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BACKGROUND: Lewy body dementia (LBD) is a prevalent yet frequently underdiagnosed form of dementia, accounting for up to 15% of all dementia cases. AIMS: This study aims to increase awareness and advocacy for LBD by gathering and critically assessing the economic evidence, including the cost of illness and cost-effectiveness of interventions for managing LBD. METHOD: A systematic literature review was undertaken with EMBASE, Medline, CINAHL, PsycINFO, NHS Economic Evaluation Database and EconLit. This search was supplemented by grey literature on Google Scholar and reviewing the reference lists of identified studies. The papers included in the review were published between 2008 and 2023, and involved participants with LBD (dementia with Lewy bodies or Parkinson's disease dementia), which either addressed the cost of illness or conducted an economic evaluation. RESULTS: Thirteen papers were included, comprising ten cost-of-illness studies and three economic evaluations. The cost of LBD tends to be higher than that of other forms of dementia, such as Alzheimer's disease, and these costs escalate more steeply as the disease progresses. These cost differences may not be solely influenced by the subtype of dementia, but possibly also by patient characteristics like physical and cognitive abilities. Cost-effectiveness of potential interventions for LBD is limited. CONCLUSIONS: Despite numerous drug trials and other interventions for dementia, very few have targeted LBD, let alone explored the cost-effectiveness of such therapies for LBD. This disparity highlights the urgent need for cost-effective strategies and interventions targeting LBD. We propose the establishment of universally accepted standards for LBD research.

INTRODUCTION:Studies regarding the management of malignant bowel obstruction (MBO) report conflicting findings. This is partly due to different outcome measures being used to evaluate severity of MBO and the response to treatments. Furthermore, current outcome measures focus mainly on measurable physiological parameters which may not correlate strongly with patient-defined quality of life. The development of core outcome sets allows a consistent approach to evaluating clinical conditions taking into consideration patient, healthcare professional and researcher viewpoints. It follows an internationally recognised standard methodology. We present a protocol for the development of a core outcome set for Research and Assessment of MBO (RAMBO). METHODS:RAMBO is a multicentre study, comprising of four phases: a systematic review to examine current scope of outcome measures associated with MBO (phase I). Interviews with patients, companions and healthcare professionals will explore priorities and preferences for care and outcomes (phase II). An expert panel meeting will collate the findings into a set of outcomes (phase III), refined by consensus through a Delphi survey with key stakeholders (phase IV). The final set of outcomes will be ratified at a consensus meeting. Each step will actively include patient partners. Thematic analysis and descriptive statistics will be used to analyse qualitative and quantitative data, respectively. ETHICS AND DISSEMINATION:Ethical approval was obtained (Wales REC 5, REF: 19/LO/1876). Study participants and relevant stakeholders will be updated with newsletters and a lay summary at the end of the study. Abstracts will be submitted to national and international conferences, result papers will be submitted to peer-reviewed, open access journals. TRIAL AND PROSPERO REGISTRATION NUMBERS:Core Outcome Measures in Effectiveness Trials (1402); Systematic Literature Review (CRD42019150648); Rapid Review (CRD42020176393).

To examine the effect of acute and chronic exercise on adipose tissue GLUT4 expression, a total of 20 healthy, male subjects performed one of two studies. Ten subjects performed cycle ergometer exercise for 60 min at 73 ± 2% VO2 peak and abdominal adipose tissue samples were obtained immediately before and after exercise and after 3 h of recovery. Another 10 subjects completed 10 days of exercise training, comprising a combination of six sessions of 60 min at 75% VO2 peak and four sessions of 6 × 5 min at 90% VO2 peak, separated by 3 min at 40% VO2 peak. Abdominal adipose tissue and vastus lateralis muscle samples were obtained before training and 24 h after the last training session. A single bout of exercise did not change adipose tissue GLUT4 mRNA; however, there was a small, but significant, reduction in adipose tissue GLUT4 protein expression 3 h after exercise. There were no changes in adipose tissue GLUT4 or COX-IV expression following exercise training. In contrast, skeletal muscle GLUT4 and COX-IV were increased by 47% and 44%, respectively following exercise training. The exercise training-induced increase in GLUT4 expression was similar in both type I and type IIa single muscle fibers. Our results indicate that neither a single exercise bout, nor 10 days of exercise training, increased adipose tissue GLUT4, in contrast with the increases observed in skeletal muscle GLUT4 expression.

In Germany, lentils (Lens culinaris) are traditionally grown in mixture with cereals to reduce lodging and weed pressure. To test semi-leafless pea (Pisum sativum) as an alternative companion crop instead of dwarf oat (Avena sativa), a field trial was conducted in 2015 at the organic research station of the University of Hohenheim, south-west Germany. The three crops were cultivated in pure stands and in ratios of 1:3, 1:1 and 3:1 (lentil : pea or oat). Focus was on comparing lodging resistance, weed suppression, and grain yield. Lodging was low in all mixtures but high in lentil pure stands. Yields were very high for lentils and peas but rather low for oats (3.2 t ha-1, 4.9 t ha-1, and 3.2 t ha-1, in pure stands). Similarly, high lentil yields were achieved in the mixtures lentil-pea 3:1 (3.0 t ha-1), lentil-oat 3:1 (2.9 t ha-1), and lentil-oat 1:1 (2.7 t ha-1). Compared with pure stands, land use efficiency was up to 20 % higher in lentil-pea mixtures and up to 33 % higher in lentil-oat mixtures. When compared with lentil pure stands, weed biomass was up to 26 % (lentil-pea 1:3) lower in mixtures with pea and up to 61 % (lentil-oat 1:1) lower in mixtures with oat. Overall, semi-leafless pea is a good alternative to dwarf oat as a companion crop for lentils.