Use and perception of Internet for health related purposes in Germany: results of a national survey

Objectives: Patient empowerment through the Internet is seen as a chance to improve patient-physician communication. Studies on the prevalence of Internet use for health related purposes and on how patients perceive those technologies are still rare. We therefore studied perception of and trends in health related Internet use. Methods: As part of a European survey 1.000 German individuals were interviewed using a computer-based telephone interview (CATI: Gabler-H�der-Design, random-digit-dialing, last birthday method) in October 2005. Descriptive statistics and logistic regression models were applied for elaborating characteristics of the health Internet users. Results: Internet use in general (72.3%) and for health related purposes (53.1%) is already quite high. Its importance, relative to other sources of health related information, was rated rather low. Younger citizens and people with paid work used the Internet more often for health related purposes, nevertheless, assessing it as less important for health related purposes than their counterparts. Conclusion: Despite booming of Internet use in Germany, consumers still value and use more the traditional sources of health information/communication with their doctors. Followup studies with a subsequent survey in 2007 will be pursued

Failure to degrade poly(ADP-ribose) causes increased sensitivity to cytotoxicity and early embryonic lethality

The metabolism of poly(ADP-ribose) (PAR) is critical for genomic stability in multicellular eukaryotes. Here, we show that the failure to degrade PAR by means of disruption of the murine poly(ADP-ribose) glycohydrolase (PARG) gene unexpectedly causes early embryonic lethality and enhanced sensitivity to genotoxic stress. This lethality results from the failure to hydrolyze PAR, because PARG null embryonic day (E) 3.5 blastocysts accumulate PAR and concurrently undergo apoptosis. Moreover, embryonic trophoblast stem cell lines established from early PARG null embryos are viable only when cultured in medium containing the poly(ADP-ribose) polymerase inhibitor benzamide. Cells lacking PARG also show reduced growth, accumulation of PAR, and increased sensitivity to cytotoxicity induced by N-methyl-N′-nitro-N-nitrosoguanidine and menadione after benzamide withdrawal. These results provide compelling evidence that the failure to degrade PAR has deleterious consequences. Further, they define a role for PARG in embryonic development and a protective role in the response to genotoxic stress