Because therapeutic options are lacking for bronchopulmonary dysplasia (BPD), there is an urgent medical need to discover novel targets/drugs to treat this neonatal chronic lung disease. Metformin, a drug commonly used to lower blood glucose in type 2 diabetes patients, may be a novel therapeutic option for BPD by reducing pulmonary inflammation and fibrosis and improving vascularization. We investigated the therapeutic potential of daily treatment with 25 and 100 mg/kg metformin, injected subcutaneously in neonatal Wistar rats with severe experimental BPD, induced by continuous exposure to 100% oxygen for 10 days. Parameters investigated included survival, lung and heart histopathology, pulmonary fibrin and collagen deposition, vascular leakage, right ventricular hypertrophy, and differential mRNA expression in the lungs of key genes involved in BPD pathogenesis, including inflammation, coagulation, and alveolar development. After daily metformin treatment rat pups with experimental BPD had reduced mortality, alveolar septum thickness, lung inflammation, and fibrosis, demonstrated by a reduced influx of macrophages and neutrophils and hyperoxia-induced collagen III and fibrin deposition (25 mg/kg), as well as improved vascularization (100 mg/kg) compared with control treatment. However, metformin did not ameliorate alveolar enlargement, small arteriole wall thickening, vascular alveolar leakage, and right ventricular hypertrophy. In conclusion metformin prolongs survival and attenuates pulmonary injury by reducing pulmonary inflammation, coagulation, and fibrosis but does not affect alveolar development or prevent pulmonary arterial hypertension and right ventricular hypertrophy in neonatal rats with severe hyperoxia-induced experimental BPD.

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Background: Research reports that serum Vitamin D levels are deficient in AMI patients. Aim: To compare serum Vitamin D levels between AMI patients and healthy controls. Methods: Study design was Cross Sectional Comparative. The study was conducted at Department of Physiology & Cell Biology, University of Health Sciences, Lahore 2018 to 2019. Serum vitamin D levels were measured in 80 study subjects. Among 80 study subjects, 40 had AMI and 40 were healthy controls. Results: The serum Vitamin D levels less than 20ng/ml were considered deficient. Mann Whitney U test was used to compare the groups. The mean serum Vitamin D levels of the AMI patients were significantly lower (7±2.47ng/ml) as compared to healthy controls (17.17±4.8ng/ml) at (p=0.000). Conclusion: AMI patients have significantly lower serum Vit. D levels as compared to healthy individuals. Keywords: Acute myocardial infarction, Serum Vitamin D

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