Persistent antipsychotic polypharmacy and excessive dosing in the community psychiatric treatment setting: a review of medication profiles in 435 Canadian outpatients.

Objective: The present study aimed (1) to determine the proportion of patients treated with persistent antipsychotic polypharmacy in an outpatient population and (2) to determine if persistent antipsychotic polypharmacy is associated with excessive dosing.

Method: Using a province-wide network that links all pharmacies in British Columbia, Canada, to a central set of data systems, we identified community mental health outpatients who had been treated with the same pharmacologic regimen for at least 90 days. Apart from antipsychotics, data collection included anticholinergics, antidepressants, mood stabilizers, benzodiazepines, lipid-lowering agents, and antidiabetic agents.

Measuring cortisol and DHEA in fingernails: a pilot study.

Purpose: Abnormalities in both cortisol and dehydroepiandrosterone (DHEA) have been reported in psychiatric disorders. Analysis of saliva, urine and blood cortisol and DHEA levels provides an index of hormone levels over a short time period. Unlike such conventional measures, fingernails incorporate endogenous hormones that passively diffuse to the nail matrix from capillaries during keratinization.

The role of hypothalamic pituitary-adrenal axis dysfunction in the etiology of depressive disorders.

There is a growing body of evidence regarding the abnormalities of cortisol and its regulatory system in both unipolar and bipolar depression. Cortisol may contribute to some of the symptoms experienced by depressed persons. There is a complex, bidirectional relationship between serotonergic and stress systems and disruption of one may create a cascade of events that will lead to ill health.

The cholesterol transporter ABCG1 modulates the subcellular distribution and proteolytic processing of beta-amyloid precursor protein.

Although intracellular cholesterol levels are known to influence the proteolysis of beta-amyloid precursor protein (APP), the effect of specific genes that regulate cholesterol metabolism on APP processing remains poorly understood. The cholesterol transporter ABCG1 facilitates cholesterol efflux to HDL and is expressed in brain. Notably, the human ABCG1 gene maps to chromosome 21q22.

Elevated plasma triglyceride levels precede amyloid deposition in Alzheimer's disease mouse models with abundant A beta in plasma.

Dietary or pharmacological manipulation of plasma lipids markedly influences amyloid deposition in animal models of Alzheimer's Disease (AD). However, it is not known whether baseline plasma lipids in AD models differ from wild-type littermates throughout the natural history of disease. To address this question, we measured plasma total cholesterol and triglyceride levels over time in three transgenic AD mouse models in the absence of dietary or pharmacological treatments.

The absence of ABCA1 decreases soluble ApoE levels but does not diminish amyloid deposition in two murine models of Alzheimer disease.

ABCA1, a cholesterol transporter expressed in the brain, has been shown recently to be required to maintain normal apoE levels and lipidation in the central nervous system. In addition, ABCA1 has been reported to modulate beta-amyloid (Abeta) production in vitro. These observations raise the possibility that ABCA1 may play a role in the pathogenesis of Alzheimer disease.

Deficiency of ABCA1 impairs apolipoprotein E metabolism in brain.

ABCA1 is a cholesterol transporter that is widely expressed throughout the body. Outside the central nervous system (CNS), ABCA1 functions in the biogenesis of high-density lipoprotein (HDL), where it mediates the efflux of cholesterol and phospholipids to apolipoprotein (apo) A-I. Deficiency of ABCA1 results in lack of circulating HDL and greatly reduced levels of apoA-I.

The ATP-binding cassette transporter 1 mediates lipid efflux from Sertoli cells and influences male fertility.

The liver X receptor/retinoid X receptor (LXR/RXR)-regulated gene ABCA1 effluxes cellular cholesterol and phospholipid to apolipoprotein A1 (apoA1), which is the rate-limiting step in high-density lipoprotein synthesis. The RXR pathway plays a critical role in testicular lipid trafficking, and RXRbeta-deficient male mice are sterile and accumulate lipids in Sertoli cells. Here, we demonstrate that ABCA1 mRNA and protein are abundant in Sertoli cells, whereas germ cells express little ABCA1.