Hannah Spahits master’s thesis, “The influence of weight loss interventions on circulating sex steroid concentrations in women: a systematic review and meta-analysis”, was written in cooperation with the German Cancer Research Center (DKFZ) in Heidelberg. The thesis is part of a larger ongoing project that aims to identify the underlying mechanisms that link overweight and obesity to breast (postmenopausal), endometrial and ovarian cancer in women. In this thesis in particular, it was investigated if weight loss achieved by different intervention types influences the circulating sex steroid concentrations in women. In this regard, the published literature on that topic was systematically reviewed and those results meta-analyzed.
Vanessa Schoissengeier’s master’s thesis, entitled "Status of unconjugated bilirubin in the MARK-AGE study group" aimed to investigate potential differences in demographic features and various biomarkers between subjects with elevated UCB concentrations and those with lower UCB concentrations. Therefore, serum samples of the MARK-AGE study group were analysed for the concentration of unconjugated bilirubin (UCB) by using high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC). Subjects with elevated UCB concentrations had significantly lower BMI, heart rate, HbA1c, insulin, cysteine, ascorbic acid and triglycerides and significantly higher hand power, creatinine, glutathione. The results of this thesis confirmed some of the findings of previous studies regarding the health-promoting effects of elevated UCB levels.
Tamara Stelzer’s master’s thesis was entitled "The impact of vitamin D and physical activity on the expression of selected age-related genes in different organs of young and old Wistar rats" and was a part of the EU-funded NUTRIAGING project. The aim was to find out if vitamin D daily or monthly, together with or without physical activity had an impact on gene expression in older age. Therefore, old, and young animals were fed with additional vitamin D either monthly or daily. Animals were born and raised at the Comenius University in Bratislava. Gene expression analyses was done via qPCR in liver, kidney and muscle samples. The expression of genes encoding for antioxidative enzymes was higher in old animals that received vitamin D monthly and did additional exercise.
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