Role of cellular senescence and NOX4-mediated oxidative stress in systemic sclerosis pathogenesis.

Systemic sclerosis (SSc) is a systemic autoimmune disease characterized by progressive fibrosis of skin and numerous internal organs and a severe fibroproliferative vasculopathy resulting frequently in severe disability and high mortality. Although the etiology of SSc is unknown and the detailed mechanisms responsible for the fibrotic process have not been fully elucidated, one important observation from a large US population study was the demonstration of a late onset of SSc with a peak incidence between 45 and 54 years of age in African-American females and between 65 and 74 years of age in white females. Although it is not appropriate to consider SSc as a disease of aging, the possibility that senescence changes in the cellular elements involved in its pathogenesis may play a role has not been thoroughly examined. The process of cellular senescence is extremely complex, and the mechanisms, molecular events, and signaling pathways involved have not been fully elucidated; however, there is strong evidence to support the concept that oxidative stress caused by the excessive generation of reactive oxygen species may be one important mechanism involved. On the other hand, numerous studies have implicated oxidative stress in SSc pathogenesis, thus, suggesting a plausible mechanism in which excessive oxidative stress induces cellular senescence and that the molecular events associated with this complex process play an important role in the fibrotic and fibroproliferative vasculopathy characteristic of SSc. Here, recent studies examining the role of cellular senescence and of oxidative stress in SSc pathogenesis will be reviewed

Energy Sprawl or Energy Efficiency: Climate Policy Impacts on Natural Habitat for the United States of America

Concern over climate change has led the U.S. to consider a cap-and-trade system to regulate emissions. Here we illustrate the land-use impact to U.S. habitat types of new energy development resulting from different U.S. energy policies. We estimated the total new land area needed by 2030 to produce energy, under current law and under various cap-and-trade policies, and then partitioned the area impacted among habitat types with geospatial data on the feasibility of production. The land-use intensity of different energy production techniques varies over three orders of magnitude, from 1.9–2.8 km2/TW hr/yr for nuclear power to 788–1000 km2/TW hr/yr for biodiesel from soy. In all scenarios, temperate deciduous forests and temperate grasslands will be most impacted by future energy development, although the magnitude of impact by wind, biomass, and coal to different habitat types is policy-specific. Regardless of the existence or structure of a cap-and-trade bill, at least 206,000 km2 will be impacted without substantial increases in energy efficiency, which saves at least 7.6 km2 per TW hr of electricity conserved annually and 27.5 km2 per TW hr of liquid fuels conserved annually. Climate policy that reduces carbon dioxide emissions may increase the areal impact of energy, although the magnitude of this potential side effect may be substantially mitigated by increases in energy efficiency. The possibility of widespread energy sprawl increases the need for energy conservation, appropriate siting, sustainable production practices, and compensatory mitigation offsets

Developmental differences in children’s interpersonal emotion regulation

Previous research on interpersonal emotion regulation (ER) in childhood has been rather unsystematic, focusing mainly on children’s prosocial behaviour, and has been conducted in the absence of an integrative emotion theoretical framework. The present research relied on the interpersonal affect classification proposed by Niven, Totterdell, and Holman (2009) to investigate children’s use of different interpersonal ER strategies. The study drew on two samples: 180 parents of children aged between 3 and 8 years reported about a situation where their child was able to change what another person was feeling in order to make them feel better. In addition, 126 children between 3- and 8-years old answered two questions about how they could improve others’ mood. Results from both samples showed age differences in children’s use of interpersonal ER strategies. As expected, ‘affective engagement’ (i.e., focusing on the person or the problem) and ‘cognitive engagement’ (i.e., appraising the situation from a different perspective) were mainly used by 7-8 years-old, whereas ‘attention’ (i.e., distracting and valuing) was most used by 3-4 and 5-6 years-old. ‘Humor’ (i.e., laughing with the target) remained stable across the different age groups. The present research provides more information about the developmental patterns for each specific interpersonal emotion regulation strategy

Cigarette smoking and risk of gestational diabetes: a systematic review of observational studies

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Gestational diabetes is a prevalent disease associated with adverse outcomes of pregnancy. Smoking as been associated with glucose intolerance during pregnancy in some but not all studies. Therefore, we aimed to systematically review all epidemiological evidence to examine the association between cigarette smoking during pregnancy and risk of developing gestational diabetes mellitus.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>We conducted a systematic review of articles published up to 2007, using PubMed, Embase, LILACS e CINAHL to identify the articles. Because this review focuses on studies of smoking during pregnancy, we excluded studies evaluating smoking outside pregnancy. Two investigators independently abstracted information on participant's characteristics, assessment of exposure and outcome, and estimates for the association under study. We evaluated the studies for publication bias and performed heterogeneity analyses. We also assessed the effect of each study individually through sensitivity analysis.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>We found and critically reviewed 32 studies, of which 12 met the criteria for inclusion in the review. Most of the studies provided only unadjusted measurements. Combining the results of the individual studies, we obtained a crude odds ratio of 1.03 (99% CI 0.85–1.25). Only 4 studies presented adjusted measurements of association, and no association was found when these alone were analyzed (OR 0.95; 99% CI 0.85–1.07). Subgroup analysis could not be done due to small sample size.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>The number of studies is small, with major heterogeneity in research design and findings. Taken together, current data do not support an association between cigarette smoking during pregnancy and the risk of gestational diabetes.</p

Inequalities in health: a comparative study between ethnic Norwegians and Pakistanis in Oslo, Norway

BACKGROUND: The objective of the study was to observe the inequality in health from the perspective of socio-economic factors in relation to ethnic Pakistanis and ethnic Norwegians in Oslo, Norway. METHOD: Data was collected by using an open and structured questionnaire, as a part of the Oslo Health Study 2000–2001. Accordingly 13581 ethnic Norwegians (45% of the eligible) participated as against 339 ethnic Pakistanis (38% of the eligible). RESULTS: The ethnic Pakistanis reported a higher prevalence of poor self-rated health 54.7% as opposed to 22.1% (p < 0.001) in ethnic Norwegians, 14% vs. 2.6% (p < 0.001) in diabetes, and 22.0% vs. 9.9% (p < 0.001) in psychological distress. The socio-economic conditions were inversely related to self- rated health, diabetes and distress for the ethnic Norwegians. However, this was surprisingly not the case for the ethnic Pakistanis. Odd ratios did not interfere with the occurrence of diabetes, even after adjusting all the markers of socio-economic status in the multivariate model, while self-reported health and distress showed moderate reduction in the risk estimation. CONCLUSION: There is a large diversity of self-rated health, prevalence of diabetes and distress among the ethnic Pakistanis and Norwegians. Socio-economic status may partly explain the observed inequalities in health. Uncontrolled variables like genetics, lifestyle factors and psychosocial factors related to migration such as social support, community participation, discrimination, and integration may have contributed to the observed phenomenon. This may underline the importance of a multidisciplinary approach in future studies

Will the Public's Health Fall Victim to the Home Foreclosure Epidemic?

Gary Bennett and colleagues discuss the ways in which the dramatic rise in home foreclosures, particularly in the US, may have health consequences

A Non-Canonical Function of Zebrafish Telomerase Reverse Transcriptase Is Required for Developmental Hematopoiesis

Although it is clear that telomerase expression is crucial for the maintenance of telomere homeostasis, there is increasing evidence that the TERT protein can have physiological roles that are independent of this central function. To further examine the role of telomerase during vertebrate development, the zebrafish telomerase reverse transcriptase (zTERT) was functionally characterized. Upon zTERT knockdown, zebrafish embryos show reduced telomerase activity and are viable, but develop pancytopenia resulting from aberrant hematopoiesis. The blood cell counts in TERT-depleted zebrafish embryos are markedly decreased and hematopoietic cell differentiation is impaired, whereas other somatic lineages remain morphologically unaffected. Although both primitive and definitive hematopoiesis is disrupted by zTERT knockdown, the telomere lengths are not significantly altered throughout early development. Induced p53 deficiency, as well as overexpression of the anti-apoptotic proteins Bcl-2 and E1B-19K, significantly relieves the decreased blood cells numbers caused by zTERT knockdown, but not the impaired blood cell differentiation. Surprisingly, only the reverse transcriptase motifs of zTERT are crucial, but the telomerase RNA-binding domain of zTERT is not required, for rescuing complete hematopoiesis. This is therefore the first demonstration of a non-canonical catalytic activity of TERT, which is different from “authentic” telomerase activity, is required for during vertebrate hematopoiesis. On the other hand, zTERT deficiency induced a defect in hematopoiesis through a potent and specific effect on the gene expression of key regulators in the absence of telomere dysfunction. These results suggest that TERT non-canonically functions in hematopoietic cell differentiation and survival in vertebrates, independently of its role in telomere homeostasis. The data also provide insights into a non-canonical pathway by which TERT functions to modulate specification of hematopoietic stem/progenitor cells during vertebrate development. (276 words