BabyBreathe trial: protocol for a randomised controlled trial of a complex intervention to prevent postpartum return to smoking.

Introduction: Many people quit smoking during pregnancy, but postpartum smoking relapse is common. Maintaining smoking abstinence achieved during pregnancy is key to improving maternal and child health. There are no evidence-based interventions for preventing postpartum smoking relapse.

Use of alternative medicines in a multi-ethnic population.

Background: The prevalence and cost of regular use of non-prescribed alternative medicines are rising around the world, yet, little evidence is available that demonstrates the safety, efficacy, or effectiveness of specific alternative medicine interventions. It is of interest to understand how and why these practices have become so popular in different societies with different health care organizations and provisions, and which factors predict the regular use of alternative medicines.

Methods: We assessed the prevalence and the predictors of regular use of non-prescribed vitamin supplements, cod liver oil, primrose oil, and garlic in a cross-sectional population-based study in South London of 1,577 men and women, aged 40-59 years (883 women, 523 White, 549 of African origin and 505 of South Asian origin), when allowing for potential confounders.

Unravelling the links between calcium excretion, salt intake, hypertension, kidney stones and bone metabolism.

Evidence from animal, clinical and epidemiological studies suggests that high blood pressure is associated with abnormalities of calcium metabolism, leading to increased calcium loss, secondary activation of the parathyroid gland, increased movement of calcium from bone and increased risk of urinary tract stones. Some of these abnormalities are detectable in children and young people and continue throughout adult life. The cluster of abnormalities may be due either to a primary renal tubular defect ('renal calcium leak' hypothesis) or to the effect of central volume expansion seen in hypertension ('central blood volume' hypothesis).

Estimation of thickness of airway surface liquid in ferret trachea in vitro.

The tracheae of ferrets and rabbits were mounted in vitro in organ baths. While the tracheae were liquid filled, the permeability coefficient ( P) was determined, and then while the tracheae were air filled, the percent clearance for 99mTc-labeled diethylenetriaminepentaacetic acid (DTPA) was determined. The thickness of airway surface liquid (ASL) was estimated by three methods.

H2O2 increases sheep tracheal blood flow, permeability, and vascular response to luminal capsaicin.

Exogenous hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) causes airway epithelial damage in vitro. We have studied the effects of luminal H2O2 in the sheep trachea in vivo on tracheal permeability to low-molecular-weight hydrophilic (technetium-99m-labeled diethylenetriamine pentaacetic acid; 99mTc-DTPA) and lipophilic ([14C]antipyrine; [14C]AP) tracers and on the tracheal vascular response to luminal capsaicin, which stimulates afferent nerve endings. A tracheal artery was perfused, and tracheal venous blood was collected.