Differences in arterial stiffness and target organ damage between native Greek patients and immigrants from Eastern European countries with essential hypertension.

AIM: The variance in hypertension-related sequelae between different ethnic groups is highly related to differences in socioeconomic conditions and lifestyle habits, but also to disparities in the awareness and treatment of the disease. In the present study, we sought to evaluate the target organ damage in a vulnerable hypertensive population, such as the Eastern European immigrants. METHODS: The study population consisted of 128 hypertensive patients: 67 immigrants from Eastern Europe and 61 native inhabitants. Anthropometric, biochemical and echocardiographic data were derived from both groups. Both groups underwent fundoscopic examination and pulse wave velocity (PWV) measurements for assessment of arterial stiffness. RESULTS: Although immigrants had lower body mass index compared to native inhabitants (P<0.001), they had significantly increased arterial stiffness (P=0.003). In multivariate analysis, higher carotid-femoral PWV was significantly associated with immigration status [ß (SE)=0.935(0.443), P=0.041], after adjustment for smoking status. Moreover, immigrants had increased left atrial volume index (LAVI) (P<0.001), left ventricular mass index (P<0.001) and higher rates of left ventricular diastolic dysfunction (p=0.047). In multivariate analysis, LAVI was significantly associated with immigration status (ß (SE)=5.17(1.93), P=0.01) after adjustment for serum glucose levels and age. Finally, immigrants had significantly higher levels of sodium urinary excretion (p=0.007) and lower glomerular filtration rate (P<0.001). CONCLUSION: Our findings suggest that hypertensive immigrants exhibit an aggravated arterial stiffness profile and increased risk of target organ damage. These findings could be attributed to differences in socioeconomic conditions and dietary habits.

Effect of chronic coffee consumption on aortic stiffness and wave reflections in hypertensive patients.

OBJECTIVE: Aortic stiffness and wave reflections are important markers and prognosticators of cardiovascular risk. Caffeine increases acutely aortic stiffness and wave reflections. Furthermore, chronic coffee consumption is associated with increased aortic stiffness and wave reflections in normotensive subjects. In the present study, we aimed to assess the association between chronic coffee consumption, and aortic stiffness and wave reflections in hypertensive patients. DESIGN: Epidemiological survey. SETTING: Hypertension Unit, University Hospital. SUBJECTS-METHODS: We examined 259 never-treated hypertensives (age 50+/-12 years, 165 males) without diabetes mellitus, who were asked to describe in detail the type and amount of coffee they consumed. Carotid-femoral pulse wave velocity (PWV) and augmentation index (AIx) were measured non-invasively as indices of aortic stiffness and wave reflections, respectively. RESULTS: When controlled for gender, age, height, smoking status, heart rate, mean pressure, HDL cholesterol and hsCRP, AIx was found to be higher with increasing daily coffee consumption. Post hoc analysis revealed that all groups of coffee consumption had higher AIx compared to no-consumption. PWV did not differ among groups of daily coffee consumption. Each participant had 35% higher relative risk of having high AIx for each cup (150 ml) of coffee per day, and 40% higher relative risk for each 10 cup-years. CONCLUSIONS: Coffee consumption is associated with increased wave reflections, but not aortic stiffness in never-treated hypertensive patients. This finding may have important clinical implications for cardiovascular health in hypertensive subjects.

Morphological assessment of preimplantation embryo quality in cattle.

The extensive use of embryo technologies has emphasized the need for assessing embryo quality by morphological techniques, such as transmission electron microscopy, immunocytochemistry for confocal laser scanning microscopy and fluorescence in situ hybridization. By a combination of these techniques, it has been possible to demonstrate: (i) that rRNA gene activation, as monitored by embryonic nucleolar development, is comparable in bovine embryos developed in vivo and produced in vitro, whereas reconstructed nuclear transfer embryos may be deviant, (ii) that generating embryos by both in vitro production and reconstruction by nuclear transfer is associated with increased occurrence of apoptosis, in particular in the inner cell mass of blastocysts, and (iii) that these two embryo production techniques are associated with increased occurrence of mixoploidy that is, embryos presenting a large population of normal diploid cells and a small population of abnormal haploid or polyploid cells. It is clear that blastocysts that appear healthy at stereomicroscopy may have subcellular defects. Therefore, the possibility of long-term evaluation in vitro of embryos after hatching has been examined. However, whereas embryos developing in vivo after hatching present a number of well defined developmental milestones, such as elongation of the trophoblast, formation of hypoblast and epiblast followed by differentiation of endoderm, mesoderm and ectoderm, in vitro culture systems for development beyond the blastocyst stage currently allow the embryo to complete only a single milestone, namely hypoblast formation.

MEG and ECoG localization accuracy test.

We tested the localization accuracy of magnetoencephalography (MEG) and electrocorticography (ECoG) for a current dipole in a saline filled sphere at depths ranging from 1 to 6 cm at 1 cm intervals. We used standard neuromagnetometer placements and subdural electrode grids, previously employed for patient studies, with precise measurements of sensor and electrode locations with a 3-dimensional spatial digitizer. MEG and ECoG had comparable accuracy with mean errors of 1.5 and 1.8 mm, respectively. It appears that use of the spatial digitizer increases accuracy for both MEG and EGoG localizations. The larger errors in the ECoG with increasing depths could be attributed to under-sampling of the spatial pattern of the field which spreads out with deeper sources. It should be noted that in clinical applications a grid of the dimensions used here would most typically be used for superficial sources on the cortex with depth recordings being preferred for investigations of deep epileptogenic activity. Results are encouraging for continued development of non-invasive MEG methods for further definition of epileptogenic zones in the brain.