Publications by authors named "Theodoulou A"

Background: Electronic cigarettes (ECs) are handheld electronic vaping devices that produce an aerosol by heating an e-liquid. People who smoke, healthcare providers, and regulators want to know if ECs can help people quit smoking, and if they are safe to use for this purpose. This is a review update conducted as part of a living systematic review.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Background: People from lower socioeconomic groups are more likely to smoke and less likely to succeed in achieving abstinence, making tobacco smoking a leading driver of health inequalities. Contextual factors affecting subpopulations may moderate the efficacy of individual-level smoking cessation interventions. It is not known whether any intervention performs differently across socioeconomically-diverse populations and contexts.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Public Health England outlines a national ambition of anticoagulating 90% of eligible patients with atrial fibrillation (AF) by 2029. In 2019/2020, two out of three boroughs reviewed in this study were in the bottom 10% of boroughs compared with others within England. Stroke National Audit data for these three boroughs from 2019 to 2020 identified that in patients with known AF admitted to hospital with strokes, 37% were not anticoagulated.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Aims: To determine patterns of e-cigarette flavour use (sweet, tobacco, menthol/mint) in interventional studies of e-cigarettes for stopping smoking, and to estimate associations between flavours and smoking/vaping outcomes.

Methods: Update of secondary data analyses, including meta-analyses subgrouped by flavour provision and narrative syntheses, incorporating data from January 2004 to February 2024. Eligible studies were identified from a Cochrane review.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Background: Inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) commonly affects patients of reproductive age. The effect of disease activity on the outcome of pregnancy and its impact on neonatal health are areas of intense research.

Methods: Α national retrospective study of pregnancies in women with IBD between 2010 and 2020 was carried out in 22 IBD reference centers in Greece.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Polyglucosan bodies are accumulations of insoluble glucose polymers and proteins that form intracytoplasmic inclusions in the brain, large numbers of which can be indicative of neurodegenerative diseases such as Lafora disease. Montserrat orioles () are an icterid passerine endemic to Montserrat with conservation populations maintained in captivity abroad. We demonstrate that polyglucosan bodies are unusually abundant in the cerebellar molecular and Purkinje cell layers and cerebellar peduncles of captive-bred and wild-caught Montserrat orioles.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Background: Electronic cigarettes (ECs) are handheld electronic vaping devices which produce an aerosol by heating an e-liquid. People who smoke, healthcare providers and regulators want to know if ECs can help people quit smoking, and if they are safe to use for this purpose. This is a review update conducted as part of a living systematic review.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Background: Tobacco smoking is the leading preventable cause of death and disease worldwide. Stopping smoking can reduce this harm and many people would like to stop. There are a number of medicines licenced to help people quit globally, and e-cigarettes are used for this purpose in many countries.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Background: Nicotine replacement therapy (NRT) aims to replace nicotine from cigarettes. This helps to reduce cravings and withdrawal symptoms, and ease the transition from cigarette smoking to complete abstinence. Although there is high-certainty evidence that NRT is effective for achieving long-term smoking abstinence, it is unclear whether different forms, doses, durations of treatment or timing of use impacts its effects.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Metastatic lesions to the colon are far less common than primary tumors. Breast cancer metastasis to the colon is rarely reported, and it is often atypical in presentation and difficult to diagnose. We present a case of a diminutive asymptomatic breast cancer metastasis to the colon found during surveillance colonoscopy in a patient with long-lasting ulcerative colitis, which was initially regarded as a colitis-associated dysplastic lesion.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Background: The pharmacological profiles and mechanisms of antidepressants are varied. However, there are common reasons why they might help people to stop smoking tobacco: nicotine withdrawal can produce short-term low mood that antidepressants may relieve; and some antidepressants may have a specific effect on neural pathways or receptors that underlie nicotine addiction.

Objectives: To assess the evidence for the efficacy, harms, and tolerability of medications with antidepressant properties in assisting long-term tobacco smoking cessation in people who smoke cigarettes.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Background: Nicotine receptor partial agonists may help people to stop smoking by a combination of maintaining moderate levels of dopamine to counteract withdrawal symptoms (acting as an agonist) and reducing smoking satisfaction (acting as an antagonist). This is an update of a Cochrane Review first published in 2007.

Objectives: To assess the effectiveness of nicotine receptor partial agonists, including varenicline and cytisine, for smoking cessation.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Background: Behavioral weight management programs (BWMPs) enhance weight loss in the short term, but longer term cardiometabolic effects are uncertain as weight is commonly regained. We assessed the impact of weight regain after BWMPs on cardiovascular risk factors, diabetes, and cardiovascular disease.

Methods: Trial registries, 11 databases, and forward-citation searching (latest search, December 19) were used to identify articles published in English, from any geographical region.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Aim: Assess the characteristics of break through COVID-19 in Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD) patients, despite complete vaccination.

Methods: Patients who reported a COVID-19 at least 3 weeks after complete vaccination were asked to answer an on-line anonymous questionnaire which included patient and disease characteristics, vaccination history, and the evolution of COVID-19.

Results: Among 3240 IBD patients who reported complete vaccination between 1st May 2021 and 30thJune 2022, 402 (12.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Behavioural weight management programmes (BWMPs) lead to weight loss but subsequent weight regain may harm mental health outcomes. We searched for randomised trials of BWMPs in adults with overweight/obesity with follow-up ≥12 months from baseline that measured weight change both at and after programme-end. We included only studies reporting mental health at or after programme-end.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Aims: To estimate associations between e-cigarette flavour and smoking cessation and study product use at 6 months or longer.

Methods: Secondary analysis of data from a living systematic review, with meta-analyses and narrative synthesis, incorporating data up to January 2022. Included studies provided people who smoked combustible cigarettes with nicotine e-cigarettes for the purpose of smoking cessation compared with no treatment or other stop smoking interventions.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Background: Electronic cigarettes (ECs) are handheld electronic vaping devices which produce an aerosol by heating an e-liquid. Some people who smoke use ECs to stop or reduce smoking, although some organizations, advocacy groups and policymakers have discouraged this, citing lack of evidence of efficacy and safety. People who smoke, healthcare providers and regulators want to know if ECs can help people quit smoking, and if they are safe to use for this purpose.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Aims: We used data from a recent systematic review to investigate weight regain after behavioural weight management programmes (BWMPs, sometimes referred to as lifestyle modification programmes) and its impact on quality-of-life and cost-effectiveness.

Materials And Methods: Trial registries, databases and forward-citation searching (latest search December 2019) were used to identify randomized trials of BWMPs in adults with overweight/obesity reporting outcomes at ≥12 months, and after programme end. Two independent reviewers screened records.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Aims: This study aims to compare biomarkers of potential harm between people switching from smoking combustible cigarettes (CC) completely to electronic cigarettes (EC), continuing to smoke CC, using both EC and CC (dual users) and using neither (abstainers), based on behaviour during EC intervention studies.

Design: Secondary analysis following systematic review, incorporating inverse variance random-effects meta-analysis and effect direction plots.

Setting: This study was conducted in Greece, Italy, Poland, the United Kingdom and the United States.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Background: Smoking is a leading cause of cardiovascular disease (CVD), particularly coronary heart disease (CHD). However, quitting smoking may prevent secondary CVD events in people already diagnosed with CHD.  OBJECTIVES: To examine the impact of smoking cessation on death from CVD and major adverse cardiovascular events (MACE), in people with incident CHD.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Moderate certainty evidence supports use of nicotine electronic cigarettes to quit smoking combustible cigarettes. However, there is less certainty regarding how long people continue to use e-cigarettes after smoking cessation attempts. We set out to synthesise data on the proportion of people still using e-cigarettes or other study products at 6 months or longer in studies of e-cigarettes for smoking cessation.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Objective: Behavioral weight management programs (BWMPs) for adults lead to greater weight loss at 12 months than minimal-intervention control treatments. However, there is considerable heterogeneity in the content of BWMPs and outcomes of treatment. This study assessed the contribution of individual components of BWMPs, using Bayesian component network meta-analysis.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Starch binding domain-containing protein 1 (STBD1) is an endoplasmic reticulum (ER)-resident, glycogen-binding protein. In addition to glycogen, STBD1 has been shown to interact with several proteins implicated in glycogen synthesis and degradation, yet its function in glycogen metabolism remains largely unknown. In addition to the bulk of the ER, STBD1 has been reported to localize at regions of physical contact between mitochondria and the ER, known as Mitochondria-ER Contact sites (MERCs).

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Background: Motivational interviewing (MI) is potentially useful in management of overweight and obesity, but staff training and increased delivery time are barriers, and its effectiveness independent of other behavioral components is unclear.

Purpose: To assess the independent contribution of MI as part of a behavioral weight management program (BWMP) in controlling weight and improving psychological well-being.

Data Sources: 6 electronic databases and 2 trial registries, searched from database inception through 24 September 2021.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF