Uptake of breast and cervical cancer screening in four Gulf Cooperation Council countries

In Gulf Cooperation Council States, there is limited information on national levels of mammography and Pap smear screening uptake. The aim of this study is to provide a baseline for national estimates for mammography and Pap smear screening and to explore associations between screening uptake and socioeconomic factors. The nationally representative World Health Survey Plus, implemented in 2008/2009 in Kuwait, Oman, Saudi Arabia and United Arab Emirates (UAE), was used. Uptake of mammography and Pap smear was estimated for each country, followed by the examination of associations between screening and a range of socioeconomic variables. Levels of breast and cervical cancer screening uptake within recommended intervals in all countries were low. The percentages of women aged 40–75 years who had a mammogram were 4.9% in Saudi Arabia, 8.9% in Oman, 13.9% in the UAE and 14.6% in Kuwait. The percentages of women aged 25–49 years who had a Pap smear test were 7.6% in Saudi Arabia, 10.6% in Oman, 17.7% in Kuwait and 28.0% in the UAE. Marital status, wealth, education, nationality and place of residence are associated with screening uptake, with the lower educated, poor and unmarried having the lowest percentages of uptake. The four Gulf Cooperation Council countries need to set clear targets and increase the proportion of women who have regular breast and cervical cancer screening examinations. Health education campaigns and awareness programmes that are fully integrated into the health system are required to ensure women use services that are available to prevent breast and cervical cancers

Arab female and male perceptions of factors facilitating and inhibiting their physical activity: Findings from a qualitative study in the Middle East

Objectives: Physical inactivity is a leading global risk to health by contributing to obesity and other chronic diseases. Many chronic non-communicable diseases, such as cancer, diabetes, and cardiovascular diseases (CVDs), can be prevented and controlled by modifying lifestyle behaviors such as physical activity [PA]. However, prevalence of insufficient physical activity and obesity is high in the Middle East Region. In Qatar, the incidence rates of CVDs, diabetes, colon, and breast cancer have been rising rapidly. The purpose of this study was to explore facilitators and barriers influencing PA of adult Arab men and women living in Qatar and to understand what they think would be helpful to increase PA. The goal of the research is to identify culturally appropriate and effective interventions that improve the health of Arab population. Design: Using the socioecological model as the theoretical framework, we conducted an exploratory qualitative study with 128 Arab adult men and women living in Qatar. We utilized focus group interviews to collect the data and performed thematic analysis to generate themes. Results: At the individual level, perceived benefits of PA, presence of diseases, person’s will, motivation and goals, and time to exercise influenced the individual’s PA. At the sociocultural level, religious teachings of Islam, cultural, attitude, beliefs, and practices, and informal support influenced the participants’ PA. At the organizational and political level, physical environment to exercise, accessibility of facilities, organizational support, and health information about PA influenced their PA. Conclusion: Arab men and women are aware of the importance and benefits of PA. They have the motivation to be physically active, but in the absence of supportive environment, their knowledge might not translate into action. Creating supportive environments at multiple levels that are conducive to PA is warranted

‘Framing the project’ of international human rights law: Reflections on the dysfunctional ‘family’ of the Universal Declaration

Full text embargoed until November 2013.The task of ‘framing the project’ of international human rights law is daunting to say the least. First, there is the sheer enormity and complexity of the international human rights law ‘project’: adequately mapping the subject and its key related issues is impossible in a whole book, let alone a short chapter. Secondly, it is daunting because of the sense of epistemic responsibility involved. Every framing inevitably involves selection – if not pre-selection – through the conscious (and/or unconscious) placing of focus upon features or factors considered to be significant and/or valuable. As Gitlin puts it, framing is a way of choosing, underlining and presenting ‘what exists, what happens and what matters’. In this sense, the founding document (or as Entman might put it, the inaugural ‘communicating text’) of international human rights law (the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, UDHR) functions as a particularly potent form of framing, for it selects aspects of perceived reality, making them not just salient but symbolically central to the entire philosophical, moral, juridical order designated by the term ‘international human rights law’

Arab Women's Breast Cancer Screening Practices: A Literature Review

Breast cancer incidence and mortality rates are increasing in the Arab world and the involved women are often diagnosed at advanced stages of breast cancer. This literature review explores factors influencing Arab women’s breast cancer screening behavior. Searched databases were: Medline, PubMed, Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews, CINAHL Plus, Google Scholar, Index Medicus for WHO Eastern Mediterranean, and Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention. Breast cancer screening participation rates are low. Screening programs are opportunistic and relatively new to the region. Knowledge amongst women and health care providers, professional recommendation, socio-demographic factors, cultural traditions, beliefs, religious, social support, accessibility and perceived effectiveness of screening influence screening behavior

The GIP receptor displays higher basal activity than the GLP-1 receptor but does not recruit GRK2 or arrestin3 effectively.

Background and Objectives: Glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1) and glucose-dependent insulinotropic polypeptide (GIP) are important regulators of insulin secretion, and their functional loss is an early characteristic of type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM). Pharmacological levels of GLP-1, but not GIP, can overcome this loss. GLP-1 and GIP exert their insulinotropic effects through their respective receptors expressed on pancreatic β-cells. Both the GLP-1 receptor (GLP-1R) and the GIP receptor (GIPR) are members of the secretin family of G protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs) and couple positively to adenylate cyclase. We compared the signalling properties of these two receptors to gain further insight into why GLP-1, but not GIP, remains insulinotropic in T2DM patients. Methods: GLP-1R and GIPR were transiently expressed in HEK-293 cells, and basal and ligand-induced cAMP production were investigated using a cAMP-responsive luciferase reporter gene assay. Arrestin3 (Arr3) recruitment to the two receptors was investigated using enzyme fragment complementation, confocal microscopy and fluorescence resonance energy transfer (FRET). Results: GIPR displayed significantly higher (P<0.05) ligand-independent activity than GLP-1R. Arr3 displayed a robust translocation to agonist-stimulated GLP-1R but not to GIPR. These observations were confirmed in FRET experiments, in which GLP-1 stimulated the recruitment of both GPCR kinase 2 (GRK2) and Arr3 to GLP-1R. These interactions were not reversed upon agonist washout. In contrast, GIP did not stimulate recruitment of either GRK2 or Arr3 to its receptor. Interestingly, arrestin remained at the plasma membrane even after prolonged (30 min) stimulation with GLP-1. Although the GLP-1R/arrestin interaction could not be reversed by agonist washout, GLP-1R and arrestin did not co-internalise, suggesting that GLP-1R is a class A receptor with regard to arrestin binding. Conclusions:: GIPR displays higher basal activity than GLP-1R but does not effectively recruit GRK2 or Arr3

Many-Body Currents and the Strange-Quark Content of 4he

Meson-exchange current (MEC) contributions to the parity-violating (PV) asymmetry for elastic scattering of polarized electrons from $^4$He are calculated over a range of momentum transfer using Monte Carlo methods and a variational $^4$He ground state wavefunction. The results indicate that MEC's generate a negligible contribution to the asymmetry at low-|\qv|, where a determination of the nucleon's mean square strangeness radius could be carried out at CEBAF. At larger values of momentum transfer -- beyond the first diffraction minimum -- two-body corrections from the $\rho$-$\pi$ \lq\lq strangeness charge" operator enter the asymmetry at a potentially observable level, even in the limit of vanishing strange-quark matrix elements of the nucleon. For purposes of constraining the nucleon's strangeness electric form factor, theoretical uncertainties associated with these MEC contributions do not appear to impose serious limitations.Comment: 32 TEX pages and 7 figures (not included, available from authors upon request), CEBAF Preprint #TH-94-1

High Cleavage Efficiency of a 2A Peptide Derived from Porcine Teschovirus-1 in Human Cell Lines, Zebrafish and Mice

When expression of more than one gene is required in cells, bicistronic or multicistronic expression vectors have been used. Among various strategies employed to construct bicistronic or multicistronic vectors, an internal ribosomal entry site (IRES) has been widely used. Due to the large size and difference in expression levels between genes before and after IRES, however, a new strategy was required to replace IRES. A self-cleaving 2A peptide could be a good candidate to replace IRES because of its small size and high cleavage efficiency between genes upstream and downstream of the 2A peptide. Despite the advantages of the 2A peptides, its use is not widespread because (i) there are no publicly available cloning vectors harboring a 2A peptide gene and (ii) comprehensive comparison of cleavage efficiency among various 2A peptides reported to date has not been performed in different contexts. Here, we generated four expression plasmids each harboring different 2A peptides derived from the foot-and-mouth disease virus, equine rhinitis A virus, Thosea asigna virus and porcine teschovirus-1, respectively, and evaluated their cleavage efficiency in three commonly used human cell lines, zebrafish embryos and adult mice. Western blotting and confocal microscopic analyses revealed that among the four 2As, the one derived from porcine teschovirus-1 (P2A) has the highest cleavage efficiency in all the contexts examined. We anticipate that the 2A-harboring cloning vectors we generated and the highest efficiency of the P2A peptide we demonstrated would help biomedical researchers easily adopt the 2A technology when bicistronic or multicistronic expression is required