376 research outputs found
Effect of curcumin nanomicelle on the clinical symptoms of patients with rheumatoid arthritis: A randomized, double-blind, controlled trial
Aim: Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is a systemic inflammatory disease. In recent years, new drugs
with novel targets have been developed to increase the efficacy of drugs in the treatment of RA.
Curcumin has shown potent antiâinflammatory effects and is considered an antiâtumor necrosis
factor. The present study was conducted to determine the effect of curcumin nanomicelle on the
clinical symptoms of patients with RA.
Methods: This randomized, doubleâblind, controlled trial selected 65 eligible RA patients and
randomly divided them into a curcumin nanomicelle group (n = 30) and a placebo group (n = 35).
Curcumin nanomicelle (40 mg) and placebo capsules were administrated to the RA patients 3 times
a day for 12 weeks. The Disease Activity Score of 28 joints (DASâ28) and erythrocyte
sedimentation rate (ESR) were measured at baseline and after 12 weeks.
Results: The DASâ28, tender joint count (TJC) and swollen joint count (SJC) at baseline and the
end of the study were not significant between the curcumin nanomicelle and placebo groups. After
the intervention, the withinâgroup DASâ28, TJC and SJC in the curcumin nanomicelle and placebo
groups reduced significantly compared to the baseline. The difference in changes between the two
groups was not significant. Nonetheless, this change was greater in the case group than in the
placebo group. No significant changes were observed in terms of ESR between the two groups of
RA patients.
Conclusion: Adding curcumin nanomicelle to the RA patientsâ medication led to some positive
changes in the DASâ28, IJC and SJC, although not significantly.
K E YWORDS
curcumin nanomicelle, disease activity score, rheumatoid arthritis, swollen, tende
Unexpected Consequences: Womenâs experiences of a self-hypnosis intervention to help with pain relief during labour.
Background
Self-hypnosis is becoming increasingly popular as a means of labour pain management. Previous studies have produced mixed results. There are very few data on womenâs views and experiences of using hypnosis in this context. As part of a randomized controlled trial of self-hypnosis for intra-partum pain relief (the SHIP Trial) we conducted qualitative interviews with women randomized to the intervention arm to explore their views and experiences of using self-hypnosis during labour and birth.
Methods
Participants were randomly selected from the intervention arm of the study, which consisted of two antenatal self-hypnosis training sessions and a supporting CD that women were encouraged to listen to daily from 32 weeks gestation until the birth of their baby. Those who consented were interviewed in their own homes 8-12 weeks after birth. Following transcription, the interviews were analysed iteratively and emerging concepts were discussed amongst the authors to generate organizing themes. These were then used to develop a principal organizing metaphor or global theme, in a process known as thematic networks analysis.
Results
Of the 343 women in the intervention group, 48 were invited to interview, and 16 were interviewed over a 12 month period from February 2012 to January 2013.
Coding of the data and subsequent analysis revealed a global theme of âunexpected consequencesâ, supported by 5 organising themes, âcalmness in a climate of fearâ, âfrom sceptic to believerâ, âfinding my spaceâ, âdelays and disappointmentsâ and âpersonal preferencesâ. Most respondents reported positive experiences of self-hypnosis and highlighted feelings of calmness, confidence and empowerment. They found the intervention to be beneficial and used a range of novel strategies to personalize their self-hypnosis practice. Occasionally women reported feeling frustrated or disappointed when their relaxed state was misinterpreted by midwives on admission or when their labour and birth experiences did not match their expectations.
Conclusion
The women in this study generally appreciated antenatal self-hypnosis training and found it to be beneficial during labour and birth. The state of focused relaxation experienced by women using the technique needs to be recognized by providers if the intervention is to be implemented into the maternity service
Associations between cardiorespiratory fitness, physical activity and clustered cardiometabolic risk in children and adolescents: the HAPPY study
Clustering of cardiometabolic risk factors can occur during childhood and predisposes individuals to cardiometabolic disease. This study calculated clustered cardiometabolic risk in 100 children and adolescents aged 10-14 years (59 girls) and explored differences according to cardiorespiratory fitness (CRF) levels and time spent at different physical activity (PA) intensities. CRF was determined using a maximal cycle ergometer test, and PA was assessed using accelerometry. A cardiometabolic risk score was computed as the sum of the standardised scores for waist circumference, blood pressure, total cholesterol/high-density lipoprotein ratio, triglycerides and glucose. Differences in clustered cardiometabolic risk between fit and unfit participants, according to previously proposed health-related threshold values, and between tertiles for PA subcomponents were assessed using ANCOVA. Clustered risk was significantly lower (pâ<â0.001) in the fit group (mean 1.21â±â3.42) compared to the unfit group (mean -0.74â±â2.22), while no differences existed between tertiles for any subcomponent of PA. Conclusion These findings suggest that CRF may have an important cardioprotective role in children and adolescents and highlights the importance of promoting CRF in youth
Social, environmental and psychological factors associated with objective physical activity levels in the over 65s
Objective: To assess physical activity levels objectively using accelerometers in community dwelling over 65 s and to examine associations with health, social, environmental and psychological factors. Design: Cross sectional survey. Setting: 17 general practices in Scotland, United Kingdom. Participants: Random sampling of over 65 s registered with the practices in four strata young-old (65â80 years), old-old (over 80 years), more affluent and less affluent groups. Main Outcome Measures: Accelerometry counts of activity per day. Associations between activity and Theory of Planned Behaviour variables, the physical environment, health, wellbeing and demographic variables were examined with multiple regression analysis and multilevel modelling. Results: 547 older people (mean (SD) age 79(8) years, 54% female) were analysed representing 94% of those surveyed. Accelerometry counts were highest in the affluent younger group, followed by the deprived younger group, with lowest levels in the deprived over 80 s group. Multiple regression analysis showed that lower age, higher perceived behavioural control, the physical function subscale of SF-36, and having someone nearby to turn to were all independently associated with higher physical activity levels (R2 = 0.32). In addition, hours of sunshine were independently significantly associated with greater physical activity in a multilevel model. Conclusions: Other than age and hours of sunlight, the variables identified are modifiable, and provide a strong basis for the future development of novel multidimensional interventions aimed at increasing activity participation in later life.Publisher PDFPeer reviewe
Feature extraction and selection for Arabic tweets authorship authentication
© 2017, Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg. In tweet authentication, we are concerned with correctly attributing a tweet to its true author based on its textual content. The more general problem of authenticating long documents has been studied before and the most common approach relies on the intuitive idea that each author has a unique style that can be captured using stylometric features (SF). Inspired by the success of modern automatic document classification problem, some researchers followed the Bag-Of-Words (BOW) approach for authenticating long documents. In this work, we consider both approaches and their application on authenticating tweets, which represent additional challenges due to the limitation in their sizes. We focus on the Arabic language due to its importance and the scarcity of works related on it. We create different sets of features from both approaches and compare the performance of different classifiers using them. We experiment with various feature selection techniques in order to extract the most discriminating features. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study of its kind to combine these different sets of features for authorship analysis of Arabic tweets. The results show that combining all the feature sets we compute yields the best results
Hepatocellular carcinoma in Pakistan: where do we stand?
Context:
From the 1970s till the mid 1990s, hepatitis B was the most common etiological factor for hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) in Pakistan. Afterwards, a shift in HCC etiology was observed with a steady rise in hepatitis C virus (HCV) related HCC cases. HCV-3a, which is the most prevalent genotype, is also most frequent in HCV related HCC. There was an increase in the proportion of non-B non-C (NBNC) HCC cases as well, which might be attributed to an increase in non-alcoholic fatty liver disease.
Evidence Acquisition:
The age-standardized rate for HCC is 7.64/100 000 in males and 2.8/100 000 in females. Male to female ratio is 3.6:1. Usual age of presentation is in the fifth and sixth decade. Most patients present with advanced disease, as they are not in a regular surveillance program. This is more so for patients with NBNC chronic liver disease. As many sonologists in Pakistan are practicing without sufficient training to pick up early lesions, alpha-fetoprotein is still recommended to compliment ultrasound in the surveillance of HCC.
Results:
Majority of HCC patients present with nonresectable disease. Interventions such as transarterial chemoembolization, radiofrequency ablation, resection and chemotherapy including sorafenib are available in selected centers. Pakistan appears to be in an area of intermediate endemicity for HCC. There is a need for population based epidemiological studies to estimate the exact disease burden.
Conclusions:
Measures to prevent the spread of hepatitis C and B can slow down the epidemic rise in the incidence of HCC in the coming decades. There is a need to implement a proper surveillance program to identify HCC cases at an early stage
Effect of pentoxifylline on preventing acute kidney injury after cardiac surgery by measuring urinary neutrophil gelatinase - associated lipocalin
Structural Similarity and Classification of Protein Interaction Interfaces
Interactions between proteins play a key role in many cellular processes.
Studying protein-protein interactions that share similar interaction interfaces
may shed light on their evolution and could be helpful in elucidating the
mechanisms behind stability and dynamics of the protein complexes. When two
complexes share structurally similar subunits, the similarity of the interaction
interfaces can be found through a structural superposition of the subunits.
However, an accurate detection of similarity between the protein complexes
containing subunits of unrelated structure remains an open problem
Adipokines and the insulin resistance syndrome in familial partial lipodystrophy caused by a mutation in lamin A/C
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