Migrazione e tossicodipendenza

The article presents the fundamental concepts of the French ethnopsychiatric model and proposes some etiopathogenic hypotheses about origins and development of drug addiction. It explores cultural specificity focusing on the various disease representations spread in different countries: single individuals, family, community, forefathers, God and the relationship with nature are involved even in drug addiction. The model for the first steps of consultation with foreign drug addicts suggested here is aimed at the acceptation of patient’s life contexts, where the meaning relation connecting them is to be found linking family history, rich in images and emotions, with individual migration project and personal experience. The challenge is in the capability to move towards the other and then come back, enriched by a new, little, empatethic “mental voyage”

Relationships among lying and standing behaviour, body condition score and milk production in primiparous cows

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The effect of different formulas in children with cow ' s milk allergy on the occurrence of other allergic manifestations and the time of immune tolerance acquisition: The atopic march II study

Background : Recent data suggest that the use of extensively hydrolyzed casein formula containing the probiotic L.rhamnosus GG (LGG) (EHCF+LGG) reduces the incidence of other AMs and hastens the development of immune tolerance in children with IgE- mediated cow ' s milk allergy (CMA). To see whether formula choice for CMA treatment could impact the occurrence of other AMs and the time of immune tolerance acquisition. Method : Prospective open non- randomized trial on a cohort of children with a diagnosis of IgE- mediated CMA in the first year of life, already in follow- up. The patients were treated with one of the following formulas: EHCF+LGG, rice hydrolyzed formula (RHF), soy formula (SF), extensively hydrolyzed whey formula (EHWF) or amino- acid based formula (AAF). All subjects were evaluated during a 36 months follow- up. The occurence of AMs (atopic eczema, allergic urticaria, asthma and oculorhinitis) was diagnosed Immune tolerance acquisition was evaluated every 12 month by the result of oral food challenge. Results : A total of 365 subjects completed the study, 73 per group. All children were from families of middle socio- economic status and lived in urban areas. At enrollment, all subjects were in stable clinical conditions without symptoms related to CMA. Demographic and anamnestic features were similar comparing the study cohorts at enrolment. Binomial regression revealed that the estimates of the incidence of the AMs are: EHCF+LGG: 0.22 (Bonferroni corrected 95%CI: 0.09 to 0.34); RHF: 0.52 (Bonferroni corrected 95%CI: 0.37 to 0.67); SF: 0.58 (Bonferroni corrected 95%CI: 0.43 to 0.72); EHWF : 0.51 (Bonferroni corrected 95%CI: 0.36 to 0.66); AAF: 0.77 (Bonferroni corrected 95%CI: 0.64 to 0.89). The incidence of the main outcome in the RHF, SF, EHWF and AAF groups vs the EHCF+LGG group was always higher than the pre- specified absolute difference of 0.25 and significantly higher at the pre- specified alphalevel of 0.0125 ( P - value <= 0.001 in all cases). The acquisition of immune tolerance was significantly higher in the EHCF+LGG group comparing to the other groups. The rate of immune tolerance acquisition for EHCF+LGG groups was (95%CI): at 12 months = 0.41 (0.30 to 0.52); at 24 months = 0.64 (0.53 to 0.75); at 36 months = 0.81 (0.72 to 0.90). Conclusion : The results of the study suggest that EHCF+LGG is superior to other formulas for the prevention of AMs and for the acquisition of immune tolerance in children with CMA

Description of a "Trans-Saharan" strain of human T-Lymphotropic virus type 1 in West Africa

The aim of this study was to assess the prevalence and the molecular epidemiology of human T-lymphotropic virus type 1 (HTLV-1) in a group of pregnant women living in Guinea Bissau. We studied 427 consecutive pregnant women attending 10 centers for HIV-1 infection monitoring in Bissau. HTLV-1 infection was found in 2.6% of the patients. Phylogenetic analysis of the long terminal repeat region showed that 10 isolates were of the cosmopolitan subtype (HTLV-1a) and that only 1 was of the widespread Central African subtype (HTLV-1b). All the cosmopolitan isolates belonged to the HTLV-1aD subgroup, which was first described in North Africa and clustered with other Senegal and Guinea isolates to form a significant West African clade. Our data show a high prevalence of HTLV-1 in Guinea Bissau and suggest the existence of a trans-Saharan strain distributed in North and West Africa, which probably crossed the desert in the past as a result of contacts between nomadic and sedentary populations or along trading routes

BDNF rs6265 methylation and genotype interact on risk for schizophrenia

Epigenetic mechanisms can mediate gene-environment interactions relevant for complex disorders. The BDNF gene is crucial for development and brain plasticity, is sensitive to environmental stressors, such as hypoxia, and harbors the functional SNP rs6265 (Val66Met), which creates or abolishes a CpG dinucleotide for DNA methylation. We found that methylation at the BDNF rs6265 Val allele in peripheral blood of healthy subjects is associated with hypoxia-related early life events (hOCs) and intermediate phenotypes for schizophrenia in a distinctive manner, depending on rs6265 genotype: in ValVal individuals increased methylation is associated with exposure to hOCs and impaired working memory (WM) accuracy, while the opposite is true for ValMet subjects. Also, rs6265 methylation and hOCs interact in modulating WM-related prefrontal activity, another intermediate phenotype for schizophrenia, with an analogous opposite direction in the 2 genotypes. Consistently, rs6265 methylation has a different association with schizophrenia risk in ValVals and ValMets. The relationships of methylation with BDNF levels and of genotype with BHLHB2 binding likely contribute to these opposite effects of methylation. We conclude that BDNF rs6265 methylation interacts with genotype to bridge early environmental exposures to adult phenotypes, relevant for schizophrenia. The study of epigenetic changes in regions containing genetic variation relevant for human diseases may have beneficial implications for the understanding of how genes are actually translated into phenotypes

Non-amnestic mild cognitive impairment and sleep complaints: a bidirectional relationship?

Prior studies documented that several sleep disorders may coexist in patients affected by Mild Cognitive Impairment (MCI) and Alzheimer disease (AD), and have a strong bidirectional relationship with cognitive decline

Resistance to Fas-Mediated Apoptosis of Human T-Cell Lines Expressing Human T-Lymphotropic Virus Type-2 (HTLV-2) Tax Protein

AbstractThe susceptibility to Fas-mediated apoptosis was evaluated in seven T-cell lines (two infected with HTLV-2, one with HTLV-1, and four HTLV-free) as well as in Jurkat cells transfected with a Tax-2 expressing vector. Fas-mediated apoptosis was significantly reduced in the HTLV-1- and HTLV-2-infected lines in comparison with the HTLV-free lines regardless of the surface expression of Fas antigen (which was no different in the infected and uninfected cells). Fas-mediated apoptosis was also significantly inhibited in Jurkat cells transfected with the Tax-2 expressing vector without any modification in Fas expression. There was significantly more antiapoptotic Bcl-xL mRNA and protein in the transfected than in the untransfected Jurkat T cells. In conclusion, our results suggest that HTLV-2 is capable of inhibiting Fas-mediated apoptosis by means of a mechanism involving the tax-2 gene and probably the expression of bcl-xL messenger and protein

Patterns of in vitro anti-human immunodeficiency virus type 1 antibody production in long-term nonprogressors

With the aim of evaluating the specific pattern of in vitro antibody production (IVAP) in human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1)-infected long-term non-progressors (LTNPs), we tested 20 subjects who had remained asymptomatic for more than 8 years with a CD4+ cell count higher than 500/microliter and 59 patients at different stages of HIV-1 infection as controls. In cell cultures, IVAP was detected in 14 out of 20 LTNPs (70%), in 5 out of 6 recent seroconverters (83%), and in all the other control patients. Anti-p24 antibody production was significantly lower in LTNPs than in asymptomatic patients with a more recent infection. Recent seroconverters and patients with AIDS did not produce anti-p24 antibodies (P = 0.02). Anti-gp160 antibodies were produced by peripheral blood mononuclear cells from LTNPs in 12/20 cases. CD4+ cell count was significantly higher in IVAP-negative than in IVAP-positive LTNPs (P = 0.013), while the viral load was not significantly different. Specific anti-HIV-1 antibody production did not seem to be a correlate of long-term nonprogression