Compositions including an odd chain fatty acid, and salts and derivatives thereof, and methods for metabolic syndrome treatment and prophylaxis are provided, including compositions and methods for treating diabetes, obesity, hyperferritinemia, elevated insulin, glucose intolerance, dyslipidemia and related conditions. Methods for the diagnosis and monitoring of metabolic syndrome are also provided.

Provided is a novel method and the like for diagnosing a lifestyle disease. The method for diagnosing a lifestyle disease provided by the present invention includes: collecting a biological sample from a subject; measuring the concentration of a fatty acid amide contained in the biological sample; determining whether the subject suffers from a lifestyle disease or a lifestyle disease has progressed when the measured value of the concentration of the fatty acid amide in the sample obtained from the subject is lower than a measurement result obtained from a healthy subject.

The disclosure generally relates generally to lipid nanodiscs, in particular to lipid nanodiscs formed from acryloyl-based copolymers. A lipid nanodisc according to the disclosure includes a lipid bilayer having a first hydrophilic face and a second hydrophilic face opposing the first hydrophilic face, and a hydrophobic edge between the opposing hydrophilic faces, and an acryloyl-based copolymer encircling the hydrophobic edge of the lipid bilayer. The acryloyl-based copolymer includes a first monomer unit having a pendant hydrophobic group and a second monomer unit having a pendant hydrophilic group. Methods of making and characterizing the lipid nanodiscs are also disclosed.

An apparatus is disclosed comprising a first device for generating aerosol, smoke or vapour from one or more regions of a target, an inlet conduit to an ion analyser or mass spectrometer, the inlet conduit having an inlet through which the aerosol, smoke or vapour passes, and a Venturi pump arrangement arranged and adapted to direct the aerosol, smoke or vapour towards the inlet.

The use of SAA/MAA levels in mammalian fluids to develop management strategies that maximize mammalian health, productivity, and economic return including for example the formulation of cost effective nutritional management strategies, determining whether an individual mammal should be retained in a herd or culled, determining the value of the individual mammal as a contributor of genetic material for herd replacement, determining a course of immediate and/or prophylactic health care intervention, etc.

The present invention relates to a strip for measuring blood lipids. The strip for measuring blood lipids, of the present invention, presses, with an optimal pressure or to an optimal height, a contact surface of a protruding part of a measurement layer disposed between an upper cover and a lower substrate, so as to improve the uniform diffusion of a biological sample, thereby having an effect of increasing measurement result accuracy of the biological sample.

Provided herein are methods of using 7a-hydroxy-4-cholsten-3-one (C4) in predicting the clinical sensitivity to treatment of bile acid-related and associated disorders with treatment peptides, such as variants of fibroblast growth factor 19 (FGF19) proteins and peptide sequences (and peptidomimetics) and fusions of FGF19 and/or fibroblast growth factor 21 (FGF21) proteins and peptide sequences (and peptidomimetics), and variants of fusions of FGF19 and/or FGF21 proteins and peptide sequences (and peptidomimetics).

Provided is a method of measuring a lipoprotein's capacity to accept cholesterol including the steps of bringing a lipoprotein in a sample into contact with labeled cholesterol to incorporate the labeled cholesterol into the lipoprotein, bringing the lipoprotein having the labeled cholesterol into contact with an antibody that binds to a lipoprotein to form a complex of the lipoprotein and the antibody, and measuring the label incorporated into the complex.

A method is disclosed to capture and purify extracellular vesicles from biofluids via lipid affinity-based capture. The EVTRAP (Extracellular Vesicles Total Recovery And Purification) method enables capture of EVs onto modified beads. The EVTRAP method results in fast and reproducible capture and isolation of EVs with greater than 90% recovery yields.

The present disclosure relates to devices having enhanced stability and durability, methods of making the same, and uses thereof. Devices of the disclosure are useful in technologies that depend on a lipid bilayer for success. In some aspects, the disclosure provides a device comprising a lipid bilayer that is linked to at least two layers of interconnected polymer filaments, wherein the lipid bilayer is attached to a substrate.