Biofield Therapies: Helpful or Full of Hype? A Best Evidence Synthesis

Biofield therapies (such as Reiki, therapeutic touch, and healing touch) are complementary medicine modalities that remain controversial and are utilized by a significant number of patients, with little information regarding their efficacy. This systematic review examines 66 clinical studies with a variety of biofield therapies in different patient populations. We conducted a quality assessment as well as a best evidence synthesis approach to examine evidence for biofield therapies in relevant outcomes for different clinical populations. Studies overall are of medium quality, and generally meet minimum standards for validity of inferences. Biofield therapies show strong evidence for reducing pain intensity in pain populations, and moderate evidence for reducing pain intensity hospitalized and cancer populations. There is moderate evidence for decreasing negative behavioral symptoms in dementia and moderate evidence for decreasing anxiety for hospitalized populations. There is equivocal evidence for biofield therapies' effects on fatigue and quality of life for cancer patients, as well as for comprehensive pain outcomes and affect in pain patients, and for decreasing anxiety in cardiovascular patients. There is a need for further high-quality studies in this area. Implications and future research directions are discussed

Epigenetics of human cutaneous melanoma: setting the stage for new therapeutic strategies

Cutaneous melanoma is a very aggressive neoplasia of melanocytic origin with constantly growing incidence and mortality rates world-wide. Epigenetic modifications (i.e., alterations of genomic DNA methylation patterns, of post-translational modifications of histones, and of microRNA profiles) have been recently identified as playing an important role in melanoma development and progression by affecting key cellular pathways such as cell cycle regulation, cell signalling, differentiation, DNA repair, apoptosis, invasion and immune recognition. In this scenario, pharmacologic inhibition of DNA methyltransferases and/or of histone deacetylases were demonstrated to efficiently restore the expression of aberrantly-silenced genes, thus re-establishing pathway functions. In light of the pleiotropic activities of epigenetic drugs, their use alone or in combination therapies is being strongly suggested, and a particular clinical benefit might be expected from their synergistic activities with chemo-, radio-, and immuno-therapeutic approaches in melanoma patients. On this path, an important improvement would possibly derive from the development of new generation epigenetic drugs characterized by much reduced systemic toxicities, higher bioavailability, and more specific epigenetic effects

Organisation und Geschlecht : eine Netzwerkperspektive: welche Netzwerkstruktur fördert die Karrieremobilität?

Die Situation von Frauen und Männern hat heute in vielen Bereichen der Arbeitswelt eine Angleichung der Chancen erfahren (Wirth, 2001). Frauen verfügen inzwischen über die gleichen schulischen Qualifikationen wie Männer und haben ihre berufliche Orientierung gesteigert (so schon Lauterbach, 1994). In Unternehmungen sind verschiedene Maßnahmen zur Realisierung der Chancengleichheit der Geschlechter ergriffen worden (Krell, 2004; Osterloh & Wübker, 2004). Trotz dieser Bemühungen herrscht auf dem Arbeitsmarkt nach wie vor eine horizontale und vertikale Segregation. Einerseits sind Frauen in typischen Frauenberufen zu finden, andererseits arbeiten sie auf den unteren Ebenen organisationaler Hierarchien (Wirth, 2001). Eine Vielzahl von Studien hat die Untervertretung von Frauen in Organisationen zu erklären versucht (für einen Überblick: Morrison & von Glinow, 1990). Bisher ist jedoch bei der Erklärung von Geschlechterunterschieden in Organisationen die Rolle der Interaktionsnetzwerke zu wenig berücksichtigt worden. Zwar haben Studien zu Gender & Organization oft vom Ausschluss von Frauen aus bestehenden Netzwerken berichtet (Nieva & Gutek, 1981; Harlan & Weiss, 1982; Rizzo & Mendez, 1990). Aber dieser Ausschluss wird meist in anekdotischer Form, ohne empirisch präzise Untersuchung geschildert. In der vorliegenden Arbeit soll diese Lücke verkleinert werden