Psychiatrists and psychotherapists in the US (1970s to 1985 and Switzerland (1988Switzerland ( -1993 used MDMA legally as a prescription drug, to enhance the effectiveness of psychotherapy. Early reports suggest that it is useful in treating trauma-related disorders. Recently, the first completed pilot study of MDMA-assisted psychotherapy for PTSD yielded encouraging results. Designed to test the safety and efficacy of MDMA-assisted psychotherapy in patients with treatment-resistant PTSD; our randomized, double-blind, active-placebo controlled trial enrolled 12 patients for treatment with either low-dose (25 mg, plus 12.5 mg supplemental dose) or full-dose MDMA (125 mg, plus 62.5 mg supplemental dose). MDMA was administered during three experimental sessions, interspersed with weekly non-drug-based psychotherapy sessions. Outcome measures used were the Clinician-Administered PTSD Scale (CAPS) and the Posttraumatic Diagnostic Scale (PDS). Patients were assessed at baseline, three weeks after the second and third MDMA session (end of treatment), and at the 2-month and 1-year follow-ups. We found that MDMA-assisted psychotherapy can be safely administered in a clinical setting. No drug-related serious adverse events occurred. We did not see statistically significant reductions in CAPS scores (p = 0.066), although there was clinically and statistically significant self-reported (PDS) improvement (p = 0.014). CAPS scores improved further at the 1-year follow-up. In addition, three MDMA sessions were more effective than two (p = 0.016).

Objective-To evaluate the outcome of pregnancy in women with congenital shunt lesions. Setting-Retrospective study in a tertiary care centre. Methods-Pregnancy history was obtained by a standardised questionnaire and medical records were reviewed. Patients-175 women were identified, at a mean (SD) age of 42 (14) (Heart 1999;81:271-275)

The importance of statistical patterns of language has been debated over decades. Although Zipf's law is perhaps the most popular case, recently, Menzerath's law has begun to be involved. Menzerath's law manifests in language, music and genomes as a tendency of the mean size of the parts to decrease as the number of parts increases in many situations. This statistical regularity emerges also in the context of genomes, for instance, as a tendency of species with more chromosomes to have a smaller mean chromosome size. It has been argued that the instantiation of this law in genomes is not indicative of any parallel between language and genomes because (a) the law is inevitable and (b) noncoding DNA dominates genomes. Here mathematical, statistical, and conceptual challenges of these criticisms are discussed. Two major conclusions are drawn: the law is not inevitable and languages also have a correlate of noncoding DNA. However, the wide range of manifestations of the law in and outside genomes suggests that the striking similarities between noncoding DNA and certain linguistics units could be anecdotal for understanding the recurrence of that statistical law. © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Complexity, 2012

Introduction: Colorectal cancer (CRC) is the second most common type of cancer in the United States and Europe and a leading cause of cancer death in the Western world. Except for age and inherited syndromes, risk factors are mainly lifestyle-related, including diets high in red meat, lack of physical activity, obesity, or smoking. These factors may also affect clinical outcomes among colorectal cancer patients. One potentially relevant health behavior is use of nutritional supplements. The effects of supplement use after diagnosis, and particularly during chemotherapy are unknown, while their use, particularly in the United States, is high. Objective: To analyze preliminary trends of supplement use over time in CRC patients enrolled at the German study site (Heidelberg) of the international ColoCare Consortium. Methods: The intake of dietary supplements was assessed among 83 patients recruited from 2010-2012 in the ongoing prospective patient cohort study ColoCare. Data on supplement use, including frequency, duration, dose per day, and type, was obtained by questionnaire. At diagnosis we assessed information regarding supplement use two years prior to diagnosis (TP1) and one month prior to diagnosis (TP2); six months later, we assessed use between TP2 and the six month timepoint (TP3) and at six months (TP4). Demographic and clinical data were obtained by questionnaires and clinical chart abstraction. The distributions of supplement users and non-users with respect to demographic, clinical, and lifestyle factors were assessed using frequency tables and Fisher's exact tests. Results: In total 33 different supplements were reported, most commonly vitamin use. A tendency towards increased supplement intake after diagnosis was observed. The intake was highest after diagnosis (TP3: 36.1%) compared to prior to diagnosis (TP1: 26.5%) and at six months (TP4:27.7%). Investigation of potential predictors of supplement use, including demographic (sex, age), clinical (tumor stage), and lifestyle characteristics (smoking, income, education) did not show any difference; when supplement use status was categorized by BMI a significant difference was observed at TP2 (p<0.01). Conclusion: Among German CRC patients, supplement use was highest shortly after diagnosis, and potentially BMI dependent. This increase in supplement use may be important with respect to cancer therapy and potential drug interactions. Continued surveillance through the ColoCare study will investigate the role of supplements in recurrence of disease, and thus support the development of clinical guidelines for supplement use among cancer patients. Citation Format: Petra Schrotz-King, Kira Dölp, Michael Paskow, Katharina Buck, Clare Abbenhardt, Jürgen Staffa, Stephanie Tosic, Verena Widmer, Dominique Scherer, Nina Habermann, Kathy Vickers, Rachel E. Wilbur, Michael Hoffmeister, Jenny Chang-Claude, Hermann Brenner, Cornelia M. Ulrich. Dietary supplement use among German colorectal cancer patients: The ColoCare Study. [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the AACR Special Conference on Post-GWAS Horizons in Molecular Epidemiology: Digging Deeper into the Environment; 2012 Nov 11-14; Hollywood, FL. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Epidemiol Biomarkers Prev 2012;21(11 Suppl):Abstract nr 81.