Tsuoni Success Stories
I love TsuNoni. I used to drink several cans of diet soda a day. When a friend gave me some TsuNoni, I thought it would be just another diet drink. I was wrong. I?ve replaced my diet soda with TsuNoni and I?ve already lost 15 pounds! I cannot believe the difference.
Tsuoni Success Stories
I love TsuNoni. I used to drink several cans of diet soda a day. When a friend gave me some TsuNoni, I thought it would be just another diet drink. I was wrong. Iā??ve replaced my diet soda with TsuNoni and Iā??ve already lost 15 pounds! I cannot believe the difference.
Tsuoni Success Stories
I love TsuNoni. I used to drink several cans of diet soda a day. When a friend gave me some TsuNoni, I thought it would be just another diet drink. I was wrong. Iā??ve replaced my diet soda with TsuNoni and Iā??ve already lost 15 pounds! I cannot believe the difference.
Tsuoni Success Stories
I love TsuNoni. I used to drink several cans of diet soda a day. When a friend gave me some TsuNoni, I thought it would be just another diet drink. I was wrong. Iā??ve replaced my diet soda with TsuNoni and Iā??ve already lost 15 pounds! I cannot believe the difference.
Novartis' Galvus gains EU support
Filed under: Type 2, Adult Onset, Drugs, Research
An advisory committee for the European Medicines Agency (EMEA) gave a thumbs up on type 2 diabetes drug Galvus. The EMEA's recommendations are usually endorsed by the European Commission within a few months.
Galvus, marketed by Swiss drugmaker Novartis, is a new oral anti-hyperglycemic agent of the DPP-4 class of drugs. Known as vildagliptin, it inhibits the inactivation of GLP-1 and GIP by DPP-4, allowing insulin secretion in the beta cells and suppression of glucagon from the islets of Langerhans.
In the United States, Galvus is awaiting Food and Drug Administration approval. The agency has delayed approval twice, requesting additional clinical data on vildagliptin, including proof the skin lesions and kidney impairments seen in an earlier animal study have not occurred in humans. The delays have carved a big market lead for Januvia, a similar drug marketed by Merck.
Galvus is one of Novartis' most important drugs under development. No wonder, it could potentially generate $1 billion or more in revenue. If only the same amount of money was spent on supportive diet and exercise programs for those at risk for type 2 diabetes. Photo by rodrigo senna at flickr.
The Cardio Blog retired
For regular readers of this blog, I have disappointing news. The Cardio Blog is now retired. That means that, while it will still be available for reading and searching, new posts will not be added. Our Cancer and Diabetes blogs are also being retired, which I mention here because some readers bookmarked more than one of the Life Sciences group.
The choice to stop publishing these three blogs is a business decision, and has nothing whatsoever to do with their quality. I am, and everyone here is, deeply grateful to the bloggers whose dedication to these sites gave so much information and inspiration to thousands of people. These three blogs are among the longest-running properties in our network, and it is sad to let them go.
Thank you to our many readers for visiting us, and sharing in the community here.
Brad Hill
Programming Director, Weblogs / AOL
The Diabetes Blog retired
For regular readers of this blog, I have disappointing news. The Diabetes Blog is now retired. That means that, while it will still be available for reading and searching, new posts will not be added. Our Cardio and Cancer blogs are also being retired, which I mention here because some readers bookmarked more than one of the Life Sciences group.
The choice to stop publishing these three blogs is a business decision, and has nothing whatsoever to do with their quality. I am, and everyone here is, deeply grateful to the bloggers whose dedication to these sites gave so much information and inspiration to thousands of people. These three blogs are among the longest-running properties in our network, and it is sad to let them go.
Thank you to our many readers for visiting us, and sharing in the community here.
Brad Hill
Programming Director, Weblogs / AOL
[RESEARCH] Diagnostic accuracy of urinary spot protein:creatinine ratio for proteinuria in hypertensive pregnant women: systematic review
Objective To review the spot protein:creatinine ratio and albumin:creatinine ratio as diagnostic tests for significant proteinuria in hypertensive pregnant women.
Design Systematic review.
Data sources Medline and Embase, the Cochrane Library, reference lists, and experts.
Review methods Literature search (1980-2007) for articles of the spot protein:creatinine ratio or albumin:creatinine ratio in hypertensive pregnancy, with 24 hour proteinuria as the comparator.
Results 13 studies concerned the spot protein:creatinine ratio (1214 women with primarily gestational hypertension). Nine studies reported sensitivity and specificity for eight cut-off points, median 24 mg/mmol (range 17-57 mg/mmol; 0.15-0.50 mg/mg). Laboratory assays were not well described. Diagnostic test characteristics were recalculated for a cut-off point of 30 mg/mmol. No significant heterogeneity in cut-off points was found between studies over a range of proteinuria. Pooled values gave a sensitivity of 83.6% (95% confidence interval 77.5% to 89.7%), specificity of 76.3% (72.6% to 80.0%), positive likelihood ratio of 3.53 (2.83 to 4.49), and negative likelihood ratio of 0.21 (0.13 to 0.31) (nine studies, 1003 women). Two studies of the spot albumin:creatinine ratio (225 women) found optimal cut-off points of 2 mg/mmol for proteinuria of 0.3 g/day or more and 27 mg/mmol for albuminuria.
Conclusion The spot protein:creatinine ratio is a reasonable "rule-out" test for detecting proteinuria of 0.3 g/day or more in hypertensive pregnancy. Information on use of the albumin:creatinine ratio in these women is insufficient.
[RESEARCH] Prediction of citation counts for clinical articles at two years using data available within three weeks of publication: retrospective cohort study
Objective To determine if citation counts at two years could be predicted for clinical articles that pass basic criteria for critical appraisal using data within three weeks of publication from external sources and an online article rating service.
Design Retrospective cohort study.
Setting Online rating service, Canada.
Participants 1274 articles from 105 journals published from January to June 2005, randomly divided into a 60:40 split to provide derivation and validation datasets.
Main outcome measures 20 article and journal features, including ratings of clinical relevance and newsworthiness, routinely collected by the McMaster online rating of evidence system, compared with citation counts at two years.
Results The derivation analysis showed that the regression equation accounted for 60% of the variation (R2=0.60, 95% confidence interval 0.538 to 0.629). This model applied to the validation dataset gave a similar prediction (R2=0.56, 0.476 to 0.596, shrinkage 0.04; shrinkage measures how well the derived equation matches data from the validation dataset). Cited articles in the top half and top third were predicted with 83% and 61% sensitivity and 72% and 82% specificity. Higher citations were predicted by indexing in numerous databases; number of authors; abstraction in synoptic journals; clinical relevance scores; number of cited references; and original, multicentred, and therapy articles from journals with a greater proportion of articles abstracted.
Conclusion Citation counts can be reliably predicted at two years using data within three weeks of publication.
Moles may be related to aging
Filed under: Research, Daily news
How many moles do you have? I counted 14 before I got bored and gave up, but I have quite a bit, although I always thought they were just dark freckles (As an aside, I noticed I have a collection of moles on my arm that form an M--my first initial--so hooray for this post. Though you're probably not interested so nevermind ... )Anyway, here's my point: A study shows that people with 100 or more moles age better and have a biological age that's 6 or 7 years younger than counterparts of the same calendar age. And if you're wondering what one's biological age is based on, it's the length of their telomeres, which are the ends to our DNA strands. As we age, telomeres inevitably get shorted, which it's thought is one of the main factors behind the whole aging process.
As such, people with a younger biological age are less prone to age-related diseases and conditions like heart disease. So count your moles and if you have over 100, count your lucky stars too!