% w/w), repeatability (0.05% w/w), fit (R 2 =0.9997), mean selectivity (0.047), sensitivity (0.011), inverse analytical sensitivity (0.016% w/w-1) and signal-to-noise ratio (max: 812.4 and min: 200.9). The results show that the proposed method can be routinely implemented for the quality control of lubricant oils. © 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

A compound model for the origin of Earth's water

One of the most important subjects of debate in the formation of the solar system is the origin of Earth's water. Comets have long been considered as the most likely source of the delivery of water to Earth. However, elemental and isotopic arguments suggest a very small contribution from these objects. Other sources have also been proposed, among which local adsorption of water vapor onto dust grains in the primordial nebula and delivery through planetesimals and planetary embryos have become more prominent. However, no sole source of water provides a satisfactory explanation for Earth's water as a whole. In view of that, using numerical simulations, we have developed a compound model incorporating both the principal endogenous and exogenous theories, and investigating their implications for terrestrial planet formation and water delivery. Comets are also considered in the final analysis, as it is likely that at least some of Earth's water has cometary origin. We analyze our results comparing two different water distribution models, and complement our study using the D/H ratio, finding possible relative contributions from each source and focusing on planets formed in the habitable zone. We find that the compound model plays an important role by showing greater advantage in the amount and time of water delivery in Earth-like planets. © 2013. The American Astronomical Society. All rights reserved.

Quantitative variations in heterotrophic plate count and in the presence of indicator microorganisms in bottled mineral water

Quantitative variations in heterotrophic plate count (HPC) and in the presence of indicator microorganisms in 0.5, 1.5 and 20-L bottles of different brands of Brazilian mineral water were analyzed during their shelf life. No variations were identified in the presence of indicator microorganisms, but quantitative variations in HPC were observed in some brands, which suggests that changes may be occurring in the water quality during storage. The aim of this study was also to evaluate the quality of the bottled mineral waters and the presence of enterococci and Pseudomonas aeruginosa were verified in six and two bottles, respectively, which is in disagreement with the microbiological quality criteria established in the current legislation. Although no limit is set for HPC in mineral water, this study relies on the limit of 500 colony-forming units per mL of sample (CFU/mL). Seventy-two bottles presented levels above 500 CFU/mL and up to 560,000 CFU/mL. This study showed that the control of HPC (<500 CFU/mL) for non-returnable packaging seems to be adequate to ensure the quality of mineral water during storage. The high values of HPC and its variations detected during storage seem to fully justify the need for a reevaluation of the use of HPC in bottled mineral water quality management. More detailed studies on the potential health risk of HPC and its variations in mineral water are also needed. © 2012 Elsevier Ltd.

Effect of dialysate sodium reduction on body water volume, blood pressure, and inflammatory markers in hemodialysis patients - A prospective randomized controlled study

Accumulating evidence suggests an association between body volume overload and inflammation in chronic kidney diseases. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effect of dialysate sodium concentration reduction on extracellular water volume, blood pressure (BP), and inflammatory state in hemodialysis (HD) patients. In this prospective controlled study, adult patients on HD for at least 90 days and those with C-reactive protein (CRP) levels ≥ 0.7 mg/dL were randomly allocated into two groups: group A, which included 29 patients treated with reduction of dialysate sodium concentration from 138 to 135 mEq/L; and group B, which included 23 HD patients not receiving dialysate sodium reduction (controls). Of these, 20 patients in group A and 18 in group B completed the protocol study. Inflammatory, biochemical, hematological, and nutritional markers were assessed at baseline and after 8 and 16 weeks. Baseline characteristics were not significantly different between the two groups. Group A showed a significant reduction in serum concentrations of tumor necrosis factor-α, and interleukin-6 over the study period, while the BP and extracellular water (ECW) did not change. In Group B, there were no changes in serum concentrations of inflammatory markers, BP, and ECW. Dialysate sodium reduction is associated with attenuation of the inflammatory state, without changes in the BP and ECW, suggesting inhibition of a salt-induced inflammatory response. Copyright © 2013 Informa Healthcare USA, Inc.

Evaluation of metals in water and sediments of micro-basins in the city of Americana, São Paulo state, Brazil

Water pollution found in major rivers in Brazil has its origin from urban sewage discharges and industrial effluent, carried out by small streams and rivers crossing cities. Therefore, studies related to hydrographic micro-basins offer the opportunity to establish environmental management strategies for restoring water resources, based on diagnosis of the water quality. Despite this understanding, few studies in urban and rural areas have been performed in a systematic manner in Brazilian micro-basins. The main goal of this research was to diagnose the water resources in micro-basins in the region of the district of Americana, São Paulo state, Brazil, through the quantification of metals in water and sediment. The methodology was based on the investigation of metals (Ba, Cd, Cr, Cu, Fe, Mn, Ni, Pb, Zn), in four micro-basins, determined by inductively coupled plasma optical emission spectrometry (ICP-OES). The most significant result showed high concentration levels of chromium (969 μg L-1), downstream of the discharge of sewage from the city of Nova Odessa. This concentration in the river was above the allowed limit of Brazilian regulation agency (50 μg L-1 for Cr). Also high levels of Cr were found in the sediment (98.9 μg g-1) collected at the same monitored site. These results are important indicators of environmental performance and anthropogenic activities to help the government establish environmental management strategies aimed at the reduction of water pollution. © 2013 WIT Press.

Post-sphaleron baryogenesis and an upper limit on the neutron-antineutron oscillation time

A recently proposed scenario for baryogenesis, called post-sphaleron baryogenesis (PSB), is discussed within a class of quark-lepton unified framework based on the gauge symmetry SU(2)L×SU(2) R×SU(4)c realized in the multi-TeV scale. The baryon asymmetry of the Universe in this model is produced below the electroweak phase transition temperature after the sphalerons have decoupled from the Hubble expansion. These models embed naturally the seesaw mechanism for neutrino masses and predict color-sextet scalar particles in the TeV range which may be accessible to the LHC experiments. A necessary consequence of this scenario is the baryon-number-violating ΔB=2 process of neutron-antineutron (n-n̄) oscillations. In this paper we show that the constraints of PSB, when combined with the neutrino oscillation data and restrictions from flavor changing neutral currents mediated by the colored scalars, imply an upper limit on the n-n̄ oscillation time of 5×1010 sec regardless of the quark-lepton unification scale. If this scale is relatively low, in the (200-250) TeV range, τn-n̄ is predicted to be less than 1010 sec, which is accessible to the next generation of proposed experiments. © 2013 American Physical Society.

Range Corrections to Universal Tetramer Properties

The universal properties of weakly-bound tetramers close to the scaling limit are investigated by solving a subtracted set of Faddeev-Yakubovsky (FY) equations for identical bosons with a zero-range interaction. The solution demands a four-body scale independent of the trimer properties. Furthermore, the effect of a finite effective range is introduced in the FY equations, which we show produces results that are distinct from the scale variation. In particular range effects to two universal scaling functions for the tetramers are investigated. The correlation between successive tetramer energies corresponding to states within two Efimov trimer energies, proposed before and studied close to the unitary limit; and the correlation between the position of the four-atom recombination peaks. In this case, we found a shift in the scaling function due to the range, which can be associated to the shift of the data found for caesium atoms, with respect to zero-range calculations, due to a nonvanishing range in the actual experimental setups. © 2013 Springer-Verlag Wien.

Análise químico-farmacêutica de azumoleno sódico

Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq)

Análise de especiação redox de arsênio in situ usando a técnica de difusão de filmes finos por gradiente de concentração

Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES)

Aumento da velocidade de soldagem para processo de arco submerso em juntas de um tubo de aço API X70

Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES)

Resistência de união e limite de fadiga de nichos confeccionados em resina composta e cimentos à base de ionômero de vidro

Pós-graduação em Reabilitação Oral - FOAR

Desenvolvimento de um método de análise por injeção em fluxo (FIA) para determinação de dissulfeto de tetrametiltiuram (tiram) utilizando reagente imobilizado em reator de fase sólida (RFS)

Pós-graduação em Química - IBILCE

Desenvolvimento de método analítico para determinação de ozônio residual em água utilizando a ténica de fluorescência e estudo da viabilidade da construção de um sensor fluorimétrico em uma gota de solução para determinação de ozônio em ar

Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq)

Desenvolvimento de novos procedimentos analíticos para a determinação de paracetamol em amostras de medicamentos

Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES)