Biomedical subjects

J Prause

Publications and source records attributed to J Prause.

10 recordsLinked to original sources

PubMed2000

Underemployment and depression: longitudinal relationships.

We conceptualize employment status not as a dichotomy of working versus not working but as a continuum ranging from adequate employment to inadequate employment (involuntary part-time or low wage) to unemployment. Will shifts from adequate to inadequate employment increase depression as do shifts from employment to unemployment, and to what extent does prior depression select workers into such adverse employment change? We analyze panel data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth for the years 1992-1994 for the 5,113 respondents who were adequately employed in 1992. Controlling for prior depression, both types of adverse employment change resulted in similar, significant increases in depression. These direct effects persisted despite inclusion of such potential mediators as changes in income, job satisfaction, and marital status. Marital status buffered the depressive effect of both types of adverse change, but education and job dissatisfaction amplified the effect of unemployment on depression. Prior depression did not predict higher risk of becoming inadequately employed but did predict increased risk of unemployment, particularly for those with less education. These results confirm that both unemployment and inadequate employment affect mental health, and they invite greater efforts to monitor the extent and impact of underemployment.

Adolescent↗

PubMed1998

Occurrence of oxidatively modified proteins: an early event in experimental acute pancreatitis.

Free radical-mediated injury is believed to play a key role in the pathogenesis of acute pancreatitis (AP). Therefore, oxidative damage of proteins may be an important event in the development of AP. The present study was performed to investigate oxidative protein modification, quantified as 2,4-dinitrophenylhydrazine-reactive protein-carbonyls, during the time course of taurocholate-induced pancreatitis of the rat and to analyze oxidatively modified proteins by Western blotting. Protein modification in pancreatic homogenates was found as early as 30 min after induction of severe AP with 3% taurocholate preceding the elevation of serum amylase activity and the increase of malondialdehyde in the tissue. A correlation of protein-carbonyl contents to a score of pancreatic macroscopic alterations (r = .69) and to the wet weight/dry weight ratio (r = .65) was found. Infusion of 5% taurocholate resulted in fulminant AP with high lethality during the 24 h of the experiment. However, rats surviving showed significantly lower level of protein-carbonyls than animals that died between 20-24 h after AP induction. The quantitative data were confirmed by the intensity of immunostained protein-carbonyls. The present data show a rather uniform increase in the staining pattern not revealing single, selectively damaged proteins. The aldehydic product of lipid peroxidation 4-hydroxynonenal (HNE) is known for its reactivity towards proteins. Interestingly, an antibody raised against protein-bound HNE did not indicate an increased protein modification by this aldehyde. In conclusion, experimental AP is characterized by an early oxidative protein modification, possibly contributing to functional impairment of the pancreas. This protein alteration may not be mediated by HNE.

Acute Disease↗

PubMed1998

Underemployment and alcohol misuse in the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth.

OBJECTIVE: This study measured the impact of unemployment and underemployment on alcohol misuse. METHOD: A panel of respondents from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth was studied in 1984-85 and 1988-89. In each pair of years, the effect of employment change (e.g., becoming underemployed) on alcohol misuse was assessed controlling for misuse in the first year. Alcohol misuse was operationalized in two ways: elevated symptoms and heavy drinking. Three samples were analyzed: a core sample of 2,441 who were available in both pairs of years (approximately 65% male) and two extended samples that included everyone available in one pair of years but not the other (n = 4,183 in 1984-85 and n = 3,926 in 1988-89). RESULTS: The 1984-85 analyses revealed a significant association of adverse change in employment with both elevated alcohol symptoms and heavy drinking (the latter moderated by prior heavy drinking). The 1988-89 analyses found no relationship between adverse change in employment and heavy drinking in the core sample and no main effect of adverse change in employment on symptoms, but they did reveal interactions involving prior symptoms (core sample) and marital status (extended sample). CONCLUSIONS: Several explanations for these decreasing effects over time were considered including changes in measurement reliability, statistical power, economic environment and respondents' maturity. These results confirm previous findings that job loss can increase the risk of alcohol misuse, provide new evidence that two types of underemployment (involuntary part-time and poverty-level wage) can also increase this risk and suggest that these effects vary over time.

Adolescent↗

PubMed1997

Effect of favorable employment change on alcohol abuse: one- and five-year follow-ups in the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth.

Job loss has been linked to adverse outcomes such as alcohol abuse, but improved employment, usually assumed to be beneficial, has seldom been evaluated and may not help with addictive disorders. Using the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, young adults who were unemployed or underemployed (low income or involuntary part-time) in 1984 were followed up in 1985 and 1989. Controlling for 1984 alcohol abuse, there were no effects of positive employment change on 1985 symptoms, but there were significant restorative effects on 1985 binge drinking among those who were heavy drinkers in 1984. There also appeared to be an indirect link of favorable 1984-1985 employment change to heavy drinking in 1989 via 1989 employment status. Because the effects of underemployment partially resembled those of unemployment, the discussion cautions against the conventional wisdom of promoting any work, including underemployment, as curative for the ills of unemployment.

Adaptation, Psychological↗

PubMed1985

Cholecalciferol metabolites in polycythemic newborns.

Metabolites of cholecalciferol were measured in the sera of healthy and polycythemic newborns at 15.5 and 10.5 h of age (median), respectively. The serum concentrations of 1,25-dihydroxyvitamin D and 24,25-dihydroxyvitamin D were lower in the polycythemic group (P less than 0.003 and P less than 0.001, respectively). As the kidney is the main site of conversion of 25-hydroxyvitamin D to its dihydroxylated metabolites, it is possible that hyperviscosity and subsequent decrease in renal blood flow interfere with the efficiency of the process.

24,25-Dihydroxyvitamin D 3↗

PubMed1983

Improvement of resting myocardial asynergy with cessation of upright bicycle exercise.

Exercise generally aggravates ischemic myocardial dysfunction, presumably by increasing tissue oxygen demand out of proportion to the increase in supply. Nevertheless, resting left ventricular (LV) wall motion abnormalities can improve dramatically after upright exercise. To investigate this "paradoxical" phenomenon, we performed upright bicycle exercise equilibrium radionuclide ventriculography in 93 patients with angiographic coronary artery disease. Immediately after exercise, LV end-diastolic volume was similar to the resting level (1 +/- 22% of rest value), but end-systolic volume (ESV) was significantly below (p less than 0.05) that at rest (-11 +/- 32%) and LV ejection fraction increased significantly compared with rest (0.57 +/- 0.16 vs 0.51 +/- 0.13, p less than 0.05). Improvement in resting myocardial asynergy was frequent (115 of 330 abnormal segments), and was observed more commonly in patients without pathologic Q waves and in segments manifesting mild rather than severe asynergy. In 60 additional patients with resting asynergy who were also studied after nitroglycerin (NTG), there was 89% concordance of wall motion response in asynergic segments after exercise and NTG: 71 of 85 segments manifesting improvement with NTG also improved after exercise, and 157 of 172 segments without improvement with NTG also failed to improve after exercise. Despite the similar wall motion response, the mechanism of improvement is probably different from that produced by NTG. With NTG, preload (end-diastolic volume) and afterload (systolic blood pressure) were significantly lower than their resting control levels (p less than 0.05). These changes did not occur after exercise. Instead, an isolated, significant reduction in ESV was noted. These data support the hypothesis that catecholamine stimulation is responsible for paradoxical wall motion improvement after upright exercise.

Aged↗

PubMed1982

Preoperative prediction of reversible myocardial asynergy by postexercise radionuclide ventriculography.

Myocardial asynergy is sometimes reversed by coronary bypass, and a noninvasive method of predicting which assess are reversible would be desirable. To assess whether changes in myocardial wall motion observed immediately after exercise can differentiate reversible from nonreversible myocardial asynergy, we evaluated 53 patients by radionuclide ventriculography before and after exercise and again at rest after coronary bypass surgery. Preoperative improvement in wall motion immediately after exercise was highly predictive of the surgical outcome (average chance-corrected agreement, 91 per cent). At surgery the asynergic segments that had improved after exercise were free of grossly apparent epicardial scarring. The accuracy of these predictions for postoperative improvement was significantly greater (P less than 0.01) than that of analysis of Q waves on resting electrocardiography (average chance-corrected agreement, 40 per cent). In contrast, preoperative changes in left ventricular ejection fraction after exercise were not predictive of postoperative resting ejection fraction. We conclude that postexercise radionuclide ventriculography can be used to identify reversible resting myocardial asynergy. This test should prove effective in predicting which patients with myocardial asynergy are most likely to benefit from aortocoronary revascularization.

Adult↗

PubMed1982

Accuracy of cardiac output, oxygen uptake, and arteriovenous oxygen difference at rest, during exercise, and after vasodilator therapy in patients with severe, chronic heart failure.

Measurement of cardiac output, arteriovenous oxygen difference, and oxygen uptake in patients with heart failure may be subject to technical and biologic inaccuracies. We measured these 3 variables in 16 patients with chronic heart failure at rest and during exercise. When cardiac output was measured by thermodilution and compared with values calculated by the Fick principle, there was a significant correlation at rest (r = 0.91, p less than 0.001) and at exercise (r = 0.93, p less than 0.001). When the arteriovenous oxygen difference was measured by spectrophotometry of arterial and mixed venous samples and compared with values calculated by the Fick principle, there was a significant correlation at rest (r = 0.80, p less than 0.01) and at exercise (r = 0.76, p less than 0.01). When oxygen uptake was measured from expired gas analysis and compared with values calculated by the Fick principle, there was a significant correlation at rest (r = 0.84, p less than 0.01) and at exercise (r = 0.94, p less than 0.001). In addition, 10 patients received vasodilator treatment which increased cardiac output and decreased the arteriovenous oxygen difference at rest and exercise. There was no significant difference between measured and calculated values for the 3 variables under those additional conditions. It is concluded that despite technical and biologic difficulties, cardiac output, arteriovenous oxygen difference, and oxygen uptake, when calculated from Fick's principle, yield results equivalent to direct measurement.

Adult↗

PubMed1979

Isolation of Sporothrix fungorum from a 500-year-old mummy found in Greenland.

A 500-year-old mummy of a seven-month-old Eskimo infant recently removed from a tomb north of Umanak presented problems of preservation. Among these was fungal coating on the skin, especially on the face. The fungus was isolated and diagnosed as a Sporothrix fungorum. The skin was successfully treated with nystatine. The species Sporothrix fungorum isolated is considered to be very rare, having been reported previously only from Europe and South Africa, but never from Greenland.

Greenland↗

PubMedDate not supplied

Oxidative stress affects pancreatic proteins during the early pathogenesis of rat caerulein pancreatitis.

Rats received up to four subcutaneous injections of caerulein (20 microg/kg) in hourly intervals to induce a mild edematous pancreatitis. A single dose of caerulein resulted in significant oxidative modification of proteins in pancreatic homogenates as compared to saline-injected controls (p < 0.01). Repeated injections of the secretagogue were unable to induce a further increase in modified proteins. Protein oxidation preceded the formation of the lipid peroxidation product malondialdehyde as well as edema and the increase in serum amylase by 1-2.5 h. Western blotting for oxidatively modified proteins confirmed the results of the quantitative measurements and did not reveal individual, selectively modified proteins. These findings indicate that oxidative stress and oxidative protein modification are very early events in the initial period of caerulein pancreatitis. This may explain the poor success rate of most studies that administered antioxidants therapeutically during or after initiation of pancreatitis.

Amylases↗