French-style genetics v. 2.0: The "e-CohortE" project.

In the digital age, a genetics cohort has become much more than a simple means of determining the cause of a disease. Two-sided markets, of which 23andMe, Ancestry DNA and MyHeritage are the best known, have showed this perfectly over the last few years: a cohort has become a means of producing massive amounts of data for medical, scientific and commercial exploitation, and for genetic use in particular. French law does not currently allow these foreign private companies to develop on French national territory and also forbids the creation of similar entities in France.

Alterations in echocardiographic and electrocardiographic features in Japanese professional soccer players: comparison to African-Caucasian ethnicities.

Background: Scarce data are available regarding the electrocardiographic (ECG) and echocardiographic changes in athletes of Asian origin.

Design: We investigate the ECG and echocardiographic patterns in Japanese (J) compared with African-Caribbean (AC) and Caucasian (C) athletes.

Methods: A total of 282 professional soccer players (68 J, 96 AC and 118 C) matched for age, gender, sport and level of achievement was examined.

Increased skin capillary density in treated essential hypertensive patients.

Background: Microvascular rarefaction is a hallmark of essential hypertension. We measured the skin capillary density in nondiabetic hypertensive subjects with effective antihypertensive treatment and evaluated possible correlations with arterial blood pressure (BP).

Methods: This cross-sectional observational study included 76 (55 +/- 1 years) consecutive outpatients with essential hypertension under chronic antihypertensive drug treatment (BP < 140/90 mm Hg), 24 age- and sex-matched patients with recently discovered and never-treated hypertension and 70 normotensive (BP < 140/90 mm Hg) age- and sex-matched healthy controls.

Continuation of amiodarone therapy despite type II amiodarone-induced thyrotoxicosis.

Background: Amiodarone is a powerful antiarrhythmic drug; however, its use may be complicated by thyrotoxicosis. When this occurs, clinicians must balance the continuation of amiodarone for antiarrhythmic purposes, and the discontinuation of treatment in order to prevent aggravation of the thyrotoxicosis. We studied the consequences of continuation or cessation of amiodarone in patients with type II amiodarone-induced thyrotoxicosis.