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Head and neck cancers, which affect 650,000 people and cause 350,000 deaths per year, is the sixth leading cancer by cancer incidence and eighth by cancer-related death worldwide. Oral cancer is the most common type of head and neck cancer. More than 90% of oral cancers are oral and oropharyngeal squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC). The overall five-year survival rate of OSCC patients is approximately 63%, which is due to the low response rate to current therapeutic drugs. In this review we discuss the possibility of using caffeic acid phenethyl ester (CAPE) as an alternative treatment for oral cancer. CAPE is a strong antioxidant extracted from honeybee hive propolis. Recent studies indicate that CAPE treatment can effectively suppress the proliferation, survival, and metastasis of oral cancer cells. CAPE treatment inhibits Akt signaling, cell cycle regulatory proteins, NF-κB function, as well as activity of matrix metalloproteinase (MMPs), epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR), and Cyclooxygenase-2 (COX-2). Therefore, CAPE treatment induces cell cycle arrest and apoptosis in oral cancer cells. According to the evidence that aberrations in the EGFR/phosphoinositide 3-kinase (PI3K)/protein kinase B (Akt) signaling, NF-κB function, COX-2 activity, and MMPs activity are frequently found in oral cancers, and that the phosphorylation of Akt, EGFR, and COX-2 correlates to oral cancer patient survival and clinical progression, we believe that CAPE treatment will be useful for treatment of advanced oral cancer patients.

Glycogen stored in skeletal muscle is the main fuel for endurance exercise. The present study examined the effects of oral hydroxycitrate (HCA) supplementation on post-meal glycogen synthesis in exercised human skeletal muscle. Eight healthy male volunteers (aged 22·0 (SE 0·3) years) completed a 60-min cycling exercise at 70-75 % _ VO 2 max and received HCA or placebo in a crossover design repeated after a 7 d washout period. They consumed 500 mg HCA or placebo with a high-carbohydrate meal (2 g carbohydrate/kg body weight, 80 % carbohydrate, 8 % fat, 12 % protein) for a 3-h post-exercise recovery. Muscle biopsy samples were obtained from vastus lateralis immediately and 3 h after the exercise. We found that HCA supplementation significantly lowered post-meal insulin response with similar glucose level compared to placebo. The rate of glycogen synthesis with the HCA meal was approximately onefold higher than that with the placebo meal. In contrast, GLUT4 protein level after HCA supplementation was significantly decreased below the placebo level, whereas expression of fatty acid translocase (FAT)/CD36 mRNA was significantly increased above the placebo level. Furthermore, HCA supplementation significantly increased energy reliance on fat oxidation, estimated by the gaseous exchange method. However, no differences were found in circulating NEFA and glycerol levels with the HCA meal compared with the placebo meal. The present study reports the first evidence that HCA supplementation enhanced glycogen synthesis rate in exercised human skeletal muscle and improved post-meal insulin sensitivity.Key words: Insulin resistance: Ergogenic aids: GLUT4: FAT/CD36: Hydroxycitrate Hydroxycitrate (HCA), a compound having a structure similar to citrate, is enriched in an Indian fruit known as Garcinia cambogia (1,2) , which is commonly used as a traditional Indian medicine. It is generally known that citrate is an allosteric regulator for a number of enzymes that are involved in carbohydrate and fat metabolism, such as phosphofructokinase, a key enzyme regulating glycolysis (3) , and acetyl Co-A carboxylase, a key enzyme regulating fatty acid synthesis (4) .HCA can also serve as a competitive inhibitor for ATP-citrate lyase (5) , which directs energy metabolism towards fatty acid oxidation. Therefore, administration of HCA is expected to cause metabolic ramification in vivo. The results of several mouse studies support the idea that oral HCA supplementation lowered plasma insulin concentration (6) , enhanced the whole-body fatty acid oxidation and spared muscle glycogen (7) . There is a paucity of information regarding the effects of HCA supplementation on fat metabolism in human subjects. Lim et al. (8) have previously reported that short-term HCA supplementation significantly lowered respiratory quotient (RQ) during exercise. Reduced RQ reflects energy reliance towards fat metabolism. In contrast, Kriketos et al. performed a double-blind, randomised, crossover study involving 3-d supplementation of HCA or placebo for ...

LHIDLongitudinal Health Insurance Data AIM The aim of the study was to investigate the risk of stroke in patients with cerebral palsy (CP), based on nationwide data in Taiwan. RESULTS Patients with CP were more likely to suffer stroke than the comparison population, after adjusting for potential confounding factors (adjusted hazard ratio: 2.17; 95% confidence interval [CI]: 1.74-2.69). The hazard ratio of stroke was 4.78 (95% CI: 3.18-7.17) and 1.57 (95% CI: 1.20-2.05) for patients with CP aged 50 years and under, and over 50 years respectively. METHODINTERPRETATION Cerebral palsy is a risk factor or marker for stroke that is independent of traditional stroke risk factors. Further research in this area is warranted.Cerebral palsy (CP) is defined as a group of permanent disorders of the development of movement and posture, which causes activity limitation, and is attributed to nonprogressive disturbances that occur in the developing fetal or infant brain. 1 Clinical manifestations include motor deficits, perceptive disturbances, cognitive impairment, and behavioural and emotional disorders.1 A common classification is based on abnormal muscle tone, including spastic, dyskinetic, and ataxic types.1 The worldwide prevalence of CP is 2.0 to 2.5 per 1000 live births.2 The precise aetiology of CP remains unknown, but preterm birth is considered to be a major risk factor.3 Cerebral palsy can be a severe neurological disability that disturbs movement, posture, neuromuscular control, and often results in dysphagia, epilepsy, and osteoporosis.According to the latest data released by the Center for Disease Control and Prevention's National Center for Health Statistics, stroke was the fourth leading cause of death in the United States in 2008. In Taiwan, stroke was the third major cause of death in 2010, and accounted for 7% of total deaths that year. It places an enormous cost and burden on Taiwan's national health care system. 4 One community-based Taiwanese cohort study reported that the incidence of stroke for people aged over 35 years was 3.32 per 1000 for males and 4.67 per 1000 for females. 5There are well-known risk factors for stroke such as hypertension, diabetes, hyperlipidaemia, smoking, obesity, and urbanization level.6 Some evidence supports the theory that inflammation and chronic infection may also play an essential role in stroke.7 A previous study showed that the death rates for cerebrovascular disease were three times as high in the CP population compared with the general population.8 Studies regarding the relationship between CP and stroke have not yet been explored thoroughly. To our knowledge, no previous study with large patient samples has been conducted to evaluate the risk of stroke in patients with CP. The purpose of the current study was to assess the hypothesis that CP is a risk factor for stroke by using a large-scale nationwide Taiwanese database. METHOD Study participants and designThis is a prospective matched cohort study. The data used in this study were obtained from the Longitudinal Heal...