BACKGROUND: Maternal caffeine consumption during pregnancy may have adverse effects on fetal, neonatal and maternal outcomes.
OBJECTIVES: This review investigates the effects of restricting caffeine intake by mothers on fetal, neonatal and pregnancy outcomes.
SEARCH STRATEGY: We searched the Cochrane Pregnancy and Childbirth Group's Trials Register (December 2008), scanned bibliographies of published studies and corresponded with investigators.
SELECTION CRITERIA: Randomised controlled trials including quasi-randomised controlled trials (RCTs) investigating the effect of caffeine and/or supplementary caffeine versus restricted caffeine intake or placebo on pregnancy outcome.
DATA COLLECTION AND ANALYSIS: The two review authors independently assessed trial quality and extracted data.
MAIN RESULTS: One study met the inclusion criteria. Caffeinated instant coffee (568 women) was compared with decaffeinated instant coffee (629 women) and it was found that reducing the caffeine intake of regular coffee drinkers (3+ cups/day) during the second and third trimester by an average of 182 mg/day did not affect birthweight or length of gestation.
AUTHORS' CONCLUSIONS: There is insufficient evidence to confirm or refute the effectiveness of caffeine avoidance on birthweight or other pregnancy outcomes. There is a need to conduct high-quality, double-blinded RCTs to determine whether caffeine has any effect on pregnancy outcome.
Specific antibody to Pseudomonas pseudomallei exotoxin was detected in sheep sera exposed to natural infection. An enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) was used. Serum antitoxin was present in 49.3% of sera obtained from a flock of sheep naturally exposed to P. pseudomallei infection. Among these sera, 17.0% gave titers of 10,000. In contrast, serum antitoxin was present in only 6.0% of sera collected from sheep kept on a melioidosis-free farm. The ELISA reactivity of all positive sera could be completely absorbed with purified P. pseudomallei exotoxin. Similarly, preincubation of the exotoxin-coated wells with specific antiserum inhibited the ELISA reactivity of sheep sera. The results indicate that exotoxin is produced in vivo during infection by P. pseudomallei.
The majority of global incidences of oral cancer occur in Asia, and the aetiology of oral cancer is different in Asia as it is in the West. However, whereas there is a growing understanding of the molecular mechanisms of oral cancer progression in the West, there is little progress in this understanding in Asia. In particular, the role of the p53 pathway in modulating cancer progression in Asian oral cancer remains unclear. In this study, we micro-dissected and analysed 20 well-differentiated oral squamous cell carcinoma specimens for alterations in the p53 pathway. We found that 6/20 samples contained mutations in the p53 gene which occurred in three hotspots, at codon 203, 218 and 296. Furthermore, 6/20 samples had a homozygous deletion of p14ARF, but notably p14ARF deletion and p53 mutation events were often independent and mutually exclusive. Strikingly, MDM2 was upregulated in 20/20 samples, but not in 3/3 normal tissue specimens. Taken together, these data suggest that inactivation of the p53 pathway is a frequent event in oral squamous cell carcinoma, which occurs by an aberration in one of a number of players in the p53 pathway.