Nutritional supplements and conventional medicine; what should the physician know?

Almost anything that is swallowed in pill or potion form that is not a licensed medicine is, by default, legally classified as a dietary supplement. The present paper is an overview of supplement use and is intended to provide a logical framework for their discussion. Five major supplement categories are identified: essential micronutrients; other metabolites that have vitamin-like roles; natural oils; natural plant or animal extracts; antioxidants, which span the other categories.

Anthropometric foot structure of peripubescent children with excessive versus normal body mass: a cross-sectional study.

Background: A variety of musculoskeletal problems have been associated with excessive body mass in children, including structural foot problems.

Methods: Two hundred children aged 9 to 12 years were recruited to evaluate the effect of body mass on foot structure. Three reliable anthropometric measures were recorded: foot length, forefoot width, and navicular height.

[A case of oral squamous cell carcinoma responding to S-1].

A 76-year-old patient with oral squamous cell carcinoma was treated by chemotherapy with S-1. S-1 (100 mg/body/day) was orally administered for 4 weeks followed by a 2-week rest period as one course. The primary lesion markedly decreased at 7 days after the beginning of S-1 treatment, and disappeared after one course of S-1.

Chromosome doubling in a Rosa rugosa Thunb. hybrid by exposure of in vitro nodes to oryzalin: the effects of node length, oryzalin concentration and exposure time.

Chromosome doubling was induced in vitro in a diploid hybrid of Rosa rugosa Thunb. using oryzalin as the spindle inhibitor. Nodal sections, 2 mm long, were exposed to 2.

[A case of advanced oral squamous cell carcinoma responding to concurrent radiotherapy with S-1].

A 68-year-old patient with advanced oral squamous cell carcinoma (T3N2bM0, Stage IVA) was treated by concurrent radiotherapy with S-1.S-1 (120 mg/body/day) was orally administered for 4 weeks followed by a 2-week rest period as one course, and radiation was given (1.8 Gy/day; 5 days/week) for a total of 61.

Q fever.

An outbreak of Q fever occurred in Scotland during this summer and was reported in news headlines. Despite these newsworthy headlines, Q fever remains poorly understood. The causative organism, Coxiella burnetii, has a worldwide distribution, with the notable exception of New Zealand.

Changes in muscle strength and EMG median frequency after anterior cruciate ligament reconstruction.

The purpose of this study was to monitor neuromuscular changes in quadriceps femoris muscle at 1 and 3 months after anterior cruciate ligament reconstruction (ACLR). Changes in isometric muscle strength (MVC), voluntary activation and surface electromyogram (EMG) parameters were examined in relation to knee stability, pain and swelling in 31 patients (25 M, 6 F) mean (SD) 30(8) years. Physically inactive (RC) and sports participants (SC) acted as controls.

The effect of cicerfuran, an arylbenzofuran from Cicer bijugum, and related benzofurans and stilbenes on Leishmania aethiopica, L. tropica and L. major.

The effect of 3 arylbenzofurans and 7 stilbenes on the growth of Leishmania parasites and human monocytes was evaluated. Promastigotes from cultures of L. aethiopica, L.

[Phase I study of concurrent radiotherapy with S-1 for oral squamous cell carcinoma].

S-1 is a novel oral fluoropyrimidine inhibitory for dihydropyrimidine dehydrogenase (DPD). In the present study, we have examined the appropriate dose of S-1 in the combination with radiation and the safety and clinical efficacy. Radiation was given (2 Gy/day; 5 days/week) for a total of 60 Gy.

Low intensity strength training for ambulatory stroke patients.

Purpose: To investigate feasibility and effectiveness of an individually-directed, group strength-training programme on knee muscle strength after stroke.

Method: Ten volunteers (62 +/- 11 years, mean +/- SD), 6 - 12 months after first-ever unilateral stroke, walking independently with or without aids were recruited. Using an A1-B-A2 design, 3 sets of baseline measures were taken at 2 weekly intervals; volunteers then attended twice weekly sessions of low intensity progressive strengthening exercises and were assessed after each series of 8 sessions to a maximum of 24 sessions; post training, measures were repeated after 4 - 6 weeks.

What matters most? Predictors of student satisfaction in public health educational courses.

The development of primary care trusts, the health protection agency, and non-medical public health (PH) specialists' pathways requires a competent PH workforce to be in place. Hence, the quality of education and training of PH workers is increasingly critical. With the diversity of courses and programmes that contribute to building a competent PH workforce, few studies have examined the satisfaction of students (and reasons for it) on educational PH programmes.

Foot pressure measurement differences between boys and girls with reference to hallux valgus deformity and hypermobility.

Background: Previous studies that compared foot pressures in boys and girls found that girls had greater peak pressures under the hallux than did boys. Only one of these studies considered plantar pressure measurements in children. The purpose of the study was to investigate the effect of gender on foot pressure measurements in children.

Joint hypermobility: the use of a new assessment tool to measure lower limb hypermobility.

Objectives: The aim of the study was to compare the use of a new assessment tool for diagnosis of hypermobility in the lower limb to the Beighton score for generalised hypermobility.

Methods: Three groups of children were compared (n = 225) and included a "normal" population of 116 school children, a "possible hypermobile" group of 88 children attending afoot and gait clinic and a "known hypermobile" group of 21 children referred from a paediatrician or rheumatologist. The Beighton score was used to measure generalised hypermobility.

Two threonine residues and two serine residues in the second and third intracellular loops are both involved in histamine H1 receptor downregulation.

Human histamine H1 receptor (H1R) contains five possible phosphorylation residues (Thr140, Thr142, Ser396, Ser398 and Thr478) and the substitution of all these five residues to alanine completely impairs agonist-induced receptor downregulation. In the present study, to determine which residue(s) are responsible for receptor downregulation, we used mutant H1Rs in which single or multiple residues were substituted with alanine. The results suggested that two groups, i.

Antibacterial activity of a new, stable, aqueous extract of allicin against methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus.

The increasing prevalence of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) in hospitals and the community has led to a demand for new agents that could be used to decrease the spread of these bacteria. Topical agents such as mupirocin have been used to reduce nasal carriage and spread and to treat skin infections; however, resistance to mupirocin in MRSAs is increasing. Allicin is the main antibacterial agent isolated from garlic, but natural extracts can be unstable.

Statistical methods in G-protein-coupled receptor research.

In this chapter we provide an introduction to statistical methods appropriate in G-protein-coupled receptor research, including examples. Topics covered include the choice of appropriate averages and measures of dispersion to summarize data sets, and the choice of tests of significance, including t-tests and one- and two-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) plus posttests for normally distributed (Gaussian) data and their nonparametric equivalents. Techniques for transforming non-normally distributed data to more Gaussian distributions are discussed.

Oryzalin-induced chromosome doubling in Rosa and its effect on plant morphology and pollen viability.

Shoot tips of the diploid rose Thérèse Bugnet were treated in vitro to oryzalin at concentrations of 5 and 15 microM. Tetraploid shoots were obtained in highest frequencies (40%) after exposure to 5 microM oryzalin for 14 days. Thin (1 mm) nodal sections were treated with 5 microM oryzalin and the highest frequency of tetraploids (66%) was obtained after exposure for only 1 day.

Zinc contamination decreases the bacterial diversity of agricultural soil.

Abstract Around half a million tonnes of biosolids (sewage sludge dry solids) are applied to agricultural land in the United Kingdom each year, and this may increase to 732 000 t by 2005/6. The heavy metals contained in biosolids may permanently degrade the microbial decomposer communities of agricultural soils. We used amplified ribosomal DNA restriction analysis of the extractable bacterial fraction to compare the diversity of a zinc-contaminated soil (400 mg kg(-1) Zn; pH 5.

Using ecological diversity measures with bacterial communities.

Abstract There are many ecological diversity measures, but their suitability for use with highly diverse bacterial communities is unclear and seldom considered. We assessed a range of species richness and evenness/dominance indices, and the use of species abundance models using samples of bacteria from zinc-contaminated and control soils. Bacteria were assigned to operational taxonomic units (OTUs) using amplified ribosomal DNA restriction analysis of 236 clones from each soil.

Molecular characterisation of bacteria in a wetland used to remove ammoniacal-N from landfill leachate.

Bacteria associated with leachate from a constructed, surface-flow wetland effective at removing ammonium-N, were characterised using molecular methods which bypass the need for cultivation. DNA was extracted from the sample and bacterial 16S rDNA sequences amplified and cloned. Ninety-six individual clones were re-amplified and analysed by restriction digestion and targeted sequencing.