Reviews on whole body human cold adaptation generally do not distinguish between population studies and dedicated acclimation studies, leading to confusing results. Population studies show that indigenous black Africans have reduced shivering thermogenesis in the cold and poor cold induced vasodilation …

Green tea, particularly epigallocatechin-3-gallate (EGCG), may affect body weight and composition, possibly by enhancing fat oxidation. The aim of this double-blind, randomized placebo-controlled cross-over study was to investigate whether 3-day supplementation with EGCG (282 mg/day) stimulates fat oxidation …

In the life of flowering plants, seed germination is a critical step to ensure survival into the next generation. Generally the seed prior to germination has been in a dormant state with a low rate of metabolism. In the transition from a dormant seed to a germinating seed, various epigenetic mechanisms …

In this cross-sectional study, we primarily aimed to assess prevalence of malnutrition by the Patient Generated Subjective Global Assessment (PGSGA), and muscle strength in haemodialysis patients. Second, we explored to which extent these patients are able to complete the patient component of the PG-SGA, …

Rationale: The Patient-Generated Subjective Global Assessment (PG-SGA) is a validated instrument to assess and monitor malnutrition, which consists of both patient-reported and professional-reported items. A professional should be able to correctly interpret all items. Untrained professionals may experience …

Rationale: The Patient-Generated Subjective Global Assessment (PG-SGA) is a validated instrument to assess malnutrition and its risk factors in clinical populations. Its patient component, PG-SGA Short Form (SF), can be used as screening instrument. In this cross-sectional study we aimed to assess agreement …

Rationale: Inadequate operationalisation of the multidimensial concept of malnutrition may result in inadequate evaluation of nutritional status. In this review we aimed to assess content validity of methods used to assess malnutrition in cancer patients, according to domains directly derived from European …

Probiotic bacteria harbor effector molecules that confer health benefits, but also adaptation factors that enable them to persist in the gastrointestinal tract of the consumer. To study these adaptation factors, an antibiotic-resistant derivative of the probiotic model organism Lactobacillus plantarum …

Synthetic glucocorticoids are potent anti-inflammatory drugs but show dose-dependent metabolic side effects such as the development of insulin resistance and obesity. The precise mechanisms involved in these glucocorticoid-induced side effects, and especially the participation of adipose tissue in this …

BACKGROUND: T lymphocytes are orchestrators of adaptive immunity. Naïve T cells may differentiate into Th1, Th2, Th17 or iTreg phenotypes, depending on environmental co-stimulatory signals. To identify genes and pathways involved in differentiation of Jurkat T cells towards Th1 and Th2 subtypes we performed …