Antenatal betamethasone augments lung perfusion but lowers upper body blood flow and O delivery with delayed cord clamping at birth in preterm lambs.

Although the corticosteroid betamethasone is routinely administered to accelerate lung and cardiovascular maturation in the preterm fetus prior to birth, and use of delayed cord clamping (DCC) is recommended at birth by professional bodies, it is unknown whether antenatal betamethasone alters perinatal pulmonary or systemic arterial blood flow accompaniments of DCC. To address this issue, preterm fetal lambs [gestation 127 (1) days, term = 147 days] with (n = 10) or without (n = 10) antenatal betamethasone treatment were acutely instrumented under general anaesthesia with flow probes to obtain left (LV) and right ventricular (RV) outputs, major central arterial blood flows and shunt flow across both the ductus arteriosus and foramen ovale (FO). After delivery, lambs underwent initial ventilation for 2 min prior to DCC.

A conserved switch to less catalytically active Polycomb repressive complexes in non-dividing cells.

Polycomb repressive complex 2 (PRC2), composed of the core subunits EED, SUZ12, and either EZH1 or EZH2, is critical for maintaining cellular identity in multicellular organisms. PRC2 deposits H3K27me3, which is thought to recruit the canonical form of PRC1 (cPRC1) to promote gene repression. Here, we show that EZH1-PRC2 and cPRC1 are the primary Polycomb complexes on target genes in non-dividing, quiescent cells.

The Divine in the Clinic: Assisted Reproduction and Religious Practice in Ghana and South Africa.

Drawing on studies with 40 informants in Ghana and 74 informants in South Africa, we explore spiritual interventions among staff and patients that accompany their use of assisted reproduction. These practices and expressions of faith reinforce staff and patients as moral subjects who have done everything possible to assist in the vagaries of assisted reproduction-another form of care to enable, complement, and enhance high-tech intervention. We consider the creation of sacred spaces in the clinics, the rituals that form part of IVF practice, and the dilemmas of translation when assisted reproductive technologies (ARTs) travel to different cultural and religious contexts.

Young Adults with Type 1 Diabetes' Clinical Outcomes and Satisfaction Related to the Use of Videoconferencing for Type 1 Diabetes Healthcare: A Narrative Review.

Introduction: Young adulthood is well documented as being a particularly challenging area of type 1 diabetes (T1D) healthcare. Many young adults with T1D (YAT1D) are distracted from effective disease self-management; T1D healthcare service engagement can be problematic and inconsistent, and high rates of unplanned healthcare contacts prevail. Video conferencing use can facilitate services to be flexible and responsive.

Sex Differences in Melanoma Survival-a GEM study.

Sex differences in melanoma are prominent, with females having a significant survival advantage. However, it is unclear why we see this survival advantage. Here we investigate the relationship between sex, clinicopathologic variables, and melanoma specific survival in 1,753 single primary melanomas from patients in the GEM study.

Impacts of Housing Costs on Health and Satisfaction With Life Circumstances: Evidence From Australia.

This paper examines the causal impacts of rising housing costs on individual health and satisfaction with life circumstances, using a fixed-effects instrumental variable approach and individual-level panel data from Australia. Relying on the historical patterns of immigrant settlement, we construct an instrumental variable that exploits exogenous variation in housing costs driven by foreign investments that flow differentially into localities. We find that rising housing costs-as measured by composite housing costs faced by homeowners and renters living in an area-have a significant positive impact on individuals' self-assessed physical health and a significant negative impact on satisfaction ratings, but no significant impact on self-assessed emotional health.

Sarcopenic obesity and brain health: A critical appraisal of the current evidence.

Sarcopenic obesity (SO) is a body composition phenotype derived from the simultaneous presence in the same individual of an increase in fat mass and a decrease in skeletal muscle mass and/or function. Several protocols for the diagnosis of SO have been proposed in the last two decades making prevalence and disease risk estimates of SO heterogeneous and challenging to interpret. Dementia is a complex neurological disorder that significantly impacts patients, carers and healthcare systems.

Personalising glioblastoma medicine: explant organoid applications, challenges and future perspectives.

Glioblastoma (GBM) is a highly aggressive adult brain cancer, characterised by poor prognosis and a dismal five-year survival rate. Despite significant knowledge gains in tumour biology, meaningful advances in patient survival remain elusive. The field of neuro-oncology faces many disease obstacles, one being the paucity of faithful models to advance preclinical research and guide personalised medicine approaches.

A UK population-based case-control study of blood tests before cancer diagnosis in patients with non-specific abdominal symptoms.

Background: Abnormal results in commonly used primary care blood tests could be early markers of cancer in patients presenting with non-specific abdominal symptoms.

Methods: Using linked data from the UK Clinical Practice Research Datalink (CPRD) and national cancer registry we compared blood test use and abnormal results from the 24-months pre-diagnosis in 10,575 cancer patients (any site), and 52,875 matched-controls aged ≥30 presenting, with abdominal pain or bloating to primary care.

Results: Cancer patients had two-fold increased odds of having a blood test (odds ratio(OR):1.

An integrated framework to guide evidence-informed public health policymaking.

Evidence-informed policymaking emphasizes that policy decisions should be informed by the best available evidence from research and follow a systematic and transparent approach. For public health policymaking we can learn from existing practices of transparent, evidence-informed decision-making for clinical practice, medicines, and medical technology. We review existing evidence-to-decision frameworks, as well as frameworks and theories for policymaking to address the political dimension of policymaking, and use this analysis to propose an integrated framework to guide evidence-informed policymaking.

Real-world effectiveness and safety of sodium-glucose co-transporter 2 inhibitors in chronic kidney disease.

Sodium-glucose cotransporter-2 inhibitors (SGLT2i) have shown efficacy in clinical trials for slowing chronic kidney disease (CKD) progression, but real-world data in diverse populations are limited. This retrospective study evaluated the effectiveness and safety of SGLT2i versus renin-angiotensin-aldosterone system (RAAS) blockade in CKD patients. Data from Ramathibodi Hospital (2010-2022) were analyzed, including 6,946 adults with CKD stages 2-4, with and without diabetes, who received SGLT2i (n = 1,405) or RAAS blockade (n = 5,541) for at least three months.

Pharmacological or genetic inhibition of LTCC promotes cardiomyocyte proliferation through inhibition of calcineurin activity.

Cardiomyocytes (CMs) lost during ischemic cardiac injury cannot be replaced due to their limited proliferative capacity. Calcium is an important signal transducer that regulates key cellular processes, but its role in regulating CM proliferation is incompletely understood. Here we show a robust pathway for new calcium signaling-based cardiac regenerative strategies.

Secure IoT data dissemination with blockchain and transfer learning techniques.

In smart applications, streaming IoT data is essential to building trust in sustainable IoT solutions. However, most existing systems for storing and disseminating IoT data streams lack reliability, security, and transparency, primarily due to centralized architectures that create single points of failure. To address these limitations, this research introduces TraVel, a blockchain and transfer learning-based framework for secure IoT data management.

The North American Repository for Archaeological Isotopes.

Here, we present the North American Repository for Archaeological Isotopes (NARIA), the largest open-access compilation of previously reported isotopic measurements (n = 28,374) from bioarchaeological samples in North America (i.e., Canada, Greenland, Mexico, and the United States of America) covering a time-frame of more than 12,000 years.

Emerging and re-emerging viral infections of the central nervous system in Australasia and beyond.

Viral infections of the central nervous system (CNS) have been emerging and re-emerging worldwide, and the Australasia region has not been spared. Enterovirus A71 and enterovirus D68, both human enteroviruses, are likely to replace the soon-to-be eradicated poliovirus to cause global outbreaks associated with neurological disease. Although prevalent elsewhere, the newly emergent orthoflavivirus, Japanese encephalitis virus (genotype IV), caused human infections in Australia in 2021, and almost certainly will continue to do so because of spillovers from the natural animal host-vector life cycle endemic in the country.

A co-designed health education model to improve outcomes for children with emotional and behavioural difficulties: a study of acceptability, feasibility and impacts.

Objective: To assess the acceptability and impacts of a co-designed health education model aiming to improve outcomes for children with emotional and behavioural difficulties.

Design: Qualitative focus group study.

Setting: Six primary schools from metropolitan and rural settings in the state of Victoria, Australia.