Journal of investigative medicine : the official publication of the American Federation for Clinical Research
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Review Meta Analysis
Meta-analysis and systematic review of the association between adverse childhood events and irritable bowel syndrome.
Irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) is a disorder of gut-brain interaction characterized by abdominal pain, bowel habits alterations, constipation, and/or diarrhea. Adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) are events such as abuse and mental illness causing childhood trauma. Studies report higher prevalence of ACEs in patients with IBS with varied effect consistency and association strength. ⋯ This meta-analysis explores the current literature to understand the biopsychosocial perspective of IBS and ACEs' role as risk factors. However, the risk of publication and design/study quality biases substantiates the need for further research. If an association is confirmed, further mechanistic research and development of targeted psychological therapies may be warranted.
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The intact telomere structure is essential for the prevention of the chromosome end-to-end fusions and maintaining genomic integrity. The maintenance of telomere length is critical for cellular homeostasis. The shortening of telomeres has been reported in patients with chronic liver diseases. ⋯ In this brief report, we observed evidence of telomere shortening without changes in the telomerase activity in the liver of patients with alcoholic hepatitis and alcoholic cirrhosis when compared with controls. The alterations in the genes associated with telomere binding proteins were only observed in patients with alcoholic cirrhosis. Future studies are required to determine the mechanism of how alcohol affects the length of the telomere and if the shortening impacts the disease progression in ALD.
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As no vaccines are 100% effective at preventing illness, COVID-19 vaccine breakthrough cases are expected. We here aim to review the most recent literature on COVID-19 vaccine breakthrough infections. SARS-CoV-2 breakthrough infections are, in general, rare. Age may still be a factor in SARS-CoV-2 infections in immunized individuals.
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Breast cancer (BC) is the most common cancer affecting women worldwide. In 2021, the estimated number of new breast cancer cases was 281 550 and about 43 500 women died from metastatic breast cancer (mBC). For women aged 20-59 years, mBC remains the leading cause of cancer death and is, therefore, an important public health concern. ⋯ Even with the major progress that has been made in understanding the biology of BC, challenges such as resistance frequency to therapies, unknown efficacy, concerns for safety of drug combination and toxicities still remain high. Therefore, a new targeted and more selective treatment approaches are the need of the hour. In this review, we aim to outline the most recently approved medications in treatment of Her2-positive and triple-negative breast cancers.
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Randomized Controlled Trial
Methotrexate effects on adenosine receptor expression in peripheral monocytes of persons with type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease.
The Cardiovascular Inflammation Reduction Trial (CIRT) was designed to assess whether low-dose methotrexate (LD-MTX) would reduce future cardiac events in patients with metabolic syndrome or type 2 diabetes (T2DM) who are post-myocardial infarction (MI) or have multivessel disease. Our previous work indicates that MTX confers atheroprotection via adenosine A2A receptor (A2AR) activation. In order for A2AR ligation to reduce cardiovascular events, A2AR levels would need to be preserved during MTX treatment. ⋯ Compared with placebo, the LD-MTX group exhibited a trend toward an increase in A2AR (p=0.06), while A3R expression was significantly decreased (p=0.01) after 6 weeks. Cholesterol efflux gene expression did not change significantly. Persistence of A2AR combined with A3R downregulation indicates that failure of MTX to be atheroprotective in CIRT was not due to loss of adenosine receptors on PBMC (ClinicalTrials.gov identifier: NCT01594333).