Food elimination based on IgG antibodies in irritable bowel syndrome: a randomised controlled trial

Background: Patients with irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) often feel they have some form of dietary intolerance and frequently try exclusion diets. Tests attempting to predict food sensitivity in IBS have been disappointing but none has utilised IgG antibodies. Aims: To assess the therapeutic potential of dietary elimination based on the presence of IgG antibodies to food. Patients: A total of 150 outpatients with IBS were randomised to receive, for three months, either a diet excluding all foods to which they had raised IgG antibodies ( enzyme linked immunosorbant assay test) or a sham diet excluding the same number of foods but not those to which they had antibodies. Methods: Primary outcome measures were change in IBS symptom severity and global rating scores. Non-colonic symptomatology, quality of life, and anxiety/depression were secondary outcomes. Intention to treat analysis was undertaken using a generalised linear model. Results: After 12 weeks, the true diet resulted in a 10% greater reduction in symptom score than the sham diet ( mean difference 39 (95% confidence intervals (CI) 5 - 72); p = 0.024) with this value increasing to 26% in fully compliant patients ( difference 98 ( 95% CI 52 - 144); p< 0.001). Global rating also significantly improved in the true diet group as a whole ( p = 0.048, NNT = 9) and even more in compliant patients ( p = 0.006, NNT = 2.5). All other outcomes showed trends favouring the true diet. Relaxing the diet led to a 24% greater deterioration in symptoms in those on the true diet ( difference 52 ( 95% CI 18 - 88); p = 0.003). Conclusion: Food elimination based on IgG antibodies may be effective in reducing IBS symptoms and is worthy of further biomedical research

Residual Stress Mechanisms in Aluminum Oxide Films Grown by MOCVD

Residual stresses in amorphous aluminium oxide films were investigated with in situ wafer curvature measurements. The films were deposited from aluminium tri-isopropoxide, on sapphire substrates. Large tensile stresses of 1-2 GPa occurred during growth. These values are well above the fracture stress in bulk materials, but they are sustainable in thin film form. Subsequent heat treatment of these films produced additional tensile stress, even at low temperatures prior to crystallization. The mechanisms responsible for all of these stress contributions are discussed. The variety of operative mechanisms at low to moderate temperatures in these amorphous films suggests that different processing routes can be used to engineer significant differences in the final stress state of these materials

Organizing to Win: Introduction

[Excerpt] The American labor movement is at a watershed. For the first time since the early years of industrial unionism sixty years ago, there is near-universal agreement among union leaders that the future of the movement depends on massive new organizing. In October 1995, John Sweeney, Richard Trumka, and Linda Chavez-Thompson were swept into the top offices of the AFL-CIO, following a campaign that promised organizing at an unprecedented pace and scale. Since taking office, the new AFL-CIO leadership team has created a separate organizing department and has committed $20 million to support coordinated large-scale industry-based organizing drives. In addition, in the summer of 1996, the AFL-CIO launched the Union Summer program, which placed more than a thousand college students and young workers in organizing campaigns across the country