Treatment with PB125® Increases Femoral Long Bone Strength in 15-Month-Old Female Hartley Guinea Pigs

Nuclear factor-erythroid 2-related factor-2 (Nrf2) is a transcription factor that serves as a master regulator of anti-inflammatory agents, phase I xenobiotic, and phase II antioxidant enzymes, all of which provide a cytoprotective role during disease progression. We hypothesized that oral administration of a purported phytochemical Nrf2-activator, PB125®, would increase long bone strength in aging Hartley guinea pigs, a model prone to musculoskeletal decline. Male (N = 56) and female (N = 56) guinea pigs were randomly assigned to receive daily oral treatment with either PB125® or vehicle control. Animals were treated for a consecutive 3-months (starting at 2-months of age) or 10-months (starting at 5-months of age) and sacrificed at 5-months or 15-months of age, respectively. Outcome measures included: (1) ANY-maze™ enclosure monitoring, (2) quantitative microcomputed tomography, and (3) biomechanical testing. Treatment with PB125® for 10 months resulted in increased long bone strength as determined by ultimate bending stress in female Hartley guinea pigs. In control groups, increasing age resulted in significant effects on geometric and structural properties of long bones, as well as a trending increase in ultimate bending stress. Furthermore, both age and sex had a significant effect on the geometric properties of both cortical and trabecular bone. Collectively, this work suggests that this nutraceutical may serve as a promising target and preventive measure in managing the decline in bone mass and quality documented in aging patients. Auxiliary to this main goal, this work also capitalized upon 5 and 15-month-old male and female animals in the control group to characterize age- and sex-specific differences on long bone geometric, structural, and material properties in this animal model.

Film Psychotherapy in the 21st Century

Psychotherapy is commonly depicted in films. Films, then, help to inform the public about the nature of psychotherapy and psychotherapists. Although much has been written about the portrayal of psychotherapy in films, there has been little empirical investigation of films from the 21st century. The current study provides a systematic investigation of the portrayal of therapists and therapy in films released between 2000 and 2013. Trained volunteers coded films with characters identified as psychotherapists. Data are presented for ratings on 22 films in which therapist characters appeared on screen for at least 15 minutes. Therapists were predominantly Caucasian, male, and between ages 40 and 60 years. Their most common characteristics were generally positive-intelligent, caring, knowledgeable, and compassionate. More than half were portrayed as unethical, and more than one-third as manipulative. Therapists were also commonly shown as touching clients in some way, disclosing client information without permission, and becoming involved in social relationships with clients. In addition, it was often unclear whether clients benefitted from their engagement in therapy. The observed portrayals raise serious concerns about their potential impact on viewers. Viewers may be discouraged from seeking help and may have increased vulnerability to exploitation because of a lack of understanding of what is appropriate and inappropriate therapist behavior.

[Successful hemodialysis for life-threatening carbamazepine drug overdose: Case-based introduction of new guidelines]

BACKGROUND

Over the last decade, there has been a paradigm shift in the extracorporeal treatment of intoxications. The availability of new treatment options, especially new membranes has led to a decrease in the use of techniques like charcoal hemoperfusion, once considered the gold standard to eliminate highly protein bound substances.

EXTRIP GUIDELINES

The EXtracorporeal Treatments In Poisoning (EXTRIP) workgroup is a collaborative international effort of pharmacologists, toxicologists, critical care physicians, and nephrologists that is reviewing all available evidence in extracorporeal procedures for the treatment of poisonings in a standardized way to distill treatment recommendations for the physician at the bedside. One of the first available EXTRIP guidelines summarizes treatment recommendations for severe carbamazepine intoxications.

CASE REPORT

We report the case of a 43-year-old Caucasian woman with who ingested about 21 g carbamazepine in a suicidal attempt together with alcohol. Combining gastroscopic removal of carbamazepine and multiple dose activated charcoal with intermittent high-flux hemodialysis lowered the initial carbamazepine level of 56.5 mg/l (47 mg/l before dialysis) to 25 mg/l. The patient, who initially required mechanical ventilation could be transferred to the psychiatric ward 24 h after ICU admission.

Knowledge and attitudes about mental illness: a survey of middle school students

OBJECTIVES

Despite the many studies of public attitudes toward mental illnesses, relatively few have examined the views of the youngest generation of citizens. This study was intended to increase understanding of youths' views of mental illness by developing and administering measures of knowledge and attitudes of middle school students toward mental illnesses.

METHODS

Self-report questionnaires concerning knowledge, attitudes, and social distance related to mental illness were developed and pilot-tested to create an assessment tool appropriate for a juvenile sample. The measures were administered to 193 students at four middle schools in different parts of the United States between November 2008 and April 2009.

RESULTS

The students' knowledge about mental illness was inconsistent, but important gaps were evident, particularly with respect to the symptoms of specific disorders. Attitudes toward individuals with a mental illness were generally positive, but substantial numbers of students had less favorable attitudes. Social distance scores revealed considerable reluctance to interact closely with a person with mental illness. Most (65%) students were uncertain whether mental illnesses have a biological cause, and 37% believed that medication to treat mental illness is useful.

CONCLUSIONS

Attitudes toward individuals with mental illnesses may be more favorable among students than among adults. Nevertheless, stigma may persist as a problem for the next generation of citizens, and youths with a mental illness remain likely to experience misunderstanding and exclusion by peers. There is a need to educate children about specific disorders and about acceptance of individuals with mental illness.

Inhibition of tumor angiogenesis by antibodies, synthetic small molecules and natural products

Cancer remains one of the major causes of death worldwide. The switch to pathological angiogenesis is a key process in the promotion of cancer and consequently provides several new and promising targets to anticancer therapy. Thus, antagonizing angiogenesis cuts off the tumor's oxygen and nutrition supply. This review focuses on angiogenesis inhibitors as option for cancer treatment. Modes of action, adverse effects, mechanisms of resistance as well as new developments are highlighted. One approach in angiogenesis inhibition is intermitting the further VEGF (vascular endothelial growth factor) signal pathway with monoclonal antibodies. Bevacizumab is a highly specific recombinant humanized monoclonal IgG antibody targeting VEGF-A. An efficient antitumor therapy demands more specific antibodies that affect other signal molecules besides VEGF-A, which is in the focus of current research. In addition to antagonizing VEGF, there are also small molecules that inhibit receptor tyrosine kinases (RTKs). Many RTK inhibitors have been described, which exhibit different specificity profiles. The question, whether highly specific antagonists are necessary remains open, because other affected RTKs may also represent growth factor receptors that are essential for tumor growth. Therefore their inhibition may also contribute to anticancer activity. Secondary plant metabolites represent templates for the development of new small molecules. The identification of new drugs from plants has a long and successful history. There is convincing evidence for the beneficial effect of phytochemicals on cancer-related pathways, particularly with regard to anti-angiogenesis. Plant phenolics are the most important category of phytochemicals, including flavanoids. Prominent phytochemicals affecting different pathways of angiogenesis are green tea polyphenols (epigallocatechin gallate) and soy bean isoflavones (genistein).

Influence of pollen feeding and physiological condition on pesticide sensitivity of the honey bee Apis mellifera carnica

In two consecutive years heavy bee mortality at end April/early May followed the use of pesticides classed as harmless for bees along road verges. It was thought that old weak winter bees had succumbed to a preparation otherwise innocuous. Extensive tests to reveal any links between the bees' physiological condition and pesticide sensitivity involved 6 hormone herbicides, 11 fungicides and 2 insecticides, all approved harmless for bees and functioning on them wholly or mainly as stomach poisons. As a rule bee sensitivity was measured as LD 50 per os, in smaller tests as percentage mortality. Amount and quality of pollen ingested in the first days of life affected the pesticide sensitivity of young and older bees. Bees fed adequate high quality pollen are less sensitive than counterparts fed inadequate or inferior pollen or pollen substitute; such differences persisted if the LD 50 was calculated for the same body weight. Pesticides containing manganese are an exception. To these, bees fed inadequate pollen are no more or even less sensitive than comparable well-fed bees. Pesticide sensitivity decreases generally from early to late summer. Quality of pollen available for larvae has no effect on poison sensitivity of imagines. Food supply conditions however exert a clear influence: tested with the same pesticides, hive bees from colonies having had a rich early food supply, and young bees bred then, are less sensitive than their counterparts having had moderate or no early food supply. Poison sensitivity of summer bees increases with age; most sensitive are old winter bees which had practiced broodcare in early spring.Inadequate pollen intake can be regarded as causing protein deficiency. Investigation of this in mammals and man indicate that the higher poison sensitivity in bees results from inhibition of the enzymatic decomposition of pesticides. For practical bee protection it is important that all organic fungicides tested are effectively harmless. Hormone hebicides can be ranked as practically harmless even for bees inadequately protein-fed, as long as the approved concentrations are observed. Our tests raised doubts however about the registration as harmless for bees of insecticides based on Endosulfan and Phosalon. Of interest in practice and for the official testing of pesticides are also the high pesticide sensitivity of old winter bees, the decrease in sensitivity of bees on a stable feed from early to late summer, and the sensitivity-reducing influence of pollen-rich food supply promoting development.It is important ecologically that pollens of different plant species vary in nutrient quality for the honey bee: there are perfectly worthless (conifers), poor-to-medium, and highly effective pollen types. As shown in this paper, these differences are relevant not only for the development of the physiological condition and breeding potential of the bee, but also for pesticide sensitivity. That bees gather worthless and poor-quality, sometimes even poisonous, pollen (some Ranunculus sp.) is evidently due to the phagostimulant present in all pollen types.

Schizophrenic patterns of dichotic shadowing performance

This study sought to utilize dichotic shadowing tasks in the investigation of differences between schizophrenics and controls and, secondarily, between paranoid and nonparanoid schizophrenics. Sixteen subjects from each of four diagnostic groups--paranoid schizophrenics, nonparanoid schizophrenics, psychiatric controls, and normal controls--were tested in dichotic shadowing under one of two instructional conditions ("ignore the left ear" or "listen to both ears"). Schizophrenics made more errors with distraction, showed poorer ?recall of target material than did controls, and were abnormally insensitive to task instructions. This was interpreted as supporting previous reports that schizophrenics are lacking in selective attentional ability, deficient in retrieval of information, and inefficient in the sense of being unable to adapt to task instructions. In addition, recall and recognition results indicated that distraction affected paranoid and nonparanoid schizophrenics somewhat differently, resulting in overinclusion for paranoids but general response disruption or overexclusion for nonparanoids.