Int J Environ Res Public Health
July 2024
(1) Background: Artificial intelligence (AI) has flourished in recent years. More specifically, generative AI has had broad applications in many disciplines. While mental illness is on the rise, AI has proven valuable in aiding the diagnosis and treatment of mental disorders.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAtrial fibrillation (AF) is the most common sustained arrhythmia encountered in practice and is the leading cause of debilitating strokes with significant economic burden. It is currently not known whether asymptomatic undiagnosed AF should be treated if detected by various screening methods. Currently, United States guidelines have no recommendations for identifying patients with asymptomatic undiagnosed AF due to lack of evidence.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe connection between health literacy and health outcomes includes access and utilization of healthcare services, patient/provider interaction and self-care. Digital approaches can be designed to simplify or expand on a concept, test for understanding, and do not have a time constraint. New technologies, such as artificial intelligence and machine learning, virtual and augmented reality, and blockchain can move the role of technology beyond data collection to a more integrated system.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe Kuiper Belt is a distant region of the outer Solar System. On 1 January 2019, the New Horizons spacecraft flew close to (486958) 2014 MU, a cold classical Kuiper Belt object approximately 30 kilometers in diameter. Such objects have never been substantially heated by the Sun and are therefore well preserved since their formation.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFInt J Cardiol
December 2018
Knowledge and education is foundational to an individual receiving care, and health literacy is the ability of patients to understand and act on health information. Cardiovascular disease and diabetes are complex conditions that require active participation on the part of the patient. Lack of understanding on the condition and participation in self-care behaviors limits the effectiveness of treatment.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe Pluto system was recently explored by NASA's New Horizons spacecraft, making closest approach on 14 July 2015. Pluto's surface displays diverse landforms, terrain ages, albedos, colors, and composition gradients. Evidence is found for a water-ice crust, geologically young surface units, surface ice convection, wind streaks, volatile transport, and glacial flow.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Primary care providers with limited time and resources bear a heavy responsibility for chronic disease prevention or progression. Reliable clinical tools are needed to risk stratify patients for more targeted care. This exploratory study examined the care of patients who had been risk stratified regarding their likelihood of clinically progressing to type 2 diabetes.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFCrit Rev Biochem Mol Biol
September 2012
In this review, we describe our current understanding of translation termination and pharmacological agents that influence the accuracy of this process. A number of drugs have been identified that induce suppression of translation termination at in-frame premature termination codons (PTCs; also known as nonsense mutations) in mammalian cells. We discuss efforts to utilize these drugs to suppress disease-causing PTCs that result in the loss of protein expression and function.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe initiation and elongation stages of translation are directed by codon-anticodon interactions. In contrast, a release factor protein mediates stop codon recognition prior to polypeptide chain release. Previous studies have identified specific regions of eukaryotic release factor one (eRF1) that are important for decoding each stop codon.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPurpose: The purpose of this clinical pilot project was to evaluate the effectiveness of a 12 week lifestyle change program targeted to patients with chronic disease.
Data Sources: Data were collected weekly from participants using individual and group feedback and body composition analysis.
Conclusions: The Game of Health was well received by patients and was effective in modifying behaviors to achieve a healthier lifestyle and to improve body composition.
Background: Some patients administered cholesterol-lowering therapies may experience an increase in the proportion of small LDL particles, which may be misinterpreted as a worsening of atherosclerotic coronary heart disease risk. This study assessed the lipid effects of adding ezetimibe to atorvastatin or doubling the atorvastatin dose on low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C) levels (and the cholesterol content of LDL subclasses), LDL particle number (approximated by apolipoprotein B), and LDL particle size. This was a multicenter, double-blind, randomized, parallel-group study of hypercholesterolemic, high atherosclerotic coronary heart disease risk patients.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Canadian and European treatment guidelines identify low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C) as a primary treatment target for hypercholesterolaemia.
Objectives: This post hoc analysis compared ezetimibe 10 mg (ezetimibe) added to atorvastatin vs. doubling the atorvastatin dose on achievement of the 2009 Canadian Cardiovascular Society (CCS) and the 2007 Joint European Prevention Guidelines primary and optional secondary lipid targets and high-sensitivity C-reactive protein (hs-CRP) levels.
Background: Age, gender, and race are factors that influence atherosclerotic coronary heart disease (CHD) risk and may conceivably affect the efficacy of lipid-altering drugs.
Methods: Post hoc analysis of two multicenter, 6-week, double-blind, randomized, parallel-group trials assessed age (<65 and ≥ 65 years), gender, and race (white, black, and other) effects on atorvastatin plus ezetimibe versus up-titration of atorvastatin in hypercholesterolemic patients with CHD risk. High CHD risk subjects with low-density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol levels ≥ 70 mg/dL (~1.
Am Health Drug Benefits
March 2010
Background: Controversy exists over the true therapeutic equivalence of branded and generic levothyroxine-the drug of choice for treating hypothyroidism-so professional societies recommend against switching between different formulations of the drug and suggest that patients who do switch be monitored. Payers typically encourage switching to generic drugs because of lower drug acquisition costs.
Objective: To evaluate the impact of switching levothyroxine formulations on actual healthcare costs.
Aim: Type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) and metabolic syndrome (MetS) are both associated with increased risk for atherosclerotic coronary heart disease (CHD). Thus, it is useful to know the relative efficacy of lipid-altering drugs in these patient populations.
Methods: A double-blind, parallel group trial of adult patients with hypercholesterolaemia at high-CHD risk receiving atorvastatin 40 mg/day compared atorvastatin 40 mg plus ezetimibe 10 mg (ezetimibe) vs.
The percentage of change from baseline in low-density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol after the addition of ezetimibe 10 mg to atorvastatin 40 mg was compared with uptitration to atorvastatin 80 mg. In this multicenter, double-blind, parallel-group study, adult hypercholesterolemic patients using atorvastatin 40 mg/day were randomly assigned to atorvastatin 40 mg plus ezetimibe 10 mg or uptitration to atorvastatin 80 mg. After 6 weeks of treatment, compared with atorvastatin 80 mg, atorvastatin 40 mg plus ezetimibe significantly reduced the primary end point of LDL cholesterol by -27% versus atorvastatin 80 mg by -11% (p <0.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe aim of this study was to evaluate the efficacy and safety of ezetimibe 10 mg added to atorvastatin 20 mg compared with doubling atorvastatin to 40 mg in patients with hypercholesterolemia at moderately high risk for coronary heart disease who did not reach low-density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol levels <100 mg/dl with atorvastatin 20 mg. In this 6-week, multicenter, double-blind, randomized, parallel-group study, 196 patients treated with atorvastatin 20 mg received atorvastatin 20 mg plus ezetimibe 10 mg or atorvastatin 40 mg for 6 weeks. Adding ezetimibe 10 mg to atorvastatin 20 mg produced significantly greater reductions in LDL cholesterol than increasing atorvastatin to 40 mg (-31% vs -11%, p <0.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe New Horizons (NH) spacecraft observed Io's aurora in eclipse on four occasions during spring 2007. NH Alice ultraviolet spectroscopy and concurrent Hubble Space Telescope ultraviolet imaging in eclipse investigate the relative contribution of volcanoes to Io's atmosphere and its interaction with Jupiter's magnetosphere. Auroral brightness and morphology variations after eclipse ingress and egress reveal changes in the relative contribution of sublimation and volcanic sources to the atmosphere.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFStands of canyon live oak (Quercus chrysolepis, Fagaceae) are maintained for fuelwood, fire management, recreation, and as habitat for wildlife. Information about the link between the oak's reproductive ecology and its extent of genetic diversity is important in developing land management policies that will maintain the long-term viability of populations. Basal sprouting is the primary means of reproduction following fire or cutting, and stands frequently include groups of visibly connected trees in a clustered distribution that suggests cloning.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFObjective: This study compares substance use by medical specialty among resident physicians.
Method: The authors estimated the prevalence of substance use of 11 medical specialties from a national sample of 1,754 U.S.
National drug use surveys of medical students and resident physicians in 1987 found that medical school was not a time when students began to use drugs, nor was it a time when they engaged in heavy use. Medical students and resident physicians reported lower rates of illicit drug use than their age and gender counterparts. Although males generally were more likely to use substances than females, young male and female physicians resembled one another in their current rates of substance use more than they resembled their gender counterparts in society.
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