Role of the News in the Education of Environmental Ethics: A Critical Approach

AbstractThis study aims to respond to how the news can play a role in the education of environmental ethics. Based on the representations of the facts related to the environment unfolding the breaking/meeting points between the occupational ethics of journalism and the environmental ethics, it is suggested that all of these differences are methodologically and essentially artificial. Defi ned as a superior ethics, the ethics of environment and journalism are going to be addressed as parts of the same totality going hand in hand. The emphasis, therefore, will be on the fact that the environmental ethics should be included in the curriculum of communication

Using honey to heal diabetic foot ulcers

Diabetic ulcers seem to be arrested in the inflammatory/proliferative stage of the healing process, allowing infection and inflammation to preclude healing. Antibiotic-resistant bacteria have become a major cause of infections, including diabetic foot infections. It is proposed here that the modern developments of an ancient and traditional treatment for wounds, dressing them with honey, provide the solution to the problem of getting diabetic ulcers to move on from the arrested state of healing. Honeys selected to have a high level of antibacterial activity have been shown to be very effective against antibiotic-resistant strains of bacteria in laboratory and clinical studies. The potent anti-inflammatory action of honey is also likely to play an important part in overcoming the impediment to healing that inflammation causes in diabetic ulcers, as is the antioxidant activity of honey. The action of honey in promotion of tissue regeneration through stimulation of angiogenesis and the growth of fibroblasts and epithelial cells, and its insulin-mimetic effect, would also be of benefit in stimulating the healing of diabetic ulcers. The availability of honey-impregnated dressings which conveniently hold honey in place on ulcers has provided a means of rapidly debriding ulcers and removing the bacterial burden so that good healing rates can be achieved with neuropathic ulcers. With ischemic ulcers, where healing cannot occur because of lack of tissue viability, these honey dressings keep the ulcers clean and prevent infection occurring

Lack of an association between gallstone disease and bilirubin levels with risk of colorectal cancer : a Mendelian randomisation analysis

BACKGROUND: Epidemiological studies of the relationship between gallstone disease and circulating levels of bilirubin with risk of developing colorectal cancer (CRC) have been inconsistent. To address possible confounding and reverse causation, we examine the relationship between these potential risk factors and CRC using Mendelian randomisation (MR). METHODS: We used two-sample MR to examine the relationship between genetic liability to gallstone disease and circulating levels of bilirubin with CRC in 26,397 patients and 41,481 controls. We calculated the odds ratio per genetically predicted SD unit increase in log bilirubin levels (ORSD) for CRC and tested for a non-zero causal effect of gallstones on CRC. Sensitivity analysis was applied to identify violations of estimator assumptions. RESULTS: No association between either gallstone disease (P value = 0.60) or circulating levels of bilirubin (ORSD = 1.00, 95% confidence interval (CI) = 0.96-1.03, P value = 0.90) with CRC was shown. CONCLUSIONS: Despite the large scale of this study, we found no evidence for a causal relationship between either circulating levels of bilirubin or gallstone disease with risk of developing CRC. While the magnitude of effect suggested by some observational studies can confidently be excluded, we cannot exclude the possibility of smaller effect sizes and non-linear relationships.Peer reviewe

Lumbar spine and total-body dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry in children with severe neurological impairment and intellectual disability: a pilot study of artefacts and disrupting factors

Background Children with severe neurological impairment and intellectual disability (ID) are susceptible for developing low bone mineral density (BMD) and fractures. BMD is generally measured with dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry (DXA). Objective To describe the occurrence of factors that may influence the feasibility of DXA and the accuracy of DXA outcome in children with severe neurological impairment and ID. Materials and methods Based on literature and expert opinion, a list of disrupting factors was developed. Occurrence of these factors was assessed in 27 children who underwent DXA measurement. Results Disrupting factors that occurred most frequently were movement during measurement (82%), aberrant body composition (67%), small length for age (56%) and scoliosis (37%). The number of disrupting factors per child was mean 5.3 (range 1-8). No correlation was found between DXA outcomes and the number of disrupting factors. Conclusion Factors that may negatively influence the accuracy of DXA outcome are frequently present in children with severe neurological impairment and ID. No systematic deviation of DXA outcome in coherence with the amount of disrupting factors was found, but physicians should be aware of the possible influence of disrupting factors on the accuracy of DXA

Modifiable pathways for colorectal cancer : a mendelian randomisation analysis

Background Epidemiological studies have linked lifestyle, cardiometabolic, reproductive, developmental, and inflammatory factors to the risk of colorectal cancer. However, which specific factors affect risk and the strength of these effects are unknown. We aimed to examine the relationship between potentially modifiable risk factors and colorectal cancer. Methods We used a random-effects model to examine the relationship between 39 potentially modifiable risk factors and colorectal cancer in 26 397 patients with colorectal cancer and 41 481 controls (ie, people without colorectal cancer). These population data came from a genome-wide association study of people of European ancestry, which was amended to exclude UK BioBank data. In the model, we used genetic variants as instruments via two-sample mendelian randomisation to limit bias from confounding and reverse causation. We calculated odds ratios per genetically predicted SD unit increase in each putative risk factor (OR SD) for colorectal cancer risk. We did mendelian randomisation Egger regressions to identify evidence of potential violations of mendelian randomisation assumptions. A Bonferroni-corrected threshold of p=1.3 x 10(-3) was considered significant, and p values less than 0.05 were considered to be suggestive of an association. Findings No putative risk factors were significantly associated with colorectal cancer risk after correction for multiple testing. However, suggestive associations with increased risk were noted for genetically predicted body fat percentage (OR SD 1.14 [95% CI 1.03-1.25]; p=0.0086), body-mass index (1.09 [1.01-1.17]; p=0.023), waist circumference (1.13 [1.02-1.26]; p=0.018), basal metabolic rate (1.10 [1.03-1.18]; p=0.0079), and concentrations of LDL cholesterol (1.14 [1.04-1.25]; p=0.0056), total cholesterol (1.09 [1.01-1.18]; p=0.025), circulating serum iron (1.17 [1.00-1.36]; p=0.049), and serum vitamin B12 (1.21 [1.04-1.42]; p=0.016), although potential pleiotropy among genetic variants used as instruments for vitamin B12 constrains the finding. A suggestive association was also noted between adult height and increased risk of colorectal cancer (OR SD 1.04 [95% CI 1.00-1.08]; p=0.032). Low blood selenium concentration had a suggestive association with decreased risk of colorectal cancer (OR SD 0.85 [95% CI 0.75-0.96]; p=0.0078) based on a single variant, as did plasma concentrations of interleukin-6 receptor subunit a (also based on a single variant; 0.98 [0.96-1.00]; p=0.035). Risk of colorectal cancer was not associated with any sex hormone or reproductive factor, serum calcium, or circulating 25-hydroxyvitamin D concentrations. Interpretation This analysis identified several modifiable targets for primary prevention of colorectal cancer, including lifestyle, obesity, and cardiometabolic factors, that should inform public health policy. Copyright (C) 2019 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an Open Access article under the CC BY 4.0 license.Peer reviewe

Exploring causality in the association between circulating 25-hydroxyvitamin D and colorectal cancer risk:a large Mendelian randomisation study

Background: Whilst observational studies establish that lower plasma 25-hydroxyvitamin D (25-OHD) levels are associated with higher risk of colorectal cancer (CRC), establishing causality has proven challenging. Since vitamin D is modifiable, these observations have substantial clinical and public health implications. Indeed, many health agencies already recommend supplemental vitamin D. Here, we explore causality in a large Mendelian randomisation (MR) study using an improved genetic instrument for circulating 25-OHD. Methods: We developed a weighted genetic score for circulating 25-OHD using six genetic variants that we recently reported to be associated with circulating 25-OHD in a large genome-wide association study (GWAS) meta-analysis. Using this score as instrumental variable in MR analyses, we sought to determine whether circulating 25-OHD is causally linked with CRC risk We conducted MR analysis using individual-level data from 10,725 CRC cases and 30,794 controls (Scotland, UK Biobank and Croatia). We then applied estimates from meta-analysis of 11 GWAS of CRC risk (18,967 cases; 48,168 controls) in a summary statistics MR approach. Results: The new genetic score for 25-OHD was strongly associated with measured plasma 25-OHD levels in 2821 healthy Scottish controls (P = 1.47 x 10(-11)), improving upon previous genetic instruments (F-statistic 46.0 vs. 13.0). However, individual-level MR revealed no association between 25-OHD score and CRC risk (OR 1.03/unit log-transformed circulating 25-OHD, 95% CI 0.51-2.07, P= 0.93). Similarly, we found no evidence for a causal relationship between 25-OHD and CRC risk using summary statistics MR analysis (OR 0.91, 95% CI 0.69-1.19, P= 0.48). Conclusions: Despite the scale of this study and employing an improved score capturing more of the genetic contribution to circulating 25-OHD, we found no evidence for a causal relationship between circulating 25-OHD and CRC risk Although the magnitude of effect for vitamin D suggested by observational studies can confidently be excluded, smaller effects sizes and non-linear relationships remain plausible. Circulating vitamin D may be a CRC biomarker, but a causal effect on CRC risk remains unproven

A probabilistic framework to predict protein function from interaction data integrated with semantic knowledge

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>The functional characterization of newly discovered proteins has been a challenge in the post-genomic era. Protein-protein interactions provide insights into the functional analysis because the function of unknown proteins can be postulated on the basis of their interaction evidence with known proteins. The protein-protein interaction data sets have been enriched by high-throughput experimental methods. However, the functional analysis using the interaction data has a limitation in accuracy because of the presence of the false positive data experimentally generated and the interactions that are a lack of functional linkage.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Protein-protein interaction data can be integrated with the functional knowledge existing in the Gene Ontology (GO) database. We apply similarity measures to assess the functional similarity between interacting proteins. We present a probabilistic framework for predicting functions of unknown proteins based on the functional similarity. We use the leave-one-out cross validation to compare the performance. The experimental results demonstrate that our algorithm performs better than other competing methods in terms of prediction accuracy. In particular, it handles the high false positive rates of current interaction data well.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>The experimentally determined protein-protein interactions are erroneous to uncover the functional associations among proteins. The performance of function prediction for uncharacterized proteins can be enhanced by the integration of multiple data sources available.</p

Association analyses identify 31 new risk loci for colorectal cancer susceptibility

Colorectal cancer (CRC) is a leading cause of cancer-related death worldwide, and has a strong heritable basis. We report a genome-wide association analysis of 34,627 CRC cases and 71,379 controls of European ancestry that identifies SNPs at 31 new CRC risk loci. We also identify eight independent risk SNPs at the new and previously reported European CRC loci, and a further nine CRC SNPs at loci previously only identified in Asian populations. We use in situ promoter capture Hi-C (CHi-C), gene expression, and in silico annotation methods to identify likely target genes of CRC SNPs. Whilst these new SNP associations implicate target genes that are enriched for known CRC pathways such as Wnt and BMP, they also highlight novel pathways with no prior links to colorectal tumourigenesis. These findings provide further insight into CRC susceptibility and enhance the prospects of applying genetic risk scores to personalised screening and prevention