Activation of farnesoid X receptor (FXR) markedly attenuates development of atherosclerosis in animal models. However, the underlying mechanism is not well elucidated. Here, we show that the FXR agonist, obeticholic acid (OCA), increases fecal cholesterol excretion and macrophage reverse cholesterol transport (RCT) dependent on activation of hepatic FXR. OCA does not increase biliary cholesterol secretion, but inhibits intestinal cholesterol absorption. OCA markedly inhibits hepatic cholesterol 7α‐hydroxylase (Cyp7a1) and sterol 12α‐hydroxylase (Cyp8b1) partly through inducing small heterodimer partner, leading to reduced bile acid pool size and al

Experimental and numerical investigations of the centrifugal pump performance at non-cavitating and cavitating flow conditions were carried out in the present study. Experiments were performed by applying a vacuum to a closed-loop system to investigate the effects of the net positive suction head available (NPSHa), flow rate, water temperature and pump speed on the centrifugal pump performance. Accordingly, many of the important parameters concerning cavitation phenomenon were calculated. Also, the noise which is accompanied by cavitation was measured. Numerical analysis was implemented for two phase flow (the water and its vapor) using a 2-D simulation by ANSYS FLUENT software to investigate the internal flow of centrifugal pump under c

This research was conduct to evaluate the cytotoxic effect of exotoxin A (ETA) produced by Pseudomonas aeruginosa on mice in comparison with (phosphate buffer saline (PBS) as a negative control. The effect of the toxin was measured by employing the cytogenetic analysis which included (the mitotic index (MI), chromosomal aberrations (CAs), micronucleus (MN) and sperm abnormalities) parameters. In order to specify the cytotoxic effect of the toxin, three doses of ETA (125, 250 and 500 ng/ml) were used. Results showed that ETA was found to cause a significant decrease in mitotic index (MI) percentage, while significant increase in micronucleus (MN), chromosomal aberrations (CAs) and sperm abnormalities parameters in compression with control wa

Background: Diabetes mellitus (DM) could be regarded as a set of chronic metabolic disorders which have a common aspect of hyperglycemia. The resistance in the peripheral actions of insulin or impaired insulin secretion could be the reason  hepcidin which is a peptide hormone derived from liver, in systemic iron homeostasis is an essential regulator, and its lopsided production participates in the pathogenesis of iron disorders in spectrum. Osteoporosis often accompanies many diseases like ß-thalassemia, hemochromatosis, sickle liver diseases, cell disease and hemosiderosis featured by iron overload, evidences suggest that Iron overload and iron deficiency are suggested by evidences that they affect bone in a negative way, acting

Social determinants of health (SDH) profoundly influence diabetes outcomes; nevertheless, their impact on the Iraqi diabetic population remains under researched. The objectives of this study were To investigate the relationship between particular social determinants of health (SDH) variables namely food and housing insecurity, social support, income, and education and clinical outcomes, including HbA1c levels, medication adherence, and patient satisfaction among Iraqi diabetic patients. A cross-sectional study involving 212 diabetic patients in Iraq was conducted. Participants attending a healthcare facility in Iraq filled out validated questionnaires regarding social determinants of health, medication adherence, and satisfaction. HbA1c rea

A total of 37 Staphylococcus epidermidis isolates, isolated from corneal scraping of patients with bacterial keratitis and 20 isolates from healthy eyes (as control) (all isolates, isolated from, Ibn Al- Haietham eye hospital / Baghdad), were tested for slime production, 52.63% of all isolates were positive-slime production (23 isolates from patients and 7 isolates from controls). It was found that positive-slime producing S. epidermidis were exhibited a high resistance to antibiotics as compared to negative-slime producing isolates.

Malaria is a curative disease, with therapeutics available for patients, such as drugs that can prevent future malaria infections in countries vulnerable to malaria. Though, there is no effective malaria vaccine until now, although it is an interesting research area in medicine. Local descriptors of blood smear image are exploited in this paper to solve parasitized malaria infection detection problem. Swarm intelligence is used to separate the red blood cells from the background of the blood slide image in adaptive manner. After that, the effective corner points are detected and localized using Harris corner detection method. Two types of local descriptors are generated from the local regions of the effective corners which are Gabor based f