BACKGROUND Family caregivers provide significant care at the end of life. We aimed to describe caregiver characteristics, and of those unwilling to repeat this role under the same circumstances. METHODS Observational study of adults in private households (Health Survey for England [HSE]). Caregiving questions included: whether someone close to them died within past 5 years; relationship to th...

Bitcoin, as a cryptocurrency and an alternative payment solution has gained popularity in certain circles. Existing literature offers discussions that are very specific, oftentimes about Bitcoin-related technical issues, but few takes the perspective of an overview that offers an understanding of how Bitcoin may work to the potential user. Though some level of technical understanding is require...

The patient-generated index (PGI) is a more novel approach to evaluating health-related quality of life (HRQOL) that allows patients to formulate their own responses in an open-ended format in order to measure HRQOL based on each patient's own stated goals and expectations. To date the use of PGI in the setting of patients diagnosed with cancer remains relatively less common compared to other h...

OBJECTIVES To investigate and establish the relationship between the use of statin therapy and the risk of development of diabetes.  METHODS PubMed and the Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials was searched for randomized controlled end-point trials of statins, with more than 1000 subjects and a minimum of one-year follow-up period, published until August 2015. The odds ratio (OR) of...

BACKGROUND Since evidence of a long-term association between routine blood count (Coulter) variables and coronary heart disease (CHD) is inconsistent, the authors analysed white blood cell count (WBC), red blood cell count (RBC), haemoglobin (Hgb), packed cell volume (PCV) and platelet count for their long-term associations with CHD mortality in the first Northwick Park Heart Study (NPHS-I). NP...

The decades-longstanding energetic conundrum of alkalophilic bacteria as to how they are able to synthesize ATP has now, for the first time, been clearly solved using the proton-electrostatics localization hypothesis [Bioenergetics 1:104; doi:10.4172/2167-7662.1000104]. This is a major breakthrough advance in understanding proton-coupling bioenergetics over the Nobel-prize work of Peter Mitchel...

The pathogenic fungus Candida albicans causes disseminated candidiasis with a poor prognosis in immunocompromised hosts. Secreted aspartyl protease (Sap) from the microorganism acts as a hydrolase to facilitate invasion into host tissues. Inhibition of Candida Sap activity could be a new treatment strategy for candidiasis. In the present study, we screened compounds from an FDA-approved drug li...

Introduction Intra-articular corticosteroid injections (iacis) are widely used in the management of children with juvenile idiopathic arthritis (JIA). Although this therapeutic intervention is generally considered for the treatment of children with arthritis in a small number of joints, the strategy of injecting simultaneously multiple joints has been advocated in children with polyarthritis. H...