Bmc Med
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Alcohol consumption is a major global risk factor for mortality and morbidity. Much discussion has revolved around the diverse findings on the complex relationship between alcohol consumption and the leading cause of death and disability, ischemic heart disease (IHD). ⋯ Epidemiological evidence for a beneficial effect of low alcohol consumption without heavy drinking episodes is strong, corroborated by experimental evidence. However, episodic and chronic heavy drinking do not provide any beneficial effect on IHD. Thus, average alcohol consumption is not sufficient to describe the risk relation between alcohol consumption and IHD. Alcohol policy should try to reduce heavy drinking patterns.
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Societies tend to accept much higher risks for voluntary behaviours, those based on individual decisions (for example, to smoke, to consume alcohol, or to ski), than for involuntary exposure such as exposure to risks in soil, drinking water or air. In high-income societies, an acceptable risk to those voluntarily engaging in a risky behaviour seems to be about one death in 1,000 on a lifetime basis. However, drinking more than 20 g pure alcohol per day over an adult lifetime exceeds a threshold of one in 100 deaths, based on a calculation from World Health Organization data of the odds in six European countries of dying from alcohol-attributable causes at different levels of drinking. ⋯ A much higher mortality risk from alcohol than from other risk factors is currently accepted by high income countries.
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Meta Analysis
Is chronic inhibition of phosphodiesterase type 5 cardioprotective and safe? A meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials.
The myocardial effects of phosphodiesterase type 5 inhibitors (PDE5i) have recently received consideration in several preclinical studies. The risk/benefit ratio in humans remains unclear. ⋯ This meta-analysis suggests for the first time that PDE5i have anti-remodeling properties and improve cardiac inotropism, independently of afterload changes, with a good safety profile. Given the reproducibility of the findings and tolerability across different populations, PDE5i could be reasonably offered to men with cardiac hypertrophy and early stage heart failure. Given the limited gender data, a larger trial on the sex-specific response to long-term PDE5i treatment is required.
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Visual impairment is common in older people and the presence of additional health conditions can compromise health and rehabilitation outcomes. A small number of studies have suggested that comorbities are common in visual impairment; however, those studies have relied on self-report and have assessed a relatively limited number of comorbid conditions. ⋯ Patients aged 65 years and older with visual impairment have a broad range of physical and mental health comorbidities compared to those of the same age without visual impairment, and are more likely to have multiple comorbidities. This has important implications for clinical practice and for the future design of integrated services to meet the complex needs of patients with visual impairment, for example, embedding depression and hearing screening within eye care services.
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Polymorphism in antigens is a common mechanism for immune evasion used by many important pathogens, and presents major challenges in vaccine development. In malaria, many key immune targets and vaccine candidates show substantial polymorphism. However, knowledge on antigenic diversity of key antigens, the impact of polymorphism on potential vaccine escape, and how sequence polymorphism relates to antigenic differences is very limited, yet crucial for vaccine development. Plasmodium falciparum apical membrane antigen 1 (AMA1) is an important target of naturally-acquired antibodies in malaria immunity and a leading vaccine candidate. However, AMA1 has extensive allelic diversity with more than 60 polymorphic amino acid residues and more than 200 haplotypes in a single population. Therefore, AMA1 serves as an excellent model to assess antigenic diversity in malaria vaccine antigens and the feasibility of multi-allele vaccine approaches. While most previous research has focused on sequence diversity and antibody responses in laboratory animals, little has been done on the cross-reactivity of human antibodies. ⋯ Antigenic diversity of AMA1 is limited and a vaccine including a small number of alleles might be sufficient for coverage against naturally-circulating strains, supporting a multi-allele approach for developing polymorphic antigens as malaria vaccines.