This study provides evidence that dairy limits weight gain to a similar extent as exercise training and the combined effects are greater than either intervention alone. While exercise training reduces weight gain through increases in energy expenditure, dairy appears to increase lipid excretion in the feces.

Cardiolipin (CL) is a unique mitochondrial phospholipid that, in skeletal muscle, is enriched with linoleic acid (18:2n6). Together, CL content and CL 18:2n6 composition are critical determinants of mitochondrial function. Skeletal muscle is comprised of slow and fast fibers that have high and low mitochondrial content, respectively. In response to overloading and unloading stimuli, these muscles undergo a fast-to-slow oxidative fiber type shift and a slow-to-fast glycolytic fiber type shift, respectively, with a concomitant change in mitochondrial content. Here, we examined changes in CL content and CL 18:2n6 composition under these conditions along with tafazzin (Taz) protein, which is a transacylase enzyme that generates CL lipids enriched with 18:2n6. Our results show that CL content, CL 18:2n6 composition, and Taz protein content increased with an overload stimulus in plantaris. Conversely, CL content and CL 18:2n6 composition was reduced with an unloaded stimulus in soleus. Interestingly, Taz protein was increased in the unloaded soleus, suggesting that Taz may provide some form of compensation for decreased CL content and CL 18:2n6 composition. Together, this study highlights the dynamic nature of CL and Taz in skeletal muscle, and future studies will examine the physiological significance behind the changes in CL content, CL 18:2n6 and Taz.

Over the past two decades, opioid-related hospitalizations and deaths in North America have reached the level of a public health emergency. Initially, the epidemic of opioid misuse was largely driven by pharmaceutical companies and initiated by their spread of misinformation, which led physicians to engage in overzealous prescribing behaviour. This was followed by significant harms as deaths related to overdoses on prescription and illicit opioids rose steadily throughout the 1990s and early 2000s. This review examines the historical context of the opioid crisis in the United States and Canada, the role of physicians, the contributions of the pharmaceutical industry and the evolution of the epidemic in response to the introduction of highly potent synthetic opioids now recognized as the main culprits in opioid overdose and death. This article further explores the evidence surrounding the effectiveness of various treatment strategies and harmreduction interventions designed to curtail the morbidity and mortality associated with opioid use. Finally, the magnitude of the opioid epidemic in North America is compared to that in European countries. This paper describes the differences in North American and European experiences with opioid overdose and the evidence-based approaches that can be implemented to reduce the mortality and morbidity linked to opioids while simultaneously ensuring adequate pain control for patients.

In order to give some context into how the opioid epidemic arose, it is imperative to examine patterns beginning in the 1980s. At that time, pharmaceutical companies marketed the use of opioids to treat pain and assured clinicians that the addiction profile of these analgesic agents was low [6]. Within a few years, the same companies promoted these drugs for use in long-term non-cancer pain, despite the lack of good evidence to ensure efficacy in the treatment of chronic pain in this population [7]. This misrepresentation on the part of the pharmaceutical companies sparked the first of three major waves of increased opioid prescribing. The number of opioid prescriptions increased among primary care clinics and hospitals [2], and with that an increased amount of opioids available for diversion-unlawful channeling of regulated pharmaceuticals from legal sources to the illicit marketplace [8]-took place [2]. Pharmaceutical companies responded to the public outcry by developing a sustained-release opioid formulation know as oxycodone (branded as Oxy-Contin). This new formulation required fewer administrations daily, compared to taking pain medications every 2-4 hours as previously [9]. The Food and Drug Administration concluded that the sus