Blood Pressure Screening in Faith Communities: A Quality Improvement Project.

There is a direct relationship between elevated blood pressure and cardiovascular disease, so screening for elevated blood pressure is an essential nursing activity. This quality improvement project involving faith community nurses (FCNs) in 24 congregations and other sites tracked readings of blood pressures taken, referrals made, and education sessions provided during a 21-month period. Surveys revealed the project increased participants' awareness about screenings, FCN services, and evidence-based protocols, in addition to identifying high-risk congregants for care and treatment.

Electrophysiological and Structural Remodeling of the Atria in a Mouse Model of Troponin-I Mutation Linked Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy: Implications for Atrial Fibrillation.

Hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM) is an inherited cardiac disorder affecting one in 500 of the general population. Atrial fibrillation (AF) is the most common arrhythmia in patients with HCM. We sought to characterize the atrial electrophysiological and structural substrate in young and aging Gly203Ser cardiac troponin-I transgenic (HCM) mice.

Enumeration of industrial Bacillus assemblages in commercial products with customized plate-counting assays.

The aerobic plate count assay remains among the most widespread methods for enumerating industrial Bacillus assemblages, as growth-independent methods are either cost prohibitive or unavailable in some areas. However, the standard plating assays used to verify the CFU count of Bacillus-based products are not tailored to Bacillus species and thus may not produce the most accurate possible estimations. Standard plating assays assume that established limits of quantification are applicable to Bacillus species whose colonies swarm on solid media, and that colonies of each species in a mixed-species assemblage form independently of one another on agar plates.

Sex-specific programming of adult insulin resistance in guinea pigs by variable perinatal growth induced by spontaneous variation in litter size.

Intrauterine growth restriction (IUGR) and subsequent neonatal catch-up growth are implicated in programming of insulin resistance later in life. Spontaneous IUGR in the guinea pig, due to natural variation in litter size, produces offspring with asymmetric IUGR and neonatal catch-up growth. We hypothesized that spontaneous IUGR and/or accelerated neonatal growth would impair insulin sensitivity in adult guinea pigs.

The antiarrhythmic actions of bisaramil and penticainide result from mixed cardiac ion channel blockade.

Decades of focus on selective ion channel blockade has been dismissed as an effective approach to antiarrhythmic drug development. In that context many older antiarrhythmic drugs lacking ion channel selectivity may serve as tools to explore mixed ion channel blockade producing antiarrhythmic activity. This study investigated the non-clinical electrophysiological and antiarrhythmic actions of bisaramil and penticainide using in vitro and in vivo methods.