SummaryThere is a widespread belief that coronary arteries are smaller in Indo-Asians. The aim of the present study was to compare the size of atheroma-free proximal and distal epicardial coronary arteries of Indo-Asians and Caucasians. We analysed normal coronary angiograms from 77 Caucasians and 39 Indo-Asians. The two groups were comparable for dominance of the coronary arteries. Indo-Asian patients had generally smaller coronary arteries, with a statistically significant diVerence in the mean diameters of the left main coronary artery, proximal, mid and left anterior descending, and proximal and distal right coronary artery segments. There was a non-significant trend towards smaller coronary artery segment diameters for the distal left anterior descending, proximal and distal circumflex, and obtuse marginal artery segments. However, after correction for body surface area, none of these diVerences in size were statistically significant. Thus, the smaller coronary arteries in Indo-Asian patients were explained by body size alone and were not due to ethnic origin per se. This finding nevertheless has important therapeutic implications, since smaller coronary arteries may give rise to technical diYculties during bypass graft and intervention procedures such as percutaneous transluminal coronary angioplasty, stents and atherectomy. On smaller arteries, atheroma may also give an impression of more severe disease than on larger diameter arteries.

Type 2 diabetes (T2DM) and its complications such as cardiomyopathy, contribute significantly to morbidity and mortality worldwide. Increased adoption of westernized diets and decreased physical activity are contributing to the obesity epidemic which, in turn, increases the risk for T2DM. Other risk factors for T2DM include insulin resistance, dyslipidemia, hypertension, metabolic syndrome, and a genetic predisposition. Risk measures for assessing these factors include family history, blood pressure, body weight, waist circumference, fasting glucose, insulin, and lipid levels, and calculated indices such as BMI, HOMA, and QUIKI. Most of these risk measures routinely done in annual check-ups, should help a primary care physician in making an early diagnosis of impending diabetic condition. The underlying mechanisms of these clinical, anthropometric and biochemical risk measures may also be involved in the etiology of diabetes and its complications. Their levels and changes over time therefore, may indeed reflect the disease process. Early and continued assessment of diabetes risk, as part of patient care, will help identify individuals most likely to develop diabetes and allow for early interventions to reduce risk factors as well as delay or may even prevent disease onset. In T2DM patients, ongoing measurement of risk markers and implementation of intervention where appropriate will improve the diabetic condition, decrease risk of cardiovascular and other complications, and decrease morbidity.

Objectives This study seeks to characterize the progressive course of physiological and behavioural outcomes in rodents following excessive caloric intake through the chronic consumption of a highly palatable diet, the cafeteria (CAF) diet. Methods Male Sprague Dawley rats were maintained on either CAF or chow (CON) diets for 20 weeks. Metabolic and physiological parameters were monitored throughout the feeding period. From week 18, rats were subjected to behavioural testing, which included the Morris water maze (MWM) and novel object recognition (NOR) tasks. Results CAF rats consistently showed higher food intakes and consumed six times the energy of chow-fed rats, being significantly heavier by week 5. CAF rats further exhibited greater abdominal widths, fat pads, and larger fatty livers, as well as compromised glucose tolerance. Hyperinsulinemia and dyslipidaemia with elevated serum cholesterol and triglyceride levels and reduced HDL cholesterol were also evident along with a pro-inflammatory profile in the CAF rats. Cognitive decline in CAF rats manifested as a decline in long-term retention memory in the MWM. Further, CAF rats exhibited deficits in recognition memory as they spent less time exploring the novel object than chow-fed rats in the NOR task. Discussion This model of obesity is a robust paradigm for producing an obese animal phenotype that closely mimics the evolution of human obesity, complete with metabolic dysfunctions that are indicative of pre-diabetes. Additionally, chronic CAF-diet induced obesity promotes cognitive impairments in hippocampal-dependent reference and working memory.

Peptides are distinctive biomacromolecules that demonstrate potential cytotoxicity and diversified bioactivities against a variety of microorganisms including bacteria, mycobacteria, and fungi via their unique mechanisms of action. Among broad-ranging pharmacologically active peptides, natural marine-originated thiazole-based oligopeptides possess peculiar structural features along with a wide spectrum of exceptional and potent bioproperties. Because of their complex nature and size divergence, thiazole-based peptides (TBPs) bestow a pivotal chemical platform in drug discovery processes to generate competent scaffolds for regulating allosteric binding sites and peptide–peptide interactions. The present study dissertates on the natural reservoirs and exclusive structural components of marine-originated TBPs, with a special focus on their most pertinent pharmacological profiles, which may impart vital resources for the development of novel peptide-based therapeutic agents.

Recent studies have shown that a novel class of protease activated receptors (PARs), which are composed of seven transmembrane G protein-coupled domains, are activated by serine proteases such as thrombin, trypsin and tryptase. Although four types (PAR 1, PAR 2, PAR 3 and PAR 4) of this class of receptors have been identified, their discrete physiological and pathological roles are still being unraveled. Extracellular proteolytic activation of PARs results in the cleavage of specific sites in the extracellular domain and formation of a new N-terminus which functions as a tethered ligand. The newly formed tethered ligand binds intramolecularly to an exposed site in the second transmembrane loop and triggers G-protein binding and intracellular signaling. Recent studies have shown that PAR-1, PAR-2 and PAR-4 have been involved in vascular development and a variety of other biological processes including apoptosis and remodeling. The use of animal model systems, mainly transgenic mice and synthetic tethered ligand domains, have contributed enormously to our knowledge of molecular signaling and the regulatory properties of various PARs in cardiomyocytes. This review focuses on the role of PARs in cardiovascular function and disease.