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Regular Consumers (regular + consumer)

Distribution by Scientific Domains

Medical Sciences	80%

Selected Abstracts

Successful transplantation of organs from a donor who died from acute cocaine intoxication

CLINICAL TRANSPLANTATION, Issue 2 2003
Francisco Caballero
One to two percent of the general population of western countries are regular consumers of cocaine, 10% being sporadic consumers. This proportion increases considerably in the population age groups which are most frequently organ donors. Cocaine may directly cause brain death, or be present in those with brain death who died from other causes, especially head trauma. We present a 30-yr-old female donor, a regular consumer of inhaled cocaine, who died of brain anoxia after cocaine inhalation. Twenty-five hours after cocaine inhalation, the liver and kidneys were removed for transplantation. The liver was transplanted to a patient with acute hepatocellular failure caused by isoniazids, and the kidneys to two recipients with renal polycystosis. Toxicity attributable to the cocaine was not observed in any of the three recipients. All three grafts presented immediate function, and the clinical evolution of all three recipients and the function of all three grafts were excellent during the 5 yr of follow-up. The serum creatinines of the two kidney recipients 5 yr from transplantation were 76 and 72 ,mol/L, respectively. [source]

Acute liver failure induced by green tea extracts: Case report and review of the literature

LIVER TRANSPLANTATION, Issue 12 2006
Michele Molinari
In industrialized countries, over-the-counter dietary supplements have become popular in preventing and treating an expanding list of medical conditions. Although most commercially available supplements have not been rigorously tested for safety and efficacy, they have found an enlarging market because they are considered natural. Oral supplements containing green tea extract have been marketed as effective for weight loss and to prevent and cure some solid tumors. Although there is little scientific evidence of the effectiveness of green tea extracts to improve the quality of health of regular consumers, there is an increasing body of medical literature supporting the hypothesis that they can cause serious side effects. Our experience adds to previous reports of acute liver toxicity observed in individuals consuming supplements containing green tea extract. We highlight the importance of obtaining a detailed history of dietary supplement consumption when evaluating a patient presenting with acute liver dysfunction. Liver Transpl 12:1892,1895, 2006. © 2006 AASLD. [source]

Fast foods, energy density and obesity: a possible mechanistic link

OBESITY REVIEWS, Issue 4 2003
A. M. Prentice
Summary Fast foods are frequently linked to the epidemic of obesity, but there has been very little scientific appraisal of a possible causal role. Here we review a series of studies demonstrating that the energy density of foods is a key determinant of energy intake. These studies show that humans have a weak innate ability to recognise foods with a high energy density and to appropriately down-regulate the bulk of food eaten in order to maintain energy balance. This induces so called ,passive over-consumption'. Composition data from leading fast food company websites are then used to illustrate that most fast foods have an extremely high energy density. At some typical outlets the average energy density of the entire menus is ,1100 kJ 100 g,1. This is 65% higher than the average British diet (,670 kJ 100 g,1) and more than twice the energy density of recommended healthy diets (,525 kJ 100 g,1). It is 145% higher than traditional African diets (,450 kJ 100 g,1) that probably represent the levels against which human weight regulatory mechanisms have evolved. We conclude that the high energy densities of many fast foods challenge human appetite control systems with conditions for which they were never designed. Among regular consumers they are likely to result in the accidental consumption of excess energy and hence to promote weight gain and obesity. [source]

The Estimation of a Cusp Model to Describe the Adoption of Word for Windows,

THE JOURNAL OF PRODUCT INNOVATION MANAGEMENT, Issue 1 2004
Rense Lange
This article revisits earlier work in this journal by Paul Herbig (1991) that proposed a catastrophe model of industrial product adoption under certain conditions. Catastrophe models are useful for modeling situations where organizations can exhibit both smooth and abrupt adoption behavior. It extends Herbig's work by focusing on organizations' adoption of new products when network externalities are an important part of the decision process, and it presents an empirical estimation of the model. Network externalities occur when firms do not want to adopt a new innovation or product unless other firms do. The reason is that they do not want to end up with an innovation that ends up not being a standard of some sort. Mistakes of this nature can be costly as the firm must invest twice and loses time relative to competitors who have not made such a mistake. However, when such externalities exist, for example with regard to technological adoptions, then normal diffusion gives way to sudden discontinuous shifts as all firms seemingly act together an move to a new technology. Since, technology is an area where the authors expect network externalities to exist, that is the focus of this article. The specific application is developed from two sets of panel data on the organizational adoptions of Microsoft's (MS) Word for Windows software by organizations that previously were using either Word for DOS or Word for Macintosh (Mac). The theoretical framework for the analysis is based on work in the economics literature on network externalities. However, the organization and new product development catastrophe model comes primarily from Herbig (1991). The article focuses on an area of organizational adoption where relatively little empirical research has been done, namely organizational adoption "for use." Longitudinal data provided by Techtel Corporation is used to develop the estimations. Results of the empirical analysis are consistent with the theoretical framework suggested in Herbig's article and in those found in economics and catastrophe theory literatures. This lends clear support to the idea that organizations will adopt a bandwagon-type behavior when network externalities are present. It further suggests that in such markets, the standard S-shaped diffusion curve is not an appropriate model for examining organizational behavior. From a managerial perspective, it means that buyers and sellers may face nonstandard diffusion curves. Instead of S-shaped curves, the actual curves have a break or rift where sales end, and there is a sudden shift to a new product that is relatively high very early on. Clearly, for new product development (NPD), it suggest that organizations' "for-use" purchases may be similar to regular consumers and may change rapidly from one product to another almost instantly, as in the case of the switch from vinyl records to compact discs (CDs). From an old product seller's viewpoint, the market is here today and gone tomorrow, while for the new seller it is a sudden deluge of sales requests. To put it in more everyday terms, sudden changes in adoption behavior are a September 11-type experience for the market. It is the day the world changes. [source]