The effects of MIND diet and propolis supplementation on metabolic syndrome: A randomized controlled clinical trial.

The MIND is a novel eating plan preserves cognitive function. Propolis is a resinous substance that has several biological and medicinal properties. This study examines the effect of the MIND diet and propolis supplementation on MetS indices among metabolic syndrome subjects. This RCT study, was conducted on adults with metabolic syndrome who were referred to the Hazrat Ali Health Center in Isfahan. 84 eligible subjects were divided into 3 groups. Including MIND diet + Propolis supplement, MIND diet + placebo, and control group. The data obtained from the subjects was analyzed in two descriptive and analytic levels. The Shapiro-Wilk test and examination of skewness were conducted to assess the normality of the distribution of quantitative variables. Quantitative variables were reported using either the mean (SD). SPSS Statistics software version 26 was used for statistical analysis of data. In this study the MIND + Propolis group compared to the control group after adjusting variables showed a significant decrease (p-value < 0.05) in weight, BMI, WC, SBP, DBP, and TG by 0.97 times (3%), 0.97 times (3%), 0.98 times (2%), 0.93 times (7%), 0.94 times (6%), and 0.75 times (25%), respectively; this significant change was also observed in FBS (p-value < 0.001) by 0.85 times (15%), and HDL-C (mg/dl) has shown a significant increase (p-value < 0.05) by 1.17 times (17%). MIND group compared to the control group after adjusting variables showed a significant decrease (p-value < 0.05) in BMI, WC, and SBP by 0.98 times (2%), 0.98 times (2%), and 0.95 times (5%), respectively; this significant change (p-value < 0.001) was also observed in DBP, FBS, and TG by 0.92 times (8%), 0.83 times (17%), and 0.71 times (29%), respectively; HDL-C has shown a significant increase (p-value < 0.001) by 1.21 times (21%), and weight has shown a non-significant decrease (p-value = 0.055) by 0.98 times (2%). This study indicated that the MIND diet + Propolis supplement and MIND diet compared to the control group can significantly decrease BMI, WC, SBP, DBP, FBS, TG, and weight (non-significant for the MIND group), and also increase HDL-C.

Vacancy tuned thermoelectric properties and high spin filtering performance in graphene/silicene heterostructures.

The main contribution of this paper is to study the spin caloritronic effects in defected graphene/silicene nanoribbon (GSNR) junctions. Each step-like GSNR is subjected to the ferromagnetic exchange and local external electric fields, and their responses are determined using the nonequilibrium Green's function (NEGF) approach. To further study the thermoelectric (TE) properties of the GSNRs, three defect arrangements of divacancies (DVs) are also considered for a larger system, and their responses are re-evaluated. The results demonstrate that the defected GSNRs with the DVs can provide an almost perfect thermal spin filtering effect (SFE), and spin switching. A negative differential thermoelectric resistance (NDTR) effect and high spin polarization efficiency (SPE) larger than 99.99% are obtained. The system with the DV defects can show a large spin-dependent Seebeck coefficient, equal to Ss ⁓ 1.2 mV/K, which is relatively large and acceptable. Appropriate thermal and electronic properties of the GSNRs can also be obtained by tuning up the DV orientation in the device region. Accordingly, the step-like GSNRs can be employed to produce high efficiency spin caloritronic devices with various features in practical applications.

Pure thermal spin current and perfect spin-filtering with negative differential thermoelectric resistance induced by proximity effect in graphene/silicene junctions.

The spin-dependent Seebeck effect (SDSE) and thermal spin-filtering effect (SFE) are now considered as the essential aspects of the spin caloritronics, which can efficiently explore the relationships between the spin and heat transport in the materials. However, there is still a challenge to get a thermally-induced spin current with no thermal electron current. This paper aims to numerically investigate the spin-dependent transport properties in hybrid graphene/silicene nanoribbons (GSNRs), using the nonequilibrium Green's function method. The effects of temperature gradient between the left and right leads, the ferromagnetic exchange field, and the local external electric fields are also included. The results showed that the spin-up and spin-down currents are produced and flow in opposite directions with almost equal magnitudes. This evidently shows that the carrier transport is dominated by the thermal spin current, whereas the thermal electron current is almost disappeared. A pure thermal spin current with the finite threshold temperatures can be obtained by modulating the temperature, and a negative differential thermoelectric resistance is obtained for the thermal electron current. A nearly zero charge thermopower is also obtained, which further demonstrates the emergence of the SDSE. The response of the hybrid system is then varied by changing the magnitudes of the ferromagnetic exchange field and local external electric fields. Thus, a nearly perfect SFE can be observed at room temperature, whereas the spin polarization efficiency is reached up to 99%. It is believed that the results obtained from this study can be useful to well understand the inspiring thermospin phenomena, and to enhance the spin caloritronics material with lower energy consumption.