APPROACHES TO PROMOTING MORE WIDESPREAD PARTICIPATION IN PHYSICAL ACTIVITY

Exercise is associated with a reduced risk of coronary heart disease, has beneficial effects on cardiovascular risk factors, and has other health benefits. No more than 10 per cent to 20 per cent of adults in Australia and other developed countries participate in regular vigorous physical activity, while over 65 per cent of Australian adults are almost totally sedentary. Survey data from the U.S.A. suggest that levels of participation in jogging and walking have increased in the past 10 years but that the proportion of people who take no deliberate exercise has also increased. Large-scale community interventions to promote exercising have not been subject to rigorous evaluation and it is difficult to reach any firm conclusions about the effects of exercise promotion. However, it is possible to identify some of the factors which may influence exercise participation, and there is information from trials of large-scale, multifactorial interventions to reduce cardiovascular risk which provides some helpful guidelines about how it may be useful to proceed. Approaches to increasing levels of exercise participation should emphasise community-based efforts which provide appropriate settings and social support for exercising, making exercise a more appealing and accessible option for large numbers of people; the use of mass media for community education about exercising should be co-ordinated carefully with specific community activities. Personalized fitness instruction, groups and classes should place more emphasis on exercise as a pattern of behaviour to be integrated into a person's way of life and maintained over time; and there is the potential for more widespread and systematic use of self-instructional exercise materials to assist people who wish to exercise independently. Because there exist only limited local research findings and work in other countries does not yet provide conclusive information, research and development priorities for these areas are suggested.     

RENIN GENE POLYMORPHISM ASSOCIATED WITH ALDOSTERONE RESPONSIVENESS TO THE RENINANGIOTENSIN SYSTEM IN PATIENTS WITH ALDOSTERONE-PRODUCING ADENOMAS

1. Aldosterone levels in patients with unilateral aldosterone-producing adenomas may be responsive or unresponsive to the renin-angiotensin system, with the former often previously misdiagnosed as bilateral adrenal hyperplasia. 2. In tumours from patients in the responsive subgroup, renin mRNA is expressed in greater amounts than in tumours from patients in the unresponsive subgroup, or in normal adrenals. 3. We compared the frequency of four renin gene polymorphisms in peripheral blood DNA from the two subgroups and found significant associations between BglI, TaqI and HinfI restriction fragment length polymorphisms (RFLP) and aldosterone responsiveness. 4. Allelic variation in the constitutive renin gene was associated with a specific cause of hypertension.     

Demonstration of human papillomavirus types 6 and 11 in juvenile laryngeal papillomatosis by in-situ DNA hybridization

A study is reported in which an in situ hybridization technique for the demonstration of human papillomavirus (HPV) employing a biotin--streptavidin polyalkaline phosphatase complex has been successfully applied to formalin-fixed paraffin-processed tissue obtained from ten patients with juvenile laryngeal papillomatosis. In all cases, positive results were obtained for either HPV type 6 or 11. Normal vocal cord epithelium was negative.     

Pulmonary function following surgical repair of pectus excavatum: a meta-analysis.

The purpose of this study was to use a meta-analytical technique to examine the efficacy of surgical repair of pectus excavatum on pulmonary function. Studies were retrieved via computerized literature searches, cross-referencing from original and review articles. Inclusion criteria were as follows: (1) reporting quantitative measures of preoperative and postoperative pulmonary function; (2) published in the English language; (3) indexed between January 1960 and September 2005; (4) reporting the duration between which preoperative and postoperative assessments were conducted; and (5) describing the pulmonary assessment procedures. The titles and abstracts of potentially relevant articles were reviewed to determine whether they met the criteria for inclusion. Twelve studies representing 313 pectus excavatum patients met the inclusion criteria and were used for the meta-analysis. Random-effects modeling yielded a mean weighted effect size (ES) for pulmonary function which was statistically nonsignificant (ES=0.08, 95% CI=-0.20 to 0.35; P=0.58). The findings of the present study indicated that surgical repair of pectus excavatum does not significantly improve pulmonary function. These findings, however, may be a result of testing pulmonary function under conditions in which pectus excavatum does not manifest itself.     

Systemic necrotizing vasculitis associated with childhood sarcoidosis

Childhood sarcoidosis is a rare disorder with protean manifestations. The case of a child with prolonged fever, hepatosplenomegaly, pancytopenia, and systemic necrotizing vasculitis manifesting as fever, rash and skin infarctions, digital pregangrene, and foot drop is reported. This is the first case of systemic necrotizing vasculitis reported in sarcoidosis. The fulminant course of the disease required treatment with intravenous pulsed cyclophosphamide and high doses of corticosteroids. The spectrum of vasculitis in childhood and adult sarcoidosis is reviewed.     

Localization of amyloid precursor protein in GAP43-immunoreactive aberrant sprouting neurites in Alzheimer's disease.

Previous in vitro studies have suggested that amyloid precursor protein (APP) could be involved in cell surface adhesion, neuritic growth and survival of hippocampal neurons. In the present study, involvement of APP in aberrant sprouting in Alzheimer's disease (AD) was studied by comparing immunolabeling patterns of anti-APP and anti-growth-associated protein 43 (anti-GAP43). Confocal laser imaging of frontal cortex sections double-immunolabeled for APP and GAP43 showed an increase, in AD, of presynaptic boutons immunostained with anti-GAP43 that contained anti-APP immunoreactivity. The neuritic plaques in AD cases presented intense anti-GAP43 immunoreactive abnormal neurites colocalized with anti-APP. Three-dimensional reconstruction of the plaques showed that anti-APP was colocalized with anti-GAP43 in 57.5% of the aberrant sprouting neurites. We conclude that co-expression of APP with GAP43 in the plaque might be involved in the aberrant sprouting response observed in AD.     

Hypothesis: association of the critical region of trisomy 18 and 18q2—syndrome with dermatoglyphic findings and a growth suppressor (deleted in colon cancer) locus

Evidence from the literature is reviewed to suggest that when fingertip dermal ridge patterns in chromosomal deletion syndromes are characteristic of the opposite spectrum of the developmental scale from patterns found in cases trisomic for the same chromosomal region, the association may be a consequence of loci with growth regulatory functions. Evidence is presented that DNA markers at 18q21 should be the first candidate sequences to be used to test this hypothesis in families with fingertip arches segregating in an apparent autosomal dominant fashion.