Bmc Med
-
Editorial
Medicine for global health: can "simple interventions" improve the worldwide burden of disease?
Improvements to medical practice and delivery of treatment has been the focus of many international collaborations aiming to address the delivery of appropriate health care in low- and middle-income countries. However, this is compounded by various social, cultural as well as resource allocation issues. This Editorial marks the launch of an article collection on Medicine for Global Health (http://www.biomedcentral.com/bmcmed/series/medicine_for_global_health), and here, guest editor Gretchen Birbeck discusses the challenges, importance and increasing relevance of global health.
-
Editorial Comment
Fat dads must not be blamed for their children's health problems.
The relationship between the parental genomes in terms of the future growth and development of their offspring is not critical. For the majority of the genome the tissue-specific gene expression and epigenetic status is shared between the parents equally, with both alleles contributing without parental bias. For a very small number of genes the rules change and control of expression is restricted to a specific, parentally derived allele, a phenomenon known as genomic imprinting. ⋯ In utero IGF2 exhibits paternal expression, which is controlled by several mechanisms, including the maternally expressing untranslated H19 gene. In the study by Soubry et al., a correlation is drawn between the IGF2 methylation status in fetal cord blood leucocytes, and the obesity status of the father from whom the active IGF2 allele is derived through his sperm. These data imply that paternal obesity affects the normal IGF2 methylation in the sperm and this in turn alters the expression of IGF2 in the baby.
-
Editorial Comment
Meta-narrative and realist reviews: guidance, rules, publication standards and quality appraisal.
Recently, there has been an expansion of different forms of systematic review of research and the development of guidance and standards about particular types of review. These reviews can be best understood within a broad framework of the dimensions on which reviews differ, and how the review methodology relates to the methodology of primary research. ⋯ This commentary is written with special reference to the publication standards for meta-narrative and realist reviews being published in BMC Medicine. See related research articles http://www.biomedcentral.com/1741-7015/11/20 and http://www.biomedcentral.com/1741-7015/11/21.
-
London 2012 is the first Olympic and Paralympic Games to explicitly try and develop socioeconomic legacies for which success indicators are specified - the highest profile of which was to deliver a health legacy by getting two million more people more active by 2012. This editorial highlights how specialists in Sport and Exercise Medicine can contribute towards increasing physical activity participation in the UK, as well as how the National Centre for Sport and Exercise Medicine might be a useful vehicle for delivering an Olympic health legacy. Key challenges are also discussed such as acquisition of funding to support new physical activity initiatives, appropriate allocation of resources, and how to assess the impact of legacy initiatives.
-
It is recognised that regular physical activity and a high level of fitness are powerful predictors of positive health outcomes. There is a long and rich history of significant feats of human endurance with some, for example, the death of the first marathon runner, Pheidippides, associated with negative health outcomes. Early studies on endurance running used X-ray and interview techniques to evaluate competitors and comment on performance. ⋯ This pioneering study will assess the impact of extreme endurance on human physiology; analysing musculoskeletal and other tissue/organ injuries, and the body's potential ability to adapt to extreme physiological stress. The results will be of interest not only to endurance runners, but to anyone interested in the limits of human performance. Please see related article: http://www.biomedcentral.com/1741-7015/10/78.