Financing Innovation

financing innovatio

Surficial geology of the Bainbridge quadrangle, Ohio

U.S. Department of the Interior U.S. Geological Survey Grant G14AC0038

Human papillomavirus infection in esophageal squamous cell carcinoma and esophageal adenocarcinoma: a concise review

The causal link between high-risk human papillomavirus (hr-HPV) infection and cervical, anogenital, and some oropharyngeal malignancies has been established by both molecular and epidemiological data. The association between HPV and esophageal squamous cell carcinoma (ESCC) remains controversial, as is the true prevalence of HPV infection in ESCC. The wide range in reported rates reflects variability in the primary literature, with some larger scale case–control studies suggesting the infection rates range from 0% to 78%. Interactions between HPV and the Barrett's metaplasia–dysplasia–carcinoma sequence have been explored, and these studies have shown some conflicting data. Overall, systematic reviews have reported the prevalence of HPV-positive DNA in esophageal adenocarcinoma patients of between 13% and 35%. Postulated reasons for discrepancies in HPV prevalence rates in esophageal cancer include variations in testing methodology and assay sensitivities; technical issues, including the lack of a gold-standard primer; types of specimens utilized (fresh-frozen versus formalin-fixed tissue); geographical variation; cross-contamination; and small sample sizes. Thus, efforts must be undertaken to (1) standardize HPV testing, ideally in a central laboratory and utilizing tests that detect viral transcriptional activity; (2) avoid cross-contamination; and (3) recruit large numbers of patients to accurately ascertain HPV rates in esophageal malignancy

Is weight cycling associated with adverse health outcomes? A cohort study

Evidence about the health effects of weight cycling is not consistent, with some studies suggesting it is harmful for health. Here we investigated whether weight cycling was associated with weight change and mental health outcomes in 10,428 participants in the mid-age cohort of The Australian Longitudinal Study of Women's Health (ALSWH) over 12 years. In 1998 the women were asked how many times they had ever intentionally lost at least 5 kg and how many times had they regained this amount. Women were categorised into four weight pattern groups: frequent weight cyclers (FWC, three or more weight cycles), low frequency weight cyclers (LFWC, one or two weight cycles), non-weight cyclers (NWC), and weight loss only (WL). We used generalised linear modelling to investigate relationships between weight pattern group, weight change and mental health outcomes. In 1998, 15% of the women were FWC, 24% LFWC, 46% NWC and 15% were WL. Weight change was similar across weight pattern groups in women with obesity, however healthy weight and overweight FWC gained more weight than women who did not weight cycle. We found no difference in overall mental health scores between groups, but both LFWC and FWC had higher odds of depressive symptoms (adjusted OR 1.5, 95%CI: 1.1 to 1.9 and 1.7, 95%CI: 1.1 to 2.4, respectively) than NWC. Our results suggest that, although weight cycling is not associated with greater weight gain in women with obesity, it may increase depressive symptoms

Physical activity and health related quality of life

Copyright @ 2012 Anokye et al.; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. 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, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.This article has been made available through the Brunel Open Access Publishing Fund.BACKGROUND: Research on the relationship between Health Related Quality of Life (HRQoL) and physical activity (PA), to date, have rarely investigated how this relationship differ across objective and subjective measures of PA. The aim of this paper is to explore the relationship between HRQoL and PA, and examine how this relationship differs across objective and subjective measures of PA, within the context of a large representative national survey from England. METHODS: Using a sample of 5,537 adults (40–60 years) from a representative national survey in England (Health Survey for England 2008), Tobit regressions with upper censoring was employed to model the association between HRQoL and objective, and subjective measures of PA controlling for potential confounders. We tested the robustness of this relationship across specific types of PA. HRQoL was assessed using the summary measure of health state utility value derived from the EuroQol-5 Dimensions (EQ-5D) whilst PA was assessed via subjective measure (questionnaire) and objective measure (accelerometer- actigraph model GT1M). The actigraph was worn (at the waist) for 7 days (during waking hours) by a randomly selected sub-sample of the HSE 2008 respondents (4,507 adults – 16 plus years), with a valid day constituting 10 hours. Analysis was conducted in 2010. RESULTS: Findings suggest that higher levels of PA are associated with better HRQoL (regression coefficient: 0.026 to 0.072). This relationship is consistent across different measures and types of PA although differences in the magnitude of HRQoL benefit associated with objective and subjective (regression coefficient: 0.047) measures of PA are noticeable, with the former measure being associated with a relatively better HRQoL (regression coefficient: 0.072). CONCLUSION: Higher levels of PA are associated with better HRQoL. Using an objective measure of PA compared with subjective shows a relatively better HRQoL.This project was funded by the NIHR Health Technology Assessment programme (project number 08/72/01)