A shared care approach in obesity management: the general practitioner and a hospital based service.

OBJECTIVE: To describe the process of establishing a Shared Care obesity management programme between general practitioners and a hospital based specialist obesity service and to compare outcomes of the Shared Care programme (SC) to an established hospital based programme (MOS). DESIGN: A comparative study of two obesity management programmes. Patients were matched on gender, age and BMI (kg/m2). SUBJECTS: 29 female and eight male (age: 47.0 +/- 2 years, BMI 35.9 +/- 0.8 kg/m2) patients enrolled in the Shared Care programme (SC) were matched to 81 female and 20 male (age: 45.8 +/- 1.1 years, BMI 35.7 +/- 0.4 kg/m2) patients enrolled in a hospital based programme (MOS). MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Relative and absolute weight loss and retention rate were compared between the programmes at 10 and 26 weeks. Food habits were assessed at enrolment and week 10 of the programme in the SC group by a Food Habits Questionnaire and cognitive restraint, disinhibition and hunger were assessed by the Eating Inventory Questionnaire. RESULTS: Shared Care patients (n = 28) lost significantly more weight than the MOS patients (n = 60) (SC 4.8 +/- 0.6 kg and MOS 2.6 +/- 0.4 kg; p = 0.0016) over the 10 weeks of the programme. At 26 weeks both groups demonstrated a 5 kg weight loss. There was a significant improvement in food habits, and cognitive restraint, disinhibition and hunger over the 10 weeks of the programme in the SC group. Patient satisfaction was reflected in a better retention rate at 26 weeks by the Shared Care group. CONCLUSION: The study demonstrated that the obese patient managed in a shared care setting achieved better weight loss in the short term and attrition was lower in the longer term than a similar patient attending a specialist service based in a hospital.

Effect of the degree of substitution of cyclodextrin derivatives on chiral separations by high-performance liquid chromatography and capillary electrophoresis.

Optical isomers of some basic racemic drugs (oxprenolol, AMEBD, ephedrine) were separated by high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) and/or capillary electrophoresis (CE) using carboxymethyl-beta-cyclodextrin (CMBCD) with various degree of substitution (DS). The effects of the separation conditions (pH, concentration and DS of CMBCD) were studied and compared using CE and HPLC. The degree of substitution had a significant effect on the resolution of the optical isomers and the ionic strength of the separation media, hence the use of well characterized CD derivatives is crucial. Different optimum DS values for the same test samples were obtained when HPLC or CE was used.

Possible chromosomal location of genes determining the osmoregulation of wheat.

Stress-induced free amino acid accumulation in the presence of 0.7 M mannitol has been compared in tissue cultures of moderately stress-tolerant 'Chinese Spring' and stress-sensitive 'Cappelle Desprez' cultivars and in disomic chromosome substitution lines of 'Cappelle Desprez' into 'Chinese Spring'. The profile of amino acid accumulation was different in the two parents. The amino acid concentration of the substitution lines belonging to the A, B and D genomes, respectively, altered characteristically under stress condition. The 'Cappelle Desprez' chromosomes associated with non-ionic osmotic stress-induced free amino acid accumulation were 5A and 5D.

Effective sample preparation method for extracting biologically active compounds from different matrices by a microwave technique.

A method is described for extracting lupin alkaloid (sparteine) and drug metabolites from different matrices (seeds and rat faeces) using microwave energy and for checking the homogeneity of the electric field in the microwave oven. The high-performance liquid chromatographic separation and determination of the extracted compounds showed that the microwave extraction method is more advantageous than other traditional extraction methods with regard to the yield of extraction and the time and cost of the procedure. The potential degradation of the extracted compounds may be considerably reduced.

Microwave extraction. A novel sample preparation method for chromatography.

The applicability of microwave irradiation to the extraction of various types of compounds from soil, seeds, foods and feeds as a novel sample preparation method for chromatography was investigated. Samples were ground and mixed with an appropriate solvent, methanol or methanol-water for polar compounds and hexane for non-polar compounds. The suspensions were irradiated for 30 s, but they were not allowed to boil. After cooling, the irradiation was repeated several times. The samples were then centrifuged, and aliquots of the supernatant were injected into a chromatographic column. The yields of the extracted compounds obtained by microwave irradiation were compared with those obtained by the traditional Soxhlet or shake-flask extraction methods. The microwave extraction method was more effective than the conventional methods. Due to the considerable savings in time and energy, this novel method is suitable for fast extractions of large sample series.