ALBERT

Description: Dyslipidemia is a common nutritional and metabolic disorder in patients with chronic kidney disease. Accumulating evidence supports the hypothesis that prolonged metabolic imbalance of lipids leads to ectopic fat distribution in the peripheral organs (lipotoxicity), including the kidney, heart, and skeletal muscle, which accelerates peripheral inflammation and afflictions. Thus, lipotoxicity may partly explain progression of renal dysfunction and even extrarenal complications, including renal anemia, heart failure, and sarcopenia. Additionally, endoplasmic reticulum stress activated by the unfolded protein response pathway plays a pivotal role in lipotoxicity by modulating the expression of key enzymes in lipid synthesis and oxidation. Here, we review the molecular mechanisms underlying lipid deposition and resultant tissue damage in the kidney, heart, and skeletal muscle, with the goal of illuminating the nutritional aspects of these pathologies.

Description: Sustained physical activity extends healthy life years while a lower activity due to sarcopenia can reduce them. Sarcopenia is defined as a decrease in skeletal muscle mass and strength due not only to aging, but also from a variety of debilitating chronic illnesses such as cancer and heart failure. Patients with chronic kidney disease (CKD), who tend to be cachexic and in frail health, may develop uremic sarcopenia or uremic myopathy due to an imbalance between muscle protein synthesis and catabolism. Here, we review clinical evidence indicating reduced physical activity as renal function deteriorates and explore evidence-supported therapeutic options focusing on nutrition and physical training. In addition, although sarcopenia is a clinical concept and difficult to recapitulate in basic research, several in vivo approaches have been attempted, such as rodent subtotal nephrectomy representing both renal dysfunction and muscle weakness. This review highlights molecular mechanisms and promising interventions for uremic sarcopenia that were revealed through basic research. Extensive study is still needed to cast light on the many aspects of locomotive organ impairments in CKD and explore the ways that diet and exercise therapies can improve both outcomes and quality of life at every level.

Description: Populations of planktic foraminifera display “proportionate” coiling (approximately 50% sinistral and dextral individuals given the data at hand) or may have “biased“ coiling, in which populations are dominated by either sinistral or dextral individuals. The major radiations of planktic foraminifera in the Late Cretaceous, the Paleocene to early Eocene, the middle Eocene, and the Neogene were each initiated by clades with proportionate coiling but subsequently accumulated sinistral and dextral species over time. Upper Maastrichtian foraminifera were predominantly dextral, but only the small number of species with proportionate coiling actually survived the Cretaceous/Paleogene mass extinction. The first Paleocene species with biased coiling appeared about four million years after the extinction and gradually came to represent as much as 50–60% of the tropical species diversity by the latest Paleocene. Tropical taxa with biased coiling suffered a second extinction in the late early Eocene and renewed a trend toward an increased abundance of species with biased coiling in the middle Eocene.Our results for the Paleogene reflect a recurring theme in foraminifer evolution. In each radiation, once the founding species of a clade developed a biased-coiling mode, the descendants tended to maintain biased coiling until the extinction of the clade. The iterative evolution of biased coiling appears to represent an example in which a fundamental feature of development becomes fixed in a clade and inhibits reversion to an ancestral state. Apparently, coiling patterns are heritable in contrast with previous interpretations that coiling is environmentally controlled. On evolutionary timescales, species with proportionate coiling are less susceptible to extinction than species dominated by sinistral or dextral forms. Differential survivorship ensures that each radiation is initiated from founders with proportionate coiling following mass extinction. Hence, coiling preferences represent a case where the establishment of an evolutionary trend is caused by drift away from a “limiting boundary,” much like the evolution of large body size from ubiquitous small ancestors.