Daily symptom associations for urinary urgency and anxiety, depression and stress in women with overactive bladder.

INTRODUCTION AND HYPOTHESIS: Women with overactive bladder (OAB) report psychological distress, anxiety and depression, but short-term associations between these symptoms are poorly studied. Our objectives were to study daily associations between OAB symptoms and psychological symptoms and test whether these associations were stable when reassessed after 3 months. We hypothesized that OAB symptoms are positively associated with anxiety and depression symptoms over a short-term (daily) basis. METHODS: Female patients with OAB [bothersome urgency and/or urgency urinary incontinence (UUI)] assessed OAB and mood symptoms at baseline and 3 months using a 3-day bladder diary and visual analog scale (VAS) ratings (0-100 mm) for anxiety, depression and stress. Daily OAB and mood symptom associations were tested using Spearman correlations. Generalized estimating equation (GEE) models tested associations between daily urgency scores and each psychological rating adjusting for covariates, time and a time-symptom interaction term. RESULTS: Participants (n = 69) had mean (SD) age 63.3 (13.4) years. Baseline diary outcomes [median (IQR)/day] included day voids 8 (7-11), nocturia 0 (0-1), UUI episodes 1 (0-3) and urgency score 1.75 (1-2.25). Anxiety and depression diagnoses (dx) and treatment (tx) were common (anxiety dx 30.4%, tx 21.7%; depression dx 47.8%, tx 37.7%), but daily anxiety, depression and stress ratings were low [median (IQR) mm 10 (3-35), 5 (1-16), and 16 (4-39), respectively]. Daily urgency scores correlated with anxiety (r = 0.30-0.40, days 1-3, p ≤ 0.01 for all), depression (r = 0.24-0.35, p ≤ 0.05 all) and stress (r = 0.27-0.34, p ≤ 0.03 all). GEE models indicated no significant change in these associations between baseline and 3 months, and OAB treatment did not impact the associations. CONCLUSIONS: Urgency scores were positively associated with same-day ratings of anxiety, depression and stress in OAB patients.

Phenotypic Variation in Mitochondria-Related Performance Traits Across New Zealand Snail Populations.

Mitochondrial function is critical for energy homeostasis and should shape how genetic variation in metabolism is transmitted through levels of biological organization to generate stability in organismal performance. Mitochondrial function is encoded by genes in two distinct and separately inherited genomes-the mitochondrial genome and the nuclear genome-and selection is expected to maintain functional mito-nuclear interactions. The documented high levels of polymorphism in genes involved in these mito-nuclear interactions and wide variation for mitochondrial function demands an explanation for how and why variability in such a fundamental trait is maintained. Potamopyrgus antipodarum is a New Zealand freshwater snail with coexisting sexual and asexual individuals and, accordingly, contrasting systems of separate vs. co-inheritance of nuclear and mitochondrial genomes. As such, this snail provides a powerful means to dissect the evolutionary and functional consequences of mito-nuclear variation. The lakes inhabited by P. antipodarum span wide environmental gradients, with substantial across-lake genetic structure and mito-nuclear discordance. This situation allows us to use comparisons across reproductive modes and lakes to partition variation in cellular respiration across genetic and environmental axes. Here, we integrated cellular, physiological, and behavioral approaches to quantify variation in mitochondrial function across a diverse set of wild P. antipodarum lineages. We found extensive across-lake variation in organismal oxygen consumption and behavioral response to heat stress and differences across sexes in mitochondrial membrane potential but few global effects of reproductive mode. Taken together, our data set the stage for applying this important model system for sexual reproduction and polyploidy to dissecting the complex relationships between mito-nuclear variation, performance, plasticity, and fitness in natural populations.