Emerging Roles for Sphingolipids in Cardiometabolic Disease: A Rational Therapeutic Target?

Cardiovascular disease is a leading cause of morbidity and mortality. New research elucidates increasingly complex relationships between cardiac and metabolic health, giving rise to new possible therapeutic targets. Sphingolipids are a heterogeneous class of bioactive lipids with critical roles in normal human physiology.

Leadership development programmes in healthcare research: a systematic review, meta-analysis and meta-aggregation.

Background: Academic institutions benefit from researchers adopting leadership positions and, subsequently, leadership development programmes are of increasing importance. Despite this, no evaluation of the evidence basis for leadership development programmes for healthcare researchers has been conducted. In this study, the authors reviewed leadership development programmes for healthcare researchers and aimed to identify their impact and the factors which influenced this impact.

The use of hormone stimulation in male infertility.

Infertility affects 15% of couples worldwide and in approximately 50% of cases the cause is secondary to an abnormality of the sperm. However, treatment options for male infertility are limited and empirical use of hormone stimulation has been utilised. We review the contemporary data regarding the application of hormone stimulation to treat male infertility.

Consumption of New Zealand Blackcurrant Extract Improves Recovery from Exercise-Induced Muscle Damage in Non-Resistance Trained Men and Women: A Double-Blind Randomised Trial.

Background: Blackcurrant is rich in anthocyanins that may protect against exercise-induced muscle damage (EIMD) and facilitate a faster recovery of muscle function. We examined the effects of New Zealand blackcurrant (NZBC) extract on indices of muscle damage and recovery following a bout of strenuous isokinetic resistance exercise.

Methods: Using a double-blind, randomised, placebo controlled, parallel design, twenty-seven healthy participants received either a 3 g·day NZBC extract ( = 14) or the placebo (PLA) ( = 13) for 8 days prior to and 4 days following 60 strenuous concentric and eccentric contractions of the biceps brachii muscle on an isokinetic dynamometer.

Strategies in Infertile Azoospermic Patients with Negative Microdissection Testicular Sperm Extraction Surgery.

Non-obstructive azoospermia is reported to affect 1 in 100 men, and despite advances in surgical practice, the succesful sperm retrieval rate for microdissection testicular sperm extraction surgery (mTESE) is only 46%. This article reviews the potential causes for mTESE failure and provides a management strategy to guide the clinicians on how to treat this challenging cohort of patients.

Stimulation of Leydig and Sertoli Cellular Secretory Function by Anti-Oestrogens: Tamoxifen.

Tamoxifen is a selective oestrogen receptor modulator (SERM). SERMs act on oestrogen receptors to inhibit oestradiol mediated negative feedback on the hypothalamic-pituitary-gonadal (HPG) axis, thereby upregulating gonadotrophin secretion and release from the pituitary. Hence, Tamoxifen is used to upregulate activation of the HPG axis in the treatment of male-factor infertility.