Publications by authors named "Marjorie Howard"

Article Synopsis
  • The study investigates the relationship between sex hormones and brain health in postmenopausal women with Type 2 Diabetes who are overweight or obese, highlighting how hormonal levels may impact brain volume.* -
  • Researchers found that females with detectable levels of total testosterone had a higher brain volume-to-intracranial volume ratio, indicating a potential protective effect of testosterone on brain health, although this effect diminished after adjusting for age and body mass index.* -
  • The results underscore the complexity of brain health in relation to hormonal levels, but the study's conclusions are limited by a small sample size and low levels of some hormones.*
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Background: Traditionally, weight loss (WL) trials utilize dual energy X-ray absorptiometry (DXA) to measure lean mass. This method assumes lean mass, as the sum of all non-bone and non-fat tissue, is a reasonable proxy for muscle mass. In contrast, the D -creatine (D Cr) dilution method directly measures whole body skeletal muscle mass, although this method has yet to be applied in the context of a geriatric WL trial.

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Background: Despite recognized improvements in obesity-related comorbidities, mounting evidence implicates surgical weight loss in the onset of skeletal fragility. Sleeve gastrectomy (SG) is the most commonly performed bariatric procedure and is associated with 3-7% axial bone loss in the year following surgery. Bisphosphonates are FDA-approved medications for the prevention and treatment of age-related bone loss and may represent a strategy to reduce bone loss following SG surgery.

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Objective: The aims of this study were as follows: 1) examine weight changes in older adults (mean age = 76 years) with type 2 diabetes and overweight or obesity during the COVID-19 shutdown; and 2) compare the behavioral and psychosocial effects of the shutdown in those who had large weight losses (>5%), those who had small weight losses (2%-5%), those who remained weight stable (±2%), or those who gained weight (>2%).

Methods: Look AHEAD (Action for Health in Diabetes) participants (N = 2544) were surveyed during the COVID-19 shutdown (2020), and they self-reported their current weight, reasons for weight change, weight-related behaviors, psychosocial measures, and negative and positive effects of the pandemic on their lives.

Results: Comparing self-reported weight during the COVID-19 shutdown with earlier measured weight, Look AHEAD participants lost, on average, 2.

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Background: There is growing interest in identifying factors associated with healthy aging. This cross-sectional study evaluated associations of psychological resilience with factors associated with aging in older adults with type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM).

Methods: Participants were 3199 adults (72.

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Aims: To assess associations that endogenous estradiol and testosterone levels have with cognitive function in older adults with Type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM).

Methods: We use data from the Look AHEAD clinical trial of behavioral weight loss. Endogenous estradiol and total testosterone levels were determined using stored serum from 996 individuals, mean age 69 years, at two times (averaging 4 years apart) during years 8-18 of follow-up.

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Objective: This study aimed to measure the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on self-reported life experiences in older adults with diabetes and obesity.

Methods: Participants were surveyed in 2020 regarding negative and positive impacts of the pandemic across domains of personal, social, and physical experiences. A cumulative negative risk index (a count of all reported negative impacts of 46 items) and a positive risk index (5 items) were characterized in relation to age, sex, race/ethnicity, BMI, and multimorbidity.

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Objective: To evaluate changes in the prevalence of depressive symptoms, loneliness, and insomnia among older adults with type 2 diabetes from 2016 to 2020 and to assess risk factors for these conditions including demographics, multimorbidity, BMI, treatment group, and pre-coronavirus 2019 (COVID-19) measure scores.

Research Design And Methods: This was a prospective, observational study of participants from the Look AHEAD (Action for Health in Diabetes) cohort study. Data were from two assessments before COVID-19 (visit 1: April 2016-June 2018 and visit 2: February 2018-February 2020) and one assessment during COVID-19 (visit 3: July-December 2020).

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Study Objectives: Asthma, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), and obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) are very prevalent disorders. Their coexistence in the same individual has an unclear effect on natural history and long-term outcomes.

Methods: The OLDOSA (Obstructive Lung Disease and Obstructive Sleep Apnea) cohort enrolled 4,980 veterans with an acute hospitalization and in whom asthma, COPD, OSA, overlapping conditions, or none of these disorders at baseline had been diagnosed.

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The genome sequences of enterohaemorrhagic E. coli O157:H7 strains show multiple open-reading frames with collagen-like sequences that are absent from the common laboratory strain K-12. These putative collagens are included in prophages embedded in O157:H7 genomes.

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Objectives: Tear film proteins have antimicrobial and other functions that may be lost after denaturation during contact lens wear. A new multipurpose solution has recently become available (Biotrue, Bausch + Lomb Inc., Rochester, NY), which contains protein-stabilizing agents including hyaluronic acid, poloxamine, and sulfobetaine 10, the latter used previously as a laboratory tool to renature proteins.

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Article Synopsis
  • CYP144 from Mycobacterium tuberculosis has been studied and shows unique heme coordination properties, specifically that its cysteinate form changes to a thiol in the presence of carbon monoxide or when ferrous.
  • It tightly binds to various azole drugs, with miconazole, clotrimazole, and econazole showing the strongest affinities, suggesting these compounds could be effective anti-mycobacterial agents.
  • Although CYP144 is not essential for the bacteria's growth in lab conditions, its knockout revealed increased sensitivity to azole drugs, implying it plays a significant role in resisting these treatments and influencing the bacterium's overall physiology.
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Purpose: AMD has a complex etiology with environmental and genetic risk factors. Ten fibulin 5 sequence variants have been associated with AMD and two other fibulin 5 mutations cause autosomal-recessive cutis laxa. Fibulin 5 is a 52-kDa calcium-binding epidermal growth factor (cbEGF)-rich extracellular matrix protein that is essential for the formation of elastic tissues.

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Fibulin 5 is a 52-kDa calcium-binding epidermal growth factor (cbEGF)-rich extracellular matrix protein that is essential for the formation of elastic tissues. Missense mutations in fibulin 5 cause the elastin disorder cutis laxa and have been associated with age-related macular degeneration, a leading cause of blindness. We investigated the structure, hydrodynamics, and oligomerization of fibulin 5 using small angle x-ray scattering, EM, light scattering, circular dichroism, and sedimentation.

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Aberrant expression of MUC5AC mucin is obvious in cholangiocarcinoma tissues, however, this mucin has never been detected in the serum. Using immunoblotting marked with antibody vs. MUC5AC core protein, we could detect MUC5AC mucin in the serum of 112 from 179 cholangiocarcinoma patients (62.

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