Integrative medical approaches to allergic rhinitis.

Purpose Of Review: Complementary and integrative medicine (CIM), formerly known as alternative medicine, is now part of the mainstream management for patients with a host of medical issues. This current opinion focuses on the use of CIM, more specifically, the use of nutritional and herbal therapies and homeopathic medications for patients with allergic symptoms.

Recent Findings: The literature review revealed that naturally occurring substances when compared with placebo more often than not resulted in significant improvement of the allergic rhinitis symptoms.

Acupuncture and allergic rhinitis.

Purpose Of Review: Allergic rhinitis has a high prevalence and negatively impacts quality of life. Patients commonly use complementary and integrative modalities to help alleviate their symptoms of allergic rhinitis, with approximately one in five receiving acupuncture. This article reviews the evidence base on the efficacy/effectiveness, safety and cost-effectiveness of acupuncture for allergic rhinitis.

Clinical practice guideline: allergic rhinitis executive summary.

The American Academy of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery Foundation (AAO-HNSF) has published a supplement to this issue featuring the new Clinical Practice Guideline: Allergic Rhinitis. To assist in implementing the guideline recommendations, this article summarizes the rationale, purpose, and key action statements. The 14 recommendations developed address the evaluation of patients with allergic rhinitis, including performing and interpretation of diagnostic testing and assessment and documentation of chronic conditions and comorbidities.

Clinical practice guideline: Allergic rhinitis.

Objective: Allergic rhinitis (AR) is one of the most common diseases affecting adults. It is the most common chronic disease in children in the United States today and the fifth most common chronic disease in the United States overall. AR is estimated to affect nearly 1 in every 6 Americans and generates $2 to $5 billion in direct health expenditures annually.

Dose sparing of induction dose of propofol by fentanyl and butorphanol: A comparison based on entropy analysis.

Background: The induction dose of propofol is reduced with concomitant use of opioids as a result of a possible synergistic action.

Aim And Objectives: The present study compared the effect of fentanyl and two doses of butorphanol pre-treatment on the induction dose of propofol, with specific emphasis on entropy.

Methods: Three groups of 40 patients each, of the American Society of Anaesthesiologistsphysical status I and II, were randomized to receive fentanyl 2 μg/kg (Group F), butorphanol 20 μg/kg (Group B 20) or 40 μg/kg (Group B 40) as pre-treatment.

Neuroscience and the fallacies of functionalism.

Smail's "On Deep History and the Brain" is rightly critical of the functionalist fallacies that have plagued evolutionary theory, sociobiology, and evolutionary psychology. However, his attempt to improve on these efforts relies on functional explanations that themselves oversimplify the lessons of neuroscience. In addition, like explanations in evolutionary psychology, they are highly speculative and cannot be confirmed or disproved by evidence.

Sharing best practice.

Purpose: This article seeks to explore ways in which one can share and spread best practice, that have the potential for transformational change. It describes the cultural and behavioural mindset that is needed to make this happen.

Design/methodology/approach: The overall approach is aimed at documenting the essential features of a best practice, giving pointers to relevant experts in that practice, deducing general guidelines, diffusing basic knowledge, and using subject-matter experts to apply and adapt the practices in a new context.

Effect of ouabain on exogenous substrate oxidation by isolated cardiac myocytes.

Ouabain (10(-4) M) stimulated glucose oxidation and inhibited octanoate oxidation by isolated cardiac myocytes. Omission of potassium or calcium from the buffer abolished the ouabain stimulation of glucose oxidation. The inhibition of octanoate oxidation by ouabain persisted in the calcium deficient media.

Clinical interventions for the preservation of ischemic myocardium.

The clinical understanding of determinants of mechanical function and oxygen requirements of the myocardium have now been applied to the patient with acute myocardial infarction. Invasive and noninvasive techniques to quantitate afterload, contractile state, preload, and heart rate as well as to assess the metabolic state and infarct size are now available to evaluate a growing list of therapeutic interventions. Thus, the availability of pharmacologic and metabolic agents to support ischemic myocardium and to reduce the eventual loss of contracting myocardium appears promising to the patient with acute myocardial infarction.

A membrane abnormality in lymphocytes from diabetic subjects.

The fluorescence properties of the hydrophobic probe 1,6-diphenyl1-1,3,5-hexatriene incorporated in the lymphocytes of 30 diabetic patients and 21 normal control subjects were studied. The mean value of the probe polarization was 0.314 for the control group and 0.

Effect of fasting on insulin binding to hepatocytes and liver plasma membranes from rats.

Binding of [125I]iodoinsulin to isolated hepatocytes from fed and fasted rats was measured. Hepatocytes from fed rats bound significanlty more [125I]iodoinsulin at insulin concentrations ranging from 0.15--100 nM.

Amino acid stimulation of oxygen and substrate utilization by cardiac myocytes.

The inclusion of plasma levels of the natural amino acids plus 2.5 mM glutamate and 2.5 mM malate (PAAGM) raised the oxygen consumption and glucose oxidation of isolated cardiac myocytes in phosphate buffered saline.

Hexose monophosphate shunt in isolated cardiac myocytes from normal rats.

The activity of the hexose monophosphate shunt was studied in myocytes obtained from the ventricles of normal, adult, male rats. When myocytes were incubated in buffer containing either 1-14C- or 6-14C-labeled glucose the ratio of C-1/C-6 14CO2 evolved was essentially unity. The addition of plasma levels of amino acids did not alter this finding.

The absence of 2,3-diphosphoglycerate from myocytes, hepatocytes and adipocytes.

Myocytes, hepatocytes and adipocytes were prepared from heart, liver and epididymal fat pad of the rat. No detectable level of 2,3-diphosphoglycerate was found. Evidence is also presented which indicates the absence from these cells of 2,3-diphosphoglycerate mutase and 2,3-diphosphoglycerate phosphatase.