Past-month binge prevalence of 18.18% was considerably lower than the past-year prevalence of 33.51%, but change from past-month to past-year binge threshold had no significant effect on the demographic composition of binge drinkers. The standard AUDIT-C threshold over-estimates hazardous drinking IWR-1-endo research buy prevalence in older adults by up to 33%, but even the most conservative rates in this study are cause

for concern regarding the level of drinking by older people in New Zealand.

Conclusion: Older hazardous drinkers are predominantly younger, wealthier, white, partnered males, whichever threshold is used, but binge drinkers are more likely to be rural. Maori, and lack tertiary education. Further efforts are needed to determine factors underpinning hazardous drinking, especially in older Maori. (C) 2011 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.”
“Andrographolide (AGP), the major phytoconstituent isolated from Andrographis paniculata was found to exhibit growth inhibition and cytotoxicity against the hormone-independent (PC-3 and DU-145) and hormone-dependent (LNCaP) prostate cancer cell lines via the microculture tetrazolium (MTT) assay. Due to its greater cytotoxic potency and selectivity towards PC-3 cells, flow cytometry was used to analyze the cell cycle distribution of control and treated PC-3 cells whereas Annexin V-FITC/PI see more flow cytometry analysis was carried out to confirm apoptosis induced by AGP in

PC-3 cells. Cell cycle and apoptotic regulatory proteins were determined by western blot analysis. AGP was found to induce G2/M cell cycle arrest which led to predominantly apoptotic mode of cell death. Mechanistically, AGP was found to downregulate CDK1 without affecting the levels of CDK4 and cyclin D1. Induction of AGP was associated with an increase CDK activity in activation and expression of caspase 8 which then is believed to have induced cleavage of Bid into tBid. In addition, activation and enhancement of executioner

caspase 9 and Bax proteins without affecting Bcl-2 protein levels were observed.”
“Whether antiplatelet therapy is associated with better outcomes among patients with infective endocarditis (IE) remains controversial. A retrospective study was conducted concerning all patients with IE, treated in a tertiary-care centre of Canada between 1991 and 2006, who satisfied the modified Duke criteria for a definite or possible IE. The primary outcome was all-cause mortality within 90 days of diagnosis. A secondary outcome was the development of major systemic embolism. In total, 241 patients satisfied the inclusion criteria, 75 of whom had been on chronic antiplatelet therapy prior to developing endocarditis. Seventy-one (29.5%) patients died. According to multivariate analysis, age, a high Charlson score, aortic valve involvement, myocardial infarction and presence of a perivalvular abscess were strongly associated with mortality. Undergoing valvular replacement (adjusted OR (AOR) 0.28, 95% CI 0.09-0.