Fenugreek seeds are widely used in Asia and other places of the world for their nutritive and medicinal properties. In Asia, fenugreek seeds are also recommended for geriatric populations. Here, we evaluated for the first time the effect of fenugreek seed feed supplementation on the liver antioxidant defense systems in aging mice. The study was conducted on 12-months aged mice which were given fenugreek seed dietary supplement. We evaluated the activities of various antioxidant defense enzymes such as superoxide dismutase (SOD), glutathione reductase (GR), and glutathione peroxidase (GPx), and also estimated the phenolics and free radical scavenging properties in mice liver upon fenugreek supplementation. The estimation of SOD, GPx, and GR activities in aged mice liver revealed a significant (p < 0.01) difference among all the liver enzymes. Overall, this study reveals that fenugreek seed dietary supplementation has a positive effect on the activities of the hepatic antioxidant defense enzymes in the aged mice.

Fenugreek seeds are widely used in Asia and other places of the world for their nutritive and medicinal properties. In Asia, Fenugreek seeds are also widely recommended for the geriatric populations. Here, we evaluated for the first time the effect of fenugreek seed feed supplementation on the liver antioxidant defense systems in aging mice. The study was conducted on 12 months aged mice which were given fenugreek seed dietary supplement. We have evaluated the activities of various antioxidant defense enzymes like superoxide dismutase (SOD), glutathione reductase (GR), and glutathione peroxidase (GPx), and estimated the phenolics and free radical scavenging properties in mice liver upon fenugreek supplementation. The estimation of SOD, GPx and GR activities in aged mice liver revealed a significant (P&lt;0.01) difference among all the liver enzymes. Overall, this study reveals that fenugreek seed dietary supplementation has a positive effect in on the activities of the hepatic antioxidant defense enzymes in the aged mice.

The aim of this study was to evaluate the effect of a multidisciplinary weight loss intervention on energy intake and appetite sensations in adolescents with obesity, depending on the initial diagnosis or persistence of the metabolic syndrome. Ninety-two adolescents with obesity (12–15 years) followed a 16-week multidisciplinary weight loss intervention. Anthropometric and body composition characteristics, metabolic profile, ad libitum daily energy intake, and appetite sensations were assessed before and after the intervention. The presence of metabolic syndrome (MS) was determined at baseline (MS vs. non-MS) and after the program (persistent vs. non-persistent). While the intervention was effective in inducing weight loss (body weight T0: 87.1 ± 14.9 vs. T1: 81.2 ± 13.0 kg; p < 0.001) and body composition improvements in both adolescents with and without MS, energy intake (p = 0.07), hunger (p = 0.008), and prospective food consumption (p = 0.03) increased, while fullness decreased (p = 0.04) in both groups. Energy intake and appetite were not improved in non-persistent MS after the program and remained significantly higher among non-persistent adolescents compared with initially non-MS adolescents. To conclude, appetite control seems impaired in obese adolescents, irrespective of being affected by MS or not, whereas the treatment of MS in this population might fail to effectively preclude the adolescents from potential post-intervention compensatory food intake and subsequent weight regain.

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Upper gastrointestinal haemorrhage is a major medical emergency and accounts for approximately 7,000 admissions to hospitals in Scotland each year. Over the last 10 years there has been a number of improvements in diagnosis and conservative management of the condition, which significantly reduced the ratio of life-threatening cases requiring an emergency surgery. Despite these achievements surgical intervention or, if accessible, endovascular procedures must be undertaken as emergency actions, should conservative management fail. Vascular malformations of the duodenum are less frequent causes of upper GI bleeding. Duodenal varices found endoscopically occur in 0.4% of patients with portal hypertension (PHT) and are believed to be caused mainly by liver cirrhosis, idiopathic PHT, extrahepatic PHT, or previous surgical trauma. The duodenal bulb is their most common site, followed by the second portion of the duodenum. Forty per cent of patients with PHT have duodenal varices at angiography; however, their penetration unusually affects submucosa, hence no symptoms develop. Isolated bleeding duodenal varices are scarcely reported in literature, although present a significant surgical problem: massive haemorrhage combined with failure to identify them as a source has led to catastrophic outcomes with mortality rate of 40%. The case hereby presented is unique in several aspects. Duodenal varices were explored on emergency laparotomy rather than on prior endoscopies, which, performed by the same well-established endoscopists, were twice negative. This corresponds to the study by Cottam et al. stating that duodenal varices may not penetrate the submucosa, hence haemorrhages of their origin may even be more difficult to diagnose on endocsopy. Secondly, the haemorrhage here reported was undoubtedly a life-threatening condition that required a multidisciplinary team to be managed successfully. Along with Shirashi et al. we confirm that surgical ligation followed by the excision of duodenal / small intestinal varices may be an effective method of their management -both cases have been free of recurrence at 15 months postoperatively. In contrast to the study by Hashizume et al. the duodenal varices here presented were not associated with portal hypertension (PTH). Finally, duodenal varices located in the posterolateral aspect of the descending duodenum are less common as the majority of cases reported so far were of duodenal bulb location.