Weight misperception and unhealthy weight control behaviors among sexual minorities in the general adolescent population.

Purpose: Gay, lesbian, and bisexual youth may experience significant body dissatisfaction. We examined sexual orientation differences in self-perceived weight status and the prevalence of potentially dangerous weight control behaviors in a representative sample of adolescents.

Methods: Data were obtained from 12,984 youth between 2003 and 2009 over four cycles of the Massachusetts Youth Risk Behavior Survey, a statewide survey of ninth- through 12th-grade students.

Early kinetics of integration of collagen-glycosaminoglycan regenerative scaffolds in a diabetic mouse model.

Background: Collagen-glycosaminoglycan scaffolds, originally designed to treat severe burns, are now commonly used in patients with complex wounds associated with diabetes mellitus. In this study, the authors investigated how the thickness of the scaffold would affect cellular integration with the diabetic host and whether this can be accelerated using subatmospheric pressure wound therapy devices.

Methods: Collagen-glycosaminoglycan scaffolds, 500 to 2000-μm thick, were applied to dorsal wounds in genetically diabetic mice.

Site-specific determinants of cutaneous melanoma: a case-case comparison of patients with tumors arising on the head or trunk.

Background: Cutaneous melanomas have been hypothesized to arise through different pathways according to phenotype, body site, and sun exposure. To further test this hypothesis, we explored associations between phenotype and melanoma at different sites using a case-case comparative approach.

Methods: Melanoma patients (n = 762) aged 18 to 79 years and diagnosed from 2007 to 2010 were ascertained from pathology laboratories in Brisbane, Australia.

Vegetable protein and vegetable fat intakes in pre-adolescent and adolescent girls, and risk for benign breast disease in young women.

Previous investigations, of adolescent diet recalled in adulthood, found lower risk for benign breast disease (BBD) with higher intakes of vegetable fat and nuts during high school. We investigate whether vegetable protein and fat, derived from diets reported during pre-adolescence and adolescence, are associated with subsequent risk for BBD in young women. The Growing Up Today Study includes 9,039 females, 9-15 years in 1996, who completed questionnaires annually through 2001, and then in 2003, 2005, 2007, and 2010.

MsrB1 and MICALs regulate actin assembly and macrophage function via reversible stereoselective methionine oxidation.

Redox control of protein function involves oxidation and reduction of amino acid residues, but the mechanisms and regulators involved are insufficiently understood. Here, we report that in conjunction with Mical proteins, methionine-R-sulfoxide reductase B1 (MsrB1) regulates mammalian actin assembly via stereoselective methionine oxidation and reduction in a reversible, site-specific manner. Two methionine residues in actin are specifically converted to methionine-R-sulfoxide by Mical1 and Mical2 and reduced back to methionine by selenoprotein MsrB1, supporting actin disassembly and assembly, respectively.

Bisphenol-A and human oocyte maturation in vitro.

Study Question: Does exposure to bisphenol-A (BPA) affect the maturation of human oocytes in vitro?

Summary Answer: There was a dose-response association of BPA exposure with altered human oocyte maturation in vitro.

What Is Known Already: There is widespread exposure of the general population to BPA. BPA has been detected in the human follicular fluid.

Soft drink intake and progression of radiographic knee osteoarthritis: data from the osteoarthritis initiative.

Objectives: We examine the prospective association of soft drink consumption with radiographic progression of knee osteoarthritis (OA).

Design: Prospective cohort study.

Setting: This study used data from the osteoarthritis initiative (OAI).

Sleep Apnea Cardiovascular Clinical Trials-Current Status and Steps Forward: The International Collaboration of Sleep Apnea Cardiovascular Trialists.

Unlabelled: Sleep apnea is a common chronic disease that is associated with coronary heart disease, stroke, heart failure and mortality, although the ability of sleep apnea treatment to reduce cardiovascular morbidity and mortality has not been demonstrated. In contrast to patients seeking treatment in sleep disorders centers, as many as half of individuals with moderate to severe sleep apnea in the general population do not report excessive sleepiness; however, if treatment of sleep apnea were shown to reduce cardiovascular disease risk, this would provide a strong rationale for treatment of sleep apnea even in the absence of daytime sleepiness. This article summarizes the status of clinical trials evaluating the potential cardiovascular benefits of sleep apnea treatment and discusses the challenges of conducting such trials, and introduces the International Collaboration of Sleep Apnea Cardiovascular Trialists (INCOSACT), a clinical research collaboration formed to foster cardiovascular sleep research.

Gestational carriers: A viable alternative for women with medical contraindications to pregnancy.

Objective: Compare the efficacy of surrogate or gestational carrier (GC) cycles to that of autologous fertilization (IVF)/intracytoplasmic sperm injections (ICSI) in patients with gynecologic or medical co-morbidities contraindicative to pregnancy.

Design: Retrospective cohort study.

Setting: Infertility patients from a single university hospital-based program from 1998-2009.

State-Dependent Inhibition of Sodium Channels by Local Anesthetics: A 40-Year Evolution.

Knowledge about the mechanism of impulse blockade by local anesthetics has evolved over the past four decades, from the realization that Na channels were inhibited to affect the impulse blockade to an identification of the amino acid residues within the Na channel that bind the local anesthetic molecule. Within this period appreciation has grown of the state-dependent nature of channel inhibition, with rapid binding and unbinding at relatively high affinity to the open state, and weaker binding to the closed resting state. Slow binding of high affinity for the inactivated state accounts for the salutary therapeutic as well as the toxic actions of diverse class I anti-arrhythmic agents, but may have little importance for impulse blockade, which requires concentrations high enough to block the resting state.

Case-crossover studies of therapeutics: design approaches to addressing time-varying prognosis in elderly populations.

Background: Self-controlled analysis methods implicitly adjust for time-invariant confounding within individuals. A person's prognosis often varies over time and affects both therapy choice and subsequent health outcomes. Current approaches may not be able to fully address this within-person confounding.

The role of systemic inflammatory biomarkers to predict mortality in chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.

The authors discuss the role of inflammatory biomarkers to predict mortality in chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) in this narrative literature review with expert opinion. The severity of COPD has traditionally been graded using the degree of obstruction as measured by the forced expiratory volume in 1 s because this variable has been predictive of outcomes. However, it is now accepted that COPD is a complex disease with important systemic consequences and that a multidimensional index such as the BMI, obstruction, dyspnea and exercise capacity index is a better predictor of outcome than lung function alone.

Genetic variation of fifteen folate metabolic pathway associated gene loci and the risk of incident head and neck carcinoma: the Women's Genome Health Study.

Objective: Recent studies have demonstrated the importance of folate metabolic pathway (FMP) in the pathogenesis of head and neck carcinoma (HNC). Whether the genetic variation within the FMP associated genes modulates HNC remains elusive. To date, prospective, epidemiological data on the relationship of FMP gene variation with the risk of HNC are sparse.

Circulating carotenoids and risk of breast cancer: pooled analysis of eight prospective studies.

Background: Carotenoids, micronutrients in fruits and vegetables, may reduce breast cancer risk. Most, but not all, past studies of circulating carotenoids and breast cancer have found an inverse association with at least one carotenoid, although the specific carotenoid has varied across studies.

Methods: We conducted a pooled analysis of eight cohort studies comprising more than 80% of the world's published prospective data on plasma or serum carotenoids and breast cancer, including 3055 case subjects and 3956 matched control subjects.

The Zelnorm epidemiologic study (ZEST): a cohort study evaluating incidence of abdominal and pelvic surgery related to tegaserod treatment.

Background: Pre-marketing clinical studies of tegaserod suggested an increased risk of abdominal surgery, particularly cholecystectomy. We sought to quantify the association between tegaserod use and the occurrence of abdominal or pelvic surgery, including cholecystectomy.

Methods: This cohort study was conducted within an insured population.

Beneficial effects of lysosome-modulating and other pharmacological and nanocarrier agents on amyloid-beta-treated cells.

The progression of Alzheimer's disease (AD) is accompanied by disturbances of the endosome/lysosome (EL) system and there is accumulation of peptides of the AD-associated amyloid beta (Abeta) type in EL vesicles of affected neurons. EL modulating agents partially ameliorate the Abeta-mediated cell abnormalities. However, no extensive studies on the potential pharmaceutical applications of combinations of such agents and their synergistic effects have been performed.

Diagnostic use of molecular markers in the evaluation of thyroid nodules.

Objective: To describe the molecular markers thus far evaluated for use in the care of patients with clinically relevant thyroid nodules.

Methods: We review the currently available molecular tests that have been applied to patients with thyroid nodules.

Results: In the United States, approximately 450 000 diagnostic fine-needle aspirates will be performed on patients with thyroid nodules this year in an effort to identify thyroid cancer.

The association between severe obesity and characteristics of failed fertilized oocytes.

Study Question: Is the cytoskeletal and chromosomal organization of failed fertilized oocytes from severely obese patients (BMI ≥ 35 kg/m²) altered compared with that in patients with normal BMI (BMI 18.5-24.9 kg/m²)?

Summary Answer: Compared with normal BMI patients, severe obesity was associated with a greater prevalence of spindle anomalies and non-aligned chromosomes in failed fertilized oocytes.

Acidic fruit intake in relation to incidence and progression of urinary incontinence.

Introduction And Hypothesis: Acidic fruits are commonly cited in the lay press as potential bladder irritants that may promote urinary incontinence (UI), but no epidemiologic studies have examined this issue. We hypothesized that higher intake of acidic fruits might be related to greater risk of UI incidence and progression in women.

Methods: In one set of analyses, we included women without UI at study baseline in the Nurses' Health Studies (NHS), with 34,144 women aged 54-79 in NHS I and 31,024 women aged 37-54 in NHS II.

Optimization of tricyclic Nec-3 necroptosis inhibitors for in vitro liver microsomal stability.

Necroptosis is a regulated caspase-independent cell death pathway with morphological features resembling passive non-regulated necrosis. Several diverse structure classes of necroptosis inhibitors have been reported to date, including a series of 3,3a,4,5-tetrahydro-2H-benz[g]indazoles (referred to as the Nec-3 series) displaying potent activity in cellular assays. However, evaluation of the tricyclic necroptosis inhibitor's stability in mouse liver microsomes indicated that they were rapidly degraded.

Robot-assisted laparoscopic myomectomy compared with standard laparoscopic myomectomy.

Objective: To compare surgical outcomes of laparoscopic myomectomy and robot-assisted laparoscopic myomectomy.

Methods: Retrospective cohort study of 115 consecutive laparoscopic myomectomy and 174 consecutive robot-assisted laparoscopic myomectomy performed at Brigham and Women's Hospital over a period of 31 months. Uterine incisions were closed in multiple layers (running barbed suture was used for most cases in the laparoscopic myomectomy group).

An examination of sexual orientation group patterns in mammographic and colorectal screening in a cohort of U.S. women.

Purpose: Underutilization of cancer screening has been found especially to affect socially marginalized groups. We investigated sexual orientation group patterns in breast and colorectal cancer screening adherence.

Methods: Data on breast and colorectal cancer screening, sexual orientation, and sociodemographics were gathered prospectively from 1989 through 2005 from 85,759 U.

Synthesis of tetracyclic indoles via intramolecular α-arylation of ketones.

An intramolecular palladium(0)-mediated α-arylation of ketones applied to the synthesis of various substituted tetracyclic indoles is reported. Most significantly, the efficiency of the transformation was enhanced by the use of monoligated Pd(0) complexes. This methodology was extended to double α-arylation of ketones using one-pot reactions with either simultaneous addition or sequential addition of two aryl halides for producing aryl substituted tetracyclic indoles.

Comparative Genomics and Evolution of Molybdenum Utilization.

The trace element molybdenum (Mo) is the catalytic component of important enzymes involved in global nitrogen, sulfur, and carbon metabolism in both prokaryotes and eukaryotes. With the exception of nitrogenase, Mo is complexed by a pterin compound thus forming the biologically active molybdenum cofactor (Moco) at the catalytic sites of molybdoenzymes. The physiological roles and biochemical functions of many molybdoenzymes have been characterized.