Family history information and common chronic disease prevention: Type 2 diabetes as an example

Timmermans, D.R.M. [Promotor]Henneman, L. [Copromotor

Competition between movement plans increases motor variability: evidence of a shared resource for movement planning.

Do movement plans, like representations in working memory, share a limited pool of resources? If so, the precision with which each individual movement plan is specified should decrease as the total number of movement plans increases. To explore this, human participants made speeded reaching movements toward visual targets. We examined if preparing one movement resulted in less variability than preparing two movements. The number of planned movements was manipulated in a delayed response cueing procedure that limited planning to a single target (experiment 1) or hand (experiment 2) or required planning of movements toward two targets (or with two hands). For both experiments, initial movement direction variability was higher in the two-plan condition than in the one-plan condition, demonstrating a cost associated with planning multiple movements, consistent with the limited resource hypothesis. In experiment 3, we showed that the advantage in initial variability of preparing a single movement was present only when the trajectory could be fully specified. This indicates that the difference in variability between one and two plans reflects the specification of full motor plans, not a general preparedness to move. The precision cost related to concurrent plans represents a novel constraint on motor preparation, indicating that multiple movements cannot be planned independently, even if they involve different limbs.This research was supported by the Wellcome Trust and the Van Coeverden Adriani Stichting.This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from the American Physiological Society via http://dx.doi.org/10.1152/jn.00113.201

Circulating interleukin-6 receptor in patients with sepsis syndrome

Item does not contain fulltex

Automatic correction of hand pointing in stereoscopic depth

In order to examine whether stereoscopic depth information could drive fast automatic correction of hand pointing, an experiment was designed in a 3D visual environment in which participants were asked to point to a target at different stereoscopic depths as quickly and accurately as possible within a limited time window (≤300 ms). The experiment consisted of two tasks: "depthGO" in which participants were asked to point to the new target position if the target jumped, and "depthSTOP" in which participants were instructed to abort their ongoing movements after the target jumped. The depth jump was designed to occur in 20% of the trials in both tasks. Results showed that fast automatic correction of hand movements could be driven by stereoscopic depth to occur in as early as 190 ms.This work was supported by the Grants from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (60970062 and 61173116) and the Doctoral Fund of Ministry of Education of China (20110072110014)

Using family history information to promote healthy lifestyles and prevent diseases; a discussion of the evidence.

BACKGROUND: A family history, reflecting genetic susceptibility as well as shared environmental and behavioral factors, is an important risk factor for common chronic multifactorial diseases such as cardiovascular diseases, type 2 diabetes and many cancers. DISCUSSION: The purpose of the present paper is to discuss the evidence for the use of family history as a tool for primary prevention of common chronic diseases, in particular for tailored interventions aimed at promoting healthy lifestyles. The following questions are addressed: (1) What is the value of family history information as a determinant of personal disease risk?; (2)How can family history information be used to motivate at-risk individuals to adopt and maintain healthy lifestyles in order to prevent disease?; and (3) What additional studies are needed to assess the potential value of family history information as a tool to promote a healthy lifestyle? SUMMARY: In addition to risk assessment, family history information can be used to personalize health messages, which are potentially more effective in promoting healthy lifestyles than standardized health messages. More research is needed on the evidence for the effectiveness of such a tool.RIGHTS : This article is licensed under the BioMed Central licence at http://www.biomedcentral.com/about/license which is similar to the 'Creative Commons Attribution Licence'. In brief you may : copy, distribute, and display the work; make derivative works; or make commercial use of the work - under the following conditions: the original author must be given credit; for any reuse or distribution, it must be made clear to others what the license terms of this work are

Diffuse large B-cell non-Hodgkin lymphomas: the clinical relevance of histological subclassification

In the REAL classification the diffuse large B-cell non-Hodgkin lymphomas (NHL) are grouped together, because subclassifications are considered to lack both reproducibility and clinical significance. Others, however, claim that patients with an immunoblastic NHL have a worse prognosis than patients with other types of diffuse large B-cell NHL. Therefore, we investigated the prognostic and clinical significance of histological subclassification of diffuse large B-cell NHL in a uniformly treated series of patients. For this retrospective study, all patients diagnosed as having an immunoblastic (IB) B-cell NHL by the Lymphoma Review Panel of the Comprehensive Cancer Center Amsterdam (CCCA) between 1984 and 1994, and treated according to the guidelines of the CCCA, were analysed. Patients with a centroblastic polymorphic subtype (CB-Poly) or centroblastic (CB) NHL by the Lymphoma Review Panel who were treated in the Netherlands Cancer Institute during the same period according to CCCA guidelines were used as reference groups. All patients' records were reviewed. Clinical parameters at presentation, kind of therapy and clinical outcome were recorded. All available histological slides were separately reviewed by two haemato-pathologists. One hundred and seventy-seven patients were included in the study: 36 patients (20.3%) with an IB NHL, 69 patients (39%) with a CB-Poly NHL and 72 patients (40.7%) with a CB NHL. The patients with an IB NHL tended to be older and presented more often with stage I or II and one extranodal site than patients with a CB and CB-Poly NHL. None of the subtypes showed a clear preference for localization in a particular site. The patients with IB or CB-Poly NHL showed a significantly worse prognosis than patients with CB NHL, with a 5-year overall survival for patients with CB NHL of 56.3% and for patients with IB or CB-Poly NHL 39.1% and 41.6% respectively. The 5-year disease free survival was 53.2% for the patients with CB, 32% for the patients with CB-Poly and 26.9% for the patients with IB NHL. A multivariate analysis showed that histological subtyping was of prognostic significance independent of the International Prognostic Index. This finding merits further exploration in prospective studies in order to judge the value of subclassification of large B-cell NHL as a guideline in therapy choice. © 1999 Cancer Research Campaig

A designer hyper interleukin 11 (H11) is a biologically active cytokine

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Interleukin 11 (IL-11) is a pleiotropic cytokine with anti-apoptotic, anti-inflammatory and hematopoietic potential. The IL-11 activity is determined by the expression of the IL-11R receptor alpha (IL-11Rα) and the signal transducing subunit β (gp130) on the cell membrane. A recombinant soluble form of the IL-11Rα (sIL-11Rα) in combination with IL-11 acts as an agonist on cells expressing the gp130 molecule. We constructed a designer cytokine Hyper IL-11 (H11), which is exclusively composed of naturally existing components. It contains the full length sIL-11Rα connected with the mature IL-11 protein using their natural sequences only. Such a construct has two major advantages: (i) its components are as close as possible to the natural forms of both proteins and (ii) it lacks an artificial linker what should avoid induction of antibody production.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>The H11 construct was generated, the protein was produced in a baculovirus expression system and was then purified by using ion exchange chromatography. The H11 protein displayed activity in three independent bioassays, (i) it induced acute phase proteins production in HepG2 cells expressing IL-11, IL-11Rα and gp130, (ii) it stimulated the proliferation of B9 cells (cells expressing IL-11Rα and gp130) and (iii) proliferation of Baf/3-gp130 cells (cells not expressing IL-11 and IL-11Rα but gp130). Moreover, the preliminary data indicated that H11 was functionally distinct from Hyper-IL-6, a molecule which utilizes the same homodimer of signal transducing receptor (gp130).</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>The biologically active H11 may be potentially useful for treatment of thrombocytopenia, infertility, multiple sclerosis, cardiovascular diseases or inflammatory disorders.</p

Lay perceptions of predictive testing for diabetes based on DNA test results versus family history assessment: a focus group study

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>This study assessed lay perceptions of issues related to predictive genetic testing for multifactorial diseases. These perceived issues may differ from the "classic" issues, e.g. autonomy, discrimination, and psychological harm that are considered important in predictive testing for monogenic disorders. In this study, type 2 diabetes was used as an example, and perceptions with regard to predictive testing based on DNA test results and family history assessment were compared.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>Eight focus group interviews were held with 45 individuals aged 35-70 years with (n = 3) and without (n = 1) a family history of diabetes, mixed groups of these two (n = 2), and diabetes patients (n = 2). All interviews were transcribed and analysed using Atlas-ti.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Most participants believed in the ability of a predictive test to identify people at risk for diabetes and to motivate preventive behaviour. Different reasons underlying motivation were considered when comparing DNA test results and a family history risk assessment. A perceived drawback of DNA testing was that diabetes was considered not severe enough for this type of risk assessment. In addition, diabetes family history assessment was not considered useful by some participants, since there are also other risk factors involved, not everyone has a diabetes family history or knows their family history, and it might have a negative influence on family relations. Respect for autonomy of individuals was emphasized more with regard to DNA testing than family history assessment. Other issues such as psychological harm, discrimination, and privacy were only briefly mentioned for both tests.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>The results suggest that most participants believe a predictive genetic test could be used in the prevention of multifactorial disorders, such as diabetes, but indicate points to consider before both these tests are applied. These considerations differ with regard to the method of assessment (DNA test or obtaining family history) and also differ from monogenic disorders.</p