Lipids, which along with carbohydrates and proteins are among the most important nutrients for the living organism, have a variety of biological functions that can be applied widely in biomedicine. A fatty acid, the most fundamental biological lipid, may be classified by length of its aliphatic chain, and the short-, medium-, and long-chain fatty acids and each have distinct biological activities with therapeutic relevance. For example, short-chain fatty acids have immune regulatory activities and could be useful against autoimmune disease; medium-chain fatty acids generate ketogenic metabolites and may be used to control seizure; and some metabolites oxidized from long-chain fatty acids could be used to treat metabolic disorders. Glycerolipids play important roles in pathological environments, such as those of cancers or metabolic disorders, and thus are regarded as a potential therapeutic target. Phospholipids represent the main building unit of the plasma membrane of cells, and play key roles in cellular signaling. Due to their physical properties, glycerophospholipids are frequently used as pharmaceutical ingredients, in addition to being potential novel drug targets for treating disease. Sphingolipids, which comprise another component of the plasma membrane, have their own distinct biological functions and have been investigated in nanotechnological applications such as drug delivery systems. Saccharolipids, which are derived from bacteria, have endotoxin effects that stimulate the immune system. Chemically modified saccharolipids might be useful for cancer immunotherapy or as vaccine adjuvants. This review will address the important biological function of several key lipids and offer critical insights into their potential therapeutic applications.

Lipids, which along with carbohydrates and proteins are among the most important nutrients for the living organism, have a variety of biological functions that can be applied widely in biomedicine. A fatty acid, the most fundamental biological lipid, may be classified by length of its aliphatic chain, and the short-, medium-, and long-chain fatty acids and each have distinct biological activities with therapeutic relevance. For example, short-chain fatty acids have immune regulatory activities and could be useful against autoimmune disease; medium-chain fatty acids generate ketogenic metabolites and may be used to control seizure; and some metabolites oxidized from long-chain fatty acids could be used to treat metabolic disorders. Glycerolipids play important roles in pathological environments, such as those of cancers or metabolic disorders, and thus are regarded as a potential therapeutic target. Phospholipids represent the main building unit of the plasma membrane of cells, and play key roles in cellular signaling. Due to their physical properties, glycerophospholipids are frequently used as pharmaceutical ingredients, in addition to being potential novel drug targets for treating disease. Sphingolipids, which comprise another component of the plasma membrane, have their own distinct biological functions and have been investigated in nanotechnological applications such as drug delivery systems. Saccharolipids, which are derived from bacteria, have endotoxin effects that stimulate the immune system. Chemically modified saccharolipids might be useful for cancer immunotherapy or as vaccine adjuvants. This review will address the important biological function of several key lipids and offer critical insights into their potential therapeutic applications.

PURPOSE: Nutritional therapy (NT), such as enteral nutrition (EN) or parenteral nutrition (PN), is essential for the malnourished patients. Although the complications related to NT has been well described, multicenter data on symptoms in the patients with receiving NT during hospitalization are still lacking. METHODS: Nutrition support team (NST) consultations, on which NT-related complications were described, were collected retrospectively for one year. The inclusion criteria were patients who were (1) older than 18 years, (2) hospitalized, and (3) receiving EN or PN at the time of NST consultation. The patients' demographics (age, sex, body mass index [BMI]), type of NT and type of complication were collected. To compare the severity of each complication, the intensive care unit (ICU) admission, hospital stay, and type of discharge were also collected. RESULTS: A total of 14,600 NT-related complications were collected from 13,418 cases from 27 hospitals in Korea. The mean age and BMI were 65.4 years and 21.8 kg/m2. The complications according to the type of NT, calorie deficiency (32.4%, n=1,229) and diarrhea (21.6%, n=820) were most common in EN. Similarly, calorie deficiency (56.8%, n=4,030) and GI problem except for diarrhea (8.6%, n=611) were most common in PN. Regarding the clinical outcomes, 18.7% (n=2,158) finally expired, 58.1% (n=7,027) were admitted to ICU, and the mean hospital days after NT-related complication were 31.3 days. Volume overload (odds ratio [OR]=3.48) and renal abnormality (OR=2.50) were closely associated with hospital death; hyperammonemia (OR=3.09) and renal abnormality (OR=2.77) were associated with ICU admission; “micronutrient and vitamin deficiency” (geometric mean [GM]=2.23) and volume overload (GM=1.61) were associated with a longer hospital stay. CONCLUSION: NT may induce or be associated with several complications, and some of them may seriously affect the patient's outcome. NST personnel in each hospital should be aware of each problem during nutritional support.
Adult ; Body Mass Index ; Demography ; Diarrhea ; Enteral Nutrition ; Hospitalization ; Humans ; Hyperammonemia ; Intensive Care Units ; Korea ; Length of Stay ; Multicenter Studies as Topic ; Nutrition Therapy ; Nutritional Support ; Parenteral Nutrition ; Referral and Consultation ; Retrospective Studies ; Vitamins

Aucubin is a small compound naturally found in traditional medicinal herbs with primarily anti-inflammatory and protective effects. In the nervous system, aucubin is reported to be neuroprotective by enhancing neuronal survival and inhibiting apoptotic cell death in cultures and disease models. Our previous data, however, suggest that aucubin facilitates neurite elongation in cultured hippocampal neurons and axonal regrowth in regenerating sciatic nerves. Here, we investigated whether aucubin facilitates the differentiation of neural precursor cells (NPCs) into specific types of neurons. In NPCs cultured primarily from the rat embryonic hippocampus, aucubin significantly elevated the number of GAD65/67 immunoreactive cells and the expression of GAD65/67 proteins was upregulated dramatically by more than three-fold at relatively low concentrations of aucubin (0.01 µM to 10 µM). The expression of both NeuN and vGluT1 of NPCs, the markers for neurons and glutamatergic cells, respectively, and the number of vGluT1 immunoreactive cells also increased with higher concentrations of aucubin (1 µM and 10 µM), but the ratio of the increases was largely lower than GAD expression and GAD immunoreactive cells. The GABAergic differentiation of pax6-expressing late NPCs into GABA-producing cells was further supported in cortical NPCs primarily cultured from transgenic mouse brains, which express recombinant GFP under the control of pax6 promoter. The results suggest that aucubin can be developed as a therapeutic candidate for neurodegenerative disorders caused by the loss of inhibitory GABAergic neurons.
Animals ; Axons ; Brain ; Cell Death ; GABAergic Neurons* ; Hippocampus ; Mice ; Mice, Transgenic ; Nervous System ; Neurites ; Neurodegenerative Diseases ; Neurons ; Plants, Medicinal ; Rats ; Sciatic Nerve

OBJECTIVE: Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) patients suffer from an increased risk of herpes zoster (HZ) partially due to immunosuppressant medications. This study investigated HZ in RA patients treated with biologic disease-modifying antirheumatic drugs (bDMARDs), as compared with conventional DMARDs (cDMARDs). METHODS: This retrospective case series study assembled record information of 277 RA patients who received bDMARDs after failure of at least one cDMARDs at Seoul National University Hospital between August 2003 and February 2015. Following capture of baseline information and identification of HZ episodes, crude HZ incidence rates per 100 patient-years (95% confidence intervals) were calculated. RESULTS: For 718 treatment courses, 277 (38.6%) comprised cDMARDs, 66 (9.2%) infliximab, 175 (24.4%) etanercept, 95 (13.2%) adalimumab, 9 (1.3%) golimumab, 41 (5.7%) rituximab, 31 (4.3%) abatacept, and 24 (3.3%) tocilizumab. There were 37 HZ episodes, 16 during cDMARD treatment courses, and 21 accompanying bDMARDs, two with infliximab, eight with etanercept, five with adalimumab, and three each with rituximab and abatacept. The crude HZ incidence rate per 100 patient-years was 2.4 (1.4∼3.9) for cDMARDs, 2.2 (0.3∼7.9) for infliximab, 1.8 (0.8∼3.6) for etanercept, 3.7 (1.2∼8.4) for adalimumab, 3.9 (0.8∼11.0) for rituximab, and 8.5 (1.8∼23.1) for abatacept. CONCLUSION: We conclude that bDMARDs do not always increase the risk of HZs in RA patients, although HZ rates vary for different bDMARDs.
Abatacept ; Adalimumab ; Antirheumatic Agents ; Arthritis, Rheumatoid* ; Biological Therapy ; Etanercept ; Herpes Zoster* ; Humans ; Incidence ; Infliximab ; Retrospective Studies ; Rituximab ; Seoul

PURPOSE: The present research is a descriptive study aimed at understanding clinical nurses' Video display terminal (VDT) syndrome and identifying the factors that affect their VDT syndrome. METHODS: Data were collected from 239 clinical nurses working in two metropolitan cities. Research tools included subject's VDT syndrome assessing musculoskeletal, ophthalmic, dermal, psychiatric, and whole body syndromes. The data were analyzed using frequency analysis, average and standard deviation, t-test, One-way ANOVA, and multiple regression analysis with the SPSS/WIN 20.0 program. RESULTS: The subjects' VDT syndrome score was 1.34 out of 5. There were significant differences in participating subjects' VDT syndrome, hospital's size, working unit, health status, diagnosis of illness, having an Order Communication System (OCS), having an Electronic Medical Record (EMR) System, continuous VDT working for more than one hour, break time during VDT use, VDT use time, comfort of the chair, adjustability of the height of the chair, size of the VDT's desk, distance between the monitor and the user's eyes, resolution of the monitor, and frequency of eye exercise during VDT use. According to the research, influencing factors on VDT syndrome in clinical nurses included size of the VDT's desk, frequency of eye exercise during VDT use, having an EMR system, break time during VDT use, diagnosis illness, and having an OCS' system. CONCLUSION: The findings from this study can be used as a basis for future VDT syndrome prevention education and programs for clinical nurses.
Computer Terminals* ; Diagnosis ; Education ; Electronic Health Records

Aucubin is an iridoid glycoside with a wide range of biological activities, including anti-inflammatory, anti-microbial, anti-algesic as well as anti-tumor activities. Recently, it has been shown that aucubin prevents neuronal death in the hippocampal CA1 region in rats with diabetic encephalopathy. In addition, it has protective effects on H2O2-induced apoptosis in PC12 cells. We have shown here that aucubin promotes neuronal differentiation and neurite outgrowth in neural stem cells cultured primarily from the rat embryonic hippocampus. We also investigated whether aucubin facilitates axonal elongation in the injured peripheral nervous system. Aucubin promoted lengthening and thickness of axons and re-myelination at 3 weeks after sciatic nerve injury. These results indicate that administration of aucubin improved nerve regeneration in the rat model of sciatic nerve injury, suggesting that aucubin may be a useful therapeutic compound for the human peripheral nervous system after various nerve injuries.
Animals ; Apoptosis ; Axons* ; CA1 Region, Hippocampal ; Hippocampus ; Humans ; Models, Animal ; Nerve Regeneration ; Neural Stem Cells* ; Neurites* ; Neurons ; PC12 Cells ; Peripheral Nervous System ; Rats ; Regeneration* ; Sciatic Nerve*

PURPOSE: The aim of this study was examine effects of fatigue, anxiety, depression, social support, and spiritual well-being of supportive education program for hospice patients's family. METHOD: Using a non-equivalent control group pre-post quasi-experimental design, 70 study subjects were assigned into two groups, experimental group (n=35) and the control group (n=35). Measures were fatigue, state-anxiety, depression, social support, and spiritual well-being to test for the effects of supportive education program for hospice patients's family. Data analyzed using chi2 test, t-test with SPSS/WIN 19.0 version. RESULTS: The experimental group receiving supportive education program for hospice patients's family had a significant changes of fatigue, state-anxiety, depression, social support, and spiritual well-being. CONCLUSION: The supportive education program for hospice patients's family is an effective intervention to enhance social support and spiritual well-being and to decrease fatigue, anxiety and depression.
Anxiety ; Depression ; Education* ; Fatigue ; Hospices* ; Humans

PURPOSE: This study examined the fitness of a path model for the relationship among daily life stress, problem of life, social support, depression, and suicidal ideation in adolescents. METHODS: The subjects consisted of 247 adolescents. Data were collected through self-report questionnaires. The data were analyzed by the SPSS and AMOS programs. RESULTS: Daily life stress, problem of life, social support, and depression showed direct effects on suicidal ideation in adolescents, while daily life stress and problem of life showed indirect effects on suicidal ideation in adolescents. Daily life stress and problem of life showed direct effects on social support and depression in adolescents. The hypothetical path model of adolescents' suicidal ideation was proven correct. CONCLUSION: Based on the outcomes of this study, it is necessary to design an intervention program that emphasizes the reduction of daily life stress, problem of life, depression and enhancement social support in order to prevention adolescents' suicidal ideation.
Adolescent ; Depression ; Humans ; Stress, Psychological ; Suicidal Ideation* ; Surveys and Questionnaires

PURPOSE: This study was carried out to investigate relations among daily livingabilities, self-efficacy, and Yangsaegn behavior, and influencing factors on Yangsaeng behavior among elderly men. METHODS: Data were collected from 497 male elders in the D metropolitan city. Research tools included ADL, IADL, and the scale for self-efficacy and Yangsaeng behavior. The data were analyzed using frequency analysis, average and standard deviation, t-test, One-way ANOVA, Pearson's correlation coefficients, and multiple regression analysis with the SPSS/WIN 19.0 program. RESULTS: The subjects' ADL score was 2.86, their IADL score of subjects 2.66 out of 3, and their self-efficacy score was 2.68 out of 4, and their Yangsaeng behavior score 3.46 out of 5. There were significant differences in Yangsaeng behavior among the subjects due to age, education level, monthly income, marital status, family structure, religion, health status, andperiodic health examination. There were significant positive correlations among ADL, IADL, self-efficacy, and Yangsaeng behavior. According to the research, influencing factors on Yangseng behavior in elderly men included self-efficacy, health status, ADL, education level, IADL, and family structure. CONCLUSION: Findings from this study can be used as basic data to develop Yangsaeng behavior programs for elderly men.
Activities of Daily Living ; Aged ; Health Promotion ; Humans ; Male ; Marital Status ; Self Efficacy