Obesity and Tobacco Cessation Toolkits: Practical Tips and Tools to Save Lives.

Both obesity and smoking are public health burdens that together contribute to approximately one third of the deaths annually in the United States. In 2015, under the direction of Dr. Mark DeFrancesco, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists convened two workgroups with the purpose of creating toolkits that bring together information that the obstetrician-gynecologist can use to address these preventable health problems. An Obesity Prevention and Treatment Workgroup and a Tobacco and Nicotine Cessation Workgroup developed toolkits on Obesity Prevention and Treatment (www.acog.org/ObesityToolkit)andTobaccoandNicotineCessation(www.acog.org/TobaccoToolkit). The toolkits contain specific talking points, counseling methods, and algorithms to address these health concerns in a supportive, efficient, and effective manner. By including these methods in practice, clinicians can help prevent the tragedy of early deaths caused by obesity, tobacco, and nicotine use.

Molecular characterization of uterine fibroids and its implication for underlying mechanisms of pathogenesis.

OBJECTIVE: To identify genes involved in fibroid development by performing global expression profiling on tissues of normal myometrium and uterine leiomyoma origin using Affymetrix HG-U133A GeneChip microarrays. DESIGN: Whole-genome analysis of mRNA levels in leiomyoma and normal myometrium tissue samples. SETTING: University research laboratory. PATIENT(S): Eight patients of varying age and race undergoing surgery for symptomatic fibroids. INTERVENTION(S): After tissue collection of five tumors and five normals from human pathological specimens, labeled cRNA was generated and hybridized to the oligonucleotide-composed arrays. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURE(S): Quantification of transcript expression levels in uterine fibroids relative to normal myometrium. RESULT(S): Model-based expression analysis revealed that of the 22,500 transcripts represented on the arrays, 226 genes were found to be dysregulated by a > or =1.5-fold change between leiomyoma and normal myometrium. Moreover, our research identified many dysregulated apoptosis-related genes, of particular interest was TRAIL and Ask1, and also found numerous differentially expressed proliferation genes, including TGFB1, PDGFC, and two dual specificity phosphatases. CONCLUSION(S): These results indicate that these genes may play a significant role in the development of leiomyomas from normal uterine tissue. We hypothesize that the deregulation of apoptotic and proliferative processes is pivotal to fibroid development.