Urinary and salivary endocrine measurements to complement Tanner staging in studies of pubertal development.

Background: Many studies investigating pubertal development use Tanner staging to assess maturation. Endocrine markers in urine and saliva may provide an objective, sensitive, and non-invasive method for assessing development.

Objective: Our objective was to examine whether changes in endocrine levels can indicate the onset of pubertal development prior to changes in self-rated Tanner stage.

Meta-analyses on prevalence of selected Parkinson's nonmotor symptoms before and after diagnosis.

Background: Nonmotor symptoms are common among patients with Parkinson's disease (PD) and some may precede disease diagnosis.

Methods: We conducted a meta-analysis on the prevalence of selected nonmotor symptoms before and after PD diagnosis, using random-effect models. We searched PubMed (1965 through October/November 2012) for the following symptoms: hyposmia, constipation, rapid eye movement sleep behavior disorder, excessive daytime sleepiness, depression, and anxiety.