Chronic Progressive Autonomic Dysfunction in a Dog

A 3.5‐year‐old intact male American Pit Bull was presented because of urinary incontinence and dysuria. Constipation, followed by diarrhoea, ocular disturbances and finally regurgitation developed over the next 4 years. Autonomic dysfunction was evidenced by clinical presentation, as well as positive ophthalmic pilocarpine test and subnormal Schirmer tear test. Diagnosis, however, was established through histopathological and immunohistochemical examination. Lesions attributable to inflammatory degenerative neuropathy of the autonomic ganglia, which represents one of the various types of human autonomic failure, were detected.     

Exanthematous infantile psoriasis

Childhood psoriasis is a disease with manifold clinical presentations which can make the correct diagnosis sometimes difficult. In a female infant, slightly itching, erythematous papules and plaques with discrete scaling spread over large parts of the integument starting from age three months. Histological examination supported the diagnosis of exanthematous infantile psoriasis. Topical treatment with dithranol in petrolatum led to slow clearance of the skin lesions.     

Empfehlungen für die Anwendung der Immunapherese bei der Therapie bullöser Autoimmundermatosen

The etiology of epidermolysis bullosa acquisita (EBA) is unknown. EBA may be associated with other autoim‐mune systemic diseases; it also has been described in connection with different malignant tumors, showing complete remission after successful treatment of the tumor.In such cases, EBA may be regarded as a paraneo‐plastic dermatosis. We detected a highly differentiated neuroendocrine pancreatic cancer in a 78‐year‐old woman with EBA. Even thought her tumor was completely removed and the patient has been disease‐free for over seven years, a complete regression of her autoimmune bullous dermatosis could not be induced. By using intravenous immunoglobulins in combination with mycophenolate mofetil, further blister formation could be ameliorated.     

A -243A-->G polymorphism upstream of the gene encoding GAD65 associates with lower levels of body mass index and glycaemia in a population-based sample of 5857 middle-aged White subjects.

AIMS: The glutamate decarboxylase gene (GAD2) encodes GAD65, an enzyme catalysing the production of the gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA) which interacts with neuropeptide Y to stimulate food intake. It has been suggested that in pancreatic islets, GABA serves as a functional regulator of pancreatic hormone release. Conflicting results have been reported concerning the potential impact of GAD2 variation on estimates of energy metabolism. The aim of this study was to elucidate potential associations between the GAD2-243A-->G polymorphism and levels of body mass index (BMI) and estimates of glycaemia. METHODS: Using high-throughput chip-based matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization time-of-flight mass spectrometry, the GAD2-243A-->G (rs2236418) polymorphism was genotyped in a population-based sample (Inter99) of 5857 middle-aged, unrelated Danish White subjects. RESULTS: The G-allele was associated with modestly lower BMI (P = 0.01). In a case-control study of obesity, the G-allele frequency in 2582 participants with BMI < 25 kg/m2 was 19.5% (18.4-20.6) compared with 17.1% (15.5-18.8) in 968 participants having BMI > or = 30 kg/m2 (P = 0.03), odds ratio 0.9 (0.7-1.0). Of the 5857 subjects, GG carriers had lower fasting plasma glucose levels (mmol/l) [AA (n = 3859) 5.6 +/- 0.8; AG (n = 1792) 5.5 +/- 0.8; GG (n = 206) 5.5 +/- 0.8, P = 0.008] and lower 30-min oral glucose tolerance test (OGTT)-related plasma glucose levels (AA 8.7 +/- 1.9; AG 8.6 +/- 1.9; GG 8.6 +/- 2.0, P = 0.04), adjusted for sex, age and BMI. Analysing subjects who were both normoglycaemic and glucose tolerant (n = 4431) GG carriers still had lower fasting plasma glucose concentrations: AA (n = 2895) 5.3 +/- 0.4; AG (n = 1383) 5.3 +/- 0.4; GG (n = 153) 5.2 +/- 0.4 (P = 9.10(-5)). CONCLUSION: The present study suggests that the GAD2-243A-->G polymorphism in a population of middle-aged White people associates with a modest reduction in BMI and fasting and OGTT-related plasma glucose levels.     

Detrended fluctuation analysis of resting EEG in depressed outpatients and healthy controls.

OBJECTIVE: Recent findings have demonstrated that the EEG possesses long-range temporal (auto-) correlations (LRTC) in the dynamics of broad band oscillations. The analysis of LRTC provides a quantitative index of statistical dependencies in oscillations on different time scales. We analyzed LRTC in resting EEG signals in depressed outpatients and healthy controls. METHODS: The participants in this study were 11 non-depressed, age-matched controls, and 11 unmedicated unipolar depressed patients. EEG data were obtained from each participant during 5-min resting baseline periods with eyes closed and then analyzed with detrended fluctuation analysis (DFA), a scaling analysis method that quantifies a simple parameter to represent the correlation properties of a time series. The scaling exponent, the result of DFA, provides a quantitative measure of LRTC from the EEG. RESULTS: The present study demonstrates that all the scaling exponents in depressed patients and healthy controls were greater than 0.5 and less than 1.0, regardless of condition. Furthermore, the scaling exponents of depressed patients have relatively higher values in whole brain regions compared to healthy controls, with significant differences at F3, C3, T3, T4 and O1 channels (p<0.05). Finally, a significant linear correlation was observed between the severity of depression and the scaling exponent over most of the channels, except O2. CONCLUSIONS: These results suggest that the brain affected by a major depressive disorder shows slower decay of the LRTC, and that the persistence of the LRTC of EEG in depressed patients was associated with the severity of depression over most of the cortical areas. SIGNIFICANCE: The DFA method may broaden our understanding of the psychophysiological basis of depression.     

The ordered transmission disequilibrium test: detection of modifier genes

We consider the problem of detection of modifier genes that lead to variations in a disease‐related continuous variable (DRCV), such as the age of onset or a measure of disease severity, in a strategy of candidate genes. We propose a novel method, the ordered transmission disequilibrium test (OTDT), to test for a relation between the clinical heterogeneity expressed by a DRCV and marker genotypes of a candidate gene. The OTDT applies to trio families with one patients and his parents, all three genotyped at a bi‐allelic marker M. The OTDT aims to find a critical value of the DRCV which separates the sample of families in two subsamples in which the transmission rates are significantly different. We investigate the power of the method by simulations under various genetic models and covariate distributions and compare it with a linear regression analysis. Genet. Epidemiol. 2008. ©2008 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.     

Comparison of Plasma Metabolite Concentrations and Enzyme Activities in Beef Cattle Raised by Different Feeding Systems in Korea,Japan and New Zealand

Concentrations of metabolites and immunoreactive insulin (IRI) and activities of enzymes related to energy metabolism were measured in plasma of Korean and Japanese beef cattle, which were raised by the indoor feeding system programmed to feed larger amount of roughage in their growing periods and larger amount of concentrate diet in their finishing periods (Japanese feeding system), and grazing New Zealand beef cattle. By the Japanese beef grading system, Korean and Japanese beef cattle showed high beef quality score, average grade 3.3 and 3.6, respectively. The plasma free fatty acid and lactate concentrations and lactate dehydrogenase (LDH), malate dehydrogenase (MDH) and aspartate aminotransferase (AST) activities in Korean beef cattle were significantly higher than those in Japanese beef cattle. The plasma lactate concentration in Korean beef cattle was 8.40 mmol/l, which was similar to the values observed in lactic acidosis. The higher activities of plasma LDH, MDH and AST may indicate slight liver damage by slightly acidotic conditions in Korean beef cattle. New Zealand beef cattle fed on pasture which they harvest by grazing showed significantly lower plasma glucose, cholesterol, lactate and IRI concentrations and enzyme activities than those in Korean and Japanese beef cattle fed on larger amount of concentrate diets. Plasma metabolite concentrations and energy metabolism‐related enzyme activities may be good indicators for evaluating metabolic conditions of beef cattle raised by different feeding systems.     

Longitudinal analysis of the relation between moderate long‐term stress and health

The main goal of the present work was to longitudinally examine consequences of long‐term moderately elevated levels of stress for various health outcomes. To address this issue, data covering 10 years was used from the ongoing Swedish population‐based prospective Betula Study. Based on the ratings on a validated self‐reported stress scale, matched subsamples between 40 and 65 years of age were divided into a high (n = 137) and low (n = 211) stress group. The reported incidence of cardiovascular, diabetes, psychiatric, tumour and musculoskeletal diseases was assessed 5 and 10 years after baseline (baseline = 1993–1995) without contaminating effects of past health history. The incidence of diseases 5 years after baseline assessment showed no differences between the groups. After 10 years, there was a significantly higher incidence of psychiatric diseases, mainly depression in the high‐stress group as well as a significant effect for tumours, although the number of cases was low. Although moderately elevated stress level may have a possible impact on psychiatric diseases especially depression and some tumours, it seems that prolonged moderate stress does not appear to be harmful to other stress‐related diseases. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.