Glycine by enteral route does not improve major clinical outcomes in severe COVID-19: a randomized clinical pilot trial.

There is a worrying scarcity of drug options for patients with severe COVID-19. Glycine possesses anti-inflammatory, cytoprotective, endothelium-protective, and platelet-antiaggregant properties, so its use in these patients seems promising. In this open label, controlled clinical trial, inpatients with severe COVID-19 requiring mechanical ventilation randomly received usual care (control group) or usual care plus 0.5 g/kg/day glycine by the enteral route (experimental group). Major outcomes included mortality, time to weaning from mechanical ventilation, total time on mechanical ventilation, and time from study recruitment to death. Secondary outcomes included laboratory tests and serum cytokines. Patients from experimental (n = 33) and control groups (n = 23) did not differ in basal characteristics. There were no differences in mortality (glycine group, 63.6% vs control group, 52.2%, p = 0.60) nor in any other major outcome. Glycine intake was associated with lower fibrinogen levels, either evaluated per week of follow-up (p < 0.05 at weeks 1, 2, and 4) or as weighted mean during the whole hospitalization (608.7 ± 17.7 mg/dl vs control 712.2 ± 25.0 mg/dl, p = 0.001), but did not modify any other laboratory test or cytokine concentration. In summary, in severe COVID-19 glycine was unable to modify major clinical outcomes, serum cytokines or most laboratory tests, but was associated with lower serum fibrinogen concentration.Registration: ClinicalTrials.gov NCT04443673, 23/06/2020.

Initial Efficacy of a Community-Derived Mindfulness-Based Intervention for Latinx Parents and their Children.

Mindfulness-based interventions (MBIs) may offer a means for Latinx families to ameliorate stress, enhance emotion regulation, and foster social support. We assessed pilot data from Latinx parents in Eastside Los Angeles (n = 27) matched with their children aged 10-16 (n = 32) to determine whether participation in a community-derived MBI was associated with greater improvements in dispositional mindfulness, perceived stress, emotion regulation, and family social support compared to a control condition. Compared to the control group, parents in the MBI group showed greater reductions in perceived stress scale (PSS) scores (B = - 2.94, 95% CI [- 5.58, - 0.39], p = 0.029), while their children reported greater increases in perceived social support from family (B = 2.32, 95% CI [0.26, 4.38], p = 0.027). Findings show a community-derived MBI may improve stress in Latinx parents and social support for their children.

Consideraciones prácticas y fisiológicas de la regeneración hepática en el trasplante / Physiological and practical considerations on liver regeneration after liver transplantion

La regeneración hepática ha sido uno de los procesos más estudiados en la medicina al ser el hígado un órgano altamente importante y complejo del organismo, asiento de múltiples enfermedades y expuesto por su ubicación anatómica a los traumatismos. El trasplante hepático se ha convertido en uno de los procedimientos más frecuentes en la trasplantología de órganos, por lo que el conocimiento de los aspectos básicos de esta técnica terapéutica y el estudio de los mecanismos histológicos y fisiológicos vinculados con la regeneración hepática es fundamental para lograr un resultado satisfactorio. Se realizó un estudio exploratorio de la bibliografía vinculada con el tema, con el objetivo de exponer aspectos esenciales y actualizados vinculados a las modificaciones fisiológicas y la respuesta orgánica ante el trasplante hepático, además de algunas características clínicas prácticas en este procedimiento.

Liver regeneration has been the focus of intense study in medicine given the liver is a very important and complex organ, affected by multiple illnesses and vulnerable for injury due to its fixed position. Liver transplantation has become one of the most frequent transplantation procedures, thus, knowledge on the basic aspects of this therapeutic technique and the study of the histological and physiological mechanisms linked to liver regeneration is critical to achieve a satisfactory outcome. An exploratory research of the bibliography on this topic was conducted aiming to expose essential and updated aspects related to the physiological modifications and immune response after liver transplantation, and some practical clinical features of this procedure.

Sequential injection kinetic flow assay for monitoring glycerol in a sugar fermentation process by Saccharomyces cerevisiae.

A sequential injection system to monitor glycerol in a Saccharomyces cerevisiae fermentation process was developed. The method relies on the rate of formation of nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide in its reduced form (NADH, measured spectrophotometrically at 340 nm) from the reaction of glycerol with NAD(+) cofactor, catalysed by the enzyme glycerol dehydrogenase present in solution. This procedure enables the determination of glycerol between 0.046 and 0.46 g/l, (corresponding to yeast fermentation samples with concentrations up to 50 g/l) with good repeatability (relative standard deviation for n = 10 lower than 2.2% for three different samples) at a sampling frequency of 25/h. The detection and quantification limits using a miniaturised spectrophotometer were 0.13 and 0.44 mM, respectively. Reagent consumption was of 0.45 mumol NAD(+) and 1.8 microg enzyme per assay, and the waste production was 2.8 ml per determination. Results obtained for samples were in agreement with those obtained with a high-performance liquid chromatography method.