We observed that individuals with obesity that have hyperleptinemia have higher circulating PAI-1 levels, which could indicate increased risk for cardiovascular disease. The biomarkers of inflammation and thrombosis measured in this study decreased after RYGB, suggesting that the surgery may be effective in reducing pro-inflammatory and thrombotic risk in individuals with extreme obesity.

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Background Approximately 40% of HIV infected patients have chronic meningitis at various stages during the infection, 59% are asymptomatic. This is a diagnosis of exclusion and a confounding factor in cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) analysis, any other causes of chronic meningitis by opportunistic or co-infection must be ruled out. The aim of this study was to analyze CSF lactic acid (LA) as an adjuvant biomarker in chronic meningitis due to HIV. Methods CSF LA was quantified in 223 CSF samples by the Dimension AR (Dade Behring, Deerfield, IL, USA), distributed into nine groups: 1) HIV positive with an increase in CSF WBCs (n = 17); 2) HIV positive with normal CSF (n = 20); 3) enterovirus meningitis (n = 33); 4) Herpesviridae meningoencephalitis (n = 30); 5) fungal meningitis (n = 25); 6) tuberculosis (TB) meningitis (n = 17); 7) toxoplasmosis (n = 18); 8) neurosyphilis (n = 6); 9) control group (n = 57). Results CSF LA (median; IQR) was higher in samples with TB meningitis (5.5; 2.9–7.5 mmol/L) and Cryptococcus neoformans meningitis (3.9; 2.7–5.8 mmol/L) compated with samples with HIV chronic meningitis (1.7; 1.4–1.9 mmol/L) and other groups (p≤0.0001). For the diagnosis of HIV chronic meningitis, using a cut-off of 3.5 mmol/L, CSF LA showed high sensitivity and negative predictive value, although low specificity. Conclusions CSF LA helps to discriminate between C. neoformans or TB meningitis and HIV chronic meningitis: CSF LA can be included with the methods currently used to identify these specific pathogens, though it does not replace them. It is rapid, inexpensive and easy to perform, and can be used in developing countries.

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