Effect of Short-Term Fasting on Systemic Cytochrome P450-Mediated Drug Metabolism in Healthy Subjects: A Randomized, Controlled, Crossover Study Using a Cocktail Approach

Background and Objective: Short-term fasting can alter drug exposure but it is unknown whether this is an effect of altered oral bioavailability and/or systemic clearance. Therefore, the aim of our study was to assess the effect of short-term fasting on oral bioavailability and systemic clearance of different drugs. Methods: In a randomized, controlled, crossover trial, 12 healthy subjects received a single administration of a cytochrome P450 (CYP) probe cocktail, consisting of caffeine (CYP1A2), metoprolol (CYP2D6), midazo

The promises of genomic screening: building a governance infrastructure. Special issue: genetics and democracy

New screening possibilities become available at a high rate, both useful and unsound possibilities. All screening programmes do harm, and only few have more advantages than disadvantages at reasonable cost. Horizon scanning is needed to identify those few possibilities with more pros than cons. Attunement is needed between actors involved: scientists developing new high-throughput screening techniques and treatment, health care workers, patients and consumers and governmental agencies. The product of a process of attunement may be a quality mark as a norm for professional conduct, rather than legal measures, as the field is moving fast. As actors may have varying perspectives, a governance structure is needed to develop an agenda that is agreed upon by all or most actors involved. A standing committee might oversee the evaluation of benefits and disadvantages in an integrated approach, taking evidence, economics and ethics into account. A proactive role of governmental agencies is needed to facilitate agenda setting and attunement. Policy making has to be transparent and open to stakeholder engagement

Sociological and Communication-Theoretical Perspectives on the Commercialization of the Sciences

Both self-organization and organization are important for the further development of the sciences: the two dynamics condition and enable each other. Commercial and public considerations can interact and "interpenetrate" in historical organization; different codes of communication are then "recombined." However, self-organization in the symbolically generalized codes of communication can be expected to operate at the global level. The Triple Helix model allows for both a neo-institutional appreciation in terms of historical networks of university-industry-government relations and a neo-evolutionary interpretation in terms of three functions: (i) novelty production, (i) wealth generation, and (iii) political control. Using this model, one can appreciate both subdynamics. The mutual information in three dimensions enables us to measure the trade-off between organization and self-organization as a possible synergy. The question of optimization between commercial and public interests in the different sciences can thus be made empirical.Comment: Science & Education (forthcoming

Raising awareness of carrier testing for hereditary haemoglobinopathies in high-risk ethnic groups in the Netherlands: a pilot study among the general public and primary care providers

0.05). 191 surveys were collected from general practitioners or midwives. Their attitude towards the education programme for high-risk ethnic groups was positive, yet they did not show strong intention to effectuate carrier testing of their patients on the basis of ethnicity. The main factor which explained their (lack of) intention was social norm, i.e. their perception of negative peer opinion (41% variance explained). The majority of primary health care providers felt that policy change was unnecessary. CONCLUSION: The "infotainment" programme may have a positive effect on people from high-risk groups, but informed general practitioners and midwives were reluctant to facilitate their patients' getting tested. Additional initiatives are needed to motivate primary care providers to facilitate haemoglobinopathy carrier testing for their patients from high-risk background

Zircon U‐Pb Dating of a Lower Crustal Shear Zone: A Case Study From the Northern Sector of the Ivrea‐Verbano Zone (Val Cannobina, Italy)

A geochronological study was performed on zircon grains from a middle‐lower crustal shear zone exposed in the northern sector of the Ivrea‐Verbano Zone (Southern Alps, Italy) for the first time. The shear zone developed at the boundary between mafic rocks of the External Gabbro unit and ultramafic rocks of the Amphibole Peridotite unit. It is ~10–20 m wide, can be followed along a NE strike for several kilometers, and consists of an anastomosing network of mylonites and ultramylonites. Zircon grains were studied in thin sections and as separates from three representative outcrops along the shear zone. Zircon grains are more abundant in the shear zone compared to wall rocks and are generally equant, rounded to subrounded with dimensions up to 500 μm. U‐Pb data are mainly discordant, and the apparent ²⁰⁶Pb/²³⁸U dates show a large variation from Permian to Jurassic. Isotopic data, combined with microstructural, morphological, and internal features of zircon, reveal an inherited age component and suggest partial zircon recrystallization under high‐temperature conditions during Late Triassic to Early Jurassic. High‐temperature deformation in the shear zone, at lower crustal levels, was coeval with amphibolite to greenschist facies mylonitic deformation at upper crustal levels and is inferred to be related to Mesozoic rifting processes at the Adriatic margin