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Chronic liver disease is a leading cause of death in the US and is often preventable. Rising burden, cost, and fatality due to liver disease are driven by intensified alcohol use in the US population and the contributions of comorbid conditions. This mini-review focuses on the topic of liver health in the context of chronic, behavioral cofactors of disease, using research-based examples from the Brown University Center for Addiction and Disease Risk Exacerbation (CADRE). Our aim is to illustrate the current challenges and opportunities in clinical research addressing liver health in the context of behavioral and medical comorbidity and to highlight next steps in this crucial area of public health research and clinical care...

For many, the World Health Organization's (WHO) definition of health does not reflect their own understanding of health, because it lacks aspects such as spiritual wellbeing. Responding to these concerns, the WHO called in 2023 for a vision of health that integrates physical, mental, psychological, emotional, spiritual, and social wellbeing. To date, medical practitioners are often reluctant to consider spiritual aspects, because of a perceived lack of statistical evidence about the strength of relations. Research on this topic is emerging...

BACKGROUND: The ethical governance of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in health care and public health continues to be an urgent issue for attention in policy, research, and practice. In this paper we report on central themes related to challenges and strategies for promoting ethics in research involving AI in global health, arising from the Global Forum on Bioethics in Research (GFBR), held in Cape Town, South Africa in November 2022. METHODS: The GFBR is an annual meeting organized by the World Health Organization and supported by the Wellcome Trust, the US National Institutes of Health, the UK Medical Research Council (MRC) and the South African MRC...

BACKGROUND: Serum uric acid (SUA) is an important pathogenetic and prognostic factor for heart failure (HF). Gender differences are apparent in HF. Furthermore, gender differences also exist in the association between SUA and prognosis in various cardiovascular diseases. However, the gender difference for SUA in the prediction of long-term prognosis in HF is still ambiguous. METHODS: A total of 1593 HF patients (897 men, 696 women) from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) 1999-2018 cycle were enrolled in our final analysis...

Systemic sclerosis (SSc) is a rare autoimmune disease (AD), characterised by early diffuse vasculopathy, activation of the immune response and progressive skin and internal organ fibrosis. In severe progressive diffuse SSc (dSSc), autologous hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (aHSCT) improves survival, despite its own risk of complications and transplant related mortality (TRM). We present herein the case of a dSSc patient undergoing aHSCT with low dose cyclophosphamide conditioning and sudden acute myopericarditis and cardiogenic shock, four weeks after a second mRNA SARS-CoV-2 vaccine (Pfizer) injection...

Respiratory illnesses and its repercussions are becoming more prevalent worldwide. It is necessary to research both innovative treatment and preventative techniques. Millions of confirmed cases and fatalities from the COVID-19 epidemic occurred over the previous two years. According to the review research, cannabinoids are a class of medicines that should be considered for the treatment of respiratory conditions. Cannabinoids and inhibitors of endocannabinoid degradation have illustrated advantageous anti-inflammatory, asthma, pulmonary fibrosis, and pulmonary artery hypotension in numerous studies ( in vitro and in vivo )...

Augmented reality has promised a new paradigm in medical education. Multimedia videos are the most preferred assent for augmentation. So, this study aimed to assess the effect of using an augmented reality infographic poster for delivering micro-videos on the knowledge and satisfaction of medical students in cardiology rotation. Sixty students participated in this quasi-experimental study and were allocated to three study groups; namely routine method, routine method plus offline micro-video delivery, and routine method plus micro-video delivery in an augmented reality infographic poster...

BACKGROUND: Necroptosis-related long noncoding RNAs (lncRNAs) play crucial roles in cancer initiation and progression. Nevertheless, the role and mechanism of necroptosis-related lncRNAs in soft tissue sarcomas (STS) is so far unknown and needs to be explored further. METHODS: Clinical and genomic data were obtained from the UCSC Xena database. All STS patients' subclusters were performed by unsupervised consensus clustering method based on the prognosis-specific lncRNAs, and then assessed their survival advantage and immune infiltrates...

Over a decade ago, longitudinal multiomics analysis was pioneered for early disease detection and individually tailored precision health interventions. However, high sample processing costs, expansive multiomics measurements along with complex data analysis have made this approach to precision/personalized medicine impractical. Here we describe in a case report, a more practical approach that uses fewer measurements, annual sampling, and faster decision making. We also show how this approach offers promise to detect an exceedingly rare and potentially fatal condition before it fully manifests...

Recent studies show that Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK) of Indigenous Peoples' food systems and the transfer of that knowledge to their children are critical to physical and mental health, promote the transfer of language and culture, and further resilience. The aim of this exploratory, medical ecological study was to document TEK about foraging and plant use among the Dukha, a small, semi-nomadic reindeer herding community in Northern Mongolia. Field research was conducted at multiple remote camps in 2019 and 2023...

BACKGROUND AND AIM: Long Covid is often stigmatised, particularly in people who are disadvantaged within society. This may prevent them from seeking help and could lead to widening health inequalities. This coproduced study with a Community Advisory Board (CAB) of people with Long Covid aimed to understand healthcare and wider barriers and stigma experienced by people with probable Long Covid. METHODS: An active case finding approach was employed to find adults with probable, but not yet clinically diagnosed, Long Covid in two localities in London (Camden and Merton) and Derbyshire, England...

BACKGROUND: A multicountry randomized controlled trial has demonstrated that pan-susceptible pulmonary tuberculosis (TB) can be successfully treated with a 4-month regimen of daily isoniazid, rifapentine, moxifloxacin, and pyrazinamide (HPMZ). We piloted HPMZ in San Francisco (SF) using a modified version of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention HPMZ treatment guidelines. METHODS: In this retrospective cohort, patients consecutively referred to SF TB clinic were evaluated for HPMZ eligibility based on preestablished inclusion/exclusion criteria...

Single-cell RNA sequencing (scRNA-seq) enables dissecting cellular heterogeneity in tissues, resulting in numerous biological discoveries. Various computational methods have been devised to delineate cell types by clustering scRNA-seq data, where clusters are often annotated using prior knowledge of marker genes. In addition to identifying pure cell types, several methods have been developed to identify cells undergoing state transitions, which often rely on prior clustering results. The present computational approaches predominantly investigate the local and first-order structures of scRNA-seq data using graph representations, while scRNA-seq data frequently display complex high-dimensional structures...

OBJECTIVE: To improve timely and equitable access to postpartum blood pressure (BP) monitoring in individuals with hypertensive disorders of pregnancy (HDP). METHODS: A quality improvement initiative was implemented at a large academic medical centre in the USA for postpartum individuals with HDP. The primary aim was to increase completed BP checks within 7 days of hospital discharge from 40% to 70% in people with HDP in 6 months. Secondary aims included improving rates of scheduled visits, completed visits within 3 days for severe HDP and unattended visits...

A 47-year-old postmenopausal woman with osteoporosis was treated with denosumab, which was discontinued due to side effects. She was therefore transitioned to a yearly intravenous infusion of zoledronic acid. An increase in bone turnover markers together with bone loss at the lumbar spine was observed before the second infusion, suggesting an overshooting of bone resorption due to denosumab discontinuation. On physical examination, the patient was restless and reported having lost about 10 kg since the last visit...

BACKGROUND: Digital inequity refers to the inequality and exclusion experienced by those who lack the same opportunities or circumstances to support the development of digital skills as the rest of modern society. One rapidly growing and highly vulnerable group to digital inequity is older people attempting to reintegrate into society after release from prison, where technology access is limited. Inadequate support for digital skills in this population entails widespread consequences for public health, human rights, social welfare and recidivism...

BACKGROUND: Norovirus-associated acute gastroenteritis (AGE) exacts a substantial disease burden, yet the health care utilization for and clinical management of norovirus-associated AGE are not well characterized. METHODS: We describe the health care encounters and therapeutics used for patients with all-cause and norovirus-associated AGE in the Kaiser Permanente Northwest health system from 1 April 2014 through 30 September 2016. Medical encounters for patients with AGE were extracted from electronic health records, and encounters within 30 days of one another were grouped into single episodes...

INTRODUCTION: Methemoglobinemia, characterized by the conversion of functional hemoglobin to methemoglobin, can significantly impede tissue oxygenation. Prompt diagnosis and treatment of methemoglobinemia are critical to optimizing clinical outcomes. Although the underlying etiology of methemoglobinemia is often attributed to a medication reaction or chemical exposure, its association with battlefield trauma remains underexplored. This case series explores the presence of methemoglobinemia in nine soldiers evacuated from tanks targeted by explosives, shedding new light on screening needs and treatment strategies...

PURPOSE: Real-world evidence comparing health care resource use (HRU) and costs between novel targeted therapies among patients with chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) is lacking. We compared all-cause and CLL-specific HRU and costs between patients initiated on B-cell lymphoma 2 inhibitor (venetoclax)- or Bruton tyrosine kinase inhibitor (BTKi)-based regimens in the second-line (2L) setting. METHODS: This is a retrospective observational study using Optum Clinformatics Data Mart of adult patients with CLL/small lymphocytic lymphoma who received 2L venetoclax- or BTKi-based regimens (January 2018-December 2021) for the first time and had ≥one CLL diagnostic claim after 2L initiation and ≥two claims for venetoclax or BTKi...

Many non-fatal events can be considered recurrent in that they can occur repeatedly over time, and some researchers may be interested in the trajectory and relative risk of non-fatal events. With the competing risk of death, the treatment effect on the mean number of recurrent events is non-identifiable since the observed mean is a function of both the recurrent event and terminal event processes. In this paper, we assume independence between the non-fatal and the terminal event process, conditional on the shared frailty, to fit a parametric model that recovers the trajectory of, and identifies the effect of treatment on, the non-fatal event process in the presence of the competing risk of death...