Objectives: In public health, access to research literature is critical to informing decision-making and to identify knowledge gaps. However, identifying relevant research is not a straightforward task since public health interventions are often complex, can have positive and negative impacts on health inequalities and are applied in diverse and rapidly evolving settings. We developed a "living" database of public health research literature to facilitate access to this information using Natural Language Processing tools.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Early nutritional challenges can lead to permanent metabolic changes, increasing risk of developing chronic diseases later in life. Total parenteral nutrition (TPN) is a life-saving nutrition regimen, used especially in intrauterine growth-restricted (IUGR) neonates. Early TPN feeding alters metabolism, but whether these alterations are permanent is unclear.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFObstet Gynecol Clin North Am
September 2024
Maternal mortality in the United States has risen steadily over the past 20 years. Several interventions including maternal mortality committees and safety bundles have been introduced to decrease the trend. Severe maternal morbidity is a more frequent occurrence related to maternal mortality and can be used to track interventions.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Creatine plays a significant role in energy metabolism and positively impacts anaerobic energy capacity, muscle mass, and physical performance. Endogenous creatine synthesis requires guanidinoacetic acid (GAA) and methionine. GAA can be an alternative to creatine supplements and has been tested as a beneficial feed additive in the animal industry.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFCongenital rubella syndrome is a constellation of birth defects that can have devastating consequences, impacting approximately 100,000 births worldwide each year. The incidence is much lower in countries that routinely vaccinate their population. In the US, postnatal immunization of susceptible women is an important epidemiological strategy for the prevention of rubella as the Center for Disease Control (CDC) does not recommend administering this vaccine during pregnancy due to its nature as a live attenuated virus vaccine.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAm J Obstet Gynecol MFM
June 2023
Open Education (OE) opens up learning opportunities to, potentially, every person in the world. Additionally, it allows teachers, researchers, and practitioners to find, share, reuse, and improve existing resources under a dependable legal framework. Aiming to spread and foster the introduction of open policies in Higher Education (HE) institutions, the gamified interactive learning experience was developed.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Parenteral nutrition (PN) is often a necessity for preterm infants; however, prolonged PN leads to gut atrophy, weakened gut barrier function, and a higher risk of intestinal infections. Peptide transporter-1 (PepT1) is a di- or tripeptide transporter in the gut and, unlike other nutrient transporters, its activity is preserved with the onset of intestinal atrophy from PN. As such, enteral amino acids in the form of dipeptides may be more bioavailable than free amino acids when atrophy is present.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Suckling piglets synthesize most of their creatine requirement, which consumes substantial amounts of arginine in order to synthesize guanidinoacetic acid (GAA) and methionine in order to transmethylate GAA to creatine.
Objectives: To determine whether supplemental GAA or creatine spare arginine and/or methionine for protein synthesis and, if GAA is supplemented, whether excess methionine is needed for conversion to creatine.
Methods: Yucatan miniature piglets (9-11 days old; both sexes) were fed 1 of 5 elemental diets for 5 days: 1) low arginine (0.
Case Rep Womens Health
October 2020
Peritoneal tuberculosis (TB) is a rare extrapulmonary manifestation of TB with non-specific clinical characteristics which can produce test results mimicking malignancy and granulomatous peritonitis. This case describes a Filipino 59-year-old, nulliparous woman who was admitted with abdominal pain, ascites, and an elevated CA-125 level. Radiographically, peritoneal nodules were visualized and initial suspicion was high for malignancy.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThere is an increased accessibility of over-the-counter (OTC) whitening agents with very little data in the literature regarding their effectiveness. This review was done to determine their effectiveness of the predominant OTC whitening agents from 2006 until 2018 where a comparison of each agent was made with a placebo, no treatment or with other OTC whitening agents. The major categories of OTC whitening agents such as dentifrices, whitening strips and paint on gels.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe emergence of creatine as a potential cognitive enhancement supplement for humans prompted an investigation as to whether supplemental creatine could enhance spatial memory in young swine. We assessed memory performance and brain concentrations of creatine and its precursor guanidinoacetic acid (GAA) in 14-16-week-old male Yucatan miniature pigs supplemented for 2 weeks with either 200 mg/kg∙d creatine (+Cr; n = 7) or equimolar GAA (157 mg/kg∙d) (+GAA; n = 8) compared to controls (n = 14). Spatial memory tests had pigs explore distinct sets of objects for 5 min.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Arginine:glycine amidinotransferase, necessary for the conversion of arginine (Arg) to guanidinoacetic acid (GAA), is expressed mainly in kidney and pancreas. The methylation of GAA to creatine (Cre) primarily occurs in the liver. The role of the gut in Cre homeostasis has not been characterized.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFObjectives: The purpose of the present study was to determine if protecting parenteral nutrition solutions from ambient light and supplementing with N-acetylcysteine (NAC) improves mesenteric blood flow, gut morphology, and oxidative status of parenterally fed neonates.
Methods: Neonatal Yucatan miniature piglets (n = 23, 7-11 days old) were surgically fitted with central venous catheters and an ultrasonic blood flow probe around the superior mesenteric artery. Piglets were fed continuously for 7 days either light-protected (LP) or light-exposed (LE) complete parenteral nutrition that was enriched with either NAC or alanine (ALA).
Barkcloth textiles made in the Pacific islands and collected by western explorers in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries form part of many museum collections worldwide. Here high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) and X-ray fluorescence (XRF) were used on cloths that were highly coloured or pigmented specifically focussing on identifying the red, yellow and brown colorants. The cloths studied came from collections held at the Hunterian, University of Glasgow, the Economic Botany Collection, Royal Botanic Gardens Kew and the Centre for Textile Conservation and Technical Art History, University of Glasgow.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFis a Gram-negative, facultative, intracellular bacterial pathogen and one of the most virulent organisms known. A hallmark of pathogenesis is the bacterium's ability to replicate to high densities within the cytoplasm of infected cells in over 250 known host species, including humans. This demonstrates that is adept at modulating its metabolism to fluctuating concentrations of host-derived nutrients.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFA 39-year-old lady with worsening intermittent diplopia and headaches was diagnosed with a WHO Grade I Meningothelial Meningioma with highly unusual perineural spread on imaging, making this the first reported case of this behaviour. Complete surgical resection was deemed too great a risk and the patient remains under observation. The process of perineural spread is not restricted to more aggressive brain tumours.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFMethionine partitioning between protein turnover and a considerable pool of transmethylation precursors is a critical process in the neonate. Transmethylation yields homocysteine, which is either oxidized to cysteine (i.e.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPurpose: Hearing loss (HL) is the most common sensory disorder in children. Prompt molecular diagnosis may guide screening and management, especially in syndromic cases when HL is the single presenting feature. Exome sequencing (ES) is an appealing diagnostic tool for HL as the genetic causes are highly heterogeneous.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFNeonates on long-term parenteral nutrition (PN) may develop parenteral nutrition-associated liver disease (PNALD). Aluminum (Al) is a known contaminant of infant PN, and we hypothesize that it substantially contributes to PNALD. In this study, we aim to assess the impact of Al on hepatocytes in a piglet model.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPurpose: This study is the 3rd piece of formative research utilizing the theory of planned behavior to inform the development of a behavior change intervention. Focus groups were used to identify reasons for and solutions to previously identified key beliefs in addition to potentially effective behavior change techniques.
Method: A purposive sample of 22 first-year undergraduate students (n = 8 men; M = 19.
BackgroundCreatine is not included in commercial pediatric parenteral products; the entire creatine requirement must be met by de novo synthesis from arginine during parenteral nutrition (PN). Poor arginine status is common during PN in neonates, which may compromise creatine accretion. We hypothesized that creatine supplementation will improve creatine status and spare arginine in PN-fed piglets.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFFront Psychol
March 2017
The ability to regulate and subsequently change behavior is influenced by both reflective and implicit processes. Traditional theories have focused on conscious processes by highlighting the beliefs and intentions that influence decision making. However, their success in changing behavior has been modest with a gap between intention and behavior apparent.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: The neonatal gastrointestinal tract extracts the majority of dietary threonine on the first pass to maintain synthesis of threonine-rich mucins in mucus. As dietary threonine becomes limiting, this extraction must limit protein synthesis in extraintestinal tissues at the expense of maintaining protein synthesis in mucin-producing tissues.
Objective: The objective was to determine the dietary threonine concentration at which protein synthesis is reduced in various tissues.