Progestin enhances vasoconstrictor responses in postmenopausal women receiving estrogen replacement therapy.

Clinical and experimental evidence suggests that the cardioprotective effect of estrogen replacement is due to effects both on scrum lipids and on blood vessels. Current practice includes the use of a progestin in combination with estrogen if the patient still has her uterus: however, little is known about the effects of combination therapy on vascular reactivity. We therefore studied the effects of estrogen alone and with added progestin on forearm vascular resistance at rest, during reactive hyperemia, and after cold pressor stimulation using plethysmography in six healthy, postmenopausal women.

Predictive Relationships Between Students' Evaluation Ratings and Course Satisfaction.

To assess the reliability and validity of course evaluation data. A correlation study was conducted using archival data from pharmacy student course evaluations. Bivariate relationships between eight course-rating items and overall rating item and the extent to which course type, level, and grade point average moderated these relationships were analyzed.

Can senior volunteers deliver reminiscence and creative activity interventions? Results of the legacy intervention family enactment randomized controlled trial.

Context: Palliative care patients and their family caregivers may have a foreshortened perspective of the time left to live, or the expectation of the patient's death in the near future. Patients and caregivers may report distress in physical, psychological, or existential/spiritual realms.

Objectives: To conduct a randomized controlled trial examining the effectiveness of retired senior volunteers (RSVs) in delivering a reminiscence and creative activity intervention aimed at alleviating palliative care patient and caregiver distress.

BH3 mimetic ABT-737 and a proteasome inhibitor synergistically kill melanomas through Noxa-dependent apoptosis.

The Bcl-2 family is important in modulating sensitivity to anticancer drugs in many cancers, including melanomas. The BH3 mimetic ABT-737 is a potent small molecule inhibitor of the anti-apoptotic proteins Bcl-2/Bcl-X(L)/Bcl-w. In this report, we examined whether ABT-737 is effective in killing melanoma cells in combination with the proteasome inhibitor MG-132, and further evaluated the mechanisms of action.

Hyperthermia induces endoplasmic reticulum-mediated apoptosis in melanoma and non-melanoma skin cancer cells.

Hyperthermia has been revived as a promising approach for cancer treatment. To understand the underlying mechanisms of hyperthermic killing of cancer cells, we examined the cytotoxic effects of hyperthermia on various skin cancer cell lines using cell viability, morphological analyses, and caspase activation assays. Hyperthermia induced cytotoxicity in a time- and temperature-dependent manner.

The prelamin A pre-peptide induces cardiac and skeletal myoblast differentiation.

Prelamin A processing is unique amongst mammalian proteins and results in the production of a farnesylated and carboxymethylated peptide. We examined the effect of pathogenic LMNA mutations on prelamin A processing, and of the covalently modified peptide on cardiac and skeletal myoblast differentiation. Here we report a mutation associated with dilated cardiomyopathy prevents prelamin A peptide production.