Objectives: To explore the knowledge and skills of pharmacists practicing in Sydney, Australia, in preventing the use of prohibited medications by athletes.
Methods: Using a simulated-patient study design, the researcher (an athlete and pharmacy student herself) contacted 100 Sydney pharmacies by telephone requesting advice about taking a salbutamol inhaler (a WADA-prohibited substance with conditional requirements), for exercise-induced asthma, following a set interview protocol. Data were assessed for both clinical and anti-doping advice appropriateness.
Background: Following the establishment of the World Anti-Doping Agency in 1999, the International Pharmacy Federation (FIP) published guidelines - The Role of the Pharmacist in the Fight against Doping in Sport (2014) - intended for implementation into national standards of practice, to clarify pharmacists' roles in supporting athletes. Despite 7 years since the publication of these guidelines, the extent of practice and knowledge regarding sport pharmacy remains unclear.
Objectives: To explore the literature to ascertain knowledge held by pharmacists and pharmacy students regarding anti-doping and to determine current/potential roles and responsibilities for pharmacists in the dissemination of information about, and the reduction in unintentional use of, prohibited substances by athletes.
Skeletal dysplasias are a clinically and genetically heterogeneous group of bone and cartilage disorders. A total of 436 skeletal dysplasias are listed in the 2015 revised version of the nosology and classification of genetic skeletal disorders, of which nearly 20% are still genetically and molecularly uncharacterized. We report the clinical and molecular characterization of a lethal skeletal dysplasia of the short-rib group caused by mutation of the mouse Fop gene.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPolysaccharopeptide (PSP), from Coriolus versicolor, has been used widely as an adjuvant to chemotherapy with demonstrated anti-tumor and broad immunomodulating effects. While PSP's mechanism of action still remains unknown, its enhanced immunomodulatory potential with acacia gum is of great interest. Acacia gum, which also contains polysaccharides and glycoproteins, has been demonstrated to be immunopotentiating.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThere is a well established association between obesity and atrial fibrillation (AF). Nevertheless, the effects of obesity in the outcomes of patients with AF has not been investigated since a few years before. In this regard, several studies have demonstrated a better clinical prognosis of AF in overweight and obese populations.
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