Effect of acute dietary alteration upon intestinal lipid synthesis

The specific activities of three enzymes engaged in complex lipid synthesis, diglyceride acyltransferase, cholinephosphotransferase, and lysolecithin acyltransferase were studied in intestinal mucosa of hamsters fed either saline, hydrolyzed casein, or corn oil for 9 1/2 hr. In the most proximal intestine, saline feeding was associated with a reduced specific activity in villous tips with all three enzymes studied when compared with the two caloric supplemented groups. In the most distal intestine, oil feeding increased the activity of lysolecithin acyltransferase and choline phosphotransferase twofold as compared to casein fed hamsters; diglyceride acyltransferase was increased one- and one-half-fold. The response of lysolecithin acyltransferase and diglyceride acyltransferase to fat feeding was incomplete when compared to hamsters fed a fat supplemented diet for 7 days, suggesting that their pattern of response to dietary substrate was similar to the disaccharidases. By contrast, the response of cholinephosphotransferase to fat feeding was complete at 24 hr, suggesting that it responds in a manner similar to the glycolytic enzymes.     

An intensive regimen of pelotherapy in pulmonology

The authors show that intensification of peloid therapy, i.e. more frequent procedures, in patients with pulmonary diseases imposes additional load on the regulatory systems: vegetative, cardiovascular, immune. Moderate balneological reactions become more frequent, therapeutic results worsen. How to correct the above negative effects is proposed.     

Materials on the morphology departments of the Orenburg Medical Academy

An analysis of the relation among the quantity of focuses of Aedes aegypti, the rains and the temperatures in rainy and dry periods from 1982 to 1992 in 10 de Octubre municipe, at City of Havana, was carried out. No correlation was found between the number of focuses and the rains occurred in both seasons, and it was just the same between the number of focuses and temperatures. Thus, emphasis is made in the need for a strong surveillance along all year.     

A deconvolution technique for improved estimation of rapid changesin ion concentration recorded with ion-selective microelectrodes

In biological preparations, measurements of rapid, stimulus-evoked changes in ion concentration by ion-selective microelectrodes can be distorted by the limited bandwidth of these sensors. Techniques were developed to reconstruct the actual change in ion concentration using deconvolution of the electrode's output signal and the electrode's transfer function. In the vertebrate retina, a knowledge of the actual time course of a light-evoked increase in extracellular K+ concentration was used to provide a rigorous test of a hypothesis regarding the electrical origin of a clinically important component of the electroretinogram.