European journal of clinical investigation
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Eur. J. Clin. Invest. · Nov 2019
Phenotyping progression of secondary mitral regurgitation in chronic systolic heart failure.
Secondary mitral regurgitation (sMR) drives adverse cardiac remodelling in patients with heart failure with reduced ejection fraction (HFrEF). Progression in severity over time contributes to a transition towards more advanced HF stages. Early identification of patients at risk for sMR progression remains challenging. We therefore sought to assess a broad spectrum of neurohumoral biomarkers in patients with HFrEF to explore their ability to predict progression of sMR. ⋯ Increased plasma levels of neurohumoral cardiac biomarkers are predictors of sMR progression in patients with HFrEF and add easily available incremental prognostic information for risk stratification. Importantly, NT-proBNP was not useful to predict progressive sMR in the present analysis. On the contrary, MR-proANP, primarily produced in the atria, copeptin partly triggered by intra-cardiac and intra-arterial pressures and MR-proADM, a marker of forward failure and peripheral released vasoactive CT-proET1, increase based on a progressive loading burden by sMR and may thus serve as better predictors of sMR progression.
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Eur. J. Clin. Invest. · Nov 2019
Inadequate description of placebo and sham controls in a systematic review of recent trials.
Poorly described placebo/sham controls make it difficult to appraise active intervention benefits and harms. The 12-item Template for Intervention Description and Replication (TIDieR) checklist was developed to improve the reporting of active interventions. The extent to which TIDieR has been used to improve description of placebo or sham control is not known. ⋯ Placebo and sham controls are poorly described within randomised trials, and TIDieR is rarely used to guide these descriptions. We recommend developing guidelines to promote better descriptions of placebo/sham control components within clinical trials.
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Eur. J. Clin. Invest. · Oct 2019
Randomized Controlled TrialPythagorean self-awareness intervention: A novel cognitive stress management technique for body weight control.
Over the past decades, the prevalence of obesity has markedly increased worldwide. Stress is recognized as a substantial contributor to increased body weight; therefore, stress management interventions, especially cognitive behavioural, are becoming increasingly popular. The impact of stress management on stress- and obesity-related biomarkers (eg blood lipid profile, HBA1c, inflammatory biomarkers, such as CRP) has been scarcely studied. The aim of this study was to assess the effect of a novel cognitive behavioural stress management intervention, called 'Pythagorean Self-Awareness Intervention' (PSAI), in overweight/obese adults. ⋯ The PSAI technique may be an effective stress management method for overweight/obese adults. Future and larger randomized controlled studies are needed to allow generalization of these findings.