ABSTRACT
The incidence of asthma and obesity is increasing worldwide. Understanding the causal directions between asthma and obesity could have important therapeutic implications. However, the mechanism connecting the two is not well defined. This study was undertaken to compare pulmonary function tests [PFTs], C-reactive protein [CRP] and inflammatory cytokines in obesity and asthma in Egyptian adolescents and to investigate whether obese asthmatics have a specific inflammatory phenotype than lean asthmatics. Fifty asthmatic and 30 control subjects were enrolled in the study and divided into 2 sub-groups: obese and non-obese. Serum levels of CRP, leptin, tumor necrosis factor-alpha [TNF-alpha], interleukin-6 [IL-6], IL-5, body mass index [BMI] and PFTs were done for asthmatics and controls. Serum levels of IL-6, TNF-alpha and leptin in obese individuals whether asthmatic or not showed significant increase compared to lean ones [P < 0.01]. Body mass index [BMI] showed positive linear correlations with serum levels of IL-6, TNF-alpha, leptin and CRP. Serum IL-5 showed significantly higher levels in all asthmatics versus all controls [P < 0.01]. Also serum IL-5 showed non-significant difference between lean and obese asthmatics and it showed significant negative correlations with FEVl/FVC% and PEF. Serum levels oflL-6, TNF-alpha and leptin could be considered surrogate markers for obesity, whereas serum IL-5 is considered a marker of airway inflammation in bronchial asthma. Thus obesity and asthma have been shown to coexist together but systemic and airway inflammation appears to operate independent of each other
ABSTRACT
It was observed that acute hypertensive complications develop stress reaction in the first few hours of presentation. The differential outcome of the various types of hypertensive emergencies may be contributed or exaggerated by different hormonal factors. Some people develop hyperglycemia on exposure to stress and it is not known if it is due to insulin deficiency or excess of other stress hormones our aim was to search for the occurrence hormnonal changes in the different types of hypertensive emergencies. We measured cortisol, insulin, glucose in 3 groups of hypertensive emergencies, stroke, heart failure and encephalopathy, we found significant increase of cortisol level in encephalopathy group, may be clue to more stress in this group. There was also significant correlation between insulin and cortisol levels. High plasma insulin in encephalopathy group may be a leading cause to the pathogenesis of encephalopathy through its vasodilating effect. Low plasma insulin in stroke group encourage the theory of treating the early stroke patients with glucose and insulin