Safety, tolerability, and efficacy of high-frequency chest wall oscillation in pediatric patients with cerebral palsy and neuromuscular diseases: an exploratory randomized controlled trial.

Airway secretions and infections are common in cerebral palsy and neuromuscular diseases. Chest physiotherapy is standard therapy but effort is substantial. High-frequency chest wall oscillation is used in cystic fibrosis but tolerability and safety data in cerebral palsy and neuromuscular disease are limited.

Nutrition in cystic fibrosis.

Cystic fibrosis (CF) is mostly recognized for its pulmonary morbidity, but the earliest manifestations of the disease are related to its gastrointestinal and nutritional derangements. Destruction of acinar pancreatic tissue, pancreatic ductular obstruction, and lack of enzymatic activity lead to malabsorption (particularly of fats), diarrhea, and failure to thrive. A minority of CF patients carrying milder CF transmembrane conductance regulator (CFTR) mutations have preserved pancreatic secretory activity and are free from significant malabsorption early in life.

Issues in renal nutrition for persons from the former Soviet Union.

Dietary practices differ greatly among individuals by race and ethnicity. The importance of these differences is accentuated in patients with end-stage renal disease, a population for whom dietary restrictions are often prescribed. In addition to the known variation in dietary practices among US-born whites and African-Americans, persons of other ethnicities often present new and unique challenges to the dialysis-nutrition care team.

Comparison of estimates of zinc absorption in humans by using 4 stable isotopic tracer methods and compartmental analysis.

Background: Adjustment of gastrointestinal absorption is the primary means of maintaining zinc homeostasis; however, a precise, accurate method for measuring zinc absorption in humans has not been identified.

Objective: The purpose of this study was to compare the estimates of the fraction of dietary zinc absorbed (FZA) by using 4 stable isotopic tracer methods: mass balance (MB) corrected for endogenous secretion, fecal monitoring (FM), deconvolution analysis (DA), and the double isotopic tracer ratio (DITR) method.

Design: All 4 methods were applied to a single data set for each of 6 women.