Changes in cytokine production in healthy subjects practicing Guolin Qigong : a pilot study

BACKGROUND: Guolin Qigong is a combination of meditation, controlled breathing and physical movement designed to control the vital energy (qi) of the body and consequently to improve spiritual, physical and mental health. Practice of Qigong has been reported to alter immunological function, but there have been few studies of its effects on cytokines, the key regulators of immunity. METHODS: Numbers of peripheral blood cytokine-secreting cells were determined by ELISPOT in 19 healthy volunteers aged 27 – 55, before they were taught the practice of Qigong and after 3, 7 and 14 weeks of daily practice. The effect of Qigong on blood cortisol was also examined. RESULTS: Numbers of IL4 and IL12-secreting cells remained stable. IL6 increased at 7 weeks and TNFα increased in unstimulated cultures at 3 and 7 weeks but decreased at these times in LPS and SAC-stimulated cultures. Of particular interest, IFNγ-secreting cells increased and IL10-secreting cells decreased in PHA-stimulated cultures, resulting in significant increases in the IFNγ:IL10 ratio. Cortisol, a known inhibitor of type 1 cytokine production, was reduced by practicing Qigong. CONCLUSION: These preliminary studies in healthy subjects, although not necessarily representative of a randomized healthy population and not including a separate control group, have indicated that blood levels of the stress-related hormone cortisol may be lowered by short-term practice of Qigong and that there are concomitant changes in numbers of cytokine-secreting cells. Further studies of the effect of Qigong in patients with clinical diseases known to be associated with type 2 cytokine predominance are merited

Restricted Attentional Capacity within but Not between Sensory Modalities: An Individual Differences Approach

Background Most people show a remarkable deficit to report the second of two targets when presented in close temporal succession, reflecting an attentional blink (AB). An aspect of the AB that is often ignored is that there are large individual differences in the magnitude of the effect. Here we exploit these individual differences to address a long-standing question: does attention to a visual target come at a cost for attention to an auditory target (and vice versa)? More specifically, the goal of the current study was to investigate a) whether individuals with a large within-modality AB also show a large cross-modal AB, and b) whether individual differences in AB magnitude within different modalities correlate or are completely separate. Methodology/Principal Findings While minimizing differential task difficulty and chances for a task-switch to occur, a significant AB was observed when targets were both presented within the auditory or visual modality, and a positive correlation was found between individual within-modality AB magnitudes. However, neither a cross-modal AB nor a correlation between cross-modal and within-modality AB magnitudes was found. Conclusion/Significance The results provide strong evidence that a major source of attentional restriction must lie in modality-specific sensory systems rather than a central amodal system, effectively settling a long-standing debate. Individuals with a large within-modality AB may be especially committed or focused in their processing of the first target, and to some extent that tendency to focus could cross modalities, reflected in the within-modality correlation. However, what they are focusing (resource allocation, blocking of processing) is strictly within-modality as it only affects the second target on within-modality trials. The findings show that individual differences in AB magnitude can provide important information about the modular structure of human cognition

Capture the fracture: a best practice framework and global campaign to break the fragility fracture cycle

Summary The International Osteoporosis Foundation (IOF) Capture the Fracture Campaign aims to support implementation of Fracture Liaison Services (FLS) throughout the world. Introduction FLS have been shown to close the ubiquitous secondary fracture prevention care gap, ensuring that fragility fracture sufferers receive appropriate assessment and intervention to reduce future fracture risk. Methods Capture the Fracture has developed internationally endorsed standards for best practice, will facilitate change at the national level to drive adoption of FLS and increase awareness of the challenges and opportunities presented by secondary fracture prevention to key stakeholders. The Best Practice Framework (BPF) sets an international benchmark for FLS, which defines essential and aspirational elements of service delivery. Results The BPF has been reviewed by leading experts from many countries and subject to beta-testing to ensure that it is internationally relevant and fit-for-purpose. The BPF will also serve as a measurement tool for IOF to award ‘Capture the Fracture Best Practice Recognition’ to celebrate successful FLS worldwide and drive service development in areas of unmet need. The Capture the Fracture website will provide a suite of resources related to FLS and secondary fracture prevention, which will be updated as new materials become available. A mentoring programme will enable those in the early stages of development of FLS to learn from colleagues elsewhere that have achieved Best Practice Recognition. A grant programme is in development to aid clinical systems which require financial assistance to establish FLS in their localities. Conclusion Nearly half a billion people will reach retirement age during the next 20 years. IOF has developed Capture the Fracture because this is the single most important thing that can be done to directly improve patient care, of both women and men, and reduce the spiralling fracture-related care costs worldwide.</p

Compromized geranylgeranylation of RhoA and Rac1 in mevalonate kinase deficiency

Mevalonate kinase deficiency (MKD) is an autoinflammatory disorder caused by mutations in the MVK gene resulting in decreased activity of the enzyme mevalonate kinase (MK). Although MK is required for biosynthesis of all isoprenoids, in MKD, in particular, the timely synthesis of geranylgeranyl pyrophosphate appears to be compromised. Because small guanosine triphosphatases (GTPases) depend on geranylgeranylation for their proper signaling function, we studied the effect of MK deficiency on geranylgeranylation and activation of the two small GTPases, RhoA and Rac1. We demonstrate that both geranylgeranylation and activation of the two GTPases are more easily disturbed in MKD cells than in control cells when the flux though the isoprenoid biosynthesis pathway is suppressed by low concentrations of simvastatin. The limited capacity of geranylgeranylation in MKD cells readily leads to markedly increased levels of nonisoprenylated and activated GTPases, which will affect proper signaling by these GTPases

Multi-Locus Sequence Typing of Bartonella henselae Isolates from Three Continents Reveals Hypervirulent and Feline-Associated Clones

Bartonella henselae is a zoonotic pathogen and the causative agent of cat scratch disease and a variety of other disease manifestations in humans. Previous investigations have suggested that a limited subset of B. henselae isolates may be associated with human disease. In the present study, 182 human and feline B. henselae isolates from Europe, North America and Australia were analysed by multi-locus sequence typing (MLST) to detect any associations between sequence type (ST), host species and geographical distribution of the isolates. A total of 14 sequence types were detected, but over 66% (16/24) of the isolates recovered from human disease corresponded to a single genotype, ST1, and this type was detected in all three continents. In contrast, 27.2% (43/158) of the feline isolates corresponded to ST7, but this ST was not recovered from humans and was restricted to Europe. The difference in host association of STs 1 (human) and 7 (feline) was statistically significant (P≤0.001). eBURST analysis assigned the 14 STs to three clonal lineages, which contained two or more STs, and a singleton comprising ST7. These groups were broadly consistent with a neighbour-joining tree, although splits decomposition analysis was indicative of a history of recombination. These data indicate that B. henselae lineages differ in their virulence properties for humans and contribute to a better understanding of the population structure of B. henselae

Association analysis of PRNP gene region with chronic wasting disease in Rocky Mountain elk

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Chronic wasting disease (CWD) is a transmissible spongiform encephalopathy (TSE) of cervids including white-tailed (<it>Odocoileus virginianus</it>) and mule deer (<it>Odocoileus hemionus</it>), Rocky Mountain elk (<it>Cervus elaphus nelsoni</it>), and moose (<it>Alces alces</it>). A leucine variant at position 132 (132L) in prion protein of Rocky Mountain elk confers a long incubation time with CWD, but not complete resistance. However, variants in regulatory regions outside the open reading frame of <it>PRNP </it>have been associated with varying degrees of susceptibility to prion disease in other species, and some variants have been observed in similar regions of Rocky Mountain elk <it>PRNP</it>. Thus, additional genetic variants might provide increased protection, either alone or in combination with 132L.</p> <p>Findings</p> <p>This study provided genomic sequence of all exons for <it>PRNP </it>of Rocky Mountain elk. Many functional sites in and around the <it>PRNP </it>gene region were sequenced, and this report approximately doubled (to 75) the number of known variants in this region. A haplotype-tagging approach was used to reduce the number of genetic variants required to survey this variation in the <it>PRNP </it>gene region of 559 Rocky Mountain elk. Eight haplotypes were observed with frequencies over 1.0%, and one haplotype was present at 71.2% frequency, reflecting limited genetic diversity in the <it>PRNP </it>gene region.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>The presence of 132L cut odds of CWD by more than half (Odds Ratio = 0.43; P = 0.0031), which was similar to a previous report. However after accounting for 132L, no association with CWD was found for any additional variants in the <it>PRNP </it>region (P > 0.05).</p