DOES IT WORK? -a randomized controlled trial to test the efficacy of HCV and HIV-related education on drug users in MMT, China.

BACKGROUND: HCV (Hepatitis C virus) is a prevalent chronic disease with potentially deadly consequences, especially for drug users. However, there are no special HCV or HIV (human immunodeficiency virus)-related intervention programs that are tailored for drug users in China; to fill this gap, the purpose of this study was to explore HCV and HIV-related knowledge among drug users in MMT (methadone maintenance treatment) sites of China and to investigate the effectiveness of HCV and HIV-related education for improving the knowledge of IDUs (injection drug users) and their awareness of infection. METHODS: The study was a randomized cluster controlled trial that compared a usual care group to a usual care plus HCV/HIV-REP (HCV/HIV-Reduction Education Program) group with a 24-week follow-up. The self-designed questionnaires, the HCV- and HIV-related knowledge questionnaire and the HIV/HCV infection awareness questionnaire, were used to collect the data. Four MMT clinics were selected for this project; two MMT clinics were randomly assigned to the research group, with subjects receiving their usual care plus HCV/HIV-REP, and the remaining two MMT clinics were the control group, with subjects receiving their usual care over 12 weeks. Sixty patients were recruited from each MMT clinic. A total of 240 patients were recruited. Follow-up studies were conducted at the end of the 12th week and the 24th week after the intervention. RESULTS: At baseline, the mean score (out of 20 possible correct answers) for HCV knowledge among the patients in the group receiving the intervention was 6.51 (SD = 3.5), and it was 20.57 (SD = 6.54) for HIV knowledge (out of 45 correct answers) and 8.35 (SD = 2.8) for HIV/HCV infection awareness (out of 20 correct answers). At the 12-week and 24-week follow-up assessments, the research group showed a greater increase in HCV-/HIV-related knowledge (group × time effect, F = 37.444/11.281, P < 0.05) but no difference in their HIV/HCV infection awareness (group × time effect, F = 2.056, P > 0.05). CONCLUSION: An MMT-based HCV/HIV intervention program could be used to improve patient knowledge of HCV and HIV prevention, but more effort should be devoted to HIV/HCV infection awareness. TRIAL REGISTRATION: Protocols for this study were approved by institution review board (IRB) of Shanghai Mental Health Center (IRB:2009036), and registered in U.S national institutes of health (http://www.clinicaltrials.gov, NCT01647191 ). Registered 23 July 2012.

The GWAS Risk Genes for Depression May Be Actively Involved in Alzheimer's Disease.

Depression is one of the most frequent psychiatric symptoms observed in people during the development of Alzheimer's disease (AD). We hypothesized that genetic factors conferring risk of depression might affect AD development. In this study, we screened 31 genes, which were located in 19 risk loci for major depressive disorder (MDD) identified by two recent large genome-wide association studies (GWAS), in AD patients at the genomic and transcriptomic levels. Association analysis of common variants was performed by using summary statistics of the International Genomics of Alzheimer's Project (IGAP), and association analysis of rare variants was conducted by sequencing the entire coding region of the 31 MDD risk genes in 107 Han Chinese patients with early-onset and/or familial AD. We also quantified the mRNA expression alterations of these MDD risk genes in brain tissues of AD patients and AD mouse models, followed by protein-protein interaction network prediction to show their potential effects in AD pathways. We found that common and rare variants of L3MBTL2 were significantly associated with AD. mRNA expression levels of 18 MDD risk genes, in particular SORCS3 and OAT, were differentially expressed in AD brain tissues. 13 MDD risk genes were predicted to physically interact with core AD genes. The involvement of HACE1, NEGR1, and SLC6A15 in AD was supported by convergent lines of evidence. Taken together, our results showed that MDD risk genes might play an active role in AD pathology and supported the notion that depression might be the "common cold" of psychiatry.