To evaluate the efficacy and safety of pregabalin monotherapy versus placebo for symptomatic pain relief and improvement of patient global assessment in patients with fibromyalgia (FM) enrolled from countries outside the United States.

Theoretically, the high spatial resolution of US makes it well suited to monitor the decrease in articular cartilage thickness in osteoarthritis. A requirement is, however, that the borders of the cartilage are correctly identified and that the cartilage is measured under orthogonal insonation. If US measurements are compared to measurements with other techniques, they should be corrected for the higher sound speed in cartilage.

In glycerinated rabbit psoas muscle, Donnan potential measurements demonstrated that the net electric charge on the actin-myosin matrix undergoes a sharp switch-like transition at pCa(50) = 6.8. The potentials are 2 mV less negative at the lower pCa(2+) (P <0.001). If ATP is present, the muscle contracts and breaks the microelectrode. Therefore the rigor state was studied. There is no reason to suppose a priori that a similar voltage switch does not occur during contraction, however. Calcium dependence is still apparent in muscles stretched beyond overlap (sarcomere length>3.8 μm) and is also seen in the gap filaments between the A- and I-band ends; further stretching abolishes the dependence. These experiments strongly suggest that calcium dependence is controlled initially by the titin component, and that this control is lost when titin filaments break. We suppose that that effect is mediated by the titin kinase in the M-line region and may involve the extensible PEVK region of titin. There is great interest in the electric charge on proteins in muscle within the structural system. We suggest how changes in these charges may control the calcium activation process. We also suggest some simple experimental approaches that could clarify these effects.

The aim of this systematic review and meta-analysis was to summarize the evidence from observational studies assessing the association between intake of trans fatty acids (TFA) and the risk of coronary heart disease (CHD), with a specific emphasis on distinguishing between TFA of industrial and ruminant origin. By searching five bibliographic databases, analyses from six published and two unpublished prospective cohort studies, assessing the association of intake of TFA with fatal and/or non-fatal CHD, were identified. Four and three studies reported separate associations for intake of ruminant or industrial-TFA, respectively. The pooled relative risk estimates for comparison of extreme quintiles of total-TFA intake (corresponding to intake increments ranging from 2.8 to ∼10 g/day) were 1.22 (95% confidence interval: 1.08-1.38; P=0.002) for CHD events and 1.24 (1.07-1.43; P=0.003) for fatal CHD. Ruminant-TFA intake (increments ranging from 0.5 to 1.9 g/day) was not significantly associated with risk of CHD (risk ratio (RR)=0.92 (0.76-1.11); P=0.36), and neither was industrial-TFA intake, although there was a trend towards a positive association (RR=1.21 (0.97-1.50); P=0.09). In conclusion, our analysis suggests that industrial-TFA may be positively related to CHD, whereas ruminant-TFA is not, but the limited number of available studies prohibits any firm conclusions concerning whether the source of TFA is important. The null association of ruminant-TFA with CHD risk may be due to lower intake levels.