Objective To study the organ damage in patients with systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) and its significance in prognosis. Methods The SLE damage index (SDI) was used to evaluate 121 female and 15 male patients. Results Among these patients, the lowest and the highest SDI was 0 or 9, separately (average: 1.79 ? 2.22). Most damaged organ was renal (39.0%), followed by muscle/skeletal system (19.9%) and cardiovascular system (18.4%). There was statistically significant difference of SDI in different groups of prognosis, life condition or disease duration ( 10 years). However, there was no significant difference of SDI in different sex groups. The correlation analysis revealed that the age at onset or diagnosis was not related to SDI. Conclusion SDI is effective in evaluating the organ damage in predicting prognosis of SLE patients.

OBJECTIVETo study the metabolic changes of pancreatic extracts from insulin-resistant rats induced by fructose feeding using nuclear magnetic resonance ¹H spectroscopy (¹H NMR).

METHODSSixteen Wistar rats were divided equally into control group and model group and given water and 10% fructose water for 8 weeks, respectively. The pancreatic tissues were then obtained for H NMR spectra analysis and principal component analysis (PCA).

RESULTSCompared with the control rats, the rats in the model group showed significantly increased creatine, betaine/TMAO, taurine, glycine and myo-inositol and decreased levels of lipids, lactate, glutamate, choline and GPC/PC.

CONCLUSION¹H NMR and pattern recognition can define the metabolic characteristics of the pancreatic tissue extracts from insulin-resistant rats and provide reliable metabolic evidence for studying the mechanisms of insulin resistance at the molecular level.

Animals ; Fructose ; Insulin Resistance ; Metabolomics ; Pancreatic Extracts ; chemistry ; Principal Component Analysis ; Proton Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy ; Rats ; Rats, Wistar