Objective
To characterize the prevalence of inadequate health literacy among otolaryngology patients and assess the association of individual patient factors with inadequate health literacy.
Study ...Design
Cross‐sectional study.
Setting
Tertiary academic medical center otolaryngology clinic.
Methods
Adult patients presenting to the clinic were recruited from March to June 2022. Participants completed a validated health literacy questionnaire in the waiting room. Data on age, sex, race, insurance, county of residence, and language were extracted from the electronic medical record, linked to the survey responses, and deidentified for analysis. Logistic regression analyses assessed the association between inadequate health literacy and patient factors.
Results
Of 374 participants, the mean age was 54.8 years (SD = 17.8) and most were white (79%) and native English speakers (95%). The median health literacy score was 14.5 (Q1‐Q3: 12.0‐15.0) and 43 participants (12%) had inadequate health literacy. Bivariate analysis showed the odds of inadequate health literacy were 2.5 times greater for those with public insurance (95% confidence interval CI: 1.24‐5.20, P = .011), 3.5 times greater for males (95% CI: 1.75‐6.92, P < .001), and significantly different among race groups (P = .003). When all factors were evaluated simultaneously with multivariable regression, only sex (P < .001) and race (P = .005) remained significant predictors of inadequate health literacy. There were no significant associations between health literacy and age or rurality.
Conclusion
Inadequate health literacy was associated with sex and race, but not with age or rurality. 12% of patients had inadequate health literacy, which may perpetuate disparities in care and necessitate interventions to improve care delivery in otolaryngology.
Development in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) is widely emphasized worldwide. In the past decades, China has become the largest rising economy with a strong forward momentum ...in STEM advancement and education, which has profoundly impacted the global economy. This study investigates the current trends in STEM career aspirations among Chinese adolescents, who will soon become the future workforce. The results indicate a significant increase of students’ STEM aspirations in comparison to the 2015 PISA outcomes. Further investigation suggests that the rapid change can be attributed to the recent transitions in world politics which have shifted from collaboration to exclusive competition. Insights gained from this study call for a change of mindset to recognize that in the STEM economy, collaboration is the most powerful form of competition.
The study of autophagy in plants is rapidly increasing, due to its pivotal and fundamental roles in responding to stressful stimuli, recycling nutrients during senescence, and maintaining growth ...under normal conditions. Assays for detecting autophagy in plants have generally been based on microscopic observations, providing qualitative information on autophagy activity. Here, we discuss biochemical assays for detecting autophagy, which have the potential for providing more quantitative information, with a focus on immunoblotting with antibodies against ATG8, NBR1, or epitope tags fused to ATG proteins.
An ethyl acetate extract of
Alpinia oxyphylla was found to possess neuroprotective activity against 1-methyl-4-phenylpyridinium ion (MPP
+) induced apotosis and oxidative stress in cultured PC12 ...cells. From the extract, a phenolic compound was isolated through bioassay-guided fractionation and identified as protocatechuic acid (PCA) by IR, MS, and
1H and
13C NMR spectroscopy. It was the first time which was isolated from the kernels of
A. oxyphylla. Exposure of PC12 cells to 1
mM MPP
+ may cause significant viability loss and apoptotic cell death. PCA stimulated PC12 cellular proliferation and markedly attenuated MPP
+-induced apoptotic cell death in a dose-dependent manner. By observing the nuclear morphological changes and flow cytometric analysis, PCA showed its significant effect on protecting PC12 cells against MPP
+-induced apoptosis. Meanwhile, PCA enhanced the activities of superoxide dismutase (SOD) and catalase (CAT) in PC12 cells. In addition, PCA also dose-dependently reduced the hydrogen peroxide (H
2O
2)- or sodium nitroprusside (SNP)-induced cell death in PC12 cells. The results suggest that PCA may be one of the primary active components in the kernels of
A. oxyphylla and provide a useful therapeutic strategy for the treatment of oxidative stress-induced neurodegenerative disease such as Parkinson’s disease.
. Huang C‐N, Huang S‐P, Pao J‐B, Hour T‐C, Chang T‐Y, Lan Y‐H, Lu T‐L, Lee H‐Z, Juang S‐H, Wu P‐P, Huang C‐Y, Hsieh C‐J, Bao B‐Y (Kaohsiung Medical University Hospital, Kaohsiung; Kaohsiung Medical ...University, Kaohsiung; Taipei City Hospital, Taipei; Kaohsiung Medical University, Kaohsiung; China Medical University, Taichung; National Taiwan University Hospital; Oriental Institute of Technology; National Taiwan University, Taipei; China Medical University Hospital, Taichung, Taiwan). Genetic polymorphisms in oestrogen receptor‐binding sites affect clinical outcomes in patients with prostate cancer receiving androgen‐deprivation therapy. J Intern Med 2012; 271: 499–509.
Background. Accumulating evidence indicates that oestrogens have significant direct effects on normal prostate development and carcinogenesis. The majority of the biological activities of oestrogens are mediated through the oestrogen receptor (ER), which functions as a hormone‐inducible transcription factor to regulate target gene expression by binding to oestrogen response elements (EREs) in the regulatory regions of target genes. Sequence variants in EREs might affect the ER–ERE interaction and subsequent physiological activities. Therefore, we tested whether common single‐nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) inside EREs are related to the clinical outcomes of androgen‐deprivation therapy (ADT) in men with prostate cancer.
Methods. We systematically evaluated 49 ERE SNPs predicted using a genome‐wide database in a cohort of 601 men with advanced prostate cancer treated with ADT. The prognostic significance of these SNPs on disease progression, prostate cancer‐specific mortality (PCSM) and all‐cause mortality (ACM) after ADT was assessed using Kaplan–Meier analysis and a Cox regression model.
Results. Based on multiple hypothesis testing, BNC2 rs16934641 was found to be associated with disease progression; in addition, TACC2 rs3763763 was associated with PCSM, and ALPK1 rs2051778 and TACC2 rs3763763 were associated with ACM. These SNPs remained significant in multivariate analyses that included known clinicopathological predictors. Moreover, a combined genotype effect on ACM was observed when ALPK1 rs2051778 and TACC2 rs3763763 were analysed in combination. Patients with a greater number of unfavourable genotypes had a shorter time to ACM during ADT (P for trend <0.001).
Conclusion. The incorporation of ERE SNPs into models with known predictors might improve outcome prediction in patients with prostate cancer receiving ADT.
Nucleic acid diagnostics is dominated by fluorescence-based assays that use complex and expensive enzyme-based target or signal-amplification procedures. Many clinical diagnostic applications will ...require simpler, inexpensive assays that can be done in a screening mode. We have developed a 'spot-and-read' colorimetric detection method for identifying nucleic acid sequences based on the distance-dependent optical properties of gold nanoparticles. In this assay, nucleic acid targets are recognized by DNA-modified gold probes, which undergo a color change that is visually detectable when the solutions are spotted onto an illuminated glass waveguide. This scatter-based method enables detection of zeptomole quantities of nucleic acid targets without target or signal amplification when coupled to an improved hybridization method that facilitates probe-target binding in a homogeneous format. In comparison to a previously reported absorbance-based method, this method increases detection sensitivity by over four orders of magnitude. We have applied this method to the rapid detection of mecA in methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus genomic DNA samples.
Freezing injury is a common abiotic stress in alpine regions. γ-Aminobutyric acid (GABA) is a ubiquitous non-protein amino acid that plays an active role in plant stress resistance. Metabonomic ...results have shown that the GABA content in winter wheat (
Triticum aestivum
L.) “Dongnongdongmai 1” (Dn1) significantly changes with decrease in temperature. To clarify the relationship between GABA metabolism and low-temperature stress in winter wheat Dn1, we analyzed the expression of
TaGAD
and
TaGABA-T
in the tillering node under natural cooling conditions in the field. Additionally, we constructed plant overexpression vectors and introduced them into
Arabidopsis thaliana
to obtain stable genetic T
3
plants, which were then analyzed under low-temperature stress (–10°C). The expression of
TaGAD
and
TaGABA-T
in winter wheat Dn1 gradually increased with decrease in temperature and significantly increased with a temperature decreased from 0 to –10°C.
TaGAD
expression was highest at –25°C, and the expression abundance of
TaGABA-T
was close to –10 at –25°C. Moreover, the T
3
generation of
A. thaliana
overexpressing
TaGAD
and
TaGABA-T
showed stronger cold resistance than the wild-type. After low-temperature stress, the relative expression in the overexpression lines significantly increased and the relative conductivity and malondialdehyde content decreased compared to those in the wild-type; however,
TaGAD
-overexpressing lines were better than
TaGABA-T-
overexpressing lines. These results indicate that the GABA pathway can positively respond to low-temperature stress and that the overexpression of
TaGAD
is better than that of
TaGABA-T
for enhancing cold resistance.
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