Are bisphosphonates effective and safe in patients with low serum vitamin D levels?

Caring for the Bone Health Among Liver Transplant Recipients

Liver transplant outcomes have improved over the years, and currently, the quality of life and long-term well-being of these patients needs to be improved. Improving bone health goes a long way toward achieving this objective. Poor bone health (osteopenia and osteoporosis) although prevalent, is often overlooked owing to its asymptomatic nature. It can be complicated by debilitating fracture affecting quality of life. It is recommended to assess and optimize bone health prior to liver transplant. Multiple factors contribute to poor bone health in a liver transplant recipient and it is vital to understand and ameliorate these. A careful and targeted approach with inputs from multidisciplinary team involving transplant physician, endocrinologist, occupational therapist, nutritionist, and nursing personnel may often be required. In this review, we aim to concisely discuss the various aspects related to prevalence, pathophysiology, evaluation, treatment, and follow-up of bone disease among liver transplant recipients.

Steroid phosphate esters and phosphonosteroids and their biological activities

Steroid phosphate esters are very rare natural lipids that have been comparatively recently isolated from fractions of polar lipids of marine sponges and starfish. These steroids exhibit interesting biological activities. When using the PASS computer program, we showed that many of steroid phosphate esters showed antifungal, antihypercholesterolemic, anesthetic, and other activities with a confidence of 73 to 93%. In addition, some of them can be used as inhibitors of cholesterol synthesis and show hepatoprotection properties. Phosphonosteroids demonstrate antineoplastic and antihypercholesterolemic activities with a certainty of 85 to 90%. And also, they can be used as ovulation inhibitors or female steroid contraceptives with confidence from 86 to 98%.