The Mediterranean diet, its components, and cardiovascular disease.

One of the best-studied diets for cardiovascular health is the Mediterranean diet. This consists of fish, monounsaturated fats from olive oil, fruits, vegetables, whole grains, legumes/nuts, and moderate alcohol consumption. The Mediterranean diet has been shown to reduce the burden, or even prevent the development, of cardiovascular disease, breast cancer, depression, colorectal cancer, diabetes, obesity, asthma, erectile dysfunction, and cognitive decline.

Accurate automatic estimation of total intracranial volume: a nuisance variable with less nuisance.

Total intracranial volume (TIV/ICV) is an important covariate for volumetric analyses of the brain and brain regions, especially in the study of neurodegenerative diseases, where it can provide a proxy of maximum pre-morbid brain volume. The gold-standard method is manual delineation of brain scans, but this requires careful work by trained operators. We evaluated Statistical Parametric Mapping 12 (SPM12) automated segmentation for TIV measurement in place of manual segmentation and also compared it with SPM8 and FreeSurfer 5.

Retinal toxicities of cancer therapy drugs: biologics, small molecule inhibitors, and chemotherapies.

Purpose: To review reported retinal side effects from current cancer therapy drugs.

Methods: Retinal toxicities from ophthalmologic or oncologic case reports, case series, and clinical trials were identified by a systematic literature search using Lexicomp and PubMed.

Results: Four biologics, 8 small molecule inhibitors, and 17 traditional chemotherapy agents had reported retinal side effects.

An early reduction in GH peak amplitude in preproghrelin-deficient male mice has a minor impact on linear growth.

Ghrelin is a gut hormone processed from the proghrelin peptide acting as the endogenous ligand of the GH secretagogue receptor 1a. The regulatory role of endogenous ghrelin on pulsatile GH secretion and linear growth had to be established. The aim of the present study was to delineate the endogenous actions of preproghrelin on peripheral and central components of the GH axis.

Continuous positive airway pressure increases pulsatile growth hormone secretion and circulating insulin-like growth factor-1 in a time-dependent manner in men with obstructive sleep apnea: a randomized sham-controlled study.

Study Objectives: To assess the time-dependent effect of continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP), on insulin-like growth factor-1 (IGF-1), IGF binding proteins (IGFBPs) and pulsatile growth hormone (GH) secretion.

Design: A randomized, double-blind, sham-controlled, parallel group study.

Participants: Sixty-five middle-aged men with moderate to severe obstructive sleep apnea.

Pain severity is associated with muscle strength and peak oxygen uptake in adults with fibromyalgia.

Background: The associations between pain, lower extremity strength, and aerobic conditioning have not been widely investigated in adults with fibromyalgia (FM). The principle objective of this study was to investigate the relationship between pain severity and knee strength in patients seeking treatment for FM. A secondary objective was to investigate the relationship between pain scores and aerobic conditioning.

Immunologic and mass-spectrometric estimates of SHBG concentrations in healthy women.

Objective: Sex-hormone binding globulin (SHBG) concentrations across the adult female lifespan are not well defined. To address this knowledge gap, SHBG was quantified by both immunological and criterion methods, viz, mass spectrometry (MS).

Setting: Center for Translational Science Activities (CTSA).

Diagnostic tests often fail to lead to changes in patient outcomes.

Objectives: To evaluate the effects of diagnostic testing on patient outcomes in a large sample of diagnostic randomized controlled trials (D-RCTs) and to examine whether the effects for patient outcomes correlate with the effects on management and with diagnostic accuracy.

Study Design And Setting: We considered D-RCTs that evaluated diagnostic interventions for any condition and reported effectiveness data on one or more patient outcomes. We calculated odds ratios for patient outcomes and outcomes pertaining to the use of further diagnostic and therapeutic interventions and the diagnostic odds ratio (DOR) for the accuracy of experimental tests.

Estradiol, but not testosterone, heightens cortisol-mediated negative feedback on pulsatile ACTH secretion and ACTH approximate entropy in unstressed older men and women.

How sex steroids modulate glucocorticoid feedback on the hypothalamic-pituitary-corticotrope (HPC) unit is controversial in humans. We postulated that testosterone (T) in men and estradiol (E2) in women govern unstressed cortisol-mediated negative feedback on ACTH secretion. To test this hypothesis, 24 men and 24 women age 58 ± 2.

FDG-PET in pathologically confirmed spontaneous 4R-tauopathy variants.

The 4-repeat (4R)-tauopathies can be clinically heterogeneous and difficult to diagnose. An FDG-PET pattern of hypometabolism has been previously reported in clinically suspected 4R-tauopathies. Considering that pathological confirmation has not been used as inclusion criteria in these studies, however, the possibility exists that atypical cases were excluded.

Clival chordoma of the nasal septum secondary to surgical pathway seeding.

Educational Objective: At the conclusion of this presentation, the participants should be able to recognize seeding as a form of treatment failure in transseptal resection of clival chordomas.

Objectives: The purpose is to present a case of implanted metastases in the nasal septum after a transseptal approach for resection of clival chordoma and to compare it with other reported cases in the literature.

Study Design: Case report and literature review.

Severe symptomatic hypocalcemia following total thyroidectomy in a patient with a history of Roux-en-Y gastric bypass surgery.

Patients who undergo a Roux-en-Y gastric bypass (RYGB) procedure are at moderate risk for calcium and vitamin D deficiency. Those who subsequently undergo thyroid or parathyroid surgery are at high risk for developing severe symptomatic hypocalcemia if they are not monitored and adequately treated prophylactically. We describe the case of a morbidly obese 40-year-old man who had undergone RYGB surgery 6 months prior to the discovery of metastatic papillary thyroid carcinoma.