Early-life gut microbiota associates with allergic rhinitis during 13-year follow-up in a Finnish probiotic intervention cohort.

Perinatal and early-life factors reported to affect risk of allergic diseases may be mediated by changes in the gut microbiota. Here, we explored the associations between the infant gut microbiota and allergic morbidity in childhood until 13 years of age in a subgroup of the FLORA probiotic intervention cohort. A mixture of four probiotic strains with galacto-oligosaccharides was administrated to the mothers from the 36th week of the pregnancy and later to their infants until 6 months of age.

A study on the quantity, type, economic value and reasons for pharmaceutical waste returned to pharmacies in Finland.

Introduction: Some medicines purchased are not used, resulting in pharmaceutical waste. Finland, among many other countries, is seeking to reduce the amount of pharmaceutical waste, but little information on this is currently available. This study aimed to evaluate the quantity, type, economic value, and reasons for returning pharmaceutical waste from households to community pharmacies in Finland.

Developing an In-House Comprehensive Medication Review Training Program for Clinical Pharmacists in a Finnish Hospital Pharmacy.

Long-term continuing education programs have been a key factor in shifting toward more patient-centered clinical pharmacy services. This narrative review aims to describe the development of Helsinki University Hospital (HUS) Pharmacy's in-house Comprehensive Medication Review Training Program (CMRTP) and how it has impacted clinical pharmacy services in HUS. The CMRTP was developed during the years 2017-2020.

Early-life environment and the risk of eczema at 2 years-Meta-analyses of six Finnish birth cohorts.

Background: Urban-related nature exposures are suggested to contribute to the rising prevalence of allergic diseases despite little supporting evidence. Our aim was to evaluate the impact of 12 land cover classes and two greenness indices around homes at birth on the development of doctor-diagnosed eczema by the age of 2 years, and the influence of birth season.

Methods: Data from 5085 children were obtained from six Finnish birth cohorts.

Gut microbiota develop towards an adult profile in a sex-specific manner during puberty.

Accumulating evidence indicates that gut microbiota may regulate sex-hormone levels in the host, with effects on reproductive health. Very little is known about the development of intestinal microbiota during puberty in humans. To assess the connection between pubertal timing and fecal microbiota, and to assess how fecal microbiota develop during puberty in comparison with adult microbiota, we utilized a Finnish allergy-prevention-trial cohort (Flora).

Identifying Gaps in Community Pharmacists' Competence in Medication Risk Management in Routine Dispensing.

Background: Community pharmacists increasingly contribute to medication risk management while dispensing medicines to outpatients. Their risk management actions are shifting from medication counselling towards reviewing medications and following-up their therapeutic effects and outcomes. Acquiring these more clinical tasks require more patient care-oriented competences.

No evidence for theta power as a marker of hypnotic state in highly hypnotizable subjects.

EEG spectral-power density was analyzed in a group of nine highly hypnotizable subjects via ten frontal, central, parietal, and occipital electrodes under four conditions: 1) wake state, 2) neutral hypnosis, 3) hypnotic suggestion for altering perception of tones, and 4) post-hypnosis. Results indicate no theta-power changes between conditions, challenging previous findings that increased theta power is a marker of hypnosis. A decrease in gamma power under hypnotic suggestion and an almost significant decrease under neutral hypnosis were observed, compared to post-hypnosis.

Segregated brain state during hypnosis.

Can the brain be shifted into a different state using a simple social cue, as tests on highly hypnotizable subjects would suggest? Demonstrating an altered global brain state is difficult. Brain activation varies greatly during wakefulness and can be voluntarily influenced. We measured the complexity of electrophysiological response to transcranial magnetic stimulation in one 'hypnotic virtuoso'.

Time to update our suggestibility scales.

Oakley and colleagues (2021) suggest that a classic scale - HGSHS:A, aiming to measure hypnotic suggestibility - can be used to measure direct verbal suggestibility (DVS). According to the authors, DVS is a trait that can be measured both with and without hypnosis. I find this initiative highly welcome.

Medication Risk Management in Routine Dispensing in Community Pharmacies.

Community pharmacists have a duty to contribute to medication risk management in outpatient care. This study aimed to investigate the actions taken by pharmacists in routine dispensing to manage medication risks. The study was conducted as a national cross-sectional online survey targeted at all community pharmacies in Finland ( = 576) in October 2015.

THE EFFECTS OF HYPNOSIS AND HYPNOTIC SUGGESTIONS ON THE MISMATCH NEGATIVITY IN HIGHLY HYPNOTIZABLE SUBJECTS.

The neural mechanisms associated with hypnosis were investigated in a group of 9 high hypnotizable subjects by measuring the mismatch negativity (MMN) component of the auditory event-related potential (ERP). ERPs were recorded using a passive oddball paradigm to sinusoidal standard and deviant tone stimuli of 500 and 520 Hz, respectively, in four conditions: prehypnosis, neutral hypnosis, hypnotic suggestion for altering the tone perception, and posthypnotic conditions. Earlier studies have indicated that hypnosis and hypnotic suggestions might have an effect on MMN, but the results of our study contradict these results: No statistically significant differences were found between the conditions in the MMN amplitudes.

Perinatal probiotic intervention prevented allergic disease in a Caesarean-delivered subgroup at 13-year follow-up.

Background: The long-term effects of probiotic intervention for primary prevention of allergic diseases are not well known. We previously reported less eczema until 10 years in our probiotic intervention trial.

Objective: To investigate the effect of early probiotic intervention on the prevalence of allergic diseases up to 13 years of age.

Community Pharmacists' Contribution to Medication Reviews for Older Adults: A Systematic Review.

Objectives: To identify medication review interventions for older adults that involve community pharmacists and evidence of outcomes of these interventions.

Design: Systematic review.

Measurements: Cinahl, MEDLINE (Ovid), Scopus, International Pharmaceutical Abstracts, and Cochrane Library were searched for articles published between January 2000 and February 2016.

Synaesthesia-type associations and perceptual changes induced by hypnotic suggestion.

Are synaesthetic experiences congenital and so hard-wired, or can a functional analogue be created? We induced an equivalent of form-colour synaesthesia using hypnotic suggestions in which symbols in an array (circles, crosses, squares) were suggested always to have a certain colour. In a Stroop type-naming task, three of the four highly hypnotizable participants showed a strong synaesthesia-type association between symbol and colour. This was verified both by their subjective reports and objective eye-movement behaviour.

Neglect and aphasia in the acute phase as predictors of functional outcome 7 years after ischemic stroke.

Background And Purpose: Visuospatial inattention (VSI) and language impairment (LI) are often present early after stroke and associations with an unfavorable short-term functional outcome have been reported. The purpose of this study was to investigate whether a screening of VSI and LI as indicators of cortical symptoms early after stroke could predict long-term functional outcomes.

Methods: A consecutive cohort of 375 patients with ischemic stroke was assessed for the occurrence of VSI at a median of 7 days after admission (interquartile range, 1-5 days) using the Star Cancellation Test and for LI (within the first 7 days) with the language item in the Scandinavian Stroke Scale.

Towards interprofessional networking in medication management of the aged: current challenges and potential solutions in Finland.

Objective: The Finnish Medicines Agency (Fimea) initiated a programme in 2012 for enhancing interprofessional networking in the medication management of the aged. The goal is to develop national guidelines for interprofessional collaboration with respect to medication management. This study aims to explore the challenges and potential solutions experienced by existing health care teams in managing medication of the aged: (1) at the individual and team level (micro level), (2) organisational level (meso level) and (3) structural level (macro level).

Seeing Blue As Red: A Hypnotic Suggestion Can Alter Visual Awareness of Colors.

Some highly hypnotizable individuals have reported changes in objects' color with suggestions given in normal waking state. However, it is not clear whether this occurs only in their imagination. The authors show that, although subjects could imagine colors, a posthypnotic suggestion was necessary for seeing altered colors, even for a hypnotic virtuoso.

The impact of hypnotic suggestions on reaction times in continuous performance test in adults with ADHD and healthy controls.

Attention is one of the key factors in both hypnotic processes and patients with ADHD. In addition, the brain areas associated with hypnosis and ADHD overlap in many respects. However, the use of hypnosis in ADHD patients has still received only minor attention in research.

Posthypnotic suggestion alters conscious color perception in an automatic manner.

The authors studied whether a posthypnotic suggestion to see a brief, masked target as gray can change the color experience of a hypnotic virtuoso. The visibility of the target was manipulated by varying the delay between the target and the mask that followed it. The virtuoso's subjective reports indicated that her conscious color experience was altered already at short delays between the target and the subsequent mask.

A preconscious neural mechanism of hypnotically altered colors: a double case study.

Hypnotic suggestions may change the perceived color of objects. Given that chromatic stimulus information is processed rapidly and automatically by the visual system, how can hypnotic suggestions affect perceived colors in a seemingly immediate fashion? We studied the mechanisms of such color alterations by measuring electroencephalography in two highly suggestible participants as they perceived briefly presented visual shapes under posthypnotic color alternation suggestions such as "all the squares are blue". One participant consistently reported seeing the suggested colors.

Antimüllerian hormone levels decrease in women using combined contraception independently of administration route.

Objective: To compare the effects of continuous use of oral (OC), transdermal, and vaginal combined contraceptives on the pituitary-ovarian axis and inhibition of follicular development.

Design: Spin-off study of a prospective, randomized trial.

Setting: University clinic.

Perception of short time scale intervals in a hypnotic virtuoso.

Previous studies showed that hypnotized individuals underestimate temporal intervals in the range of several seconds to tens of minutes. However, no previous work has investigated whether duration perception is equally disorderly when shorter time intervals are probed. In this study, duration perception of a hypnotic virtuoso was tested using repeated standard temporal generalization and duration estimation tasks.

Anti-Mullerian hormone as a predictor of follicular reserve in ovarian insufficiency: special emphasis on FSH-resistant ovaries.

Background: Anti-Müllerian hormone (AMH) is secreted by ovarian granulosa cells and its serum levels reflect ovarian follicle reserve. The main objective of this study was to test the use of AMH assay in identifying women with primary amenorrhea (PA) and existing follicles and to study follicle phase dependent AMH secretion.

Methods: Serum levels of AMH were measured in subjects with FSH-resistant ovaries (FSHRO, n= 12), primary ovarian insufficiency (POI) with PA (n= 11) or secondary amenorrhea (SA n= 20) of unknown etiology, and controls (n= 23), and in Turner syndrome (TS) [45,X (n= 18), mosaicism (n= 7), structural X chromosome abnormalities (SCA, n= 10)], and healthy controls (n= 34).

The existence of a hypnotic state revealed by eye movements.

Hypnosis has had a long and controversial history in psychology, psychiatry and neurology, but the basic nature of hypnotic phenomena still remains unclear. Different theoretical approaches disagree as to whether or not hypnosis may involve an altered mental state. So far, a hypnotic state has never been convincingly demonstrated, if the criteria for the state are that it involves some objectively measurable and replicable behavioural or physiological phenomena that cannot be faked or simulated by non-hypnotized control subjects.

Postnatal developmental changes in the pituitary-ovarian axis in preterm and term infant girls.

Context: Postnatal pituitary-testicular activation in infant boys is well characterized. However, the ovarian response to pituitary activation in infancy is less well understood.

Objective: The aim of the study was to compare postnatal developmental changes in the pituitary-ovarian axis in preterm and term infant girls.