tbuckley/cabot-search huggingface dataset:
Exhibition: This is not a freak show
Authors: Neil Graham
Journal: BMJ (2009)

This wasn’t the first time that I’d visited one of Gunther von Hagens’s offerings, but with three gruelling years of medical school since my last visit, I wondered if this time I’d see things differently.

Body Worlds and the Mirror of Time features material from more than 200 cadavers, painstakingly dissected to show the finer points of anatomy and the process of ageing. Von Hagens also includes three plastinated chickens, a horse, a giraffe, many human fetuses, and an assortment of human body parts. Plastination is a technique used in anatomy to preserve bodies or body parts that preserves microstructure. This is not a show of blood, guts, and gore.

The specimens are accompanied by concise explanations. Walking among them is fascinating, and having studied anatomy only adds to the pleasure. Given the quality of …
Cool to be kind
Authors: Carl Morris
Journal: BMJ (2001)

Do you think you're cool? Would you like to be? And what exactly would it mean? Quite clearly I'm not. Writing, almost by definition, is an un-hip activity, despite the best efforts of 1960s drug dropping beatniks to convince their groupies otherwise. In particular, to question the nature of cool is to reveal your own lack of it. Cool is something that not only cannot, but should not be defined. It is uncool to be too aware of how cool …
Students underestimate alcohol intake
Authors: Sanjit Bagchi
Journal: BMJ (2004)

University students underestimate their drinking habits, according to a recent study.1 The team of researchers from Duke University Medical Center found that the majority of the 106 students they interviewed overestimated a single beer, mixed drink, or shot.

Aaron White, one of the authors, said, “We asked students to pour different types of drinks into cups of various sizes. We found …
Global Snapshots - Chile: problems with dictatorship now resolving
Authors: Sarah Bailey
Journal: BMJ (2003)

A glance over the history of the Chilean health system shows an unusual picture. Chile is one of few countries to successfully implement major reforms in their health sector. This middle income democratic country is now showing good health indicators, and the recent changes in its health sector are thought to be a possible model for other Latin American countries. The picture has not always been so positive, and not only for the health system, because of the Pinochet dictatorial regime.

Before the 1980s, democratic Chile boasted impressive standards of health care, with relatively equal access …
Membrane metalloprotease TRABD2A restricts HIV-1 progeny production in resting CD4+ T cells by degrading viral Gag polyprotein
Authors: Guoxin Liang, Li Zhao, Ying Qiao, Wenqing Geng, Xiaowei Zhang, Mei Liu, Jinxiu Dong, Haibo Ding, Hong Sun, Hong Shang
Journal: Nature Immunology (2019)
A novel cortico-intrathalamic circuit for flight behavior
Authors: Ping Dong, Hao Wang, Xiao-Fan Shen, Ping Jiang, Xu-Tao Zhu, Yue Li, Jia-Hao Gao, Shan Lin, Yue Huang, Xiao-Bin He, Fu-Qiang Xu, Shumin Duan, Hong Lian, Hao Wang, Jiadong Chen, Xiao-Ming Li
Journal: Nature Neuroscience (2019)
Medical students rob graves for skeletons
Authors: Karen Hebert
Journal: BMJ (2004)

Afghan medical students are robbing graves for skeletons, according to a report by news agency AFP. Medical students in Afghanistan are required to have a skeleton with which to study anatomy and are expected to buy or otherwise get a skeleton themselves. In a country still experiencing extreme post-war poverty, this is financially impossible for most students.

The Japanese government recently donated a number of anatomical models to the University of Kabul, …
Plague in Britain
Authors: Steve Ainsworth
Journal: BMJ (2002)

According to a papal census 31% of the European population (23 840 000) died from bubonic and pneumonic plague between 1348 and 1351.

In popular history the Great Fire of London in 1666 was immediately preceded by the final British outbreak of plague. But that was not the end of the story. The last British plague epidemic occurred as recently as 1910.



This …
PRINCE: prognostic index for nailfold capillaroscopic examination for identifying raynaud's phenomenon at high risk of developing into a scleroderma spectrum disorder
Authors: F. Ingegnoli, R. Gualtierotti, P. Boracchi, C. Lubatti, L. Zahalkova, S. Zeni, F. Fantini
Journal: Annals of the Rheumatic Diseases (2008)
Association of Variants in <i>PINX1</i> and <i>TREM2</i> With Late-Onset Alzheimer Disease
Authors: Giuseppe Tosto, Badri Vardarajan, Sanjeev Sariya, Adam M. Brickman, Howard Andrews, Jennifer J. Manly, Nicole Schupf, Dolly Reyes-Dumeyer, Rafael Lantigua, David A. Bennett, Phillip L. De Jager, Richard Mayeux
Journal: JAMA Neurology (2019)

Genetic causes of late-onset Alzheimer disease (LOAD) are not completely explained by known genetic loci. Whole-exome and whole-genome sequencing can improve the understanding of the causes of LOAD and provide initial steps required to identify potential therapeutic targets.To identify the genetic loci for LOAD across different ethnic groups.This multicenter cohort study was designed to analyze whole-exome sequencing data from a multiethnic cohort using a transethnic gene-kernel association test meta-analysis, adjusted for sex, age, and principal components, to identify genetic variants associated with LOAD. A meta-analysis was conducted on the results of 2 independent studies of whole-exome and whole-genome sequence data from individuals of European ancestry. This group of European American, African American, and Caribbean Hispanic individuals participating in an urban population-based study were the discovery cohort; the additional cohorts included affected individuals and control participants from 2 publicly available data sets. Replication was achieved using independent data sets from Caribbean Hispanic families with multiple family members affected by LOAD and the International Genetics of Alzheimer Project.Late-onset Alzheimer disease.The discovery cohort included 3595 affected individuals, while the additional cohorts included 5931 individuals with LOAD and 5504 control participants. Of 3916 individuals in the discovery cohort, we included 3595 individuals (1397 with LOAD and 2198 cognitively healthy controls; 2451 [68.2%] women; mean [SD] age, 80.3 [6.83] years). Another 321 individuals (8.2%) were excluded because of non-LOAD diagnosis, age younger than 60 years, missing covariates, duplicate data, or genetic outlier status. Gene-based tests that compared affected individuals (n = 7328) and control participants (n = 7702) and included only rare and uncommon variants annotated as having moderate-high functional effect supported PINX1 (8p23.1) as a locus with gene-wide significance (P = 2.81 × 10-6) after meta-analysis across the 3 studies. The PINX1 finding was replicated using data from the family-based study and the International Genetics of Alzheimer Project. Full meta-analysis of discovery and replication cohorts reached a P value of 6.16 × 10-7 for PINX1 (in 7620 affected individuals vs 7768 control participants). We also identified TREM2 in an annotation model that prioritized highly deleterious variants with a combined annotation dependent depletion greater than 20 (P= 1.0 × 10-7).This gene-based, transethnic approach identified PINX1, a gene involved in telomere integrity, and TREM2, a gene with a product of an immune receptor found in microglia, as associated with LOAD. Both genes have well-established roles in aging and neurodegeneration.
Increased β-cell proliferation before immune cell invasion prevents progression of type 1 diabetes
Authors: Ercument Dirice, Sevim Kahraman, Dario F. De Jesus, Abdelfattah El Ouaamari, Giorgio Basile, Rocky L. Baker, Burcu Yigit, Paul D. Piehowski, Mi-Jeong Kim, Alexander J. Dwyer, Raymond W. S. Ng, Cornelia Schuster, Heidrun Vethe, Tijana Martinov, Yuki Ishikawa, Adrian Kee Keong Teo, Richard D. Smith, Jiang Hu, Kathryn Haskins, Thomas Serwold, Wei-Jun Qian, Brian T. Fife, Stephan Kissler, Rohit N. Kulkarni
Journal: Nature Metabolism (2019)
Trial identifies new drug combination for treatment resistant gonorrhoea
Authors: Susan Mayor
Journal: BMJ (2019)

The combination of gentamicin plus azithromycin is nearly as effective as the standard treatment of ceftriaxone plus azithromycin for genital gonorrhoea, showed results from the first randomised trial1 to identify a new option for the growing number of patients with gonorrhoea that is resistant to current first line treatment.

“Our current antibiotic treatment for gonorrhoea is beginning to fail and experience with previous drugs strongly suggests that this could become a widespread problem,” said lead author Jonathan Ross, from Birmingham, UK. Two thirds of the 77 countries taking part in a World Health Organisation surveillance programme in 2017 reported emergence of gonococci resistant to cephalosporins including …
Abstract 16265: Akt1-Induced Skeletal Muscle Hypertrophy Improves Blood Flow Recovery After Hind Limb Ischemia by Activating Heme Oxygenase-1 in Endothelial Cells
Authors: Toshifumi Ishida, Yasuhiro Izumiya, Yoshiro Onoue, Shinsuke Hanatani, Satoru Yamamura, Yuichi Kimura, Satoshi Araki, Kenichi Tsujita
Journal: Circulation (2017)

Introduction: Supervised exercise is established intervention for patients with peripheral artery disease (PAD). In addition to aerobic exercise, it has been recognized that resistance exercise has beneficial effects. However, underling mechanism by which muscle hypertrophy improves blood flow remain unclear. Hypothesis: Skeletal muscle hypertrophy promotes vascularization by activating endothelial cells function in ischemic lesion. Methods: We utilized skeletal muscle-specific, inducible Akt1 transgenic (Akt1 TG) mice, that can lead to the skeletal muscle hypertrophy. Skeletal muscle specific heme oxygenase-1 (HO-1) knockout mice were generated by crossing HO-1-Flox mice with ACTA1-Cre mice. These mice were subjected to unilateral femoral artery ligation to induce hind limb ischemia, and blood flow recovery was assessed by laser Doppler and immunohistochemistry. Adenovirus-mediated Akt1 overexpression experiments were performed in C2C12 myotubes. Results: Blood flow recovery after hind limb ischemia was ...
Guerillas in the midst
Authors: Khagendra Dahal, Kaushal Raj Pandey
Journal: BMJ (2005)

Peace has long been elusive to Nepal. More than 119000 lives have been lost during nine years of Maoist insurgency. Since the king seized power in first of February this year, the freedom of people has been severely restricted, including the right to health, say <b>Khagendra Dahal</b> and <b>Kaushal Raj Pandey</b>
Reply
Authors: Patrick Starlinger, David Pereyra, Matthias Hackl, Alice Assinger
Journal: Hepatology (2019)

We thank Yuan et al. for their interest in our study. Indeed, population-based differences are evident between central Europe and Asia, which should certainly be acknowledged when evaluating our data.1 Of note, we aimed to address this issue in our initial analyses by separately assessing patients with hepatocellular carcinoma. However, to further elucidate the importance of microRNA (miRNA)-based prediction of postoperative liver dysfunction (LD), we now investigated the group of patients with cirrhosis more closely. We observed a significant predictive potential of both the individual miRNAs and the miRNA signature within this small subgroup consisting of 20 patients with liver cirrhosis, of whom 20% developed postoperative LD (Fig. 1). In addition, both cutoffs for the combined ratio were found to stratify patients with cirrhosis at risk for LD (Fig. 1). Although the sample size for this analysis is clearly not sufficient to allow relevant conclusions, this exploratory analysis suggests that our results might be valid also in this high-risk subgroup. However, we would like to stress that we are currently aiming to validate our results on an international level. We also thank Li et al. for their interest in our analyses and enthusiastically agree with the authors that our miRNA signatures seem to represent a vital marker to assess preoperative liver function, given that this is the main finding of our analyses. However, we strongly disagree with the suggestion of including intra- and postoperative parameters in our analyses. We believe it is a particular strength of our study that we performed an unbiased approach including patients that were comparable in terms of preoperative characteristics. Stratifying patients according to intraoperative characteristics, as suggested by Yuan and Li et al., is not legitimate given that this would introduce a major bias. Our ultimate goal is to tailor surgical strategies to the specific risk profile of patients, which makes it impossible to include surgery-related factors in the performed analyses. Ultimately, Li et al. suggest that the additional assessment of future liver remnant function could improve outcome prediction of our model. In this context, a plethora of parameters have already been identified that seem to improve preoperative risk assessment of patients undergoing liver resection.2-5 Indeed, the combination of preoperative liver function assessment might be beneficial to further characterize patients' risk for adverse postoperative outcome. However, the central aim of the presented study was to define a preoperative parameter that is easily assessable and highly standardized to provide a reliable and internationally available tool. Future research will have to determine whether additional preoperative assessments will further improve risk stratification in patients undergoing liver resection.
Pub medic Artificial blood
Authors: Thomas Mac Mahon, J Adrian Copplestone
Journal: BMJ (2007)

Is it worth all the hype? Thomas Mac Mahon and J Adrian Copplestone find out In cases of massive haemorrhage, patients die rapidly from hypovolaemia and lack of tissue oxygenation. Management consists of controlling the leak, restoring blood volume, and improving oxygenation, but is sometimes difficult if the patient is lying on a battlefield or is trapped at the scene of a road traffic accident where blood transfusions are not readily available. What if the paramedics at the scene could use a blood substitute instead, saving time and lives? Current trials are investigating whether artificial blood can live up to this exciting promise. Spot the agglutination Blood has a variety of functions in human physiology, including gas, nutrient, and hormone transport; waste removal; and delivery of immune and coagulation system components. Although eventually a synthetic product may be developed that can mimic all of these roles, current research into artificial blood is focused on the critical areas of oxygen delivery and blood volume replacement. As such, scientists are trying to come up with a liquid that can deliver oxygen as efficiently as erythrocytes can, rather than making erythrocytes themselves. If successful, artificial blood would have obvious advantages over donated blood1:
Health service managers: a breed apart
Authors: Siddartha Dutta
Journal: BMJ (2004)

As medics we often resent health service managers. It is not anything personal, but it is hard to be friendly towards people who tell us of budget cuts and set targets to achieve. I recently had the opportunity to interact with this particular breed of people in their natural environment.

A conference for human resource workers and NHS managers was held to discuss the serious problem of staff shortages. If any prospective workers were in the audience they might think twice.

In what seemed like a secret language, the speakers addressed the attendees at …
Art review: The history of breast cancer as seen through the eyes of the artist
Authors: Rachel Armstrong
Journal: BMJ (2000)

It has been said that art thrives in adversity and if that is true, then Professor Michael Baum is doubly equipped to rise to the challenge that breast cancer bestows upon a patient, being both a surgeon and a practising artist.

Bridging the two cultures of science and the humanities, Professor Baum found astonishingly detailed images of women who had been disfigured by breast cancer and who had their disease captured by the brushes of artists. Also using detailed medical illustrations …
White men are under-represented in UK medical schools
Authors: Nadeeja Koralage
Journal: BMJ (2004)

White men are significantly underrepresented in medical school, says research published in the BMJ this month (2004;329:597-600).

The study, done by researchers at Oxford University, found that white men now comprise 26% of all UK medical students, despite making up 44% of the UK population. It also suggested that UK medical schools were increasingly dominated by white women and students from ethnic minorities.

Researchers looked at data from the Universities and Colleges Admissions Service (UCAS), the NHS national database of consultants in England, and the UK Medical Careers Research Group, which spanned the last 30 years. Nearly all medical school graduates in 1974 were white (97%), but by 2000 this had reduced to 74%, with 26% made up of ethnic minorities.

Most students from an ethnic background were Asian. Asian students accounted for 19% of new medical students in 2001, although Asian people make up 7% of the UK population.

The researchers wrote, “From less than 2% of newly qualified doctors in the early 1970s, it [the percentage of newly qualified doctors from ethnic minorities] will soon approach 30%, well in excess of the representation of people from ethnic minorities in the general population.” This raises important questions for policy makers: should the ethnic mix of intake to medical schools broadly reflect the ethnic mix of the community from which students are drawn?



“I say chaps, we're going to be extinct”



“The high representation of ethnic minorities, and specifically those of Asian origin, indicates high academic achievement by them. It probably indicates that many of the most able school pupils from these ethnic groups, and perhaps particularly women, choose medicine as a career.”

The researchers called for further studies into the reasons behind the under-representation of white male medical students. The paper also said that the NHS was heavily dependent …
Sitcoms are a good source of sex education
Authors: Clare Hughes
Journal: BMJ (2003)

Sitcoms can be a good source of sex education for teenagers, according to researchers in the United States. Adolescents learnt or were reminded about the risks accompanying sexual activity after watching a particular episode of Friends .

The researchers said, Television can teach the risks and responsibilities that accompany sexual activity in a way that books, pamphlets, and classroom instruction cannot, by portraying the experiences of …
An emergency medicine doctor and blogger
Authors: Tiago Villanueva
Journal: BMJ (2008)

<b>Nicholas Genes</b> is a resident physician at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York city. He organises Grand Rounds (see http://blogborygmi.blogspot.com), the weekly roundup of the best in medical blogging, by interviewing prominent medical bloggers. <b>Tiago Villanueva</b> caught up with him
Patient groups slam dentists' Botox plan
Authors: Nadeeja Koralage
Journal: BMJ (2004)

UK NHS dentists are branching out into cosmetic surgery treatments, but patients' groups are reacting angrily. With private treatment costing about £200 ($360; €300) a session, NHS pressure group Health Emergency says new Botox injections will get in the way of traditional dental treatment. The group's spokesperson, John Lister, said, “This treatment is neither dental, nor medical--it's purely cosmetic. It's difficult enough to get …
Pre-eclampsia and risk of later kidney disease: nationwide cohort study
Authors: Jonas H Kristensen, Saima Basit, Jan Wohlfahrt, Mette Brimnes Damholt, Heather A Boyd
Journal: BMJ (2019)

ABSTRACT Objective To investigate associations between pre-eclampsia and later risk of kidney disease. Design Nationwide register based cohort study. Setting Denmark. Population All women with at least one pregnancy lasting at least 20 weeks between 1978 and 2015. Main outcome measure Hazard ratios comparing rates of kidney disease between women with and without a history of pre-eclampsia, stratified by gestational age at delivery and estimated using Cox regression. Results The cohort consisted of 1 072 330 women followed for 19 994 470 person years (average 18.6 years/woman). Compared with women with no previous pre-eclampsia, those with a history of pre-eclampsia were more likely to develop chronic renal conditions: hazard ratio 3.93 (95% confidence interval 2.90 to 5.33, for early preterm pre-eclampsia (delivery &lt;34 weeks); 2.81 (2.13 to 3.71) for late preterm pre-eclampsia (delivery 34-36 weeks); 2.27 (2.02 to 2.55) for term pre-eclampsia (delivery ≥37 weeks). In particular, strong associations were observed for chronic kidney disease, hypertensive kidney disease, and glomerular/proteinuric disease. Adjustment for cardiovascular disease and hypertension only partially attenuated the observed associations. Stratifying the analyses on time since pregnancy showed that associations between pre-eclampsia and chronic kidney disease and glomerular/proteinuric disease were much stronger within five years of the latest pregnancy (hazard ratio 6.11 (3.84 to 9.72) and 4.77 (3.88 to 5.86), respectively) than five years or longer after the latest pregnancy (2.06 (1.69 to 2.50) and 1.50 (1.19 to 1.88). By contrast, associations between pre-eclampsia and acute renal conditions were modest. Conclusion s Pre-eclampsia, particularly early preterm pre-eclampsia, was strongly associated with several chronic renal disorders later in life. More research is needed to determine which women are most likely to develop kidney disease after pre-eclampsia, what mechanisms underlie the association, and what clinical follow-up and interventions (and in what timeframe post-pregnancy) would be most appropriate and effective.
Count Your Blessings
Authors: Brendan M. Reilly
Journal: New England Journal of Medicine (2019)

Thanks to Sidney Farber and others like him, 4-year-old Avery has good odds of surviving her leukemia. But more 1-to-4-year-olds in the United States are murdered every year than die from cancer, and no Sidney Farber is working day and night to save those kids.
Back to reality
Authors: Jason O'Neale Roach
Journal: BMJ (2001)

Exams fast approaching, so spend the morning reading the newspaper supplement, including all the free prize draw cards that drop out. Fascinating. Jeremy Paxman's voice now has an incredible allure and politics seems altogether interesting.

Thankfully, my delusions about Paxman last about two minutes. Start to feel clucky later, during my neonatal examination competence test. That is until the infant decides to show me what meconium looks like …
Do deodorants cause breast cancer?
Authors: Marianna Philippidou
Journal: BMJ (2001)

Many women have read an article on the internet linking deodorant and antiperspirant usage with breast cancer.1 There was a plethora of articles on the internet,23 chain emails, and publications in magazines mentioning a particular health seminar in the United States where findings were presented not only linking breast cancer to antiperspirants but claiming that the use of antiperspirants seemed to be the leading cause of breast cancer.3

The explanation behind this theory was very simple. Toxins are purged in the form of perspiration. Antiperspirants, as the name suggests, prevent perspiration, thereby inhibiting the body from purging toxins from the axillary area. The toxins accumulate, and …
Abstract 20049: Transthoracic Echocardiographical (TTE) Cardiac Manifestations of the Polyneuropathy, Organomegaly, Endocrinopathy, Monoclonal Gammopathy, and Skin Changes (POEMS) Syndrome
Authors: Nobusada Funabashi, Sonoko Misawa, Hiroyuki Takaoka, Koya Ozawa, Satoshi Kuwabara, Yoshio Kobayashi
Journal: Circulation (2017)

Introduction: POEMS syndrome is a rare multisystem disease associated with plasma cell dyscrasia, and with increased levels of vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF). Hypothesis: Some patients h...