Lancet Gastroenterol Hepatol
December 2024
There is growing interest in the potential exploitation of the gut microbiome as a diagnostic tool in medicine, but evidence supporting its clinical usefulness is scarce. An increasing number of commercial providers offer direct-to-consumer microbiome diagnostic tests without any consensus on their regulation or any proven value in clinical practice, which could result in considerable waste of individual and health-care resources and potential drawbacks in the clinical management of patients. We convened an international multidisciplinary expert panel to standardise best practices of microbiome testing for clinical implementation, including recommendations on general principles and minimum requirements for their provision, indications, pre-testing protocols, method of analyses, reporting of results, and potential clinical value.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFScope: Human milk (HM) is rich in bioactive compounds and essential nutrients. While research has focused on lipids, minerals, immune markers, microbiota, and oligosaccharides, specific metabolites are less studied. This study uses targeted metabolomics to identify and quantify metabolites in HM and explores the impact of perinatal and dietary factors on the metabolomic profile.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFOncogenic transformation and Oct4, Sox2, Klf4 and c-Myc (OSKM)-mediated induction of pluripotency are two independent and incompatible cellular fates. While continuous expression of OSKM can convert normal somatic cells into teratogenic pluripotent cells, it remains speculative what is the impact of transient OSKM expression in cancer cells. Here, we find that OSKM expression limits the growth of transformed lung cells by inducing apoptosis and senescence.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe use of technological environments with virtual reality (VR) techniques for the practice of arthrocentesis offers an effective and safe way to learn and improve the necessary skills to carry out a medical procedure and patient care. This article presents an interactive simulator using immersive VR, in which the participant experiences practicing clinical management and decision-making in the face of a person presenting with monoarthritis in a medical consultation. The objective with this development is for the user to acquire the competence to perform, correctly and safely, a knee arthrocentesis and to differentiate the types of synovial fluids that can be found in a joint.
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