Prevalence of H pylori associated 'high risk gastritis' for development of gastric cancer in patients with normal endoscopic findings

INTRODUCTION H pylori infection is an established risk factor for development of gastric cancer[1,2]. According to the model of carcinogenesis of the intestinal type adenocarcinoma proposed by Correa, the multi-step development starts from the condition o…     

Decreased caloric intake in normal-weight patients with bulimia: comparison with female volunteers

Patients with bulimia (binge-purge syndrome) frequently complain that they consume a very restrictive diet to avoid gaining weight. To investigate this claim, 23 hospitalized bulimic patients were assessed daily for body weight, caloric intake, macronutrient diet content, activity measures, and body composition estimates during weight-stable periods. Bulimic patients ate fewer kilocalories per kilogram body weight (22.1 +/- 4.6 kcal/kg) than did age-matched normal women (29.7 +/- 6.5 kcal/kg) but had similar activity levels and body composition. Clinical variables, such as history of laxative abuse, anorexia, or obesity, and physiological characteristics, such as body weight, activity level, or dietary content, could not account for this difference in caloric consumption. Bulimic patients tended to eat a diet lower in fat and higher in protein than did control subjects. These results agree with observations of increased efficiency of caloric utilization in obese patients and support patient complaints of a tendency to gain weight easily.     

Influence of pain and urinary symptoms on quality of life in young men with chronic prostatitis-like symptoms

BACKGROUND: Our aims in the present study were to estimate the influences of pain and urinary symptoms on quality of life, and to determine which of these two variables has the most predictive power with respect to quality of life in young men with chronic prostatitis-like symptoms. METHODS: Chronic prostatitis-like symptoms were measured by the National Institutes of Health-Chronic Prostatitis Symptom Index. Of the 28,841 men aged 20 years who lived in the study community, 18,495 men (a response rate 64.1%) agreed to participate in the study. A total of 1057 men who complained of symptoms indicative of chronic prostatitis were included in the study. The influences of pain and urinary symptoms on quality of life were determined using logistic regression analysis. The receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve was used to estimate the predictive ability of each of these variables with respect to quality of life. RESULTS: Results from multivariate analysis showed that both pain and urinary symptoms were associated with an increased likelihood of impaired quality of life, although pain contributed more to a reduced quality of life than urinary symptoms. Relative to men who experienced mild pain, men who experienced moderate pain had a 3.9-fold risk of poor quality of life (odds ratio [OR], 3.87; 95% confidence interval [CI], 2.86-5.23; P < 0.001) and those who experienced severe pain had a 15.7-fold risk of reduced quality of life (OR, 15.68; 95% CI, 6.59-37.35; P < 0.001). Moderate urinary symptoms were associated with a 1.4-fold risk of bother (OR, 1.41; 95% CI, 1.01-1.99; P < 0.001) and severe urinary symptoms were associated with 2.4-fold risk (OR, 2.39; 95% CI, 1.37-4.12; P < 0.001), relative to mild urinary symptoms. Comparison of the effects of pain and urinary symptoms showed that pain severity had the most predictive power for bother, quality of life, and quality-of-life impact. The areas under the ROC curves for bother, quality of life, and quality-of-life impact were 71.3%, 69.3% and 72.5%, respectively. CONCLUSION: Urinary symptoms and pain might be associated with an increased likelihood of impaired quality of life in young men with chronic prostatitis-like symptoms. In addition, our findings suggest that pain severity is the most influential variable for determining quality of life in this population.     

Serum 25-hydroxyvitamin D concentrations of free-living subjects consuming olestra

The effect of olestra on vitamin D status was assessed in a 6-wk, double-blind, placebo-controlled study involving 202 free-living adults. Subjects consumed a total of 20 g/d of olestra or triglycerides in cookies eaten at each meal. A 20-micrograms ergocalciferol capsule was taken with each morning meal. Serum 25-hydroxyergocalciferol (25-OHD2) concentrations rose from approximately 5.7 to 39.0 and 31.7 nmol/L in the placebo and olestra groups, respectively, at week 6. At week 6, 25-OHD2 contributed 46-54% to total serum 25-OHD concentration compared with 11% at baseline. The 19% decrease in serum 25-OHD2 concentrations produced by olestra in this study is equivalent to a decrease of approximately 1.2 nmol/L under nonsupplemented dietary conditions. Ingesting 20 g olestra/d in the diet is thus not expected to affect vitamin D nutritional status.     

Allografts of CNS tissue possess a blood-brain barrier. II. Angiogenesis in solid tissue and cell suspension grafts

Angiogenesis and patency of blood vessels were analyzed qualitatively in solid CNS and peripheral tissue syngeneic, allogeneic, and xenogeneic grafts and in individual cell suspension grafts of astrocytes, fibroblasts, PC12, and three additional tumor cell lines placed intracerebrally in adult host mice. Postgrafting survival times were 1 day through 4 weeks. The patency of graft vessels was determined in sections from immersion-fixed tissues incubated to reveal the endogenous peroxidase activity of host red cells trapped within the lumen of blood vessels. Additionally, horseradish peroxidase (HRP) was administered intravenously to live hosts; HRP labels host brain and graft vessels on the luminal surface and reveals the presence or absence of a blood-brain barrier (BBB) within the grafts. The origins of blood vessels supplying solid tissue xenografts were identified immunohistochemically with primary antibodies against host (athymic AKR mice) and donor (fetal Lewis rats) major histocompatibility complex (MHC) class I. Blood vessels supplying solid CNS grafts at 1-7 days post-transplantation were identified ultrastructurally and possessed interendothelial tight junctional complexes; however, they were not perfused with either host blood or blood-borne HRP prior to 8 days. Graft vessels at 10 days were outlined consistently by peroxidase-positive red cells in immersion-fixed material and labeled with blood-borne HRP. These vessels provided a BBB to the circulating HRP and exhibited interendothelial tight junctions. Evidence of angiogenesis within solid anterior pituitary grafts and the variety of cell suspension grafts was obtained prior to 3 days post-transplantation in immersion-fixed preparations; the vessels, with the notable exception of those supplying astrocyte cell suspensions, failed to present a BBB to blood-borne peroxidase. Endothelia in the solid pituitary allografts and the PC12 cell grafts were highly fenestrated and exhibited open interendothelial junctions; those in the tumor and fibroblast cell grafts, for the most part, appeared nonfenestrated, and many possessed open interendothelial junctional complexes. Immunostaining for host and donor MHC class I revealed that donor blood vessels predominate over host vessels in CNS xenografts and supply pituitary xenografts exclusively; in both preparations, donor vessels were not identified within the host CNS. Because cell suspension grafts were derived from endothelia-free preparations grown in culture, blood vessels supplying these grafts were necessarily of host CNS origin and manifested a morphological transformation from a BBB to a non-BBB endothelium. The data suggest that angiogenesis in solid CNS grafts placed into the adult host CNS, compared to similarly placed solid peripheral tissue/cell suspension grafts, is not rapid.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 400 WORDS)