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Effects of a thiazolidinedione compound on body fat and fat distribution of patients with type 2 diabetes
Effects of a thiazolidinedione compound on body fat and fat distribution of patients with type 2 diabetes.
I E Kelly ,
T S Han ,
K Walsh and
M E Lean
Department of Human Nutrition, University of Glasgow, Glasgow Royal Infirmary, Scotland, U.K.
Abstract
OBJECTIVE: To examine the effects of a thiazolidinedione (600 mg troglitazone) insulin-sensitizing treatment on total body
fat measured by underwater weighing, on intra- and extra-abdominal fat mass using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), and on
anthropometric measures. RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS: Type 2 diabetic outpatients were studied in a double-blind randomized
trial carried out at Glasgow Royal Infirmary, Scotland. RESULTS: Groups who received troglitazone (8 men, 3 women) and placebo
(8 men, 2 women) were well matched for age, BMI, total body fat percentage by underwater weighing, and intra-abdominal fat
(kilograms) by MRI. After 12 weeks, body weight changes in the troglitazone group (mean +0.66 kg [95% CI -0.71 to 2.04], P
= 0.31) and the placebo group (mean +0.25 kg [-0.64 to 1.13], P = 0.55) were not statistically different. Changes in total
body fat with troglitazone (mean +1.02% body wt [-1.13 to 3.17], P = 0.32) and placebo (mean -0.54% body wt [-1.68 to 0.59],
P = 0.31) were not significantly different. There was, however, a decrease in intra-abdominal fat mass in the troglitazone-treated
group (mean -0.47 kg [-0.79 to -0.13], P = 0.01), and this was significantly different (P = 0.03) from placebo treatment (mean
-0.41 kg [-0.77 to -0.05]). CONCLUSIONS: Treatment with the thiazolidinedione troglitazone in human patients with type 2 diabetes
decreases intra-abdominal fat mass but does not affect total body fat or weight. This potentially valuable effect points to
a differential action on insulin sensitivity in different adipose tissue depots.
Journal Article
Hawksbill Nesting in Hawai‘i: 30-Year Dataset Reveals Recent Positive Trend for a Small, Yet Vital Population
Evaluating wildlife population trends is necessary for the development of effective management strategies, which are particularly relevant for highly threatened species. Hawksbill marine turtles ( Eretmochelys imbricata ) are considered endangered globally and are rare in Hawai‘i. Remnant hawksbill nesting beaches were identified in Hawai‘i in the late 1980s and the primary sites have been monitored since that time. In this study we summarize all available hawksbill nesting activity around the Hawaiian Islands between 1988 and 2018, highlighting relevant demographic and geographic data for the species. Because monitoring effort varied substantially across space and time, we implemented a predictive modeling approach that accounted for varying effort to explore potential trends in annual number of nesting females and nests over time. Field monitoring efforts documented an annual average of 14 ± 4.3 (range: 5–26) nesting females and 48 ± 19.0 (range: 12–93) nests, with a cumulative total of 178 individual nesting females and 1,280 nests recorded across all years. Nesting has been documented on four Hawaiian Islands, with the overwhelming majority of nesting females (78.4%) and nests (86.5%) recorded at four beaches along the southern coast of Hawai‘i Island. Recent monitoring (2018) at a beach on Moloka‘i Island revealed numbers similar to the most important beaches on Hawai‘i Island. Despite difficulty discerning obvious trends when looking solely at the raw tabulated numbers from field monitoring, our analysis suggests both the number of nesting females and nests have been positively trending since 2006, and this is supported by a higher percentage (57.1% of annual cohorts) of neophyte (vs. remigrant) nesters over the second half of the monitoring timeframe. The masking of obvious trends in the tabulated numbers is likely due to decreased overall monitoring effort as a result of reduced funding in recent years, coupled with a shift in focal monitoring effort from the historical primary nesting site of Kamehame, to the more recently established nesting site of Pōhue. Although the positive trend is encouraging, our findings highlight the precarious state of hawksbills in Hawai‘i and the need to enhance monitoring across all sites to support more robust population assessments and management decision making.
Journal Article
Employee voice behavior and perceived control: does remote work environment matter?
PurposeThis study's purpose is to explore the difference in employee voice behavior along with its modalities and employee perceived control in a remote vs an in-office work situation.Design/methodology/approachEmployees who worked remotely and in-person at a local municipal government in the Great Lakes Region of the United States were surveyed.Findings Findings suggest voice behavior and perceived control are stable attitudes and not impacted by a move from in-person to remote work. Participants indicated both Zoom staff meetings and Zoom one-to-one meetings with their supervisor were important; however, only Zoom one-to-one meetings with the supervisor were indicated to be satisfactory.Practical implicationsThis study suggests that organizations considering moving some of their operations to a fully remote work situation would not experience differences in employee voice or perceived control. Implications related to utilizing specific communication modalities are also discussed.Originality/valueThis is the only study that focuses on differences in employee voice, its modalities and perceived control comparing in-person vs remote work.
Journal Article
Special Delivery: Special District Use of Collaboration to Solve Challenges
As the special district sector continues to increase in number across the U.S., understanding their role in public governance increases in value both to practitioners and academia alike. The state of the academic literature on special districts does not yet reflect the large size and importance of the sector and has been severely limited by available data, mainly coming from the U.S. Census Bureau. Existing research has focused on broad descriptions of the field of special districts, some studies focus on policy and political effects; but scant research analyzes behavior within and among special districts, particularly with their public entity partners.This research aims to answer the question: When do special districts seek collaborative solutions to solve challenges? This research uses Qualitative Comparative Analysis to inductively and deductively explore the “causes” of special district collaboration across six descriptive case studies. For each case, a set of conditions was identified that resulted in a stable, public-to-public collaboration.Each set of conditions was then compared and distilled down into three sets of minimized conditions producing the outcome. The QCA sufficient condition equations were influenced by the district’s size or scope—the larger districts had unique issues and condition equations affecting collaborative behaviors. The scope of each of the six districts, in terms of its budget, staffing, customers, and acreage, naturally divided into three categories, setting the stage for a proposed scope-based typology of districts. This research also contributes to the body of knowledge about special districts by contributing six qualitative case studies which supplements the sometimes-problematic data available from the U.S. Census Bureau.
Dissertation
Employee Voice Behavior and Perceived Control: Does Remote Work Environment Matter?
Important outcomes of perceived control and employee voice behavior include employee-driven innovation, increased productivity, and job satisfaction; therefore, it is essential to study if there is a difference in a remote versus an in-person work environment. The 81 participants in this study were employees at a public utilities department in a local municipal government that had worked both remotely and in-person during the peak of the covid-19 pandemic. This research also looked at the role communication modalities played for both in-person and remote work scenarios. Although these employees indicated there was no difference in perceived control and employee voice. This study's data suggests that voice behavior and perceived control are stable attitudes that are not impacted by the move from in-person to remote work. As more employees press for remote work arrangements, these data indicate that managers should not expect voice or perceived control to be impacted (negatively or positively) when employees work remotely. These participants indicated both Zoom staff meetings and Zoom one-to-one meetings with their supervisor were important, however, only Zoom one-to-one meetings with the supervisor were indicated to be satisfactory, which is not surprising during a time of social isolation.
Dissertation
Peace-process infrastructure : constructing landscapes in-between irelands
Over the course of 30 years ‘The Troubles’ in Northern Ireland led to the rupturing of physical sites from people’s everyday environment. In a post ‘Good Friday/Belfast Agreement’ era, this thesis considers the construction of common ground and the space of encounter as an instrument in peacemaking. I investigate how both the physical and the imagined landscape work together to form what I call peace-process infrastructure: landscapes that bolster a peaceprocess by being re-appropriated for civilian purposes and knit back into their surroundings. Under the practice strand of this study, I use movement as a tactic by choosing a series of traverses that were not possible to undertake as a civilian during the conflict: Divis Mountain next to Belfast City which changed hands from military zone to nature reserve; the now navigable Shannon-Erne Waterway; and the borderline hills between Ireland/European Union and Northern Ireland/United Kingdom where the watchtowers once stood. The garnered film footage works as testimony to a fragile peace-process, which in turn becomes an active archive that generates text. Specific tools that were used at each site to overcome topographical distance — limelight, lock and lens — are deployed once more to make what is considered remote and out of touch, close and tangible. At its heart, this project builds a multi-tiered rendering of particular landscapes — drawing on Hannah Arendt, Edmund Burke, amongst other political, landscape and feminism theorists — but it is motivated by the larger desire to contribute to a worldwide discussion about peace-process situations from a spatial perspective. People’s reactions to the constructed encounter in the world around them are a direct consequence to the architectural systems that command our surroundings. Landscapes hold the potential to deconstruct toxic territorial organisation leading to creative production. Revolutions are not just a protest but a creative process — a tool for remaking states and societies. In world terms the cultural Irish revolution preceded the political revolution galvanising world and Irish opinion towards independence for Ireland in 1916. About one hundred years later, this work creates a cultural milieu about the peace process that gathers strength for its advancement.
Dissertation
Controls on Bacterial Functional Trait Expression with Carbon and Nutrient Cycling Consequences
Bacteria are key drivers of global biogeochemical cycling. By producing extracellular enzymes they are able to turnover organic matter so that it can be assimilated for new biomass or energy production. However, enzymes are metabolically expensive, resulting in decreased fitness with their production. How bacteria allocate their resources determines not only the rate at which carbon is cycled, but its fate in an ecosystem. Therefore, the central role that enzymes play in this process makes them an important research target. Understanding the mechanisms that impact the expression of extracellular enzymes is fundamental to predicting ecosystem carbon and nutrient cycling. In this dissertation, we began with a literature review that explores the role that microbial interactions play in soil carbon cycling dynamics through phenotypic plasticity and evolutionary processes. Next, to determine the physiological limitation of extracellular enzyme production and how bacteria allocate resources, we assessed the trade-offs between extracellular enzyme production and growth rate relative to resources across several strains of bacteria. Bacteria do trade off these traits, though selectively, and with a stronger effect in nutrient-poor media. Finally, we examined the functional capacity in a river system to determine if enzyme expression is determined by community structure, nutrients, or environmental parameters. Enzyme expression was most strongly determined by biofilm productivity, and had no relationship to alpha or beta diversity. While there is some evidence to suggest a phylogenetic signal of extracellular enzyme production, from the empirical results presented here, bacterial expression of extracellular enzymes, in both populations and communities, appears to be predominantly determined by nutrient parameters.
Dissertation
Dietary flavonols protect diabetic human lymphocytes against oxidative damage to DNA
Dietary flavonols protect diabetic human lymphocytes against oxidative damage to DNA.
M E Lean ,
M Noroozi ,
I Kelly ,
J Burns ,
D Talwar ,
N Sattar and
A Crozier
Department of Human Nutrition, Glasgow Royal Infirmary, University of Glasgow, UK. mej.lean@clinmed.gla.ac.uk
Abstract
Diabetic patients have reduced antioxidant defenses and suffer from an increased risk of free radical-mediated diseases such
as coronary heart disease. Epidemiological evidence has suggested that antioxidant dietary flavonoids may protect against
heart disease, but a biological effect has yet to be demonstrated directly in humans. In this study, 10 stable type 2 diabetic
patients were treated for 2 weeks on a low-flavonol diet and for 2 weeks on the same diet supplemented with 76-110 mg of flavonols
(mostly quercetin) provided by 400 g of onions (and tomato sauce) and six cups of tea daily. Freshly collected lymphocytes
were subjected to standard oxidative challenge with hydrogen peroxide, and DNA damage was measured by single-cell gel electrophoresis.
Fasting plasma flavonol concentrations (measured by high-performance liquid chromatography) were 5.6 +/- 2.9 ng/ml on the
low-flavonol diet and increased 12-fold to 72.1 +/- 15.8 ng/ml on the high-flavonol diet (P < 0.001). Oxidative damage to
lymphocyte DNA was 220 +/- 12 on an arbitrary scale of 0-400 U on the low-flavonol diet and 192 +/- 14 on the high-flavonol
diet (P = 0.037). This decrease was not accounted for by any change in the measurements of diabetic control (fasting plasma
glucose or fructosamine) or by any change in the plasma levels of known antioxidants, including vitamin C, carotenoids, alpha-tocopherol,
urate, albumin, and bilirubin. In conclusion, we have shown a biological effect of potential medical importance that appears
to be associated with the absorption of dietary flavonols.
Journal Article
Made in Lesotho: Examining variation in workers' perceptions of compliance with labour standards in Lesotho's clothing industry
In this dissertation, I conduct a comparison of workers’ perceptions of labour standards compliance in two global value chains in Lesotho's clothing industry, and show how ownership nationality and end market influence workers’ perceptions of compliance. I show, first, how the two global value chains emerged in Lesotho. Here, I emphasize the different owners’ experiences with unions as well as the role of end-user market. Second, I show that this will influence their attitudes towards compliance, arguing that attention to working conditions will be greater in firms where the owners are more accustomed to rigid labour regulations and exposure to unions. Third, based on feedback to a workers questionnaire and focus groups conducted with workers, I show how perceptions of compliance vary within each value chain as well as across. To compare, I use a compliance framework that captures violations of international core labour standards as well as basic working conditions. The findings indicate that specific issues vary between the two value chains but that supervisor relations is a common concern underscoring many of the issues raised by workers. Drawing on focus group discussions and one-on-one interviews with line supervisors, I develop a theoretical model to explain the relationship between owners, supervisors, and workers’ perceptions of compliance. This dissertation contributes to theoretical debates on the role of foreign management in global value chains, and inserts worker voice directly in to the process of monitoring and evaluating labour standards.
Dissertation