Taurine uptake across the human intestinal brush-border membrane is via two transporters: H+-coupled PAT1 (SLC36A1) and Na+- and Cl−-dependent TauT (SLC6A6)

Taurine is an essential amino acid in some mammals and is conditionally essential in humans. Taurine is an abundant component of meat and fish-based foods and has been used as an oral supplement in the treatment of disorders such as cystic fibrosis and hypertension. The purpose of this investigation was to identity the relative contributions of the solute trans-porters involved in taurine uptake across the luminalmembrane of human enterocytes. Distinct transport characteristics were revealed following expression of the candidate solute trans-porters in Xenopus laevis oocytes: PAT1 (SLC36A1) is a H+-coupled, pH-dependent, Na+-and Cl−-independent, low-affinity, high-capacity transporter for taurine and β-alanine; TauT (SLC6A6) is a Na+- and Cl−-dependent, high-affinity, low-capacity transporter of taurine and β-alanine; ATB0,+ (SLC6A14) is a Na+- and Cl−-dependent, high-affinity, low-capacity transporter which accepts β-alanine but not taurine. Taurine uptake across the brush-border membrane of human intestinal Caco-2 cell monolayers showed characteristics of both PAT1-and TauT-mediated transport. Under physiological conditions, Cl−-dependent TauT-mediated uptake predominates at low taurine concentrations, whereas at higher concentrations typical of diet, Cl−-independent PAT1-mediated uptake is the major absorptive mechanism. Real-tim

Rationalizations and identity conflict following smoking relapse: a thematic analysis

Introduction: Little is known about how smokers respond cognitively and emotionally to the experience of “late” relapse after the acute withdrawal phase. This study assessed the kinds of thoughts and feelings that emerge in order to provide a basis for quantitative research assessing prevalence of different types of response and implications for future quit attempts. Methods: Face-to-face in-depth interviews were conducted among 14 people attending a quit smoking clinic in Malaysia who had relapsed after at least 6 weeks of abstinence. Transcripts were analyzed using thematic analysis to enable emergence of important aspects of the experience. Results: Following relapse, smokers often engaged in rationalizations and activities to minimize worry about the harmful effects of smoking by switching to a lower-tar cigarette, reducing the number of cigarette smoked, attempting to reduce cigarette smoke inhalation, comparing themselves with other smokers, and minimizing the health risks associated with smoking. In some cases, smokers retained a “non-smoker” identity despite having relapsed. Conclusion: Smoking relapsers rationalize their failure to quit and minimize their health risk in order to protect their image as non-smokers while it remains a source of identity conflict

Effectiveness of training stop-smoking advisers to deliver cessation support to the UK national proposed standard versus usual care in Malaysia: a two-arm cluster randomised controlled trial

AIMS: To assess the effectiveness of training stop smoking services providers in Malaysia to deliver support for smoking cessation based on the UK National Centre for Smoking Cessation and Training (NCSCT) standard treatment programme compared with usual care. DESIGN: Two‐arm cluster‐randomized controlled effectiveness trial across 19 sites with follow‐up at 4‐week, 3‐month, and 6‐month. SETTING: Stop smoking services operating in public hospitals in Malaysia. PARTICIPANTS: Five hundred and two smokers [mean ± standard deviation (SD), age 45.6 (13.4) years; 97.4% male] attending stop smoking services in hospital settings in Malaysia: 330 in 10 hospitals in the intervention condition and 172 in nine hospitals in the control condition. INTERVENTION AND COMPARATOR: The intervention consisted of training stop‐smoking practitioners to deliver support and follow‐up according to the NCSCT Standard Treatment Programme. The comparator was usual care (brief support and follow‐up). MEASUREMENTS: The primary outcome was continuous tobacco smoking abstinence up to 6 months in smokers who received smoking cessation treatment, verified by expired‐air carbon monoxide (CO) concentration. Secondary outcomes were continuous CO‐verified tobacco smoking abstinence up to 4 weeks and 3 months. RESULTS: Follow‐up rates at 4 weeks, 3 months and 6 months were 80.0, 70.6 and 53.3%, respectively, in the intervention group and 48.8, 30.8 and 23.3%, respectively, in the control group. At 6‐month follow‐up, 93 participants in the intervention group and 19 participants in the control group were abstinent from smoking, representing 28.2 versus 11.0% in an intention‐to‐treat (ITT) analysis assuming that participants with missing data had resumed smoking, and 52.8 versus 47.5% in a follow‐up‐only (FUO) analysis. Unadjusted odds ratios (accounting for clustering) were 5.04, (95% confidence interval (CI) = 1.22–20.77, P = 0.025) and 1.70, (95% CI = 0.25–11.53, P = 0.589) in the ITT and FUO analyses, respectively. Abstinence rates at 4 week and 3 month follow‐ups were significantly higher in the intervention versus control group in the ITT but not the FUO analysis. CONCLUSIONS: On an intention‐to‐treat analysis with missing‐equals‐smoking imputation, training Malaysian stop smoking service providers in the UK National Centre for Smoking Cessation and Training standard treatment programme appeared to increase 6 month continuous abstinence rates in smokers seeking help with stopping compared with usual care. However, the effect may have been due to increasing follow‐up rates

The effectiveness of ENAR® for the treatment of chronic neck pain in Australian adults: a preliminary single-blind, randomised controlled trial

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Current evidence on electrotherapies for the management of chronic neck pain is either lacking or conflicting. New therapeutic devices being introduced to the market should be investigated for their effectiveness and efficacy. The ENAR^®(Electro Neuro Adaptive Regulator) therapy device combines Western biofeedback with Eastern energy medicine.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>A small, preliminary randomised and controlled single-blinded trial was conducted on 24 participants (ten males, 14 females) between the ages of 18 to 50 years (median age of 40.5) Consent was obtained and participants were randomly allocated to one of three groups – ENAR, Transcutaneous Electrical Nerve Stimulation (TENS), or control therapy – to test the hypothesis that ENAR therapy would result in superior pain reduction/disability and improvements in neck function compared with TENS or control intervention. The treatment regimen included twelve 15-minute treatment sessions over a six week period, followed by two assessment periods. Visual Analogue Scale (VAS) pain scores, Neck Disability Index (NDI) scores, Patient Specific Functional Scale (PSFS) scores and Short Form 36v1 (SF-36) quality of life scores reported by participants were collected at each of the assessments points throughout the trial (0, 6, 12, 18 and 24 weeks).</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Eligible participants (n = 30) were recruited and attended clinic visits for 6 months from the time of randomisation. Final trial sample (n = 24) comprised 9 within the ENAR group, 7 within the TENS group and 8 within the control group. With an overall study power of 0.92, the ENAR group showed a decrease in mean pain score from measurement at time zero (5.0 ± 0.79 95%CI) to the first follow-up measurement at six weeks (1.4 ± 0.83 95%CI). Improvement was maintained until week 24 (1.75 ± 0.9 95%CI). The TENS and control groups showed consistent pain levels throughout the trial (3.4 ± 0.96 95%CI and 4.1 ± 0.9 95%CI respectively). Wald analysis for pain intensity was significant for the ENAR group (p = 0.01). Six month NDI scores showed the disability level of the ENAR group (11.3 ± 4.5 95%CI) was approximately half that of either the TENS (22.9 ± 4.8 95%CI) or the control (29.4 ± 4.5 95%CI) groups. NDI analysis using the Wald method, indicated significant reductions in disability only for the ENAR group (p = 0.022). PSFS results also demonstrated significantly better performance of ENAR (p = 0.001) compared to both alternative interventions. Differential means analysis of the SF-36 results favoured ENAR for all of the subscales. Six of the initial 30 participants discontinued the trial protocol.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>ENAR therapy participants reported a significant reduction in the intensity of neck pain (VAS) and disability (NDI), as well as a significant increased function (PSFS) and overall quality of life (SF-36) than TENS or control intervention participants. Due to the modest sample size and restricted cohort characteristics, future larger and more comprehensive trials are required to better evaluate the potential efficacy of the ENAR device in a more widely distributed sample population.</p> <p>Trial Registration</p> <p>This study has been registered with the Australian Clinical Trials Registry (ACTR): ACTRN012606000438550.</p

Malaria eradication: the economic, financial and institutional challenge

Malaria eradication raises many economic, financial and institutional challenges. This paper reviews these challenges, drawing on evidence from previous efforts to eradicate malaria, with a special focus on resource-poor settings; summarizes more recent evidence on the challenges, drawing on the literature on the difficulties of scaling-up malaria control and strengthening health systems more broadly; and explores the implications of these bodies of evidence for the current call for elimination and intensified control

Acupuncture as analgesia for low back pain, ankle sprain and migraine in emergency departments: Study protocol for a randomized controlled trial

BACKGROUND: Pain is the most common reason that patients present to an emergency department (ED) and is often inadequately managed. Evidence suggests that acupuncture is effective for pain relief, yet it is rarely practiced in the ED. The current study aims to assess the efficacy of acupuncture for providing effective analgesia to patients presenting with acute low back pain, migraine and ankle sprain at the EDs of four hospitals in Melbourne, Australia. METHOD: The study is a multi-site, randomized, assessor-blinded, controlled trial of acupuncture analgesia in patients who present to an ED with low back pain, migraine or ankle sprain. Patients will be block randomized to receive either acupuncture alone, acupuncture as an adjunct to pharmacotherapy or pharmacotherapy alone. Acupuncture will be applied according to Standards for Reporting Interventions in Clinical Trials of Acupuncture (STRICTA). Pain after one hour, measured using a visual analogue scale (VAS), is the primary outcome. Secondary outcomes measures include the following instruments; the Oswestry low back pain disability questionnaire, 24-hour Migraine Quality of Life questionnaire and Patient's Global Assessment of Ankle Injury Scale. These measures will be recorded at baseline, 1 hour after intervention, each hour until discharge and 48±12 hours of ED discharge. Data will also be collected on the safety and acceptability of acupuncture and health resource utilization. DISCUSSION: The results of this study will determine if acupuncture, alone or as an adjunct to pharmacotherapy provides effective, safe and acceptable pain relief for patients presenting to EDs with acute back pain, migraine or ankle sprain. The results will also identify the impact that acupuncture treatment may have upon health resource utilisation in the ED setting. TRIAL REGISTRATION: Australia and New Zealand Clinical Trials Register (ANZCTR): ACTRN12609000989246

The Hoopoe's Uropygial Gland Hosts a Bacterial Community Influenced by the Living Conditions of the Bird

Molecular methods have revealed that symbiotic systems involving bacteria are mostly based on whole bacterial communities. Bacterial diversity in hoopoe uropygial gland secretion is known to be mainly composed of certain strains of enterococci, but this conclusion is based solely on culture-dependent techniques. This study, by using culture-independent techniques (based on the 16S rDNA and the ribosomal intergenic spacer region) shows that the bacterial community in the uropygial gland secretion is more complex than previously thought and its composition is affected by the living conditions of the bird. Besides the known enterococci, the uropygial gland hosts other facultative anaerobic species and several obligated anaerobic species (mostly clostridia). The bacterial assemblage of this community was largely invariable among study individuals, although differences were detected between captive and wild female hoopoes, with some strains showing significantly higher prevalence in wild birds. These results alter previous views on the hoopoe-bacteria symbiosis and open a new window to further explore this system, delving into the possible sources of symbiotic bacteria (e.g. nest environments, digestive tract, winter quarters) or the possible functions of different bacterial groups in different contexts of parasitism or predation of their hoopoe host.This work was supported by the Ministerio de Ciencia y Tecnología (projects CGL2005-06975/BOSFEDER; CGL2007-61251/BOSFEDER), the Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación (projects CGL2009-14006/BOSFEDER; CGL2010-19233-C03-01/BOSFEDER; CGL2010-19233-C03-03/BOSFEDER), the Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad (projects CGL2013-48193-C3-1-P/BOSFEDER; CGL2013-48193-C3-2-P/BOSFEDER), and the Junta de Andalucía (RNM 345, P09-RNM-4557). SMRR received a grant from the Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación (FPI program, BES-2011-047677)

The Concise Guide to PHARMACOLOGY 2023/24: Transporters

\ua9 2023 The Authors. British Journal of Pharmacology published by John Wiley &amp; Sons Ltd on behalf of The British Pharmacological Society.The Concise Guide to PHARMACOLOGY 2023/24 is the sixth in this series of biennial publications. The Concise Guide provides concise overviews, mostly in tabular format, of the key properties of approximately 1800 drug targets, and over 6000 interactions with about 3900 ligands. There is an emphasis on selective pharmacology (where available), plus links to the open access knowledgebase source of drug targets and their ligands (https://www.guidetopharmacology.org/), which provides more detailed views of target and ligand properties. Although the Concise Guide constitutes almost 500 pages, the material presented is substantially reduced compared to information and links presented on the website. It provides a permanent, citable, point-in-time record that will survive database updates. The full contents of this section can be found at http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/bph.16182. Transporters are one of the six major pharmacological targets into which the Guide is divided, with the others being: G protein-coupled receptors, ion channels, nuclear hormone receptors, catalytic receptors and enzymes. These are presented with nomenclature guidance and summary information on the best available pharmacological tools, alongside key references and suggestions for further reading. The landscape format of the Concise Guide is designed to facilitate comparison of related targets from material contemporary to mid-2023, and supersedes data presented in the 2021/22, 2019/20, 2017/18, 2015/16 and 2013/14 Concise Guides and previous Guides to Receptors and Channels. It is produced in close conjunction with the Nomenclature and Standards Committee of the International Union of Basic and Clinical Pharmacology (NC-IUPHAR), therefore, providing official IUPHAR classification and nomenclature for human drug targets, where appropriate