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Biomedical subjects

F Phillips

Publications and source records attributed to F Phillips.

10 recordsLinked to original sources

[Acute abdomen caused by inflammation of a Meckel's diverticulum containing a stone].

Meckel's diverticula have a prevalence of approx. 2% in the population. About 90% of them are clinically inapparent. Usual complications are a perforation of ectopic gastric mucosa (possibly with intestinal bleeding), an invagination and a volvulus. Etiology is normally revealed only by surgical exploration. Calculi are rarely found in Meckel's diverticula, males being afflicted much more often than females. The enterolith consists of calcified residues of food. Unexplained abdominal symptoms with an ileus situation should also be considered a Meckel's diverticulum containing enteroliths. This is especially so, if there are unidentified calcifications visible on the abdominal X-ray.

Abdomen, Acute

[The supinator fat line--its visualization and validity].

Based on 259 lateral x-ray films of the elbows of healthy subjects, the typical forms of the fat plane overlying the supinator muscle were determined. The forms of this plane in 121 patients who had suffered bony lesions in the elbow joint region were juxtaposed to these x-ray images. Measurements of the proximal distance between the fat plane and the extended tangent of the anterior humeral cortex layer revealed that distances of more than 13 mm in children and of more than 18 mm in adults are highly suspicious of a fracture. The good visualisation of the fat plane by means of various imaging methods is appropriately demonstrated.

Adipose Tissue

A simplified procedure for the quantitative extraction of lipids from brain tissue.

A method is described for the quantitative extraction of lipid from brain tissue with chloroform/methanol (C/M) that eliminates secondary purification of the lipid extract by dextran-gel chromatography or aqueous washing of the organic extract. Nonlipid substances that generally contaminate C/M lipid extracts are separated by pre-extraction of the tissue with dilute (0.25%) aqueous acetic acid. The residual tissue is extracted twice with 40 volumes of C/M (1:1, v/v). Approximately 97% of the lipid is recovered in these extractions. A third extraction which yields ca. 1% more lipid is performed if the process is discontinued at this stage in a shortened version of the method. The remainder of the lipid is recovered after treatment of the tissue with 1 N HC1 by two additional extractions, the first with 40 volumes of C/M (1:2, v/v) and the second with 40 volumes of methanol. The method, which was demonstrated with pig brain, gave a complete extraction of the lipid, including gangliosides, free of nonlipid substances.

Animals

Inter- versus intra-hemispheric learning in dyslexic and normal readers.

The present study investigated the hypothesis that developmental dyslexia is attributable to dysfunction in inter-hemispheric transfer. Dyslexic and normal readers in second grade (age-range seven to eight years) and sixth grade (11 to 12 years) were given tachistoscopic presentations of novel visual stimuli (Chinese ideographs), randomly presented to the left and right visual fields and to the central fixation point. Each stimulus was paired with a common English word (spoken) and the children were asked to associate the two. The transmission deficit hypothesis predicts that poor and normal readers will be differentiated in the case of presentations to the right hemisphere (left visual field) but will not differ significantly in the case of presentations to the left hemisphere (right visual field). This hypothesis was not supported. Normal readers at both grade levels performed significantly better than poor readers in both visual-field presentations.

Age Factors

Studies of effects of trans fatty acids in the diet on lipid metabolism in essential fatty acid deficient rats.

Effects of diets containing mixtures of safflower oil, hydrogenated coconut oil with elaidate of linolelaidate on growth, fatty acid composition, serum lecithin: cholesterol acyl transferase (LCAT) and postheparin plasma lipoprotein lipase activities in essential fatty acid (EFA) deficient rats were determined. Addition of trans fatty acids to the diet lowered the growth response to linoleic acid. Both elaidate and linolelaidate accumulated in the serum and liver, imparied the conversion of oleic acid to eicosatrienoic acid and linoleic acid to arachidonic acid, and the incorporation of eicosatrienoic acid into cholesteryl esters. Trans fatty acids also influenced the fatty acid composition of testicular lipids, but much lower amounts of these acids accumlated in tests than in liver or serum. Serum lecithin:cholesterol acyl transferase activity was elevated by an EFA deficiency, was unaffected by dietary elaidate, but was significantly decreased by linolelaidate. These effects were nullified by the addition of safflower oil to the diet. Postheparin plasma extrahepatic and hepatic lipase activities were also affected by an EFA deficiency, and by the addition of elaidate or linolelaidate alone or in combination with safflower oil to the diets of EFA deficient rats. It is suggested that trans fatty acids exhibit particular effects on the metabolism of lipids in addition to aggravation of an EFA deficiency.

Animals

Effects of dietary saturated and trans fatty acids on cholesteryl ester synthesis and hydrolysis in the testes of rats.

Studies were made of the enzymic synthesis and hydrolysis of cholesteryl esters in rat testes. Weanling rats were fed for 14 weeks diets containing 5% by wt of hydrogenated coconut oil (HCO), a concentrate of ethyl elaidate and linolelaidate (TRANS), devoid of essential fatty acids (EFA), or safflower oil (SAFF). Cholesterol esterifying activity was localized in the soluble fraction, and cholesteryl ester hydrolase activity was distributed in both particulate and soluble fractions obtained from tissue homogenates. The optimum pH was 6.0 for esterification and 6.9-7.0 for hydrolysis. Neither esterifying nor hydrolytic activity was affected by freezing and thawing, but both reactions were inhibited by heat or sonication. The animals of both the HCO and TRANS groups had developed an EFA deficiency before they were sacrificed. The EFA deficiency produced upon feeding the HCO diet had no apparent effect on the synthesis and hydrolysis of cholesteryl esters in rat testes. The TRANS diet influenced the development of the testes as judged by their size, and cholesterol esterifying and cholesteryl ester hydrolyzing activities were suppressed in the testes of the animals of this group. A major difference in the effects of the HCO and TRANS diets on the lipids of the tests was the relatively minor amount of eicosatrienoic acid (20:3) and the elevated level of docosapentaenoic acid (22:5) in the cholesteryl esters of the testicular lipids of the TRANS group.

Animals

Isocaloric diet changes and electroencephalographic sleep.

Electroencephalographic (E.E.G.) sleep changes were studied in eight young healthy male subjects who were given a normal balanced diet or a high-carbohydrate/low-fat or low-carbohydrate/high-fat isocaloric diet, according to an experimental design. Significantly less slow-wave sleep (S.W.S.) was found after consuming a high-carbohydrate/low-fat diet than after consuming a normal balanced diet or a low-carbohydrate/high-fat diet. The latter two diets did not differ in terms of the amounts of S.W.S. Both high-carbohydrate/low-fat and low-carbohydrate/high-fat isocaloric diets, especially the former, were associated with significantly more rapid-eye-movement (R.E.M.) sleep than was the normal balanced diet. These findings emphasise the importance of daily diet for the following night's sleep.

Diet

Differential transfer in poor and normal readers.

It has been suggested that children who sustain specific reading disability experience difficulty in abstracting and generalizing the invariant components of words containing redundant elements because of basic dysfunction in categorical processing. This hypothesis was assessed by comparing independent samples of poor and normal readers on transfer of training tasks of two different types: a visual-verbal association task which simulated the reading process, and a visual-visual association task unlike reading. It was predicted that poor readers would perform significantly below normal readers on both initial learning and transfer under the visual-verbal association conditions. In contrast, it was expected that the performance of similar groups of poor and normal readers would be comparable under the visual-visual training and transfer conditions. The results supported these predictions, and it was concluded that the generalization problems observed in poor readers in early word learning are, most likely, attributable to transfer difficulties associated with specific disorder in visual-verbal integration, rather than primary or basic disorder in categorization ability.

Achievement