Lactobacillus species causing obesity in humans: where is the evidence?

By definition, probiotics are to provide health benefits, and are expected not to cause any adverse effects in the general population. Recently, it has been suggested that probiotics, and in particular lactobacilli are contributing to human obesity. Here, we critically review the data available on this topic. The main misconception in this hypothesis is that growth in livestock and children equals with obesity in adults. The former two are expected to grow and probiotics may, by reducing disease risk, contribute to an improved growth. It is not correct to extrapolate this growth (of all tissues) to body weight gain (growth of adipose tissue) in adults. Furthermore, when looking at animal models of obesity, it even appears the lactobacilli may potentially contribute to a reduction in body weight. Epidemiological studies lend strength to this. We therefore conclude that there is no evidence that consumption of lactobacilli or probiotics in general would contribute to obesity in humans

Reluctance of general practice staff to register patients without documentation: a qualitative study in North East London.

BACKGROUND: Lack of access to documentation is a key barrier to GP registration, despite NHS England guidance stating that documents are not required. Staff attitudes and practice regarding registration of those without documentation are under- researched. AIM: To understand the processes through which registration might be refused for those without documents, and the factors operating to influence this. DESIGN AND SETTING: Qualitative study conducted in general practice across three clinical commissioning groups in North East London. METHOD: In total, 33 participants (GP staff involved in registering new patients) were recruited through email invitation. Semi-structured interviews and focus groups were conducted. Data were analysed using Braun and Clarke's reflexive thematic analysis. Two social theories informed this analysis: Lipsky's street-level bureaucracy and Bourdieu's theory of practice. RESULTS: Despite good knowledge of guidance, most participants expressed reluctance to register those without documentation, often introducing additional hurdles or requirements in their everyday practice. Two explanatory themes were generated: that those without documents were perceived as burdensome, and/or that moral judgements were made about their deservedness to finite resources. Participants described a context of high workload and insufficient funding. Some felt that GP services should be restricted by immigration status, as is widespread in secondary care. CONCLUSION: Improving inclusive registration practice requires addressing staff concerns, supporting navigation of high workloads, tackling financial disincentives to registering transient groups, and challenging narratives that undocumented migrants represent a 'threat' to NHS resources. Furthermore, it is imperative to acknowledge and address upstream drivers, in this instance the Hostile Environment

An in vivo permeability test protocol using iohexol to reduce and refine the use of laboratory rats in intestinal damage assessment

Assessment of intestinal damage in laboratory rats with experimentally-induced enteropathies is usually carried out by collecting and morphological interpreting tissue samples obtained surgically, endoscopically or at necropsy. Alternatively, changes in the gut mucosa may be less invasively evaluated with intestinal permeability (IP) tests. In contrast to human and veterinary patients, IP test protocols in laboratory rats have been highly variable, which may account for the limited use of this approach by investigators when evaluating intestinal damage. The objective of this study was to establish a refined IP test protocol using iohexol in rats that is able to differentiate between healthy rats and individuals with enteropathies. Iohexol was administered by oral gavage to twenty-eight Sprague-Dawley rats, before and after the induction of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) with dextran sulphate sodium (DSS). Urine was cumulatively recovered during 24 h, and the presence of iohexol was measured by high-performance liquid chromatography with ultraviolet detection. The median percentage (and interquartile range) of administered iohexol in urine of healthy rats was 0.54% (0.3

The moisture effect on 223Ra and 224Ra measurements using Mn-cartridges

Important processes in the ocean can be evaluated with radioactive nuclides, including radium isotopes. An approach for quantifying radium isotopes in seawater with in-situ pumps has been developed in advance of the GEOTRACES program [1]. Precise measurements of 223Ra and 224Ra by means of the delayed coincidence counting system (RaDeCC) [2] are dependent on the moisture content of the medium [3]. In order to verify the optimum moisture content for this new approach, a set of measurements of the Mn-cartridge standards under different moisture conditions was conducted, as this was done previously for acrylic fiber. At a time, an amount of water equivalent to 5% of the cartridges weight was added, and the activities were determined. The variation of 224Ra activity occurs mainly between 0 to 15% of humidity. Under moisture conditions higher than 15%, the emanation efficiency reaches an optimum plateau until 100% of moisture. This result differs slightly from those found for 224Ra measurements using the acrylic fiber (plateau from 30 to 100 %) [3]. The 223Ra Mn-cartridge standard reaches the plateau under 5% of humidity, and above 50% moisture the activity seems to decrease. Considering the counting error (7%), it is hard to state that the effect of the moisture is critical. However, this decrease can be related to the shorter half-life of the 219Rn compared to the time needed to its diffusion through the water film, which could be a reason for the frequently observed lower efficiency of the 223Ra channel of the RaDeCC system [4]. [1] Henderson et al. (2013) J. Radioanal. Nucl. Chem. 296, 357–362. [2] Moore and Arnold (1996) J. Geophys. Res. 101, 321–1329. [3] Sun and Torgersen (1998) Mar. Chem. 61, 163–171. [4] Charette et al. (2012) Limnol. Oceanogr. 10, 451–463

The effect of a probiotic blend on gastrointestinal symptoms in constipated patients: A double blind, randomised, placebo controlled 2-week trial

Selected strains of lactobacilli and bifidobacteria are known to ameliorate constipation-related symptoms and have previously shown efficacy on digestive health. In this clinical trial, the safety and effectiveness of a probiotic blend containing lactobacilli and bifidobacteria were evaluated in adults with self-reported bloating and functional constipation. Constipation was diagnosed by the Rome III criteria. A total of 156 adults were randomised into this double-blind and placebo-controlled trial. Participants consumed the combination of Lactobacillus acidophilus NCFM (1010 cfu), Lactobacillus paracasei Lpc-37 (2.5×109 cfu), Bifidobacterium animalis subsp. lactis strains Bl-04 (2.5×109 cfu), Bi-07 (2.5×109 cfu) and HN019 (1010 cfu) (n=78), or placebo (microcrystalline cellulose) (n=78) for two weeks. After treatment the following were measured: primary outcome of bloating and secondary outcomes of colonic transit time, bowel movement frequency, stool consistency, other gastrointestinal symptoms (flatulence, abdominal pain, and burbling), constipation-related questionnaires (PAC-SYM and PAC-QoL) and product satisfaction. Faecal recovery of consumed strains was determined. The enrolled population was defined as constipated, however, the initial bloating severity was lower than in previous similar studies. No clinically significant observations related to the safety of the product were reported. Product efficacy was not shown in the primary analysis for bloating nor for the secondary efficacy analyses. The placebo functioned similarly as the probiotic product. In post-hoc analysis, a statistically significant decrease in flatulence in favour of the probiotic group was observed; day 7 (intention-to-treat (ITT): P=0.0313; per-protocol (PP): 0.0253) and on day 14 (ITT: P=0.0116; PP: P=0.0102) as measured by area under the curve (AUC) analysis. The mean AUC of all symptoms decreased in favour of the probiotic group, indicating less digestive discomfort. The study was registered at the ISRCTN registry (ISRCTN41607808)

Gravitational eigenstates in weak gravity I: dipole decay rates of charged particles

The experimental demonstration that neutrons can reside in gravitational quantum stationary states formed in the gravitational field of the Earth indicates a need to examine in more detail the general theoretical properties of gravitational eigenstates. Despite the almost universal study of quantum theory applied to atomic and molecular states very little work has been done to investigate the properties of the hypothetical stationary states that should exist in similar types of gravitational central potential wells, particularly those with large quantum numbers. In this first of a series of papers, we attempt to address this shortfall by developing analytic, non-integral expressions for the electromagnetic dipole state-to-state transition rates of charged particles for any given initial and final gravitational quantum states. The expressions are non-relativistic and hence valid provided the eigenstate wavefunctions do not extend significantly into regions of strong gravity. The formulae may be used to obtain tractable approximations to the transition rates that can be used to give general trends associated with certain types of transitions. Surprisingly, we find that some of the high angular momentum eigenstates have extremely long lifetimes and a resulting stability that belies the multitude of channels available for state decay.Comment: 25 pages, 2 tables, 2 figure

Platelet responses to agonists in a cohort of highly characterised platelet donors are consistent over time.

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES: Platelet function shows significant inheritance that is at least partially genetically controlled. There is also evidence that the platelet response is stable over time, but there are few studies that have assessed consistency of platelet function over months and years. We aimed to measure platelet function in platelet donors over time in individuals selected from a cohort of 956 donors whose platelet function had been previously characterised. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Platelet function was assessed by flow cytometry, measuring fibrinogen binding and P-selectin expression after stimulation with either cross-linked collagen-related peptide or adenosine 5'-diphosphate. Eighty-nine donors from the Cambridge Platelet Function Cohort whose platelet responses were initially within the lower or upper decile of reactivity were retested between 4 months and five and a half years later. RESULTS: There was moderate-to-high correlation between the initial and repeat platelet function results for all assays (P ≤ 0·007, r2 0·2961-0·7625); furthermore, the range of results observed in the initial low and high responder groups remained significantly different at the time of the second test (P ≤ 0·0005). CONCLUSION: Platelet function remains consistent over time. This implies that this potential influence on quality of donated platelet concentrates will remain essentially constant for a given donor

CAMPLET:Seasonal Adjustment Without Revisions

Seasonality in economic time series can ‘obscure’ movements of other components in a series that are operationally more important for economic and econometric analyses. In practice, one often prefers to work with seasonally adjusted data to assess the current state of the economy and its future course. This paper presents a seasonal adjustment program called CAMPLET, an acronym of its tuning parameters, which consists of a simple adaptive procedure to extract the seasonal and the non-seasonal component from an observed series. Once this process is carried out there will be no need to revise these components at a later stage when new observations become available. The paper describes the main features of CAMPLET. We evaluate the outcomes of CAMPLET and X-13ARIMA-SEATS in a controlled simulation framework using a variety of data generating processes and illustrate CAMPLET and X-13ARIMA-SEATS with three time series: U.S. non-farm payroll employment, operational income of Ahold and real GDP in the Netherlands

Characteristics of Streptococcus pneumoniae Strains Colonizing Upper Respiratory Tract of Healthy Preschool Children in Poland

Antibiotic resistant and invasive pneumococci may spread temporally and locally in day care centers (DCCs). We examined 267 children attending four DCCs located in the same city and 70 children staying at home in three seasons (autumn, winter, and spring) to determine prevalence, serotype distribution, antibiotic resistance patterns, and transmission of pneumococcal strains colonizing upper respiratory tract of healthy children without antipneumococcal vaccination. By pheno-and genotyping, we determined clonality of pneumococci, including drug-resistant strains. The average carriage of pneumococci in three seasons was 38.2%. 73.4% and 80.4% of the isolates belonged to serotypes present in 10-and 13-valent conjugate vaccine, respectively. Among the pneumococcal strains, 33.3% were susceptible to all antimicrobial tested and 39.2% had decreased susceptibility to penicillin. Multidrug resistance was common (35.7%); 97.5% of drug-resistant isolates represented serotypes included to 10-and 13-valent conjugate vaccine. According to BOX-PCR, clonality definitely was observed only in case of serotype 14. Multivariate analysis determined DCC attendance as strongly related to pneumococcal colonization in all three seasons, but important seasonal differences were demonstrated. In children attending DCCs, we observed dynamic turnover of pneumococcal strains, especially penicillin nonsusceptible and multidrug resistant, which were mostly distributed among serotypes included to available pneumococcal conjugate vaccines