Temperature Control in Acute Brain Injury: An Update.

Temperature control in severe acute brain injury (SABI) is a key component of acute management. This manuscript delves into the complex role of temperature management in SABI, encompassing conditions like traumatic brain injury (TBI), acute ischemic stroke (AIS), intracerebral hemorrhage (ICH), aneurysmal subarachnoid hemorrhage (aSAH), and hypoxemic/ischemic brain injury following cardiac arrest. Fever is a common complication in SABI and is linked to worse neurological outcomes due to increased inflammatory responses and intracranial pressure (ICP). Temperature management, particularly hypothermic temperature control (HTC), appears to mitigate these adverse effects primarily by reducing cerebral metabolic demand and dampening inflammatory pathways. However, the effectiveness of HTC varies across different SABI conditions. In the context of post-cardiac arrest, the impact of HTC on neurological outcomes has shown inconsistent results. In cases of TBI, HTC seems promising for reducing ICP, but its influence on long-term outcomes remains uncertain. For AIS, clinical trials have yet to conclusively demonstrate the benefits of HTC, despite encouraging preclinical evidence. This variability in efficacy is also observed in ICH, aSAH, bacterial meningitis, and status epilepticus. In pediatric and neonatal populations, while HTC shows significant benefits in hypoxic-ischemic encephalopathy, its effectiveness in other brain injuries is mixed. Although the theoretical basis for employing temperature control, especially HTC, is strong, the clinical outcomes differ among various SABI subtypes. The current consensus indicates that fever prevention is beneficial across the board, but the application and effectiveness of HTC are more nuanced, underscoring the need for further research to establish optimal temperature management strategies. Here we provide an overview of the clinical evidence surrounding the use of temperature control in various types of SABI.

Associations between Health Literacy, Trust, and COVID-19 Vaccine Hesitancy: The Case of Hong Kong.

This study investigates how health literacy (HL) and trust in health information affected COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy among Chinese Hong Kong adults. A cross-sectional study was conducted in August 2022. A total of 401 participants completed the study. Participants completed a newly developed Hong Kong HL scale and self-reported their trust levels in health information from different resources. The proportions of early uptake of the first dose and booster dose of COVID-19 vaccine were 69.1% and 71.8%, respectively. The risk of delaying the first dose was higher among participants with inadequate functional HL (OR = 0.58, p = 0.015), adequate levels of two subdomains of critical HL (OR = 1.82, p = 0.013; OR = 1.91, p < 0.01), and low-level trust in health information from the government (OR = 0.57, p = 0.019). Respondents with adequate interactive HL (OR = 0.52, p = 0.014) and inadequate level of one subdomain of critical HL (OR =1.71, p = 0.039) were more likely to delay the booster dose. This negative association between critical HL and vaccination was suppressed by trust in health information from the government. This study shows that HL and trust in health information from the government are associated with COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy. Efforts should be directed at providing tailored communication strategies with regard to people's HL and increasing public confidence in health authorities to decrease vaccine hesitancy.

Developing a Health Literacy Scale for adults in Hong Kong: A modified e-Delphi study with healthcare consumers and providers.

INTRODUCTION: Health literacy (HL) refers to individuals' abilities to process and use health information to promote health. This study aimed to develop the first HL measurement tool for the Chinese Hong Kong population. METHODS: A two-phase methodology was adopted. In Phase I, evidence synthesis with a deductive method was conducted to formulate the item list from the literature. In Phase II, a modified e-Delphi survey was conducted among stakeholders (i.e., healthcare providers and healthcare consumers) to confirm the content validity of the item list. The stakeholders were invited to rate the relevance of each draft item on a 4-point scale and provide suggestions for revisions, removal or adding new items. RESULTS: In Phase I, a total of 34 items covering functional, interactive and critical HL were generated. In Phase II, to obtain a balanced view from experts and laypeople, healthcare professionals (n = 12) and consumers (n = 12) were invited to participate in the Delphi panel. The response rates of the three rounds were 100%. After the third round, the consensus was reached for 31 items, and no further comments for adding or revising items were received. All items exhibited excellent content validity (item content validity index: 0.79-1.00; K*: 0.74-1.00). CONCLUSIONS: A Health Literacy Scale for Hong Kong was developed. Compared with existing HL scales, the scale fully operationalized the skills involved in functional, interactive and critical HL. The Delphi study shows evidence supporting the high content validity of all items in the scale. In future studies, these items should undergo rigorous testing to examine their psychometric properties in our target population groups. By illuminating the details in the development process, this paper provides a deeper understanding of the scale's scope and limitations for others who are interested in using this tool. PATIENT OR PUBLIC CONTRIBUTION: Public as healthcare consumers, in addition to healthcare providers, were involved in developing a new HL scale for this study. The input from the public contributed to examining the scale's content validity by judging whether all items reflected the skills that they need to find and use health-related information in their daily life.

Development and validation of a comprehensive health literacy tool for adults in Hong Kong.

Introduction: Health literacy (HL) refers to an individual's ability to process and use health information to make health-related decisions. However, previous HL scales did not fully cover all aspects of this concept. This study aimed to develop a comprehensive Hong Kong HL scale (HLS-HK) and evaluate its psychometric properties among Chinese adults. Methods: A scale of 31-item covering Nutbeam's framework, namely functional and interactive HL (FHL and IHL), and critical HL (CHL) within three subdomains: critical appraisal of information, understanding of social determinants of health, and actions to address social determinants of health, was developed based on previous literature review and Delphi survey. Cognitive interviews were performed to examine all items' face validity in terms of three aspects: comprehensiveness, clarity, and acceptability. A cross-sectional survey was conducted to investigate the scale's psychometric properties, including its internal consistency reliability, factorial structure validity, convergent validity, and predictive validity. Results: Nine interviewees participated in the cognitive interviews in October 2021. Based on the input from respondents, two items were deleted, two items were combined, and several items' wording was revised. The other items were clear and readable. Finally, 28 items remained. A total of 433 adults completed the questionnaire survey between December 2021 and February 2022. After excluding one item with low inter-item correlations, the scale's internal consistency reliability was acceptable, with a Cronbach's alpha of 0.89. Exploratory factor analysis produced a five-factor model, as shown in the original theoretical framework. These factors accounted for 53% of the total variance. Confirmatory factor analysis confirmed that the fit indices for this model were acceptable (comparative fit index = 0.91, root mean square error of approximation = 0.06, and root mean square residual = 0.06). The scale is also significantly correlated with theoretically selected variables, including education and self-rated health. Conclusion: The HLS-HK is a valid and reliable tool for evaluating HL. Compared with existing tools, this scale extended the operationalization of FHL, IHL, and CHL and fully operationalized the CHL via three subdomains. It can be used to understand the difficulties and barriers that people may encounter when they use health-related information and services.

Generic Health Literacy Measurements for Adults: A Scoping Review.

BACKGROUND: Generic health literacy measurement (GHLM) is an important tool to identify individuals with limited health literacy and can assist the design of tailored interventions for improving public health literacy. However, there is no consensus on measuring generic health literacy. The present study aims to review current GHLM used for adults in the literature. METHODS: A scoping review was undertaken to map the available measurements designed to assess generic health literacy. RESULTS: The review identified 19 GHLM for adults. Most of them applied a multidimensional definition of health literacy with a focus on individuals' abilities to access, appraise, understand, and apply health information and services. Nutbeam's conceptual model and Sørensen's integrated model were widely used among the identified measures as the theoretical foundation. While the social determinants of health (SDH) were acknowledged in the two models, it remains unmentioned in many of the identified measures based on the Nutbeam's model and needs further development in the measure based on the Sørensen's model. A total of 39 different domains were assessed in the 19 measurements: prose was identified in 8 measurements and was the most prominent domain; followed by numeracy (n = 7) and interactive (n = 7). SDH related domains such as social support (n = 3), social capital (n = 1) were seldom included in the identified measurements. CONCLUSIONS: Although current GHLM adopted a multidimensional construct, they mainly focused on individuals' abilities and SDH has not been well-developed in the assessment. Further research is required to advance the measuring of the interaction between SDH and health literacy.

An opposite effect of the CDK inhibitor, p18(INK4c) on embryonic stem cells compared with tumor and adult stem cells.

Self-renewal is a feature common to both adult and embryonic stem (ES) cells, as well as tumor stem cells (TSCs). The cyclin-dependent kinase inhibitor, p18(INK4c), is a known tumor suppressor that can inhibit self-renewal of tumor cells or adult stem cells. Here, we demonstrate an opposite effect of p18 on ES cells in comparison with teratoma cells. Our results unexpectedly showed that overexpression of p18 accelerated the growth of mouse ES cells and embryonic bodies (EB); on the contrary, inhibited the growth of late stage teratoma. Up-regulation of ES cell markers (i.e., Oct4, Nanog, Sox2, and Rex1) were detected in both ES and EB cells, while concomitant down-regulation of various differentiation markers was observed in EB cells. These results demonstrate that p18 has an opposite effect on ES cells as compared with tumor cells and adult stem cells. Mechanistically, expression of CDK4 was significantly increased with overexpression of p18 in ES cells, likely leading to a release of CDK2 from the inhibition by p21 and p27. As a result, self-renewal of ES cells was enhanced. Our current study suggests that targeting p18 in different cell types may yield different outcomes, thereby having implications for therapeutic manipulations of cell cycle machinery in stem cells.

A comparative evaluation of the efficacy of two novel desensitising dentifrices.

A comparison of the desensitising efficacy of two commercially available dentifrices with different modes of action was conducted in a randomised, examiner-blind, two-arm, parallel group, 8-week, longitudinal clinical study. Dentifrice A, (Sensodyne Multi Action Iso-Active), contained 50000 ppm KNO(3) and 1450 ppm fluoride as NaF. Dentifrice B, Colgate Sensitive Pro-Relief, contained a combination of 80000 ppm arginine, bicarbonate, calcium carbonate, and 1450 ppm fluorine as NaMFP. Subjects (N = 110), stratified into two groups (N = 55), brushed twice-daily for 60 s, over an 8-week period. Sensitivity status, compliance, and safety were determined at 1, 2, 4, and 8 weeks. A fixed-effects ANCOVA statistical model was applied to the Intent-To-Treat population using a two-sided 5% significance level. After 8 weeks, the treatment groups using Dentifrice A and Dentifrice B exhibited mean reductions from baseline of 49% and 45% in air sensitivity visual analogue scale (VAS) score, 61% (both) in examiner-based Schiff Sensitivity score, and clinically significant reductions in tactile pain threshold; all reductions were statistically significant (P < 0.0001). Both treatment groups also exhibited significant reductions across all sensitivity measures at 1, 2, and 4 weeks (P ≤ 0.0059, Dentifrice A; P ≤ 0.0137, Dentifrice B).

Transferase activity function and system development process are critical in cattle embryo development.

Microarray gene expression experiments often consider specific developmental stages, tissue sources, or reproductive technologies. This focus hinders the understanding of the cattle embryo transcriptome. To address this, four microarray experiments encompassing three developmental stages (7, 25, 280 days), two tissue sources (embryonic or extra-embryonic), and two reproductive technologies (artificial insemination or AI and somatic cell nuclear transfer or NT) were combined using two sets of meta-analyses. The first set of meta-analyses uncovered 434 genes differentially expressed between AI and NT (regardless of stage or source) that were not detected by the individual-experiment analyses. The molecular function of transferase activity was enriched among these genes that included ECE2, SLC22A1, and a gene similar to CAMK2D. Gene POLG2 was over-expressed in AI versus NT 7-day embryos and was under-expressed in AI versus NT 25-day embryos. Gene HAND2 was over-expressed in AI versus NT extra-embryonic samples at 280 days yet under-expressed in AI versus NT embryonic samples at 7 days. The second set of meta-analyses uncovered enrichment of system, organ, and anatomical structure development among the genes differentially expressed between 7- and 25-day embryos from either reproductive technology. Genes PRDX1and SLC16A1 were over-expressed in 7- versus 25-day AI embryos and under-expressed in 7- versus 25-day NT embryos. Changes in stage were associated with high number of differentially expressed genes, followed by technology and source. Genes with transferase activity may hold a clue to the differences in efficiency between reproductive technologies.