Randomized trial of tapas acupressure technique for weight loss maintenance

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Obesity is an urgent public health problem, yet only a few clinical trials have systematically tested the efficacy of long-term weight-loss maintenance interventions. This randomized clinical trial tested the efficacy of a novel mind and body technique for weight-loss maintenance.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>Participants were obese adults who had completed a six-month behavioral weight-loss program prior to randomization. Those who successfully lost weight were randomized into either an experimental weight-loss maintenance intervention, Tapas Acupressure Technique (TAT^®), or a control intervention comprised of social-support group meetings (SS) led by professional facilitators. TAT combines self-applied light pressure to specific acupressure points accompanied by a prescribed sequence of mental steps. Participants in both maintenance conditions attended eight group sessions over six months of active weight loss maintenance intervention, followed by an additional 6 months of no intervention. The main outcome measure was change in weight from the beginning of the weight loss maintenance intervention to 12 months later. Secondary outcomes were change in depression, stress, insomnia, and quality of life. We used analysis of covariance as the primary analysis method. Missing values were replaced using multiple imputation.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Among 285 randomized participants, 79% were female, mean age was 56 (standard deviation (sd) = 11), mean BMI at randomization was 34 (sd = 5), and mean initial weight loss was 9.8 kg (sd = 5). In the primary outcome model, there was no significant difference in weight regain between the two arms (1.72 kg (se 0.85) weight regain for TAT and 2.96 kg (se 0.96) weight regain for SS, p < 0.097) Tests of between- arm differences for secondary outcomes were also not significant. A secondary analysis showed a significant interaction between treatment and initial weight loss (p < .036), with exploratory <it>post hoc </it>tests showing that greater initial weight loss was associated with more weight regain for SS but less weight regain for TAT.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>The primary analysis showed no significant difference in weight regain between TAT and SS, while secondary and post hoc analyses indicate direction for future research.</p> <p>Trial Registration</p> <p>ClinicalTrials.gov: <a href="http://www.clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT00526565">NCT00526565</a></p

Identification and Classification of Conserved RNA Secondary Structures in the Human Genome

The discoveries of microRNAs and riboswitches, among others, have shown functional RNAs to be biologically more important and genomically more prevalent than previously anticipated. We have developed a general comparative genomics method based on phylogenetic stochastic context-free grammars for identifying functional RNAs encoded in the human genome and used it to survey an eight-way genome-wide alignment of the human, chimpanzee, mouse, rat, dog, chicken, zebra-fish, and puffer-fish genomes for deeply conserved functional RNAs. At a loose threshold for acceptance, this search resulted in a set of 48,479 candidate RNA structures. This screen finds a large number of known functional RNAs, including 195 miRNAs, 62 histone 3′UTR stem loops, and various types of known genetic recoding elements. Among the highest-scoring new predictions are 169 new miRNA candidates, as well as new candidate selenocysteine insertion sites, RNA editing hairpins, RNAs involved in transcript auto regulation, and many folds that form singletons or small functional RNA families of completely unknown function. While the rate of false positives in the overall set is difficult to estimate and is likely to be substantial, the results nevertheless provide evidence for many new human functional RNAs and present specific predictions to facilitate their further characterization

The proteomic response in glioblastoma in young patients

Increasing age is an important prognostic variable in glioblastoma (GBM). We have defined the proteomic response in GBM samples from 7 young patients (mean age 36 years) compared to peritumoural-control samples from 10 young patients (mean age 32 years). 2-Dimensional-gel-electrophoresis, image analysis, and protein identification (LC/MS) were performed. 68 proteins were significantly altered in young GBM samples with 29 proteins upregulated and 39 proteins downregulated. Over 50 proteins are described as altered in GBM for the first time. In a parallel analysis in old GBM (mean age 67 years), an excellent correlation could be demonstrated between the proteomic profile in young GBM and that in old GBM patients (r(2) = 0.95) with only 5 proteins altered significantly (p < 0.01). The proteomic response in young GBM patients highlighted alterations in protein–protein interactions in the immunoproteosome, NFkB signalling, and mitochondrial function and the same systems participated in the responses in old GBM patients. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (doi:10.1007/s11060-014-1474-6) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users