Are the new moisturizers more effective?

Purpose Of Review: The authors discuss the role of moisturizers in the daily skin care regimen of healthy skin and in atopic dermatitis, as well as the efficacy of newer products.

Recent Findings: Recent findings have shown that the affected skin of atopic individuals is deficient in ceramides, an integral lipid component of the stratum corneum. Several manufacturers have developed topical products with ceramides in an attempt to replace the missing molecules.

Novel immunosuppression in pancreas transplantation and outcomes.

Purpose Of Review: Pancreas transplantation continues to evolve and mature offering diabetic patients longer lives with improved quality of life and reduced morbidity. A review of current literature was performed to assess important trends in the care and outcome of patients following pancreas transplantation with and without simultaneous renal transplant.

Recent Findings: Overall results of pancreas transplantation have improved worldwide.

Insights into the role of deiodinases from studies of genetically modified animals.

The deiodinases function at a pre-receptor level in tissues to modulate the concentrations, and thus the actions, of thyroid hormones. Although much has been learned in the last two decades about the biochemical properties and expression patterns of these enzymes, a complete understanding of their physiologic roles requires study of their actions in the intact animal. To date only a limited number of naturally occurring human or animal models exhibiting excessive or deficient deiodinase activity have been defined.

Control by basal phosphorylation of cell cycle-dependent, hormone-induced glucocorticoid receptor hyperphosphorylation.

Mouse glucocorticoid receptors (GRs) are phosphorylated in the N-terminal domain at serine/ threonine residues, most lying in consensus sequences for cell cycle-associated kinases. Glucocorticoid agonists, but not antagonists, induce hyperphosphorylation. Phosphorylation of GRs overexpressed in Chinese hamster ovary (CHO) cells is cell cycle-dependent: basal phosphorylation in S phase is one third that in G2/M; glucocorticoids induce hyperphosphorylation in S but not G2/M, paralleling the reported sensitivity in S and resistance in G2/M of proliferating cells to transcriptional activation by glucocorticoids.

Cell cycle-dependent glucocorticoid receptor phosphorylation and activity.

Proliferating cells display striking cell cycle dependence in sensitivity to gene activation by glucocorticoids; they are sensitive in late gap 1/synthesis (G1/S) (late G1 and S phases) but resistant in gap 2/mitotic (G2/M). Here we describe large cell cycle-dependent variations in glucocorticoid receptor (GR) phosphorylation that accompany, and may account for, the changes in sensitivity. GRs are basally phosphorylated and undergo hyperphosphorylation after hormone-induced activation.

Perception of breathlessness during exercise in patients with respiratory disease.

The perception of breathlessness during physical activities is a frequent and disturbing complaint for patients with chronic respiratory disease. Psychophysical principles can be applied to quantitate the severity of dyspnea during cardiopulmonary exercise testing. Power production (or work) appears to be the most appropriate stimulus for measuring the dyspnea response.

Pretranslational regulation of type I 5'-deiodinase by thyroid hormones and in fasted and diabetic rats.

In both humans and experimental animals, nutritional deprivation and systemic illness are associated with decreases in circulating T3 levels, T3 production, and type I 5'-deiodinase (5'DI) activity. In order to assess the regulation of 5'DI messenger RNA (mRNA) in these conditions, a solution hybridization assay was developed which utilized a complementary (cDNA) encompassing 92% of the 5'DI coding region. The administration of T3 to hypothyroid rats induced a 50-fold increase in 5'DI mRNA levels that preceded by 12 h a similar increase in 5'DI activity.