Metformin and the gastrointestinal tract

Metformin is an effective agent with a good safety profile that is widely used as a first-line treatment for type 2 diabetes, yet its mechanisms of action and variability in terms of efficacy and side effects remain poorly understood. Although the liver is recognised as a major site of metformin pharmacodynamics, recent evidence also implicates the gut as an important site of action. Metformin has a number of actions within the gut. It increases intestinal glucose uptake and lactate production, increases GLP-1 concentrations and the bile acid pool within the intestine, and alters the microbiome. A novel delayed-release preparation of metformin has recently been shown to improve glycaemic control to a similar extent to immediate-release metformin, but with less systemic exposure. We believe that metformin response and tolerance is intrinsically linked with the gut. This review examines the passage of metformin through the gut, and how this can affect the efficacy of metformin treatment in the individual, and contribute to the side effects associated with metformin intolerance.

'Compliance or contradiction'? Teaching 'History' in the 'New' Ukraine. A view from Ukraine's Eastern borderlands

Whilst much academic rigour has been devoted to analysing the ‘contents’ of historical textbooks in Ukraine, this article examines the teacher's role in the ‘transfer’ of the state's message to schoolchildren. This article demonstrates that in Ukraine's eastern borderlands teachers are highly active in negotiating the new historical narrative. Teachers are found to subtly change the accent or focus away from the ‘nationalist’ stance towards Russia, as found in the school history textbooks, to a more tolerant stance which aims to promote rather than negate Ukraine's historical interactions with Russia. Thus, this simultaneously reinforces a particular ‘regional’ understanding of historical events.

Hamid Tafazoli und Richard T. Gray (Hg.): Außenraum – Mitraum – Innenraum. Heterotopien in Kultur und Gesellschaft

Review of Hamid Tafazoli und Richard T. Gray (Hg.): Außenraum – Mitraum – Innenraum. Heterotopien in Kultur und Gesellschaft

Institutional multilingualism in NGOs:Amnesty International's strategic understanding of multilingualism

Institutional multilingualism is most often associated with large intergovernmental institutions such as the European Union and the United Nations. Institutional multilingualism in non-governmental organisations (NGOs), however, has remained invisible to a large extent. Like international governmental organisations (IGOs), NGOs operate across linguistic borders. This raises the question whether NGOs use language and translation in the same way as IGOs. The present article takes Amnesty International as a case study, and explores what institutional multilingualism means for this organisation, how it is reflected in its language policy, and how it is put into practice. By gaining insight into the particular case of Amnesty International, this article aims to make a contribution to institutional translation studies.