Multicenter randomized comparative trial of Micromedex,Micromedex with Watson,or Google to answer drug information questions

Objective:The purpose of this study was to compare pharmacy students’ ability to correctly answer drug information questions using Micromedex with Watson, Micromedex without Watson, or Google.Methods:This multicenter randomized trial compared pharmacy student responses to drug information questions using Micromedex with Watson, Micromedex without Watson, or Google from January to March of 2020. First- to fourth-year pharmacy students at two institutions were included. The primary outcome was the number of correct answers. Secondary outcomes were the time taken to answer the questions and differences in number of correct answers by pharmacy student year and institution.Results:The analysis included 162 participants: 52 students in the Micromedex group, 51 students in the Watson group, and 59 students in the Google group. There was a significant difference among groups in the total number of questions answered correctly (p=0.02). Post-hoc analysis revealed that participants in the Micromedex group answered more questions correctly than those in the Google group (p=0.015). There were no significant differences between Micromedex and Watson groups (p=0.52) or between Watson and Google groups (p=0.22). There was also no difference in time to complete the questions among groups (p=0.72).Conclusion:Utilizing Google did not save students time and led to more incorrect answers. These findings suggest that health care educators and health sciences librarians should further reinforce training on the appropriate use of drug information resources.     

A Rethinking on the Benefits and Drawbacks of Common Antioxidants and a Proposal to Look for the Antioxidants in Allium Products as Ideal Agents: A Review

This review article on the beneficial uses of Allium antioxidants tries to give some answers to the recent doubts raised by Singh et al. (Ind J Clin Biochem 25(3):225–243, 2010) against the claim of some researchers that Antioxidants (AOs) are miraculous molecules. Many people still believe that vitamins like A, C and E are the only true AOs that play important role in the corrections of metabolic derangements in life style diseases and hence all their faults are attributed to the failures of AOs as a class. This is quite unfair as there are many other natural AOs that do equal or even better AO action than the vitamins. Such is the case with the Allium S-alkyl sulfoxide aminoacids and their breakdown products viz, the various poly sulfides and their oxides e.g. allicin and ajoene type compounds which trap electrons mainly. It is true that antioxidant vitamins and β-carotene a precursor of Vitamin A bring about problems as prooxidant or as agents that block some metabolic pathways and gene expression. Again the argument that AOs cannot improve the level of antioxidant enzymes like SOD, catalase and glutathione Px is also not universal. Actually allium AOs can even spare the use of antioxidant vitamins in the body and enhance the action of antioxidant enzymes and supply of ATP and other nutrients to the tissues as the former are good vasodialators and promoters of membrane permeability. The use of AOs should be selective and moderate. Allium AOs satisfy the role of ideal AOs based on many of their invivo and invitro actions reported by the author and others. Their metabolits can regenerate them and recycle them for a sufficient time in the body. They have non antioxidant effects also such as antiplatelet, fibrinolytic, antiinflammatory, immunomodulatory, antiageing actions etc. Plant derived AOs may be more beneficial and better tolerated in their partially purified forms rather than in their absolutely purified forms as the accompanying principles have some protective and regulatory effects in general. This and other aspects of allium AOs are discussed in the paper.     

Prophylactic Effects of Garlic Oil and Onion Oil Fractions as Compared to Vitamin E on Rats Orally Fed with Lead Acetate Solution

Heavy metal pollution is a global public health challenge due to its stable and persistent environmental contamination. Of these lead is considered to be one of the most common ubiquitous and industrial pollutants and at low concentration it exerts extensive damages to the tissues. Daily feeding of lead acetate solution (Dose: 10 mg/kg/day) to normal rats for a month adversely altered the parameters of blood, serum and tissues, viz; RBC, WBC, Hb, ?- ALAD (Delta amino levulinic acid dehydratase), Pb content, lipids, oxidized lipids (TBARS), vitamins C and E and GSH levels and activities of AST, ALT and antioxidant enzymes viz; catalase, GR, Gpx and SOD. In order to study whether antioxidants have any effect to counteract the toxicity of lead we have selected comparatively better active allium fractions for the study viz: polar fraction of garlic (PFG) and polar fraction of onion (PFO). On feeding of these active fractions of garlic and onion oils i.e. their polar fractions and vitamin E (Dose 100 mg/kg/day) separately for a month along with or without lead acetate to rats each nutraceutical and vitamin E counteracted the adverse effects of Pb significantly (p ≤ 0.05). Their effects are in the order of PFG > PFO > Vitamin E. All these results point out that garlic and onion oils contain natural disulfoxide compounds which act as antioxidant and anti toxic to lead compounds. Their comparative differences in action may be due to the presence and position of double bonds and disulfide oxide bonds in their molecules. i.e., in PFG the allyl disulfide oxide group is present and in PFO saturated methyl and propyl groups and unsaturated propenyl group are present in place of allyl groups. The former group confers a better antioxidant activity on PFG, while the latter groups confer a lesser activity on PFO.     

A study on the hypoglycemic and hypolipidemic effects of an ayurvedic drug Rajanyamalakadi in diabetic patients

A study was undertaken for evaluating the hypoglycemic and hypolipidemic effects of an ayurvedic medicine “Rajanyamalakadi” containing Curcuma longa, Emblica officinalis and Salacia oblonga in type II diabetic patients over a period of 3 months. Ethical committee consent for the study was given by the Director, Indian Systems of Medicine, Kerala. A total of 43 patients with established diabetes mellitus as adjudged from clinical features and FBS values, appeared for the camp (Age group 35–75 yrs). An informed consent for the study was obtained from each patient. The clinical proforma was given to each patient to collect data such as height, weight, diet pattern, previous history of illness etc. The ongoing antidiabetic medications were stopped under medical supervision and the patients were provided with ‘Rajanyamalakadi’ tablets (dose 1–2 tablets each weighing 500mg). The dosage of the drug was decided by the supervising medical officer on a case to case basis, taking note of the clinical conditions and responsiveness of the patients. The patients were monitored for three months, who were divided into 6 groups based on their age and again into two groups, 5 & 6, based on their mean FBS values. ie; Normal Persons, Diabetics of age groups 35–45yrs, 46–55yrs, >55yrs and those with FBS < 145.9 mg% and > 145.9 mg%. The Ayurvedic medicine “Rajanyamalakadi” has showed significant antidiabetic, hypolipidemic and antioxidant effects. In addition to that significant ameliorating effects on the elevated serum AST and ALT activities were also demonstrated by the treatment. The nutraceuticals present in the drug like Terpenoids, Polyphenols, Curcumin etc are responsible for the medicinal effects.     

Dribbling speed along curved paths predicts attacking performance in match-realistic one vs. one soccer games

This study assessed whether a new, closed-skill dribbling or sprinting task could predict attacking performance in soccer. Twenty-five male players were recruited from the Londrina Junior Team Football Academy in Brazil and asked to either dribble the ball or sprint through five custom circuits that varied in average curvature (0–1.37 radians.m^?1). These measures were then validated using a realistic one vs. one competition in which each player acted as attacker or defender in turn (N = 1330 bouts). Sprinting (ICC = 0.96) and dribbling (ICC = 0.97) performances were highly repeatable for individual players. Average dribbling speed decreased non-linearly with increasing circuit curvature (F = 239.5; P < 0.001) from 5.19 ± 0.11 ms^?1 on the straightest path to 2.13 ± 0.03 ms^?1 on the curviest. Overall, dribbling but not sprinting performance predicted attacking success in the one vs. one competition, explaining more than 50% of the variation in attacking success alone (r_p = 0.70; P < 0.001). In conclusion, our new closed-skill dribbling assessment is a valid and reliable protocol to predict a soccer player’s success in attacking performance in one vs. one situation, and can be used to identify talented players.     

Electronic systems design: An experiment of project-based learning on network

The NetPro project creates models, methods, tools and materials for network-based project learning in engineering education. This new environment is a distributed system that facilitates sharing and peer reviewing of project deliverables and interaction in special interest group discussions. The paper presents as an example the pilot course on Electronic Systems Design and its preliminary evaluation.