Efficacy and Safety of Technosphere Inhaled Insulin Compared With Technosphere Powder Placebo in Insulin-Naive Type 2 Diabetes Suboptimally Controlled With Oral Agents

OBJECTIVE—This double-blind, placebo-controlled, randomized, multicenter, parallel-group study compared the efficacy, safety, and tolerability of Technosphere insulin with Technosphere powder as placebo in insulin-naive type 2 diabetic patients whose diabetes was suboptimally controlled with oral antidiabetic agents

"May I Buy a Pack of Marlboros, Please?" A Systematic Review of Evidence to Improve the Validity and Impact of Youth Undercover Buy Inspections

Most smokers become addicted to tobacco products before they are legally able to pur- chase these products. We systematically reviewed the literature on protocols to assess underage purchase and their ecological validity. We conducted a systematic search in May 2015 in PubMed and PsycINFO. We independently screened records for inclusion. We con- ducted a narrative review and examined implications of two types of legal authority for proto- cols that govern underage buy enforcement in the United States: criminal (state-level laws prohibiting sales to youth) and administrative (federal regulations prohibiting sales to youth). Ten studies experimentally assessed underage buy protocols and 44 studies assessed the association between youth characteristics and tobacco sales. Protocols that mimicked real-world youth behaviors were consistently associated with substantially greater likelihood of a sale to a youth. Many of the tested protocols appear to be designed for compliance with criminal law rather than administrative enforcement in ways that limited ecological validity. This may be due to concerns about entrapment. For administrative enforcement in particular, entrapment may be less of an issue than commonly thought. Commonly used underage buy protocols poorly represent the reality of youths' access to tobacco from retailers. Compliance check programs should allow youth to present them- selves naturally and attempt to match the community’s demographic makeup

Localisation and Function of the Endocannabinoid System in the Human Ovary

Although anandamide (AEA) had been measured in human follicular fluid and is suggested to play a role in ovarian follicle and oocyte maturity, its exact source and role in the human ovary remains unclear.Immunohistochemical examination of normal human ovaries indicated that the endocannabinoid system was present and widely expressed in the ovarian medulla and cortex with more intense cannabinoid receptor 2 (CB2) than CB1 immunoreactivity in the granulosa cells of primordial, primary, secondary, tertiary follicles, corpus luteum and corpus albicans. The enzymes, fatty acid amide hydrolase (FAAH) and N-acyclphosphatidylethanolamine-phospholipase D (NAPE-PLD), were only found in growing secondary and tertiary follicles and corpora lutea and albicantes. The follicular fluid (FF) AEA concentrations of 260 FF samples, taken from 37 infertile women undergoing controlled ovarian hyperstimulation for in vitro fertilisation and intracytoplasmic sperm injection with embryo transfer, were correlated with ovarian follicle size (P = 0.03). Significantly higher FF AEA concentrations were also observed in mature follicles (1.43+/-0.04 nM; mean+/-SEM) compared to immature follicles (1.26+/-0.06 nM), P = 0.0142 and from follicles containing morphologically assessed mature oocytes (1.56+/-0.11 nM) compared to that containing immature oocytes (0.99+/-0.09 nM), P = 0.0011. ROC analysis indicated that a FF AEA level of 1.09 nM could discriminate between mature and immature oocytes with 72.2% sensitivity and 77.14% specificity, whilst plasma AEA levels and FF AEA levels on oocyte retrieval day were not significantly different (P = 0.23).These data suggest that AEA is produced in the ovary, is under hormonal control and plays a role in folliculogenesis, preovulatory follicle maturation, oocyte maturity and ovulation

Evaluation of a minimally invasive glucose biosensor for continuous tissue monitoring

We describe here a minimally invasive glucose biosensor based on a microneedle array electrode fabricated from an epoxy-based negative photoresist (SU8 50) and designed for continuous measurement in the dermal compartment with minimal pain. These minimally invasive, continuous monitoring sensor devices (MICoMS) were produced by casting the structures in SU8 50, crosslinking and then metallising them with platinum or silver to obtain the working and reference electrodes, respectively. The metallised microneedle array electrodes were subsequently functionalised by entrapping glucose oxidase in electropolymerised polyphenol (PP) film. Sensor performance in vitro showed that glucose concentrations down to 0.5 mM could be measured with a response times (T90) of 15 s. The effect of sterilisation by Co60 irradiation was evaluated. In preparation for further clinical studies, these sensors were tested in vivo in a healthy volunteer for a period of 3–6 h. The sensor currents were compared against point measurements obtained with a commercial capillary blood glucometer. The epoxy MICoMS devices showed currents values that could be correlated with these