Search

Lifelong premature ejaculation (LPE) may have heritable components. Selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors have been proven effective in prolonging intravaginal ejaculation latency time (IELT). Given that serotonergic pathways are involved in the ejaculation mechanism, we aimed to investigate whether His452Tyr, also known as the C1354T (RS6314) polymorphism of the 5-HT2A receptor, contributes to LPE pathogenesis and IELT differences among patients with LPE. Dutch Caucasian men with LPE (n = 65) attending the Outpatient Department of Neurosexology, HagaZiekenhuis for drug treatment for LPE in 2009 were selected and included in this case-control study. IELT during coitus was measured using a stopwatch, and all men were genotyped for the His452Tyr polymorphism. Analysis of variance (ANOVA) was performed to determine the association between the genotypes and IELTs. Mean IELTs with standard deviations were 29.7 (±20.9), 31.5 (±14.7), and 26.0 s, and the frequencies were 83.1%, 15.4%, and 1.5% for the CC, CT, and TT groups, respectively, with an average IELT of 29.9 s. No difference in mean IELT was observed between these groups. In the affected group, the frequencies of alleles C and T were 90.8% and 9.2%, respectively; whereas those among randomly selected European Caucasian male controls (n = 503) from the CEPH database were of 92.0% and 8.0%, respectively. No significant difference was observed between the groups. Therefore, no correlation was found between the His452Tyr polymorphism and IELT distribution in patients with LPE.

Across the tree of life, organismal functional strategies form a continuum from slow- to fast-growing organisms, in response to common drivers such as resource availability and disturbance. However, the synchronization of these strategies at the entire community level is untested. We combine trait data for >2800 above- and belowground taxa from 14 trophic guilds spanning a disturbance and resource availability gradient in German grasslands. Most guilds consistently respond to these drivers through both direct and trophically-mediated effects, resulting in a "slow-fast" axis at the level of the entire community. Fast trait communities were also associated with faster rates of whole ecosystem functioning. These findings demonstrate that "slow" and "fast" strategies can be manifested at the level of whole ecosystems, opening new avenues of ecosystem-level functional classification.

Lifelong premature ejaculation (LPE) may have heritable components. Selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors have been proven effective in prolonging intravaginal ejaculation latency time (IELT). Given that serotonergic pathways are involved in the ejaculation mechanism, we aimed to investigate whether His452Tyr, also known as the C1354T (RS6314) polymorphism of the 5-HT2A receptor, contributes to LPE pathogenesis and IELT differences among patients with LPE. Dutch Caucasian men with LPE (n = 65) attending the Outpatient Department of Neurosexology, HagaZiekenhuis for drug treatment for LPE in 2009 were selected and included in this case-control study. IELT during coitus was measured using a stopwatch, and all men were genotyped for the His452Tyr polymorphism. Analysis of variance (ANOVA) was performed to determine the association between the genotypes and IELTs. Mean IELTs with standard deviations were 29.7 (+/- 20.9), 31.5 (+/- 14.7), and 26.0 s, and the frequencies were 83.1%, 15.4%, and 1.5% for the CC, CT, and TT groups, respectively, with an average IELT of 29.9 s. No difference in mean IELT was observed between these groups. In the affected group, the frequencies of alleles C and T were 90.8% and 9.2%, respectively; whereas those among randomly selected European Caucasian male controls (n = 503) from the CEPH database were of 92.0% and 8.0%, respectively. No significant difference was observed between the groups. Therefore, no correlation was found between the His452Tyr polymorphism and IELT distribution in patients with LPE.

Fungi and bacteria are the two dominant groups of soil microbial communities worldwide. By controlling the turnover of soil organic matter, these organisms directly regulate the cycling of carbon between the soil and the atmosphere. Fundamental differences in the physiology and life history of bacteria and fungi suggest that variation in the biogeography of relative abundance of soil fungi versus bacteria could drive striking differences in carbon decomposition and soil organic matter formation between different biomes. However, a lack of global and predictive information on the distribution of these organisms in terrestrial ecosystems has prevented the inclusion of relative abundance of soil fungi versus bacteria and the associated processes in global biogeochemical models. Here, we used a global-scale dataset of >3000 distinct observations of abundance of soil fungi versus bacteria in the surface topsoil (up to 15 cm) to generate the first quantitative and high-spatial-resolution (1 km2) explicit map of soil fungal proportion, defined as fungi/fungi + bacteria, across terrestrial ecosystems. We reveal striking latitudinal trends where fungal dominance increases in cold and high-latitude environments with large soil carbon stocks. There was a strong nonlinear response of fungal dominance to the environmental gradient, i.e., mean annual temperature (MAT) and net primary productivity (NPP). Fungi dominated in regions with low MAT and NPP and bacteria dominated in regions with high MAT and NPP, thus representing slow vs. fast soil energy channels, respectively, a concept with a long history in soil ecology. These high-resolution models provide the first steps towards representing the major soil microbial groups and their functional differences in global biogeochemical models to improve predictions of soil organic matter turnover under current and future climate scenarios. Raw datasets and global maps generated in this study are available at 10.6084/m9.figshare.1955

Lifelong premature ejaculation (LPE) may have heritable components. Selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors have been proven effective in prolonging intravaginal ejaculation latency time (IELT). Given that serotonergic pathways are involved in the ejaculation mechanism, we aimed to investigate whether His452Tyr, also known as the C1354T (RS6314) polymorphism of the 5-HT2A receptor, contributes to LPE pathogenesis and IELT differences among patients with LPE. Dutch Caucasian men with LPE (n = 65) attending the Outpatient Department of Neurosexology, HagaZiekenhuis for drug treatment for LPE in 2009 were selected and included in this case-control study. IELT during coitus was measured using a stopwatch, and all men were genotyped for the His452Tyr polymorphism. Analysis of variance (ANOVA) was performed to determine the association between the genotypes and IELTs. Mean IELTs with standard deviations were 29.7 (+/- 20.9), 31.5 (+/- 14.7), and 26.0 s, and the frequencies were 83.1%, 15.4%, and 1.5% for the CC, CT, and TT groups, respectively, with an average IELT of 29.9 s. No difference in mean IELT was observed between these groups. In the affected group, the frequencies of alleles C and T were 90.8% and 9.2%, respectively; whereas those among randomly selected European Caucasian male controls (n = 503) from the CEPH database were of 92.0% and 8.0%, respectively. No significant difference was observed between the groups. Therefore, no correlation was found between the His452Tyr polymorphism and IELT distribution in patients with LPE.

Purpose of Review: Diabetes mellitus (DM) is associated with increased fracture risk. The aim of this systematic review was to examine the effects of different classes of glucose-lowering drugs on fracture risk in patients with type 2 DM. The heterogeneity of the included studies did not allow formal statistical analyses. Recent Findings: Sixty studies were included in the review. Metformin, dipeptidylpeptidase-IV inhibitors, glucagon-like peptide-1 receptor agonists, and sodium–glucose cotransporter 2-inhibitors do not appear to increase fracture risk. Results for insulin and sulphonylureas were more disparate, although there may be an increased fracture risk related to hypoglycemia and falls with these treatments. Glitazones were consistently associated with increased fracture risk in women, although the evidence was sparser in men. Summary: New glucose-lowering drugs are continuously being developed and better understanding of these is leading to changes in prescription patterns. Our findings warrant continued research on the effects of glucose-lowering drugs on fracture risk, elucidating the class-specific effects of these drugs.

Chronic kidney disease (CKD) is a risk factor for fractures. However, in hip fracture patients, CKD G3-G5 was associated with a higher mortality risk and not associated with a higher risk of subsequent non-hip fractures compared to eGFR > 60 ml/min. The higher mortality risk may, as competing risk, explain our findings.INTRODUCTION: Chronic kidney disease (CKD) is a known risk factor for fragility fractures. Patients aged 50+ with a recent fragility fracture have an increased risk of subsequent fractures. Our aim was to evaluate the association between CKD stages G3-G5 versus estimated glomerular filtration rate (eGFR) > 60 ml/min and the risk of a new non-hip fracture or fragility fracture in patients with a first hip fracture.METHODS: Population-based cohort study using the UK general practices in the Clinical Practice Research Datalink. Associations between CKD stage and first subsequent fracture were determined using Cox proportional hazard analyses to estimate hazard ratios (HRs). To explore the potential competing risk of mortality, cause-specific (cs) HRs for mortality were estimated.RESULTS: CKD G3-G5 was associated with a lower risk of any subsequent non-hip fracture (HR: 0.90, 95%CI: 0.83-0.97), but not with the risk of subsequent major non-hip fragility fracture. CKD G3-G5 was associated with a higher mortality risk (cs-HR: 1.05, 95%CI: 1.01-1.09). Mortality risk was 1.5- to 3-fold higher in patients with CKD G4 (cs-HR: 1.50, 95%CI: 1.38-1.62) and G5 (cs-HR: 2.93, 95%CI: 2.48-3.46) compared to eGFR > 60 ml/min.CONCLUSIONS: The risk of a subsequent major non-hip fragility fractures following hip fracture was not increased in patients with CKD G3-G5 compared to eGFR > 60 ml/min. Mortality risk was higher in both hip fracture and non-hip fracture patients with CKD G4 and G5. The higher mortality risk may, as competing risk, explain our main finding of no increased or even decreased subsequent fracture risk after a h

Objective: Given that volumes of patients and interventions are important criteria to qualify as a reference centre (RC) for the European Reference Network on Rare Endocrine Conditions (Endo-ERN), the present study aimed to evaluate the data that were reported in the original application against subsequent assessments of activity and review the criteria that may define RCs using two main thematic groups (MTGs): Pituitary and Thyroid, as examples. Methods: Review of content in application forms and continuous monitoring data and of a survey distributed to RCs. A list of 'key procedures' for the assessment of performance of RCs was composed with the help of the Pituitary and Thyroid MTG chairs. Results: In the original application, the number of undefined procedures ranged from 20 to 5500/year (Pituitary) and from 10 to 2700/year (phyroid) between applicants. In the survey, the number of key procedures per centre ranged from 18 to 150/year (Pituitary) and from 20 to 1376/year (Thyroid). The median numbers of new patients reported in the continuous monitoring program were comparable with the application and survey; however, some centres reported large variations. Conclusions: Monitoring of clinical activity in an ERN requires clear definitions that are optimally aligned with clinical practice, diagnosis registration, and hospital IT systems. This is a particular challenge in the rare disease field where the centre may also provide expert input in collaboration with local hospitals. Application of uniform definitions, in addition to condition-specific clinical benchmarks, which can include patient-reported- as well as clinician-reported outcome measures, is urgently needed to allow benchmarking of care across Endo-ERN.

PURPOSE OF REVIEW: Diabetes mellitus (DM) is associated with increased fracture risk. The aim of this systematic review was to examine the effects of different classes of glucose-lowering drugs on fracture risk in patients with type 2 DM. The heterogeneity of the included studies did not allow formal statistical analyses.RECENT FINDINGS: Sixty studies were included in the review. Metformin, dipeptidylpeptidase-IV inhibitors, glucagon-like peptide-1 receptor agonists, and sodium-glucose cotransporter 2-inhibitors do not appear to increase fracture risk. Results for insulin and sulphonylureas were more disparate, although there may be an increased fracture risk related to hypoglycemia and falls with these treatments. Glitazones were consistently associated with increased fracture risk in women, although the evidence was sparser in men. New glucose-lowering drugs are continuously being developed and better understanding of these is leading to changes in prescription patterns. Our findings warrant continued research on the effects of glucose-lowering drugs on fracture risk, elucidating the class-specific effects of these drugs.

The majority of variation in six traits critical to the growth, survival and reproduction of plant species is thought to be organised along just two dimensions, corresponding to strategies of plant size and resource acquisition. However, it is unknown whether global plant trait relationships extend to climatic extremes, and if these interspecific relationships are confounded by trait variation within species. We test whether trait relationships extend to the cold extremes of life on Earth using the largest database of tundra plant traits yet compiled. We show that tundra plants demonstrate remarkably similar resource economic traits, but not size traits, compared to global distributions, and exhibit the same two dimensions of trait variation. Three quarters of trait variation occurs among species, mirroring global estimates of interspecific trait variation. Plant trait relationships are thus generalizable to the edge of global trait-space, informing prediction of plant community change in a warming world.