BACKGROUND: A number of composite outcomes have been developed to capture the perspective of the patient, clinician and objective measures of health in assessing heart failure outcomes. To date there has been a limited examination in the composition of these outcomes. METHODS AND RESULTS: Three commonly used scoring systems in heart failure trials: Packer's composite, Patient Journey and the...

BACKGROUND: Clinical factors associated with thromboembolic risk in AF patients are well characterized and include new onset AF. Biochemically, AF is associated with inflammatory activation and impairment of nitric oxide (NO) signalling, which may also predispose to thromboembolism: the bases for variability in these anomalies have not been identified. We therefore sought to identify correlate...

The adenosine A2B receptor (A2BAR) has been identified as an important therapeutic target in cardiovascular disease, however in vitro and in vivo targeting has been limited by the paucity of pharmacological tools, particularly potent agonists. Interestingly, 2-((6-amino-3,5-dicyano-4-(4-(cyclopropylmethoxy)phenyl)-2-pyridinyl)thio)acetamide (BAY60-6583), a potent and subtype-selective A2BAR ago...

Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is a powerful and indispensable tool in medical research, clinical diagnosis, and patient care due to its high spatial resolution and non-limited penetration depth. The simultaneous use of positive and negative MRI imaging that employs the same contrast agents will significantly improve detection accuracy. Here we report the development of functional multimodal ...

AIMS: First, to conduct a detailed exploration of the prospective relations between four commonly used anthropometric measures with incident diabetes and to examine their consistency across different population subgroups. Second, to compare the ability of each of the measures to predict five-year risk of diabetes. METHODS: We conducted a meta-analysis of individual participant data on bo...

Cutaneous T cell lymphomas (CTCL) represent rare extranodal non-Hodgkin's lymphomas, which are characterised by pleomorphic skin lesions and distinct T-cell markers. CTCL is a relatively benign disease in its early stages, but survival rates decrease significantly with progression. Histone deacetylase inhibitors (HDACi) have recently emerged as a new class of targeted anticancer therapies for C...

AIMS: Preconception care may decrease adverse pregnancy outcomes associated with pre-existing diabetes mellitus. Aboriginal Australians are at high risk of type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM), with earlier onset. We explored practitioner views on preconception care delivery for women with T2DM in the Northern Territory, where 31% of births are to Aboriginal women. METHODS: Mixed-methods stud...

AIM: To produce current estimates of the national, regional and global impact of diabetes for 2015 and 2040. METHODS: A systematic literature review was conducted to identify data sources on the prevalence of diabetes from studies conducted in the period from 1990 to 2015. An analytic hierarchy process was used to select the most appropriate studies for each country, and estimates for co...

AIMS: Diabetes care is principally applied in the primary care setting whereby we examined trends in glycaemic levels and goals and estimated avoidable glycaemic burden. METHODS: We retrieved glycated haemoglobin (HbA1C) results and glucose-lowering prescription records from a patient-based medical database during 2005-2013. There were 275,480 available HbA1C measurements from 76,341 ind...

AIMS: Inflammation plays an important role in the pathogenesis of cardiovascular diseases. Diet, as a modifiable risk factor, may in turn impact systemic inflammation. We therefore assessed whether adherence to the dietary recommendations is associated with high-sensitivity C-reactive protein (hs-CRP) concentrations in type 1 diabetes. METHODS: Cross-sectional data from 677 FinnDiane stu...

AIMS: To examine the association between diabetes and disability in older Australians and to identify factors that explain this association. METHODS: We analysed data from a subsample of the Australian Diabetes, Obesity and Lifestyle study (AusDiab) cohort. Disability was measured using the Katz questionnaire in those aged 60years or over and was defined as some difficulty in any of the ...

AIMS: To identify the determinants of efficacy of glucagon-like peptide-1 receptor agonists (GLP-1A) and dipeptidyl peptidase-4 inhibitors (DPP-4I). METHODS: MEDLINE and EMBASE were searched between 01/01/2011 and 15/08/2014 for randomized controlled trials of 12-52weeks' duration, which reported the change in glycated hemoglobin (HbA1c) from baseline as the primary end point, and report...

Posttranslational modifications of histone tails can alter chromatin structure and regulate gene transcription. While recent studies implicate the lysine/arginine protein methyltransferases in the regulation of genes for endothelial metabolism, the role of AMI-1 and AMI-5 compounds in angiogenesis remains unknown. Here, we show that global inhibition of arginine and lysine histone methyltransfe...

Public open spaces (POSs) are important destinations and settings for walking in neighborhoods and different aspects of POSs can influence walking. Proximity to POSs is a key urban design issue that should be considered in distributing such resources within neighborhoods and it is worthwhile to examine how POS proximity may influence residents’ walking. However, little research has explored how...

RATIONALE: We recently reported that ramipril more than doubled maximum walking times in patients with peripheral artery disease with intermittent claudication. OBJECTIVE: Our aim was to conduct exploratory analyses of the effects of ramipril therapy on circulating biomarkers of angiogenesis/arteriogenesis, thrombosis, inflammation, and leukocyte adhesion in patients with intermittent claudi...

Glucose lowering medication use among patients with type 2 diabetes and advanced renal disease (eGFR<60) in a large multinational outcome trial (TREAT) is assessed. We demonstrate statistically significant differences regionally in use of metformin at lower eGFR and increasing reliance upon insulin with/without other medications at low eGFR. INTRODUCTION: As renal disease advances, most of ...

Increased vascular stiffness and reduced endothelial nitric oxide (NO) bioavailability are characteristic of diabetes. Whether these are evident at a more moderate levels of hyperglycaemia has not been investigated. The objectives of this study were to examine the association between the level of glycaemia and resistance vasculature phenotype, incorporating both arterial stiffness and endotheli...

BACKGROUND: The novel synthetic triterpenoid, bardoxolone methyl, has the ability to upregulate cytoprotective proteins via induction of the nuclear factor erythroid-2-related factor 2 (Nrf2) pathway. This makes it a promising therapeutic agent in disease states characterized by dysregulated oxidative signalling. We have examined the effect of a Nrf2 activator, dihydro-CDDO-trifluoroethyl am...

AIM: Targeting basic life support (BLS) training to bystanders who are most likely to witness an out of hospital cardiac arrest (OHCA) is an important public health intervention. We performed a systematic review examining the evidence of the effectiveness of providing BLS training to family members of high-risk cardiac patients. METHODS: A search of Ovid MEDLINE, CINAL, EMBASE, Informit,...