Halving premature death and improving quality of life at all ages: cross-country analyses of past trends and future directions.

Background: Although death in old age is unavoidable, premature death-defined here as death before age 70 years-is not. To assess whether halving premature mortality by 2050 is feasible, we examined the large variation in premature death rates before age 70 years and trends over the past 50 years (1970-2019), covering ten world regions and the 30 most-populous nations. This analysis was undertaken in conjunction with the third report of The Lancet Commission on Investing in Health: Global Health 2050: the path to halving premature death by mid-century.

Diabetes and obesity: leveraging heterogeneity for precision medicine.

The increasing prevalence of diabetes, obesity, and their cardiometabolic sequelae present major global health challenges and highlight shortfalls of current approaches to the prevention and treatment of these conditions. Representing the largest global burden of morbidity and mortality, the pathobiological processes underlying cardiometabolic diseases are in principle preventable and, even when disease is manifest, sometimes reversable. Nevertheless, with current clinical and public health strategies, goals of widespread prevention and remission remain largely aspirational.

Echocardiographic predictors and associated outcomes of multiple vegetations in infective endocarditis: A pilot study.

Background: Infective endocarditis (IE) is a life-threatening infection with an annual mortality of 40%. Embolic events reported in up to 80% of patients. Vegetations of > 10 mm size are associated with increased embolic events and poor prognosis.

Methods to study xenografted human cancer in genetically diverse mice.

Xenografting human cancer tissues into mice to test new cures against cancers is critical for understanding and treating the disease. However, only a few inbred strains of mice are used to study cancers, and derivatives of mainly one strain, mostly NOD/ShiLtJ, are used for therapy efficacy studies. As it has been demonstrated when human cancer cell lines or patient-derived tissues (PDX) are xenografted into mice, the neoplastic cells are human but the supporting cells that comprise the tumor (the stroma) are from the mouse.

Cold stress during room temperature housing alters skeletal response to simulated microgravity (hindlimb unloading) in growing female C57BL6 mice.

Laboratory mice are typically housed at temperatures below the thermoneutral zone for the species, resulting in cold stress and premature cancellous bone loss. Furthermore, mice are more dependent upon non-shivering thermogenesis to maintain body temperature during spaceflight, suggesting that microgravity-induced bone loss may be due, in part, to altered thermogenesis. Consequently, we assessed whether housing mice at room temperature modifies the skeletal response to simulated microgravity.

Genetically diverse mouse platform to xenograft cancer cells.

The lack of genetically diverse preclinical animal models in basic biology and efficacy testing has been cited as a potential cause of failure in clinical trials. We developed and characterized five diverse RAG1 null mouse strains as models that allow xenografts to grow. In these strains, we characterized the growth of breast cancer, leukemia and glioma cell lines.

Harms and Contributors of Leaving Against Medical Advice in Patients With Infective Endocarditis.

Introduction: Patients leaving against medical advice (AMA) are commonly encountered in hospital medicine. The problem is prevalent worldwide and across all fields of medicine. A retrospective study of 47,583 patients reported a 3.

Predictors, patterns and outcomes following Infective endocarditis and stroke.

Patients with infective endocarditis can have multiple neurological manifestations.  Cerebrovascular events (CVE) in patients with IE can be hemorrhagic or embolic.  Multiple factors are known to predispose to CVE and increased mortality in patients with IE.

An Update on Pulmonary Hypertension in Coronavirus Disease-19 (COVID-19).

Coronavirus 19 disease (COVID-19) continues to be a pandemic with global implications.  Respiratory system involvement is the most common manifestation in symptomatic patients.  In this literature review, we describe the diagnosis, management, and implications of pulmonary hypertension (PH) among patients with COVID-19.

Quantifying and reporting cardiac findings in imaging of COVID-19 patients.

Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) infection continues to be a public health emergency and a pandemic of international concern. As of April 31st,  the reported cases of COVID-19 are three million in 186 countries. Reported case fatality has crossed 200 thousand among which more than fifty thousand has been in the USA.

Loss of TRP53 (p53) accelerates tumorigenesis and changes the tumor spectrum of SJL/J mice.

Known as the guardian of the genome, transformation-related protein 53 (TRP53) is a well -known tumor suppressor. Here, we describe a novel TRP53 deficient mouse model on a tumor prone background-SJL/J mice. The absence of TRP53 (TRP53 nullizygosity) leads to a shift in the tumor spectrum from a non-Hodgkin's-like disease to thymic lymphomas and testicular teratomas at a very rapid tumor onset averaging ~12 weeks of age.

Cerebrovascular events in COVID-19 patients.

Neurological manifestations in patients with COVID-19 are more frequently being reported. Cerebrovascular events have been reported in around 3% of patients. In this review we summarize the published literature on cerebrovascular events in patients with COVID-19 as available on the PubMed database.

Thermoneutral housing attenuates premature cancellous bone loss in male C57BL/6J mice.

Mice are a commonly used model to investigate aging-related bone loss but, in contrast to humans, mice exhibit cancellous bone loss prior to skeletal maturity. The mechanisms mediating premature bone loss are not well established. However, our previous work in female mice suggests housing temperature is a critical factor.