Eating behavior and gastric emptying in adults with Prader-Willi syndrome.

Background/aims: Prader-Willi syndrome (PWS) is a complex genetic disorder characterized by distinctive physical, behavioral and psychiatric features. One cardinal symptom is excessive eating, often leading to extreme obesity. The etiology of the hyperphagia is unknown, but eating behaviors and gastrointestinal motility could play a pivotal role.

Appetite signaling: from gut peptides and enteric nerves to brain.

The signaling systems underlying eating behavior control are complex. The current review focuses on gastrointestinal (GI) signaling systems as physiological key functions for metabolic control. Many of the peptides that are involved in the regulation of food intake in the brain are also found in the enteric nervous system and enteroendocrine cells of the mucosa of the GI tract.

No evidence for a clear link between active intestinal inflammation and autism based on analyses of faecal calprotectin and rectal nitric oxide.

Aim: Due to parental concern regarding the child's bowel habits and the ongoing discussion whether there might be an association between autism and intestinal inflammation, two inflammatory markers were analysed in a group of children with autism.

Methods: Twenty-four consecutive children with autism (3-13 years) of unknown aetiology were investigated with respect to faecal calprotectin and rectal nitric oxide (NO).

Results: One child who previously had a severe Clostridium difficile infection displayed raised levels of both these inflammatory markers and one child with extreme constipation for whom only calprotectin was possible to measure had raised levels.

Early changes in rectal nitric oxide and mucosal inflammatory mediators in Crohn's colitis in response to infliximab treatment.

Background: Treatment with tumor necrosis factor-alpha monoclonal antibody (infliximab) reduces clinical activity and intestinal inflammation in Crohn's disease.

Aim: To study the time-course of the effects of infliximab with reference to mucosal cytokine and inducible nitric oxide synthase expression.

Methods: Thirty-two patients with Crohn's disease were treated with single dose infliximab (5 mg/kg).

Gastrointestinal function and metabolic control after construction of an orthotopic ileal neobladder in bladder cancer.

Objective: To investigate the effects of ileum resection in orthotopic neobladder construction on gastrointestinal function and metabolic control.

Material And Methods: We included 28 patients who underwent radical cystectomy and construction of an orthotopic neobladder or continent ileal reservoir for bladder cancer. As controls, 10 patients endoscopically treated for non-invasive bladder cancer (TaG2) were enrolled.

Different concentrations of I-123 MIBG and In-111 pentetreotide in the two main liver lobes in children: persisting regional functional differences after birth?

Purpose: At examinations in children with I-123 metaiodobenzylguanidine or with In-111 pentetreotide using SPECT, we have observed a different distribution of the radiopharmaceuticals between the left and right main liver lobes. This phenomenon was studied in retrospect from clinical examinations.

Patients And Methods: Seventeen children (mean age, 51 months; range, 11-150 months) with neuroblastoma or ganglioneuroma examined with both radiopharmaceuticals within 1 week using SPECT were assessed.

Little or no ability of obestatin to interact with ghrelin or modify motility in the rat gastrointestinal tract.

Background And Purpose: Obestatin, encoded by the ghrelin gene may inhibit gastrointestinal (GI) motility. This activity was re-investigated.

Experimental Approach: Rat GI motility was studied in vitro (jejunum contractility and cholinergically-mediated contractions of forestomach evoked by electrical field stimulation; EFS) and in vivo (gastric emptying and intestinal myoelectrical activity).

The pancreatic polypeptide family and the migrating motor complex of the rat: differential effects in the duodenum and jejunum.

Aim: To investigate the effects of members of the pancreatic polypeptide family on migrating myoelectric complexes in rats in vivo.

Methods: Rats were supplied with bipolar electrodes at 5 (duodenum), 15 and 25 cm (jejunum) distal to pylorus for electromyography. The natural ligands neuropeptide Y, pancreatic polypeptide, peptide YY1-36 and peptide YY3-36 were infused IV at doses of 0.

The physiology of gastric emptying.

The gastric emptying rate is a carefully regulated process consisting of different mathematically defined phases. The gastric metabolic load, as well as neural regulatory mechanisms and hormonal influences, cooperate in order to achieve a well-balanced emptying of contents from the stomach into the duodenum for absorption in the small intestine. This finely tuned regulation is primarily regulated by the release of gastrointestinal peptide hormones which serve to counteract the emptying process in the fed state and to stimulate sweeping contractions in the fasted state, most likely in order to prepare the stomach for another meal.

Long-term outcome in 109 adult patients operated on for hydrocephalus.

To examine the long-term effects of surgery in adult hydrocephalus we conducted a cross-sectional questionnaire study assessing both the patients' sense of well-being, and changes in gait, living conditions, daily need of sleep and bladder function. One-hundred-and-nine consecutive patients operated for non-communicating hydrocephalus (N-CH) (22) and communicating normal pressure hydrocephalus (NPH), both idiopathic (38) and secondary (49) were included. For survival analyses, three reference groups were selected from the general population and from the Northern Sweden MONICA Project.

Expression of iNOS mRNA associated with suppression of colonic contraction in rat colitis.

Aim: Nitric oxide (NO) synthesis and inducible NO synthase (NOS) expression are increased in colon of patients with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) and associated with decreased contractility. The aim was to investigate which subtype of NOS that is activated in experimental colitis.

Methods: Experimental colitis was induced in Sprague-Dawley rats by Escherichia coli endotoxin.

Circulating ghrelin levels after food intake during different phases of the migrating motor complex in man.

Background: The timing of the migrating motor complexes (MMC) at food intake may influence gastric emptying and release of regulatory hormones. This report studies the relationships between phases I (motor quiescence) and II (intermediate frequency contractions) of MMC and prandial gut hormone response.

Materials And Methods: Seven fasting volunteers ingested a meal during phase I or II of MMC verified by manometry, using paracetamol as a marker for gastric emptying.

Ghrelin stimulates gastric emptying and hunger in normal-weight humans.

Context: Ghrelin is produced primarily by enteroendocrine cells in the gastric mucosa and increases gastric emptying in patients with gastroparesis.

Main Objective: The objective of the study was to evaluate the effect of ghrelin on gastric emptying, appetite, and postprandial hormone secretion in normal volunteers.

Design: This was a randomized, double-blind, crossover study.

Rectal nitric oxide as biomarker in the treatment of inflammatory bowel disease: responders versus nonresponders.

Aim: To explore rectal nitric oxide (NO) as biomarker of treatment response in ulcerative colitis (UC) and Crohn's disease (CD), and examine relationships between rectal NO, mucosal expression of NO synthases (NOS), and pro-inflammatory cytokines.

Methods: Twenty-two patients with UC and 24 with CD were monitored during steroid treatment. Rectal NO levels were measured and clinical activities were assessed on days 1, 3, 7 and 28.

Methodological aspects of rat beta-endorphin analysis-influence of diurnal variation.

Beta-endorphin radioimmunoassays (RIAs) are widely performed following physical, emotional and environmental challenges in the rat. In the literature, a wide range of techniques have been described, but in the present study, we have focused on methodological aspects of beta-endorphin RIAs, investigating various characteristics of human and rat specific antibodies. Initial studies verified that the RIA outcome was not appropriate when using non-species compatible components.

A study of hearing changes among military conscripts in the Swedish Army.

The aim of the study was to investigate the incidence and the relative risk of significant threshold shift (STS, >or=15 dB deterioration at any ear and audiometric frequency) during primary military service (7-9 months), and to investigate whether subjects with an initial slight hearing loss (thresholds>or=25 dB HL at any audiometric frequency and ear) were under increased risk. The investigation was made as a prospective audiometric study and included 747 men. An age-matched group of 138 individuals served as an unexposed control group, whose incidence of STS was 2.

A theoretical and experimental study of vibrational properties of alkyl xanthates.

Geometrical structure and vibrational modes of potassium and sodium ethyl/heptyl xanthates were studied, using both theoretical and experimental methods. Both Hartree-Fock and density functional theory were used. The experimental method used was infrared absorption spectroscopy (FTIR).

Integrin alpha2beta1 regulates neutrophil recruitment and inflammatory activity in experimental colitis in mice.

Background: Human inflammatory bowel disease (e.g., Crohn's disease and ulcerative colitis), is associated with leukocyte accumulation in the inflamed intestinal tissue.

Facial emotion recognition in myotonic dystrophy type 1 correlates with CTG repeat expansion.

Objective: To investigate the ability of patients with myotonic dystrophy type 1 to recognise basic facial emotions. We also explored the relationship between facial emotion recognition, neuropsychological data, personality, and CTG repeat expansion data in the DM-1 group.

Methods: In total, 50 patients with DM-1 (28 women and 22 men) participated, with 41 healthy controls.

Technology insight: calprotectin, lactoferrin and nitric oxide as novel markers of inflammatory bowel disease.

Distinguishing patients with inflammatory bowel disease from those with irritable bowel syndrome can be difficult. A simple and reliable test that detects intestinal inflammation would therefore be very useful in the clinic. If such a test parameter correlated with the intensity of the inflammatory reaction it could also be used to monitor disease activity.

Rectal mucosal nitric oxide in differentiation of inflammatory bowel disease and irritable bowel syndrome.

Background & Aims: Differentiating patients with functional bowel disorders from those with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) can be difficult. Rectal luminal levels of nitric oxide (NO) are greatly increased in IBD. To further evaluate this disease marker, we compared NO in patients with irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) with those found in patients with active IBD and in healthy control subjects.