Abolition of Aorticorenal Ganglia Pacing Responses Improves Denervation Efficacy.

Background: Transcatheter renal denervation (RDN) remains inconsistent despite developments in ablation technologies, due to the lack of an intraprocedural physiological end point.

Objective: To identify whether aorticorenal ganglion (ARG) guided RDN using microwave (MW) catheter leads to more consistent denervation outcomes compared with empirical MW ablation.

Methods: Pigs underwent sham procedure (n=8) or bilateral RDN using an in-house built open-irrigated MW catheter.

Ten-Year Trends in Last Known Well to Arrival Time in Acute Ischemic Stroke Patients: 2014 to 2023.

Background: Many national initiatives focus on promoting early hospital arrival of patients with acute ischemic stroke (AIS) because treatment effectiveness is time-dependent. However, several studies reported time-delays in hospital arrival, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic. Our purpose was to evaluate the 10-year trends in last known well to arrival (LKWA) time and assess disparities in patients with AIS.

Re-evaluating large for gestational age: differential effects on perinatal outcomes in term and premature births.

Objective: Pregnancies with large-for-gestational-age (LGA) fetuses are associated with increased risks of various adverse perinatal outcomes. While existing research primarily focuses on term neonates, less is known about preterm neonates. This study aims to explore the risks of adverse maternal and neonatal perinatal outcomes associated with LGA in term neonates and neonates with different degrees of prematurity, compared to appropriate-for-gestational-age (AGA) neonates.

Trends in the prevalence of Chronic Kidney Disease in the United States, 1999-2018.

Background: Chronic Kidney Disease (CKD) is an escalating public health concern in the United States, linked with significant morbidity, mortality, and healthcare costs. Despite known risk factors like age, hypertension, and diabetes, comprehensive studies examining temporal trends in CKD prevalence are scarce. This study aims to analyze these trends using data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES).

Effect of platelet-rich plasma versus placebo or corticosteroid for knee osteoarthritis: A systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials.

Background: The effectiveness of intra-articular platelet-rich plasma (IA-PRP) injections for managing pain in knee osteoarthritis (KOA) remains inconsistent. Therefore, this study aimed to systematically review randomized controlled trials (RCTs) assessing the efficacy of IA-PRP.

Methods: A total of 21 studies meeting the inclusion criteria were selected from various scientific databases, all of which compared PRP to either a placebo or an active comparator, such as corticosteroids (CS), in the treatment of KOA.

Scan and share to register outpatients, India.

Problem: To address the long waiting times patients incur when visiting outpatient departments in India.

Approach: In 2022, the National Health Authority in India developed a paperless service, called Scan and Share, leveraging mobile technology and QR (quick-response) codes to streamline outpatient department appointments. Patients can use a mobile application (app) to scan QR codes at health facilities, generating tokens linked to registration counters.

A scoping review and expert consensus on digital determinants of health.

Objective: To map how social, commercial, political and digital determinants of health have changed or emerged during the recent digital transformation of society and to identify priority areas for policy action.

Methods: We systematically searched MEDLINE, Embase and Web of Science on 24 September 2023, to identify eligible reviews published in 2018 and later. To ensure we included the most recent literature, we supplemented our review with non-systematic searches in PubMed® and Google Scholar, along with records identified by subject matter experts.

The relationship between early literacy skills and speech-sound production in students with intellectual disability and communication difficulties: a cross-sectional study.

Earlier research and reports from educational practice seem to suggest that teaching early literacy skills may facilitate speech-sound production in students with intellectual disabilities, but further research is needed to confirm a potential connection. This study investigated (1) the relationship between speech-sound production, phonological awareness, and letter-sound knowledge in students with intellectual disabilities and communication difficulties, and (2) to what degree phonological awareness and letter-sound knowledge explain the variance in speech-sound production over and above IQ and chronological age. A group of 116 students, aged 7-21, enrolled in Swedish compulsory schools for students with intellectual disabilities participated in this study.

The Startle Response and Prepulse Inhibition in Psychosis and Violence: A Combined Electromyography and Electroencephalography Study.

There is a pressing need for biomarkers of violent behavior risk in psychosis. Previous research indicates that electrophysiological measures of automatic defensive reactions may have potential. The purpose of this study was to investigate associations between violent behavior in individuals with and without psychosis and electromyography (EMG) and electroencephalography (EEG) responses to startling auditory stimuli.

Protocol of the Nutritional, Psychosocial, and Environmental Determinants of Neurodevelopment and Child Mental Health (COINCIDE) study.

Background: Over 250 million children are developing sub-optimally due to their exposure to early life adversities. While previous studies have examined the effects of nutritional status, psychosocial adversities, and environmental pollutants on children's outcomes, little is known about their interaction and cumulative effects.

Objectives: This study aims to investigate the independent, interaction, and cumulative effects of nutritional, psychosocial, and environmental factors on children's cognitive development and mental health in urban and rural India.

Association of player position and functional connectivity alterations in collegiate American football players: an fMRI study.

Introduction: Resting state-fMRI, provides a sensitive method for detecting changes in brain functional integrity, both with respect to regional oxygenated blood flow and whole network connectivity. The primary goal of this report was to examine alterations in functional connectivity in collegiate American football players after a season of repetitive head impact exposure.

Methods: Collegiate football players completed a rs-fMRI at pre-season and 1 week into post-season.

Evaluating plasma biomarkers NfL, GFAP, GDF15, and FGF21 as indicators of disease severity in Charcot-Marie Tooth patients.

Background: Charcot-Marie-Tooth disease (CMT), a slowly advancing hereditary nerve disorder, presents a significant challenge in the medical field. Effective drugs for treatment are lacking, and we struggle to find sensitive markers to track the disease's severity and progression. In this study, our objective was to investigate the levels of neurofilament light chain (NfL), glial fibrillary acid protein (GFAP), fibroblast growth factor 21 (FGF-21) and growth differentiation factor 15 (GDF-15) in individuals with CMT and to compare them to a control group.

Is there a risk of esketamine misuse in clinical practice?

In 2019, intranasal esketamine gained approval as a promising therapy for those individuals grappling with treatment-resistant depression. Both clinical trials and real-world studies have underscored its efficacy in alleviating and remitting depressive symptoms, with sustained benefits observed for nearly 4.5 years.

Inflammation severity, rather than respiratory failure, is strongly associated with mortality of ARDS patients in high-altitude ICUs.

Introduction: In high-altitude cities located above 2,500 m, hospitals face a concerning mortality rate of over 50% among intensive care unit (ICU) patients with acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS). This elevated mortality rate is largely due to the absence of altitude-specific medical protocols that consider the unique physiological adaptations of high-altitude residents to hypoxic conditions. This study addresses this critical gap by analyzing demographic, clinical, sex-specific, and preclinical data from ICUs in Bogotá, Colombia (2,650 m) and El Alto, Bolivia (4,150 m).

The use of cannabidiol as adjunctive therapy in adult patients with drug-resistant epilepsy: a systematic review and meta-analysis.

Background: Highly purified cannabidiol (CBD), recently approved for various neurological disorders, is explored as a potential therapeutic avenue for drug-resistant epilepsy (DRE) among adult people with epilepsy (PWE) in this systematic review and meta-analysis.

Objectives: To conduct an extensive literature review and meta-analysis of CBD use for DRE in adult PWE.

Design: Systematic review and meta-analysis.

Effects of vitamin D supplementation on the glycaemic indices, lipid profile and liver function tests in patients with cirrhosis: a double-blind randomised controlled trial.

Background: Liver cirrhosis is considered a progressive disease that can eventually result in death. Vitamin D deficiency is prevalent in patients with cirrhosis. Few studies have been conducted on the effect of vitamin D supplementation in patients with cirrhosis.

Haptoglobin polymorphism, vitamin E and mortality: the Ludwigshafen Risk and Cardiovascular Health Study.

Objective: In humans, haptoglobin (Hp) exists in two allelic forms, Hp1 and Hp2, that differ significantly in their ability to protect the organism from oxidative stress. It has been proposed that in patients with diabetes mellitus carriers of the Hp2-2 genotype may benefit from vitamin E supplementation. Aim of our study was to investigate if there is evidence regarding a potential interaction between the Hp polymorphism and vitamin E with regard to mortality in individuals at medium-to-high cardiovascular risk with and without diabetes mellitus.

Health policy to address disease-related malnutrition: a scoping review.

Background: Health policies promote optimal care, yet policies that address disease-related malnutrition (DRM) are lacking. The purpose of this study was to conduct a scoping review to identify literature on existing and planned policy to address DRM in children or adults and explore the settings, contexts and actors of DRM policy.

Methods: A search strategy comprising DRM and policy keywords was applied to eight databases on 24 February 2023.

Nutrition users' guides: systematic reviews part 1 -structured guide for methodological assessment, interpretation and application of systematic reviews and meta-analyses of non-randomised nutritional epidemiology studies.

Due to the challenges of conducting randomised controlled trials (randomised trials) of dietary interventions, evidence in nutrition often comes from non-randomised (observational) studies of nutritional exposures-called nutritional epidemiology studies. When using systematic reviews of such studies to advise patients or populations on optimal dietary habits, users of the evidence (eg, healthcare professionals such as clinicians, health service and policy workers) should first evaluate the rigour (validity) and utility (applicability) of the systematic review. Issues in making this judgement include whether the review addressed a sensible question; included an exhaustive literature search; was scrupulous in the selection of studies and the collection of data; and presented results in a useful manner.

Dietary variety score and risk of metabolic syndrome incidence: Tehran Lipid and Glucose Study.

Purpose: There are contradictions in the association between dietary variety and metabolic syndrome (MetS). The concept of dietary variety should be merged with other dietary recommendations including diet quality and proportion. We aimed to investigate the association of the healthy food diversity index with MetS and its components in Iranian adults.

Nutrition users' guides: RCTs part 1 - structured guide for assessing risk of bias in randomised controlled trials that address therapy or prevention questions.

The purpose of this article, part 1 of 2 on randomised controlled trials (RCTs), is to provide readers (eg, clinicians, patients, health service and policy decision-makers) of the nutrition literature structured guidance on interpreting RCTs. Evaluation of a given RCT involves several considerations, including the potential for risk of bias, the assessment of estimates of effect and their corresponding precision, and the applicability of the evidence to one's patient. Risk of bias refers to flaws in the design or conduct of a study that may lead to a deviation from measuring the underlying true effect of an intervention.

Prevalence of chronic kidney disease among Chinese adults with diabetes: a nationwide population-based cross-sectional study.

Background: To date, comprehensive data on the distribution of chronic kidney disease (CKD), the most prevalent comorbidity in diabetes, among Chinese adults with diabetes is lacking. Additionally, research gaps exist in understanding the association between CKD and cardiovascular health (CVH), an integrated indicator of lifestyle and metabolic control, within a nationwide sample of Chinese adults with diabetes.

Methods: A nationally community-based cross-sectional survey was conducted in 2018-2020.

The progress in the field of clinical staging for mental disorders within the last decade: an updated systematic review.

Introduction: Clinical staging aims to refine psychiatric diagnosis by describing mental disorders on a continuum of disorder progression, with the pragmatic goal of improved treatment planning and outcome prediction. The first systematic review on this topic, published a decade ago, included 78 papers, and identified separate staging models for schizophrenia, unipolar depression, bipolar disorder, panic disorder, substance use disorder, anorexia, and bulimia nervosa. The current review updates this review by including new proposals for staging models and by systematically reviewing research based upon full or partial staging models since 2012.

Effects of non-pharmacological interventions on the depressive outcomes in people with mild cognitive impairment: an overview of systematic reviews.

Objective: This study aimed to summarize and assess the certainty of evidence of non-pharmacological interventions (NPIs) on the depressive outcomes in people with mild cognitive impairment (MCI) based on published systematic reviews (SRs).

Method: Databases including PubMed, EMBASE, PsycINFO, the Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews, CNKI, CBM, Wanfang and VIP database were searched from their inception to June 6, 2023. The methodological quality of the SRs was evaluated using the AMSTAR2 tool, and the quality of evidence was assessed using the Grading of Recommendation Assessment, Development and Evaluation (GRADE) framework.

Validity and Reliability of the Hungarian Version of the Pain Self-Efficacy Questionnaire Among Women with Endometriosis and Chronic Pelvic Pain.

Background: Our study aimed to perform Hungarian cross-cultural adaptation and assess the reliability and validity of the Pain Self-Efficacy Questionnaire (PSEQ) in women diagnosed with endometriosis and chronic pelvic pain.

Methods: The current study was conducted in Hungary among women aged 18-50 (34.39 ± 6.