14,558 research outputs found
Comparison of Allen Carr's Easyway programme with a specialist behavioural and pharmacological smoking cessation support service: a randomized controlled trial.
BACKGROUND AND AIMS: A combination of behavioural and pharmacological support is judged to be the optimal approach for assisting smoking cessation. Allen Carr's Easyway (ACE) is a single-session pharmacotherapy-free programme that has been in operation internationally for 38 years. We compared the effectiveness of ACE with specialist behavioural and pharmacological support delivered to the national standard in England. DESIGN: A two-arm, parallel-group, single-blind, randomized controlled trial. SETTING: London, UK, between February 2017 and May 2018. PARTICIPANTS: A total of 620 participants (310 in ACE and 310 in the combined behavioural and pharmacological support condition) were included in the analysis. Adult (≥ 18 years) smokers wanting to quit were randomized in a 1 : 1 ratio. Mean age for the total sample was 40.8 years, with 53.4% being male. Participant baseline characteristics (ethnicity, educational level, number of previous quit attempts, nicotine dependence) were evenly balanced between treatment groups. INTERVENTION AND COMPARATOR: The intervention was the ACE method of stopping smoking. This centres on a 4.5-6-hour session of group-based support, alongside subsequent text messages and top-up sessions if needed. It aims to make it easy to stop smoking by convincing smokers that smoking provides no benefits for them. The comparator was a specialist stop smoking service (SSS) providing behavioural and pharmacological support in accordance with national standards. MEASUREMENTS: The primary outcome was self-reported continuous abstinence for 26 weeks from the quit/quit re-set date verified by exhaled breath carbon monoxide measurement < 10 parts per million (p.p.m.). Primary analysis was by intention to treat. Secondary outcomes were: use of pharmacotherapy, adverse events and continuous abstinence up to 4 and 12 weeks. FINDINGS: A total of 468 participants attended treatment (255 ACE versus 213 SSS, P < 0.05). Of those who did attend treatment, 100 completed 6-month measures (23.7% ACE versus 20.7% SSS). Continuous abstinence to 26 weeks was 19.4% (60 of 310) in the ACE intervention and 14.8% (46 of 310) in the SSS intervention [risk difference for ACE versus SSS 4.5% (95% confidence interval (CI) = -1.4 to 10.4%, odds ratio (OR) = 1.38)]. The Bayes factor for superiority of the ACE condition was 1.24. CONCLUSION: There was no clear evidence of a difference in the efficacies of the Allen Carr's Easyway (ACE) and specialist smoking cessation support involving behavioural support and pharmacotherapy
Overdiagnosis and overtreatment of breast cancer: Overdiagnosis in randomised controlled trials of breast cancer screening
Data from randomised controlled trials of mammographic screening can be used to determine the extent of any overdiagnosis, as soon as either a time equivalent to the lead-time has elapsed after the final screen, or the control arm has been offered screening. This paper reviews those randomised trials for which breast cancer incidence data are available. In recent trials in which the control group has not been offered screening, an excess incidence of breast cancer remains after many years of follow-up. In those trials in which the control arm has been offered screening, although there is a possible shift from invasive to in situ disease, there is no evidence of overdiagnosis as a result of incident screens
Expression and function of ATP-dependent potassium channels in zebrafish islet β-cells
ATP-sensitive potassium channels (K(ATP) channels) are critical nutrient sensors in many mammalian tissues. In the pancreas, K(ATP) channels are essential for coupling glucose metabolism to insulin secretion. While orthologous genes for many components of metabolism–secretion coupling in mammals are present in lower vertebrates, their expression, functionality and ultimate impact on body glucose homeostasis are unclear. In this paper, we demonstrate that zebrafish islet β-cells express functional K(ATP) channels of similar subunit composition, structure and metabolic sensitivity to their mammalian counterparts. We further show that pharmacological activation of native zebrafish K(ATP) using diazoxide, a specific K(ATP) channel opener, is sufficient to disturb glucose tolerance in adult zebrafish. That β-cell K(ATP) channel expression and function are conserved between zebrafish and mammals illustrates the evolutionary conservation of islet metabolic sensing from fish to humans, and lends relevance to the use of zebrafish to model islet glucose sensing and diseases of membrane excitability such as neonatal diabetes
Modelling the overdiagnosis of breast cancer due to mammography screening in women aged 40 to 49 in the United Kingdom
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, andreproduction in any
medium, provided the original work is properly cited
The new radiation-hard optical links for the ATLAS pixel detector
The ATLAS detector is currently being upgraded with a new layer of pixel
based charged particle tracking and a new arrangement of the services for the
pixel detector. These upgrades require the replacement of the opto-boards
previously used by the pixel detector. In this report we give details on the
design and production of the new opto-boards.Comment: Presentation at the DPF 2013 Meeting of the American Physical Society
Division of Particles and Fields, Santa Cruz, California, August 13-17, 201
Black hole formation from colliding bubbles
Some indication of conditions that are necessary for the formation of black
holes from the collision of bubbles during a supercooled phase transition in
the the early universe are explored. Two colliding bubbles can never form a
black hole. Three colliding bubbles can refocus the energy in their walls to
the extent that it becomes infinite.Comment: 12 pages, NCL93-TP13 (RevTeX
Noise induced oscillations in non-equilibrium steady state systems
We consider effect of stochastic sources upon self-organization process being
initiated with creation of the limit cycle. General expressions obtained are
applied to the stochastic Lorenz system to show that departure from equilibrium
steady state can destroy the limit cycle at certain relation between
characteristic scales of temporal variation of principle variables. Noise
induced resonance related to the limit cycle is found to appear if the fastest
variations displays a principle variable, which is coupled with two different
degrees of freedom or more.Comment: 11 pages, 4 figures. Submitted to Physica Script
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