Background/objectives: The emptying of the gall bladder in response to feeding is pivotal for the digestion of fat, but the role of various food ingredients in contracting the gall bladder postprandially is not well understood. We hypothesized that different food ingredients, when consumed, will have a different effect on stimulating gall bladder emptying. To investigate this we designed two randomized, investigator-blind, cross-over studies in healthy subjects using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to measure gall bladder volumes serially and non-invasively.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFJ Antimicrob Chemother
December 2012
Objectives: There is only limited information on the antimicrobial susceptibilities and resistance genes of Ureaplasma parvum in South Africa. This study was designed to detect and characterize resistance genes in U. parvum.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFJ Obstet Gynaecol
November 2009
The study was designed to determine the prevalence of genital mycoplasmas, ureaplasmas and Chlamydia on women attending their first prenatal visit, in conjunction with pre-term labour or HIV status. For pre-term labour (2003), 199 women were monitored for pre-term delivery (<37 weeks); for colonisation and HIV (2005), 219 women were screened. Microbial detection was performed on DNA extracted from endocervical swabs employing PCR techniques.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Information sheets for clinical research are becoming increasingly complex but the extent to which they are understood is uncertain.
Aims: To assess, as our primary outcome, recall by healthy volunteers of key facts in a patient information sheet in a phase 3 clinical trial. As secondary outcomes, we examined whether there was a difference between medical student and non-medically trained volunteers.