Publications by authors named "Jeffries M"

Objectives: Dietary interventions are a potentially powerful treatment option for knee osteoarthritis (OA). The objective of this study was to evaluate a well-formulated ketogenic diet (KD) in the context of knee OA histology and pain using the destabilization of the medial meniscus (DMM) mouse model and correlate with gut microbiome and systemic cytokine levels.

Methods: Adult male mice underwent unilateral DMM or sham surgery and were then fed eight weeks of KD or chow.

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Background: Women have a higher risk of developing osteoarthritis (OA) than men, including with obesity. To better understand this disparity, we investigated sex differences in metabolic and inflammatory factors associated with OA using a diet-induced mouse model of obesity. We hypothesized that 20 weeks of high-fat diet (HFD) would induce sexually dimorphic changes in both systemic and local risk factors of knee OA.

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Article Synopsis
  • Effective care for critically ill patients in ICU relies on collaboration and communication among healthcare teams, but medication errors during transitions to hospital wards can negatively impact patient outcomes.
  • A qualitative study with focus groups aimed to identify necessary changes and develop a theory-informed intervention package to enhance medication safety among ICU patients transitioning to wards.
  • The intervention package comprises seven core components for improving medication management, grounded in behavioral change techniques, with specific mechanisms for how each component will enhance patient safety.
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We assessed changes in fundamental climate-niche space for lizard and snake species in western North America under modeled climate scenarios to inform natural resource managers of possible shifts in species distributions. We generated eight distribution models for each of 130 snake and lizard species in western North America under six time-by-climate scenarios. We combined the highest-performing models per species into a single ensemble model for each scenario.

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Background: Patient recovery after a critical illness can be protracted, requiring a care continuum that extends along a patient pathway from the critical care unit, hospital ward, and into the community care setting. High-quality care on patient transfer from critical care, including medication safety, is facilitated by education for patients and families, family engagement, support systems, and health care professional (HCP)-patient communication. Currently, uncertainty exists regarding how HCPs can and should engage with critical care patients and family members about their medication.

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A tenet of ecology is that temporal variability in ecological structure and processes tends to decrease with increasing spatial scales (from locales to regions) and levels of biological organization (from populations to communities). However, patterns in temporal variability across trophic levels and the mechanisms that produce them remain poorly understood. Here we analyzed the abundance time series of spatially structured communities (i.

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Objectives: The Murphy Roths Large (MRL)/MpJ 'superhealer' mouse strain is protected from post-traumatic osteoarthritis (OA), although no studies have evaluated the microbiome in the context of this protection. This study characterised microbiome differences between MRL and wild-type mice, evaluated microbiome transplantation and OA and investigated microbiome-associated immunophenotypes.

Methods: Cecal material from mixed sex C57BL6/J (B6) or female MRL/MpJ (MRL) was transplanted into B6 and MRL mice, then OA was induced by disruption of the medial meniscus surgery (DMM).

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Cartilage microbial DNA patterns have been recently characterized in osteoarthritis (OA). The objectives of this study were to evaluate the gut origins of cartilage microbial DNA, to characterize cartilage microbial changes with age, obesity, and OA in mice, and correlate these to gut microbiome changes. We used 16S rRNA sequencing performed longitudinally on articular knee cartilage from germ-free (GF) mice following oral microbiome inoculation and cartilage and cecal samples from young and old wild-type mice with/without high-fat diet-induced obesity (HFD) and with/without OA induced by destabilization of the medial meniscus (DMM) to evaluate gut and cartilage microbiota.

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Background And Objective: Medication safety problems are common post-hospital discharge, and an important global healthcare improvement target. The Transfers of Care Around Medicines (TCAM) service was launched by a National Health Service Trust in the North-West of England, initially focusing on patients with new or existing Monitored Dosage Systems (MDS). The TCAM service is designed to enable the prompt transfer of medication information, with referrals made by hospitals at discharge to a named community pharmacy.

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Objective: Females have reduced osteoarthritis (OA) in surgical models. The objective of the current study was to evaluate a sex-linked gut microbiome in the pathogenesis of OA.

Methods: We induced OA via destabilization of the medial meniscus surgery in adult male and female C57BL6/J mice with and without opposite-sex microbiome transplantation.

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Objective: To understand the sociotechnical factors affecting medication safety when intensive care patients are transferred to a hospital ward. Consideration of these medication safety factors would provide a theoretical basis, on which future interventions can be developed and evaluated to improve patient care.

Design: Qualitative study using semistructured interviews of intensive care and hospital ward-based healthcare professionals.

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Objectives: The concept of safety work draws attention to the intentional work of ensuring safety within care systems. Clinical decision support (CDS) has been designed to enhance medication safety in primary care by providing decision-making support to prescribers. Sociotechnical theory understands that healthcare settings are complex and dynamically connected systems of fluid networks, human agents, changing relationships and social processes.

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Objective: The lack of accurate biomarkers to predict knee osteoarthritis (OA) progression is a key unmet need in OA clinical research. The objective of this study was to develop baseline peripheral blood epigenetic biomarker models to predict knee OA progression.

Methods: Genome-wide buffy coat DNA methylation patterns from 554 individuals from the Osteoarthritis Biomarkers Consortium (OABC) were determined using Illumina Infinium MethylationEPIC 850K arrays.

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Objective: Cartilage epigenetic changes are strongly associated with human osteoarthritis (OA). However, the influence of individual environmental OA risk factors on these epigenetic patterns has not been determined; herein we characterize cartilage DNA methylation patterns associated with aging and OA in a mouse model.

Methods: Murine knee cartilage DNA was extracted from healthy young (16-week, n = 6), old (82-week, n = 6), and young 4-week post-destabilization of the medial meniscus (DMM) OA (n = 6) C57BL6/J mice.

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Introduction: Medication errors are an important cause of morbidity and mortality. The pharmacist-led IT-based intervention to reduce clinically important medication errors (PINCER) intervention was shown to reduce medication errors when tested in a cluster randomised controlled trial and when implemented across one region of England. Now that it has been rolled out nationally, and to enhance findings from evaluations with staff and stakeholders, this paper is the first to report patients' perceived acceptability on the use of PINCER in primary care and proposes suggestions on how delivery of PINCER related care could be delivered in a way that is acceptable and not unnecessarily burdensome.

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Introduction: Medication errors are an important cause of morbidity and mortality. The pharmacist-led IT-based intervention to reduce clinically important medication errors (PINCER) has demonstrated improvements in primary care medication safety, and whilst now the subject of national roll-out its optimal and sustainable use across health contexts has not been fully explored. As part of a qualitative evaluation we aimed to identify factors influencing successful adoption, embedding and sustainable use of PINCER across primary care settings in England, UK.

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A 22-year-old woman with uncontrolled advanced human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection was persistently infected with severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) beta variant for 9 months, the virus accumulating >20 additional mutations. Antiretroviral therapy suppressed HIV and cleared SARS-CoV-2 within 6 to 9 weeks. Increased vigilance is warranted to benefit affected individuals and prevent the emergence of novel SARS-CoV-2 variants.

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Purpose Of The Review: The microbiome has recently emerged as a powerful contributor to health and illness in chronic, systemic disorders. Furthermore, new microbiome niches beyond traditional gut locations are frequently being described. Over the past 5 years, numerous pivotal studies have demonstrated associations between changes in various microbiome niches and the development of osteoarthritis (OA).

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Introduction: Osteoarthritis (OA) is a chronic musculoskeletal disease characterized by progressive loss of joint function. Historically, it has been characterized as a disease caused by mechanical trauma, so-called 'wear and tear'. Over the past two decades, it has come to be understood as a complex systemic disorder involving gene-environmental interactions.

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Despite evidence for prominent metabolic dysfunction within multiple sclerosis (MS) lesions, the mechanisms controlling metabolic shifts in oligodendroglia are poorly understood. The cuprizone model of demyelination and remyelination is a valuable tool for assessing metabolic insult during oligodendrocyte death and myelin degradation, closely resembling the distal oligodendrogliopathy seen in Pattern III MS lesions. In this review we discuss how metabolic processes in oligodendrocytes are disrupted in both MS and the cuprizone model, as well as the evidence for mechanistic target of rapamycin (mTOR) signaling as a key regulator of oligodendroglial metabolic function and efficient remyelination.

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Brain and spinal cord oligodendroglia have distinct functional characteristics, and cell-autonomous loss of individual genes can result in different regional phenotypes. However, a molecular basis for these distinctions is unknown. Using single-cell analysis of oligodendroglia during developmental myelination, we demonstrate that brain and spinal cord precursors are transcriptionally distinct, defined predominantly by cholesterol biosynthesis.

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Article Synopsis
  • Climate change is causing significant declines in global biodiversity, and this study focuses on how it affects wetland macroinvertebrates, which are crucial to these ecosystems.
  • Researchers analyzed data from 769 minimally impacted wetlands worldwide to understand the impact of temperature and precipitation on the diversity of 144 macroinvertebrate families.
  • The findings revealed that maximum temperature is the key factor influencing macroinvertebrate richness and diversity, with significant variations based on wetland type and climate conditions, indicating that warmer, dry regions face the highest risk of losing these essential organisms.
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Introduction: The transition of patients across care settings is associated with a high risk of errors and preventable medication-related harm. Ensuring effective communication of information between health professionals is considered important for improving patient safety. A National Health Service(NHS) organisation in the North West of England introduced an electronic transfer of care around medicines (TCAM) system which enabled hospital pharmacists to send information about patient's medications to their nominated community pharmacy.

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