BARIATRIC SURGERY IN AUSTRALIA: WHO,WHY AND HOW?

A review of published reports was conducted to identify gaps in the research regarding bariatric surgery. Much of the research that has been conducted is clinical outcome based; however, little research has been conducted in many key areas. Data on the demographics of the bariatric surgery group are patchy at best. The role of best practice and evidence-based medicine in bariatric surgery seems to be poorly understood, and equity issues and the role of clinical pathways in bariatric surgery need to be clarified. Significant gaps were identified in the published reports regarding pathways to bariatric surgery and multidisciplinary team use. Additionally, much of the published report and research data were from US studies, as few Australian studies have been conducted. Further research and policy and practice developments in bariatric surgery are needed, especially with regard to the Australian context.     

Applying horizontal gene transfer phenomena to enhance non-viral gene therapy

Horizontal gene transfer (HGT) is widespread amongst prokaryotes, but eukaryotes tend to be far less promiscuous with their genetic information. However, several examples of HGT from pathogens into eukaryotic cells have been discovered and mimicked to improve non-viral gene delivery techniques. For example, several viral proteins and DNA sequences have been used to significantly increase cytoplasmic and nuclear gene delivery. Plant genetic engineering is routinely performed with the pathogenic bacterium Agrobacterium tumefaciens and similar pathogens (e.g. Bartonella henselae) may also be able to transform human cells. Intracellular parasites like Trypanosoma cruzi may also provide new insights into overcoming cellular barriers to gene delivery. Finally, intercellular nucleic acid transfer between host cells will also be briefly discussed. This article will review the unique characteristics of several different viruses and microbes and discuss how their traits have been successfully applied to improve non-viral gene delivery techniques. Consequently, pathogenic traits that originally caused diseases may eventually be used to treat many genetic diseases.     

The validity of self-reported weight in US adults: a population based cross-sectional study

Background  

Investigating the validity of the self-reported values of weight allows for the proper assessment of studies using questionnaire-derived data. The study examined the accuracy of gender-specific self-reported weight in a sample of adults. The effects of age, education, race and ethnicity, income, general health and medical status on the degree of discrepancy (the difference between self-reported weight and measured weight) are similarly considered.     

Community education for cardiovascular disease prevention: risk factor changes in the Minnesota Heart Health Program.

OBJECTIVES. The Minnesota Heart Health Program is a 13-year research and demonstration project to reduce morbidity and mortality from coronary heart disease in whole communities. METHODS. Three pairs of communities were matched on size and type; each pair had one education site and one comparison site. After baseline surveys, a 5- to 6-year program of mass media, community organization, and direct education for risk reduction was begun in the education communities, whereas surveys continued in all sites. RESULTS. Many intervention components proved effective in targeted groups. However, against a background of strong secular trends of increasing health promotion and declining risk factors, the overall program effects were modest in size and duration and generally within chance levels. CONCLUSIONS. These findings suggest that even such an intense program may not be able to generate enough additional exposure to risk reduction messages and activities in a large enough fraction of the population to accelerate the remarkably favorable secular trends in health promotion activities and in most coronary heart disease risk factors present in the study communities.     

A Day in the Life of PubMed: Analysis of a Typical Day’s Query Log

Objective

To characterize PubMed usage over a typical day and compare it to previous studies of user behavior on Web search engines.

Design

We performed a lexical and semantic analysis of 2,689,166 queries issued on PubMed over 24 consecutive hours on a typical day.

Measurements

We measured the number of queries, number of distinct users, queries per user, terms per query, common terms, Boolean operator use, common phrases, result set size, MeSH categories, used semantic measurements to group queries into sessions, and studied the addition and removal of terms from consecutive queries to gauge search strategies.

Results

The size of the result sets from a sample of queries showed a bimodal distribution, with peaks at approximately 3 and 100 results, suggesting that a large group of queries was tightly focused and another was broad. Like Web search engine sessions, most PubMed sessions consisted of a single query. However, PubMed queries contained more terms.

Conclusion

PubMed’s usage profile should be considered when educating users, building user interfaces, and developing future biomedical information retrieval systems.     

Comparison of monounsaturated fat with carbohydrates as a replacement for saturated fat in subjects with a high metabolic risk profile: studies in the fasting and postprandial states

BACKGROUND: In subjects with a high prevalence of metabolic risk abnormalities, the preferred replacement for saturated fat is unresolved. OBJECTIVE: The objective was to study whether carbohydrate or monounsaturated fat is a preferred replacement for saturated fat. DESIGN: Fifty-two men and 33 women, selected to have any combination of HDL cholesterol < or = 30th percentile, triacylglycerol > or = 70th percentile, or insulin > or = 70th percentile, were enrolled in a 3-period, 7-wk randomized crossover study. The subjects consumed an average American diet (AAD; 36% of energy from fat) and 2 additional diets in which 7% of energy from saturated fat was replaced with either carbohydrate (CHO diet) or monounsaturated fatty acids (MUFA diet). RESULTS: Relative to the AAD, LDL cholesterol was lower with both the CHO (-7.0%) and MUFA (-6.3%) diets, whereas the difference in HDL cholesterol was smaller during the MUFA diet (-4.3%) than during the CHO diet (-7.2%). Plasma triacylglycerols tended to be lower with the MUFA diet, but were significantly higher with the CHO diet. Although dietary lipid responses varied on the basis of baseline lipid profiles, the response to diet did not differ between subjects with or without the metabolic syndrome or with or without insulin resistance. Postprandial triacylglycerol concentrations did not differ significantly between the diets. Lipoprotein(a) concentrations increased with both the CHO (20%) and MUFA (11%) diets relative to the AAD. CONCLUSIONS: In the study population, who were at increased risk of coronary artery disease, MUFA provided a greater reduction in risk as a replacement for saturated fat than did carbohydrate.     

Genotype-environment interactions in mouse behavior: a way out of the problem

In behavior genetics, behavioral patterns of mouse genotypes, such as inbred strains, crosses, and knockouts, are characterized and compared to associate them with particular gene loci. Such genotype differences, however, are usually established in single-laboratory experiments, and questions have been raised regarding the replicability of the results in other laboratories. A recent multilaboratory experiment found significant laboratory effects and genotype x laboratory interactions even after rigorous standardization, raising the concern that results are idiosyncratic to a particular laboratory. This finding may be regarded by some critics as a serious shortcoming in behavior genetics. A different strategy is offered here: (i) recognize that even after investing much effort in identifying and eliminating causes for laboratory differences, genotype x laboratory interaction is an unavoidable fact of life. (ii) Incorporate this understanding into the statistical analysis of multilaboratory experiments using the mixed model. Such a statistical approach sets a higher benchmark for finding significant genotype differences. (iii) Develop behavioral assays and endpoints that are able to discriminate genetic differences even over the background of the interaction. (iv) Use the publicly available multilaboratory results in single-laboratory experiments. We use software-based strategy for exploring exploration (see) to analyze the open-field behavior in eight genotypes across three laboratories. Our results demonstrate that replicable behavioral measures can be practically established. Even though we address the replicability problem in behavioral genetics, our strategy is also applicable in other areas where concern about replicability has been raised.