Health characteristics of adults 55 years of age and over, United States, 2000-2003

"OBJECTIVE: This report highlights the health characteristics of four age groups of older adults-55-64 years, 65-74 years, 75-84 years, and 85 years and over-providing estimates by sex, race and Hispanic origin, poverty status, health insurance status, and marital status. METHODS: The estimates in this report were derived from the 2000-2003--National Health Interview Surveys' Family and Sample Adult questionnaires. Estimates are based on interviews with 39,990 sample adults aged 55 years and over. RESULTS: Overall, prevalence rates for fair or poor health, chronic health conditions (with the exception of diabetes), sensory impairments, and difficulties with physical and social activities increased with advancing age, doubling or even tripling between the age groups 55-64 and 85 years and over. About one in five adults aged 55-64 years were in fair or poor health, rising to about one-third of adults aged 85 years and over. Men and women were about equally likely to be in fair or poor health across the age groups studied, but women were more likely to have difficulty in physical or social activities. Sociodemographic variations in health were noted across the age groups studied, with the most consistent and striking results found for poverty status and health insurance coverage. Poor and near poor adults and those with public health insurance were, by far, the most disadvantaged groups of older adults in terms of health status, health care utilization, and health behaviors. CONCLUSIONS: Health status, health care utilization, and health-promoting behaviors among adults aged 55 and over vary considerably by age and other sociodemographic characteristics. Identifying these variations can help government and private agencies pinpoint areas of greatest need and greatest opportunity for extending years of healthy life among the Nation's seniors."by Charlotte A. Schoenborn, Jackline L. Vickerie, and Eve Powell-Griner.Caption title."April 11, 2006."Also available via the World Wide Web

Rhizobacteria Impact Colonization of Listeria monocytogenes on Arabidopsis thaliana Roots

In spite of its relevance as a foodborne pathogen, we have limited knowledge about Listeria monocytogenes in the environment. L. monocytogenes outbreaks have been linked to fruits and vegetables; thus, a better understanding of the factors influencing its ability to colonize plants is important. We tested how environmental factors and other soil- and plant-associated bacteria influenced L. monocytogenes\u27 ability to colonize plant roots using Arabidopsis thaliana seedlings in a hydroponic growth system. We determined that the successful root colonization of L. monocytogenes 10403S was modestly but significantly enhanced by the bacterium being pregrown at higher temperatures, and this effect was independent of the biofilm and virulence regulator PrfA. We tested 14 rhizosphere-derived bacteria for their impact on L. monocytogenes 10403S, identifying one that enhanced and 10 that inhibited the association of 10403S with plant roots. We also characterized the outcomes of these interactions under both coinoculation and invasion conditions. We characterized the physical requirements of five of these rhizobacteria to impact the association of L. monocytogenes 10403S with roots, visualizing one of these interactions by microscopy. Furthermore, we determined that two rhizobacteria (one an inhibitor, the other an enhancer of 10403S root association) were able to similarly impact 10 different L. monocytogenes strains, indicating that the effects of these rhizobacteria on L. monocytogenes are not strain specific. Taken together, our results advance our understanding of the parameters that affect L. monocytogenes plant root colonization, knowledge that may enable us to deter its association with and, thus, downstream contamination of, food crops. IMPORTANCE Listeria monocytogenes is ubiquitous in the environment, being found in or on soil, water, plants, and wildlife. However, little is known about the requirements for L. monocytogenes\u27 existence in these settings. Recent L. monocytogenes outbreaks have been associated with contaminated produce; thus, we used a plant colonization model to investigate factors that alter L. monocytogenes\u27 ability to colonize plant roots. We show that L. monocytogenes colonization of roots was enhanced when grown at higher temperatures prior to inoculation but did not require a known regulator of virulence and biofilm formation. Additionally, we identified several rhizobacteria that altered the ability of 11 different strains of L. monocytogenes to colonize plant roots. Understanding the factors that impact L. monocytogenes physiology and growth will be crucial for finding mechanisms (whether chemical or microbial) that enable its removal from plant surfaces to reduce L. monocytogenes contamination of produce and eliminate foodborne illness

Summary health statistics for the U.S. population: National Health Interview Survey, 2000

Authors, Charlotte A. Schoenborn, Patricia F. Adams, and Jeannine S. Schiller, Division of Health Interview Statistics."November 2003."Also available via the World Wide Web.Includes bibliographical references (p. 7)

Robustness of "cut and splice" genetic algorithms in the structural optimization of atomic clusters

We return to the geometry optimization problem of Lennard-Jones clusters to analyze the performance dependence of "cut and splice" genetic algorithms (GAs) on the employed population size. We generally find that admixing twinning mutation moves leads to an improved robustness of the algorithm efficiency with respect to this a priori unknown technical parameter. The resulting very stable performance of the corresponding mutation+mating GA implementation over a wide range of population sizes is an important feature when addressing unknown systems with computationally involved first-principles based GA sampling.Comment: 5 pages including 3 figures; related publications can be found at http://www.fhi-berlin.mpg.de/th/th.htm

Older adult preferences regarding benefits and harms of statin and aspirin therapy for cardiovascular primary prevention

OBJECTIVE Personalizing preventive therapies for atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease (ASCVD) is particularly important for older adults, as they tend to have multiple chronic conditions, increased risk for medication adverse effects, and may have heterogenous preferences when weighing health outcomes. However, little is known about outcome preferences related to ASCVD preventive therapies in older adults. METHODS In May 2021, using an established online panel, KnowledgePanel, we surveyed older US adults aged 65-84 years without history of ASCVD on outcome preferences related to statin therapy (benefit outcomes to be reduced by the therapy: heart attack, stroke; adverse effects: diabetes, abnormal liver test, muscle pain) or aspirin therapy (benefit outcomes: heart attack, stroke; adverse effects: brain bleed, bowel bleed, stomach ulcer). We used standardized best-worst scores (range of -1 for "least worrisome" to +1 for "most worrisome") and conditional logistic regression to examine the relative importance of the outcomes. RESULTS In this study, 607 ASCVD-free participants (median age 74, 46% male, 81% White) were included; 304 and 303 completed the statin and aspirin versions of the survey, respectively. For statin-related outcomes, stroke and heart attack were most worrisome (score 0.55; 95% CI 0.51, 0.60) and (0.53; 0.48, 0.58), followed by potential harms of diabetes (-0.07; -0.10, -0.03), abnormal liver test (-0.25; -0.29, -0.20), and muscle pain (-0.77; -0.82, -0.73). For aspirin-related outcomes, stroke and heart attack were similarly most worrisome (0.48; 0.43, 0.52) and (0.43; 0.38, 0.48), followed by brain bleed (0.30; 0.25, 0.34), bowel bleed (-0.31; -0.33, -0.28), and stomach ulcer (-0.90; -0.92, -0.87). Conditional logistic regression and subgroup analyses by age, sex, and race yielded similar results. CONCLUSIONS Older adults generally consider outcomes related to benefits of ASCVD primary preventive therapies-stroke and heart attack-more important than their adverse effects. Integrating patient preferences with risk assessment is an important next step for personalizing ASCVD preventive therapies for older adults

The Saffman-Taylor problem on a sphere

The Saffman-Taylor problem addresses the morphological instability of an interface separating two immiscible, viscous fluids when they move in a narrow gap between two flat parallel plates (Hele-Shaw cell). In this work, we extend the classic Saffman-Taylor situation, by considering the flow between two curved, closely spaced, concentric spheres (spherical Hele-Shaw cell). We derive the mode-coupling differential equation for the interface perturbation amplitudes and study both linear and nonlinear flow regimes. The effect of the spherical cell (positive) spatial curvature on the shape of the interfacial patterns is investigated. We show that stability properties of the fluid-fluid interface are sensitive to the curvature of the surface. In particular, it is found that positive spatial curvature inhibits finger tip-splitting. Hele-Shaw flow on weakly negative, curved surfaces is briefly discussed.Comment: 26 pages, 4 figures, RevTex, accepted for publication in Phys. Rev.

Relationship between psychological and biological factors and physical activity and exercise behaviour in Filipino students

The aim of the present study was threefold. Firstly, it investigated whether a general measure or specific measure of motivational orientation was better in describing the relationship between motivation and exercise behaviour. Secondly, it examined the relationship between the four most popular indirect methods of body composition assessment and physical activity and exercise patterns. Thirdly, the interaction between motivation and body composition on physical activity and exercise behaviour was explored in a sample of 275 Filipino male and female students. Males were found to have higher levels of exercise whereas females had higher levels of physical activity. Furthermore, general self-motivation together with body weight and percentage body fat were found to be the best predictor of exercise behaviour whereas the tension/pressure subscale of the ‘Intrinsic Motivation Inventory’ (IMI) was the best predictor of levels of physical activity. However, significant gender differences were observed. That is, for the males only self-motivation and for the females only body weight and BMI predicted exercise behaviour. Also, tension/pressure predicted physical activity levels for the females but not the males. No inverse relationship was found between the four body composition measures and exercise and physical activity behaviour. The results support the notion that the psychobiological approach might be particularly relevant for high intensity exercise situations but also highlights some important gender differences. Finally, the results of this study emphasise the need for more cross-cultural research