Impact of diabetes continuing education on health care professionals’ attitudes towards diabetes care in a Yemeni city

Purpose: To evaluate the impact of a continuing education (CE) program on the attitudes of health care professionals (HCPs) towards diabetes care in Yemen.Methods: A pre- and post-intervention study was carried out in Mukalla City, Hadramout, Yemen and was offered to all physicians, pharmacists, and nurses registered in the Health Office in the Mukalla City. The HCPs were invited to attend a CE program. All participants filled out a questionnaire before the intervention (pre-test) that measured the attitudes of the participants towards diabetes. An interventional program was given in the form of a seminar, and participants were requested to complete the same questionnaire after the seminar.Results: A total of 73 HCPs attended the CE, including 19 pharmacists (26 %), 37 physicians (50.7 %), and 17 (23.3 %) nurses. The pre- and post-intervention changes in the questionnaire responses were significant only for attitude toward the values of blood glucose levels (p = 0.009) and attitude toward autonomy of diabetes patients (p = 0.023).Conclusion: HCPs in Mukalla City have positive attitudes toward diabetes. Physicians were more aware of the sequelae of diabetes than other healthcare professional groups with nurses showing the least understanding. Therefore, more emphasis should be placed upon designing education programs for diabetes specifically tailored for nurses and pharmacists.Keywords: Diabetes, Continuing education, Attitude, Health care professional

Presence of Acinetobacter species among the predominant bacteria found in a contaminated metal-working fluid

The distribution of Acinetobacter species among the bacteria isolated from an unusually heavily contaminated petroleum-based water-soluble metal-working fluid used in a large North American automotive machining operation was investigated. It had been found previously1 that, in laboratory cultures with metal-working fluids as the sole carbon source, these species grew more rapidly and to much higher densities than any other types of bacteria isolated from this system. Thus, it was expected that they would dominate the population and would be difficult to control. It is shown here that, contrary to expectation, over a one-year period Acinetobacter species usually accounted for only a few percent of the total population. Factory fluids did not contain substances that selectively inhibited the growth of these species. In mixed-cultures grown in the laboratory with metal-working fluid as the carbon source, Acinetobacter species accounted for less than 1% in the initial inocolum, nearly 70% during the mid-exponential-phase, and only a few percent in the stationary-phase. These experiments suggest, as a working hypothesis, that the Acinetobacter species `govern' the contamination in the sense that they first colonize the fluid and their presence is necessary to maintain the other strains.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/26622/1/0000163.pd

Knockdown of Cytosolic Glutaredoxin 1 Leads to Loss of Mitochondrial Membrane Potential: Implication in Neurodegenerative Diseases

Mitochondrial dysfunction including that caused by oxidative stress has been implicated in the pathogenesis of neurodegenerative diseases. Glutaredoxin 1 (Grx1), a cytosolic thiol disulfide oxido-reductase, reduces glutathionylated proteins to protein thiols and helps maintain redox status of proteins during oxidative stress. Grx1 downregulation aggravates mitochondrial dysfunction in animal models of neurodegenerative diseases, such as Parkinson's and motor neuron disease. We examined the mechanism underlying the regulation of mitochondrial function by Grx1. Downregulation of Grx1 by shRNA results in loss of mitochondrial membrane potential (MMP), which is prevented by the thiol antioxidant, α-lipoic acid, or by cyclosporine A, an inhibitor of mitochondrial permeability transition. The thiol groups of voltage dependent anion channel (VDAC), an outer membrane protein in mitochondria but not adenosine nucleotide translocase (ANT), an inner membrane protein, are oxidized when Grx1 is downregulated. We then examined the effect of β-N-oxalyl amino-L-alanine (L-BOAA), an excitatory amino acid implicated in neurolathyrism (a type of motor neuron disease), that causes mitochondrial dysfunction. Exposure of cells to L-BOAA resulted in loss of MMP, which was prevented by overexpression of Grx1. Grx1 expression is regulated by estrogen in the CNS and treatment of SH-SY5Y cells with estrogen upregulated Grx1 and protected from L-BOAA mediated MMP loss. Our studies demonstrate that Grx1, a cytosolic oxido-reductase, helps maintain mitochondrial integrity and prevents MMP loss caused by oxidative insult. Further, downregulation of Grx1 leads to mitochondrial dysfunction through oxidative modification of the outer membrane protein, VDAC, providing support for the critical role of Grx1 in maintenance of MMP

Multi-Patterned Dynamics of Mitochondrial Fission and Fusion in a Living Cell

Mitochondria are highly-dynamic organelles, but it is challenging to monitor quantitatively their dynamics in a living cell. Here we developed a novel approach to determine the global occurrence of mitochondrial fission and fusion events in living human epithelial cells (Hela) and mouse embryonic fibroblast cells (MEF). Distinct patterns of sequential events including fusion followed by fission (Fu-Fi), the so-called “kiss and run” model previously described, fission followed by fusion (Fi-Fu), fusion followed by fusion (Fu-Fu), and fission followed by fission (Fi-Fi) were observed concurrently. The paired events appeared in high frequencies with short lifetimes and large sizes of individual mitochondria, as compared to those for unpaired events. The high frequencies of paired events were found to be biologically significant. The presence of membrane uncoupler CCCP enhanced the frequency of paired events (from both Fu-Fi and Fi-Fu patterns) with a reduced mitochondrial size. Knock-out of mitofusin protein Mfn1 increased the frequency of fission with increased lifetime of unpaired events whereas deletion of both Mfn1 and Mfn2 resulted in an instable dynamics. These results indicated that the paired events were dominant but unpaired events were not negligible, which provided a new insight into mitochondrial dynamics. In addition to kiss and run model of action, our data suggest that, from a global visualization over an entire cell, multiple patterns of action appeared in mitochondrial fusion and fission

Motion of mitochondria in cultured cells quantified by analysis of digitized images.

Translational movements of mitochondria in cultured rat liver cells were characterized quantitatively by using a video camera to detect and a video digitizer-computer system to analyze fluorescent images of mitochondria stained with rhodamine 123. The centroids of the images of individual mitochondria were determined at selected time intervals and the paths followed by the mitochondria were defined by the paths of the centroids. The predominant translation motion of the mitochondria satisfied the formal conditions of a Brownian random walk for a free particle, although in several cases there was a slow drift superimposed on the random motion. The apparent diffusion coefficients were approximately 5 X 10(-12) cm2 s-1, and the drift speeds approximately 2 X 10(-3) micron s-1