Integral Quality Of Life Research Articles

Clinical Benefit and Improvement of Mitochondrial Function in Low Risk Myelodysplastic Syndrome Treated By Combination Ultra Coenzyme Q10 and L-Carnitine

Background: Structural mitochondrial abnormalities as well as alterations in gene expression of key mitochondrial proteins are well recognized in myelodysplastic syndrome (MDS), suggesting that mitochondrial dysfunction is important in the pathogenesis of this disease. Both Coenzyme Q10 and L- carnitine play an essential role in efficient cellular energy production. Clinical and cytogenetic response to high dose of Coenzyme Q10 in patients with MDS was demonstrated previously. The combination of L- carnitine and Coenzyme Q10 has shown a beneficial effect in other mitochondrial disorders. Aim: To assess the effect of combination of food supplements on the clinical course and mitochondrial function of peripheral blood cells obtained from patients with in low/intermediate- 1 risk MDS.Materials and Methods: Ultra-coenzyme Q10 (180 mg/day), L-carnitine (2000 mg/day) and a vitamin mineral complex were administered for 6 months; patients were allowed to continue treatment for an additional 6 months, if it was beneficial. Inclusion criteria were Hb<10.5g/dL or PLT<100x109/L or ANC<0.8X109/L. As of May 2017, 33 pts. have been enrolled in the study. Peripheral blood cells were assessed by the Seahorse XF analyzer which is a state- of- the- art tool for assessment of real time cellular respiration, by continuous measurement of Oxygen Consumption Rate (OCR) under different conditions in-vitro . Mitochondrial function assessment was performed at baseline and at six-month point. Results: The median age of the entire cohort was 75 years (range: 56-93), 20(61%) of pts. were male. Pts. were classified per IPSS-R: very low risk 7 (21%), low risk 21(64%),int. 5 (15%). Median Hb was 9.5 g/dL (6.4-12.2); 17 (52%) were transfusions dependent and 16(48%) failed treatment with erythropoietin stimulating agents (ESA). 28 patients completed treatment protocol. Six pts. (21.4%) showed a hematological Improvement according to IWG 2006 criteria (out of which 4 were transfusions dependent). Median time to the initial response was 9 weeks (5-24). At 3 months' time point 14 of 18 patients had an increased in their integral Quality of life (QOL) score per FACT questionnaire; mean improvement was 14.3 points per patient (p=0.011). The pre-treatment mitochondrial basal respiration and especially spare respiratory capacity tested on cells of 11 MDS cases were uniformly lower in comparison with healthy controls (p=0.04 and p=0.007,respectively). There was significant improvement of basal, as well as spare respiration in peripheral blood cells obtained from MDS patients after six months food supplements (p=0.0027 and p=0.02, respectively). Conclusions: We demonstrated for the first time that mitochondrial energy production in peripheral blood is impaired in patients with MDS. Furthermore, we showed that this is at least partially reversible with food supplementations known to augment mitochondrial function. Combination of Ultra coenzyme Q10 with L-carnitine and vitamin mineral complex leads to moderate clinical response in low/intermediate-1 risk MDS patients and improve QOL DisclosuresNo relevant conflicts of interest to declare.

DEEP ECOLOGY: THE AWAKENING PROCESS TO A COMPLEX ENVIRONMENTAL EDUCATION

Facing the contemporary environmental crisis, the environmental education emerges as a tool for coping and minimizing the impacts of human civilization on natural resources. So, in most of the works, what is observed is the predominance of environmental thinking, often devoid of ecosystem vision. The speech is limited to the need of preserving resources related to a distorted and uncritical development. Little attention is given to the dimensions of sustainability, the environment being treated as a part of the individual, mere outer portion of the human body. This perspective demonstrates the fragility of this speech to an effective awareness by revealing the disorder of the actions that occur within a deterministic ecological process, with little attention to the educational sphere, related to cognitive, ethical and cultural factors. Within these aspects, Complex Environmental Education suggests self-knowledge, awareness and environmental action in pursuit of the development that considers the integral quality of life, rather than the economic variable. In this sense, the deep ecology booster acts as an agent in the process of awakening to environmental education that is self-sustainability and so complex, because it helps the human perception on the integrative and dependent view of all beings, unifying them for the life.

Methodology for an organisational development process: An integral and sustainable qualitative transformation of complex inter-institutional networks, working on social and environmental problem situations

An organisational development methodology (ODM) of transformation is being designed to carry out radical changes in a small number of complex networks of organisations or organisational ecosystems. They are collaborating on a regional systemic change towards a sustainable and integral quality of life. The complex organisational networks have a combination of private, public and social institutions. The public and private organisations have a traditional vertical form of organisation, in contrast with some of the social organisations that have a flat form of structure, such as NGO environmental networks. We are working on three organisational networks, one has a local aim, another a national scope and the third one a continental dimension. At the end of this article, we show as a case study the first one of these organisational networks. The ODM has different stages of transformation, devised as evolutionary Life Cycles (Peon 1996): These stages of the ODM are conceived as an action-research systemic process of planned change, aimed to improve the efficiency of the organisational model under the conceptual guidelines of the Ecosystemic Metaphor. The strategic intervention has technical, economic, social, cultural, political and environmental dimensions. In each stage of the long-term intervention process, there is a careful selection of the most relevant issues. This is a simplistic description of a complex nonlinear process of change.