tbuckley/cabot-search huggingface dataset:
Probiotics, prebiotics, synbiotics: ecological treatment for inflammatory bowel disease?
Authors: P Marteau
Journal: Gut (2006)

Ecological treatment may be beneficial in patients with ulcerative colitis

A clinical study published previously in Gut suggests for the first time that an ecological treatment combining a prebiotic mixture of fructo-oligosaccharides (FOS) of different chain length with a Bifidobacterium longum (a synbiotic) could have therapeutic benefits in the distal colon of patients with acute ulcerative colitis.1

In this randomised double-blind pilot trial, a marked decrease in endoscopic lesions in the distal colon was observed in the ecological treatment group but not in the placebo group. The biological markers of inflammation in the mucosa, tumour necrosis factor α, interleukin (IL) 1-α and the human β-defensins 2, 3 and 4, decreased (ie, were ameliorated) in the group receiving the ecological treatment. This study will probably not convince most clinicians because of the low number of subjects, the use of concomittent treatments and the lack of histological inflammation score. However, pilot studies such as this one will hopefully bridge the expanding animal data and still limited human clinical research and help select products for powered randomised controlled trials. Many ecological treatments have now been shown to be effective in the treatment of experimental inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) in rodents.2 The term probiotic defines “live microorganisms which when administered in adequate amounts confer a health benefit on the host”. Efficient probiotic strains have been found in different bacterial genera including bifidobacteria, …
Prevalence and significance of neurocognitive dysfunction in hepatitis C in the absence of correlated risk factors
Authors: Mary Pat McAndrews, Karl Farcnik, Peter Carlen, Andrei Damyanovich, Mirela Mrkonjic, Susan Jones, E. Jenny Heathcote
Journal: Hepatology (2005)

Neurocognitive morbidity has been reported in individuals with chronic hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection, but the magnitude of such dysfunction in the absence of disease-correlated factors known to affect the central nervous system (e.g., substance abuse, cirrhosis, depression, interferon treatment) and the impact of any such change on functioning is unclear. We investigated a cohort of individuals with HCV, all of whom were carefully screened to exclude relevant comorbidities, to elucidate virus-related changes in the brain using neuropsychological tests and magnetic resonance spectroscopy (MRS). A cohort of 37 patients with chronic HCV infection was culled from 300 consecutive patients presenting to a tertiary care liver clinic. A comparison group of healthy controls (n = 46) was also assessed. Of 10 neurocognitive measures evaluated, the HCV group showed marginally poorer learning efficiency compared with controls; only 13% of patients demonstrated a clinical level of impairment on this test (defined as 1.5 SD below the normative standard). Although patients reported greater levels of fatigue and symptoms of depression, these factors did not correlate with the degree of learning inefficiency. With respect to MRS, the HCV group demonstrated increased choline and reduced N-acetyl aspartate relative to controls in the central white matter. Indicators of liver disease severity did not correlate with either memory or MRS abnormalities. In conclusion, while our findings support an association between hepatitis C and indicators of central nervous system involvement in a cohort of patients carefully screened to eliminate other factors influencing neurocognitive integrity, the clinical significance of these effects is limited. (HEPATOLOGY 2005;41:801–808.)
THE OCCURRENCE OF ANTIGOITROUS SUBSTANCES IN PLANTS
Authors: David Marine, Emil J. Baumann, Bruce Webster, Anna Cipra
Journal: The Journal of Experimental Medicine (1933)

The development of simple goiter in rabbits, which results when they are fed on a diet consisting chiefly of cabbage (or other Brassica) can be prevented by the feeding of certain fresh plants. Lawn grass, fresh alfalfa, skunk cabbage and steamed cabbage press juice have been found effective. Washing Brassicae with water improves their goiter-producing action, probably by the removal of goiter-preventing substances. The antigoitrous effect of plant juices was found to vary with the amount of reducing substance other than glutathione present. Skunk cabbage press juice, obtained from growing plants during the spring months, contained a large amount of iodine-absorbing material, and was very effective in involuting hyperplastic glands while juice obtained from mature plants in July when the iodine-absorbing material had nearly all disappeared, was quite ineffective. Certain extracts from cabbage administered parenterally, containing the reducing material, also had a marked involuting action on the thyroid. These extracts were practically iodine-free. The substance or substances believed to be responsible are easily soluble in water, ethyl alcohol, aqueous ethyl alcohol and are precipitable by lead acetate at a pH of 0.68-0.70. They are partially destroyed by exposure to air and by steam at 100 degrees . Hexuronic acid isolated by Szent-Györgyi from cabbage, orange juice and suprarenal glands could be the antigoitrous agent. It cannot be glutathione.
Van Gogh—Color-Blind?
Authors: Daniel Sheehan
Journal: JAMA (1974)

<h3>To the Editor.—</h3> Your cover picture of the Oct 22 issue was Vincent van Gogh's "Starry Night," with the comment that "it is probably the emotion rather than a defect in van Gogh's nocturnal vision that results in stars seen as maelstrom turbulences." While there is no doubt of his emotional fervor and artistic genius, the astonishing popularity of van Gogh's color patterns may have been contributed to by color-blindness. I first made this observation when re-examining a candidate for Reconnaissance Air Crew who had been rejected because of color-blindness. He had had a successful career in color photography in London's West End. He told me that the color patterns of van Gogh's pictures were to him the normal coloring he would have painted in similar backgrounds and was surprised that the colors should have been thought unusual or particularly striking. Several other individuals with color-defective vision expressed the same
Infarction and Rupture of the Heart
Authors: Arthur C. Fox
Journal: New England Journal of Medicine (1983)

THE normal cardiac pump adapts remarkably well to peripheral demands, which vary continuously and are often extreme. By shortening its sarcomeres further and more forcefully, it quickly delivers increased flow at high pressures, but in so doing it subjects its wall to considerable systolic stress. How do the thinner surfaces of this hollow muscular pump normally avoid systolic bulging, and why may they rupture when infarcted?Normal cardiac muscle consists largely of myofibrils and mitochondria.1 At rest its compliance is midway between that of collagen and that of elastin. With activation and formation of rigid actin–myosin cross-links, it becomes 10 . . .
THE SIGNIFICANCE OF TRANSIENT ISCHEMIC DILATION IN THE SETTING OF OTHERWISE NORMAL SPECT RADIONUCLIDE MYOCARDIAL PERFUSION IMAGES
Authors: Carolina Valdiviezo, Apurva Motivala, Rory Hachamovitch, Murthy Chamarthy, Pablo Navarro, Robert J. Ostfeld, Mimi Kim, Mark I. Travin
Journal: Journal of the American College of Cardiology (2010)
Endogenous nitric oxide is decreased in asthmatic patients by an inhibitor of inducible nitric oxide synthase.
Authors: D H Yates, S A Kharitonov, P S Thomas, P J Barnes
Journal: American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine (1996)

Exhaled nitric oxide (NO) may be derived from constitutive NO synthase (NOS) in normal airways, but the increased concentration in asthma is likely to be derived from inducible NOS expressed in inflamed airways. To investigate this, we administered a nonselective NOS inhibitor, NG-nitro-L-arginine methyl ester (L-NAME), and a selective inhibitor of inducible NOS, aminoguanidine, by nebulization in a double-blind, placebo-controlled manner in both normal subjects and subjects with asthma. L-NAME resulted in a significant reduction in exhaled NO compared with saline control in eight normal subjects (maximum fall from baseline, 53 +/- 7.6% versus 8.9 +/- 6.5%; P < 0.05) and in seven patients with asthma (maximum fall, 67 +/- 7.4% versus 10 +/- 7.4% versus 10 +/- 9.3%; p < 0.05). Aminoguanidine at the same molar concentration decreased exhaled NO in subjects with asthma (maximum fall, 53 +/- 7.2% versus 7.1 +/- 10.4%; p < 0.05), but caused no significant change in normal volunteers (maximum fall, 28 +/- 9.3 versus 15 +/- 11). No rise in blood pressure, fall in FEV1, or adverse effects were observed in either subject group. We have demonstrated that NOS inhibitors can safely be given by inhalation in a single does in normal subjects and subjects with asthma. The raised exhaled NO concentration in patients with asthma may be attributable to induction of NOS, with that in normal subjects reflecting basal constitutive NOS activity.
University College Hospital and Its Medical School: A History
Authors: John K. Crellin
Journal: JAMA (1977)

Histories of hospitals fall broadly into two categories. The majority, by concentrating on personalities (often exclusively on physicians, surgeons, and benefactors), interest principally the dedicated historian or those who have associations with the institution. They contribute to an<i>esprit de corps</i>, but some of them, because of their chauvinism, often irritate general historians and lower the academic standing of medical history. In contrast, the second category is of more general interest because the authors explore the changing, complex interrelationships found in institutions and, at the same time, do not forget patients. Merrington's book (which also covers a medical school) falls mostly, but not entirely, into the first group. Furthermore, because the hospital and medical school involved so many renowned names, there is much of interest for the general reader. The school opened in 1828 as part of "the Godless Institution in Gower Street" (there were no religious barriers for admission),
HISTOPATHOLOGY IN THE PREDICTION OF RELAPSE OF PATIENTS WITH STAGE I TESTICULAR TERATOMA TREATED BY ORCHIDECTOMY ALONE
Authors: L.S. Freedman, W.G. Jones, M.J. Peckham, E.S. Newlands, M.C. Parkinson, R.T.D. Oliver, G. Read, C.J. Williams
Journal: The Lancet (1987)
Dynamics of the brain at global and microscopic scales: Neural networks and the EEG
Authors: J. J. Wright, D. T. J. Liley
Journal: Behavioral and Brain Sciences (1996)

Abstract There is some complementarity of models for the origin of the electroencephalogram (EEG) and neural network models for information storage in brainlike systems. From the EEG models of Freeman, of Nunez, and of the authors' group we argue that the wavelike processes revealed in the EEG exhibit linear and near-equilibrium dynamics at macroscopic scale, despite extremely nonlinear – probably chaotic – dynamics at microscopic scale. Simulations of cortical neuronal interactions at global and microscopic scales are then presented. The simulations depend on anatomical and physiological estimates of synaptic densities, coupling symmetries, synaptic gain, dendritic time constants, and axonal delays. It is shown that the frequency content, wave velocities, frequency/wavenumber spectra and response to cortical activation of the electrocorticogram (ECoG) can be reproduced by a “lumped” simulation treating small cortical areas as single-function units. The corresponding cellular neural network simulation has properties that include those of attractor neural networks proposed by Amit and by Parisi. Within the simulations at both scales, sharp transitions occur between low and high cell firing rates. These transitions may form a basis for neural interactions across scale. To maintain overall cortical dynamics in the normal low firing-rate range, interactions between the cortex and the subcortical systems are required to prevent runaway global excitation. Thus, the interaction of cortex and subcortex via corticostriatal and related pathways may partly regulate global dynamics by a principle analogous to adiabatic control of artificial neural networks.
Evidence for an Unanticipated Relationship between Undifferentiated Pleomorphic Sarcoma and Embryonal Rhabdomyosarcoma
Authors: Brian P. Rubin, Koichi Nishijo, Hung-I Harry Chen, Xiaolan Yi, David P. Schuetze, Ranadip Pal, Suresh I. Prajapati, Jinu Abraham, Benjamin R. Arenkiel, Qing-Rong Chen, Sean Davis, Amanda T. McCleish, Mario R. Capecchi, Joel E. Michalek, Lee Ann Zarzabal, Javed Khan, Zhongxin Yu, David M. Parham, Frederic G. Barr, Paul S. Meltzer, Yidong Chen, Charles Keller
Journal: Cancer Cell (2011)
Asymptomatic bacteriuria--a serious disease?
Authors: L A Hanson, J Holmgren, U Jodal, K Lincoln, U Lindberg
Journal: BMJ (1972)

t size of the bacilli was 8 p x 1 it.No capsules were seen and many bacilli showed subterminal empty spaces probably representing spores which had not distended the bacterial ouline.Ty,pical rounded ends were present in all bacilli and many of them were slightly curved, others were at right angles to each other giving the impression of bnching hyphal foirns.Cultures from t-he drainage tube on the fourth postoperative day for anaerobic bacilli failed to produce any Inmiediately after receipt of the pathology report massive penicillin therapy was started with very favourable response.On the 16th postoperative day the patient was discharged after a minor lung infection had cleared up with broad specum antibiotic therapy.Liver function was normal except for slightly reduoed serum protein (5 4 g/100 mi).We were intrigued by the presence of she Grm-positive bacilli, since there was only mild bruising of the anterior abdominal wall and no bowel injury was found.Ascent of bacilli in the post-traumatic state up the common bile duct is the probable source of these organisms.Bacteria, especially anaerobes, have been found after death in human and animal livers at necropsy.1 Cultures of liver biopsies are generally negative, but this is believed to be due to the bactericidal action of fatty acids.Bacteria entering the biliary tree or the portal circula- tion from the intestine have also been re- ported.1 Experimental hepatic dame also kads to bacteria in the bile or lymph.The exact classification of these bateria was not possible because specimens for anaerobic cultures were not obtained during the surgical procedure.The morphology and gas formation would suggest Cl. welchii or orgaisms of the gas-forming anaerobic group.-Weare, etc.,
Microfluidic Organ‐on‐a‐Chip Technology for Advancement of Drug Development and Toxicology
Authors: Jeremy D. Caplin, Norma G. Granados, Myra R. James, Reza Montazami, Nastaran Hashemi
Journal: Advanced Healthcare Materials (2015)

In recent years, the exploitation of phenomena surrounding microfluidics has seen an increase in popularity, as researchers have found a way to use their unique properties to create superior design alternatives. One such application is representing the properties and functions of different organs on a microscale chip for the purpose of drug testing or tissue engineering. With the introduction of “organ‐on‐a‐chip” systems, researchers have proposed various methods on various organ‐on‐a‐chip systems to mimic their in vivo counterparts. In this article, a systematic approach is taken to review current technologies pertaining to organ‐on‐a‐chip systems. Design processes with attention to the particular instruments, cells, and materials used are presented.
A Randomized, Double-Blind, Placebo-Controlled, Multicenter Study to Assess the Efficacy and Safety of Topiramate Controlled Release in the Treatment of Obese Type 2 Diabetic Patients
Authors: Julio Rosenstock, Priscilla Hollander, Kishore M. Gadde, Xiang Sun, Richard Strauss, Albert Leung
Journal: Diabetes Care (2007)

This is a randomized, placebo-controlled study of the weight-loss efficacy and safety of a controlled-release (CR) formulation of topiramate in overweight and obese patients with type 2 diabetes treated with diet and exercise alone or in combination with metformin.Patients with type 2 diabetes, BMI > or =27 kg/m2, A1C >6.5 and <11.0%, treated with diet and exercise alone or in combination with metformin monotherapy were enrolled. Patients were randomized to placebo or topiramate CR titrated up to 175 mg/day. Treatment consisted of a 7-week titration phase followed by a 9-week maintenance phase.A total of 111 subjects were randomized and analyzed. By the end of week 16, patients in the placebo and topiramate groups lost 2.5 and 6.0 kg, which represented 2.3 and 5.8%, respectively, of their baseline body weight (P < 0.001 vs. placebo). A1C improved from a baseline of 7.4% in the placebo and 7.6% in the topiramate groups to 7.1 and 6.7%, respectively, representing a 0.4 and 0.9% reduction from baseline, respectively (P < 0.001 vs. placebo). Topiramate also significantly reduced blood pressure and urinary albumin excretion. Adverse events were predominantly neuropsychiatric or central and peripheral nervous system related.Topiramate CR treatment produced significant weight loss and meaningful improvements in A1C and blood pressure in obese patients with type 2 diabetes treated with diet and exercise or in combination with metformin. However, the central nervous system and psychiatric adverse event profile of topiramate CR makes it unsuitable for the treatment of obesity and diabetes.
Abstract 781: The effect of vorinostat on the development of resistance to doxorubicin in neuroblastoma
Authors: Timothy B. Lautz, Chunfa Jie, Sandra Clark, Jessica A Naiditch, Nadereh Jafari, Yi-Yong Qiu, Xin Zheng, Mary Beth Madonna, Fei Chu
Journal: Cancer Research (2012)

Abstract Histone deacetylase (HDAC) inhibitors, especially vorinostat, are currently under investigation as potential adjuncts in the treatment of neuroblastoma. The effect of vorinostat co-treatment on the development of resistance to other chemotherapeutic agents is unknown. In the present study, we treated two human neuroblastoma cell lines [SK-N-SH and SK-N-Be(2)C] with progressively increasing doses of doxorubicin under two conditions: with and without vorinsotat co-therapy. The resultant doxorubicin-resistant (DoxR) and vorinostat-treated doxorubicin resistant (DoxR-v) cells were equally resistant to doxorubicin despite significantly lower P-glycoprotein expression in the DoxR-v cells. Whole genome analysis was performed using the Ilumina Human HT-12 v4 Expression Beadchip to identify genes with differential expression unique to the DoxR-v cells. We uncovered a number of genes whose differential expression in the DoxR-v cells might contribute to their resistant phenotype, including hypoxia inducible factor-2. Finally, we used Gene Ontology to categorize the biological functions of the differentially expressed genes unique to the DoxR-v cells and found that genes involved in cellular metabolism were especially affected. Citation Format: {Authors}. {Abstract title} [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the 103rd Annual Meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research; 2012 Mar 31-Apr 4; Chicago, IL. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2012;72(8 Suppl):Abstract nr 781. doi:1538-7445.AM2012-781
Catheterization of the Left Side of the Heart
Authors: Eugene R. Kelly, Andrew G. Morrow, Eugene Braunwald
Journal: New England Journal of Medicine (1960)

CATHETERIZATION of the left side of the heart1 2 3 4 has made possible a variety of physiologic investigations5 6 7 8 of the heart and circulation. In addition, measurements of pressures in the left side of the heart have been found invaluable in the precise characterization of lesions of the mitral and of the aortic valve. Such studies have also facilitated the clinical assessment of adult patients with acquired heart disease in whom the results of the usual clinical examinations and right-sided catheterization leave the diagnosis in doubt. In the present report the usefulness of catheterization of the left side of the heart is demonstrated . . .
The new BMJ
Authors: Fiona Godlee
Journal: BMJ (2007)

Those of you reading this in print will notice, I hope, that the BMJ has been redesigned. Those (10 times more of you) accessing this on line must wait until later this month for the redesigned website. Either way we hope you'll like what you see. Our aim has been to deliver a journal, both in print and online, that is brighter, cleaner, easier to navigate, and easier to read. 

But this month's relaunch is about more than just improving the BMJ 's look and feel, important though these things are. If the redesign has made the journal easier to read, we also …
Current role of positron emission tomography in thoracic oncology
Authors: V. J Lowe, K. S Naunheim
Journal: Thorax (1998)

Positron emission tomography (PET) has been in existence and continuously developing over the past 20 years.In the last few years steady advances in the technology used for PET and complementary progress in supporting computer equipment have led to the ability to perform whole body imaging with this modality.With this evolution has come an improved capability for the diagnosis, staging, and post-treatment surveillance of malignancies in the thoracic cavity.This report will review the current status of PET imaging for the investigation of thoracic oncology. PET scan techniquePET imaging involves the use of specialised radiation sensitive cameras which detect specific radioactive isotopes that decay by positron emission.Most of the common molecules involved in organic processes can be labelled with positron emitting isotopes.Atoms of low atomic number such as carbon, oxygen, nitrogen, and fluorine have positron emitting isotopes.Molecules of specific functional import, labelled with positron emitting isotopes, can be injected intravenously into patients and an image of their distribution can be obtained using a PET camera.Although many diVerent tracers can be manufactured and have been utilised to evaluate malignancy, this review will focus on the use of one tracer, 18