Dietary Interventions to Prevent Childhood Obesity: A Literature Review

Several dietary interventions have been conducted to prevent/reduce childhood obesity, but most of them are known to have failed in tackling the obesity epidemic. This study aimed to review the existing literature on dietary interventions for the prevention of childhood obesity and their effectiveness. A literature search was conducted using PubMed Central®. Only articles published between 2009 and 2021, written in English, conducted in humans, and including children and/or adolescents (<18 years old) were considered. The majority of studies were school-based interventions, with some addressing the whole community, and including some interventions in the food sector (e.g., taxation of high fat/sugar foods, front-of-pack labelling) and through mass media (e.g., restrictions on food advertising for children) that directly or indirectly could help to manage childhood obesity. Most of the programs/interventions conducted focus mainly on person-based educational approaches, such as nutrition/diet education sessions, allied to the promotion of physical activity and lifestyles to students, parents, and school staff, and less on environmental changes to offer healthier food choices. Only a few trials have focused on capacity building and macro-policy changes, such as the adaptation of the built environment of the school, serving smaller portion sizes, and increasing the availability and accessibility of healthy foods and water in schools, and restricting the access to vending machines, for example. Overall, most of the intervention studies showed no consistent effects on changing the body mass index of children; they have only reported small weight reductions, clinically irrelevant, or no effects at all. Little is known about the sustainability of interventions over time.The authors acknowledge FEDER from the Operational Programme Factors of Competitiveness—COMPETE and national funding from the Foundation for Science and Technology—FCT (Portuguese Ministry of Education and Science) under the projects “Appetite regulation and obesity in childhood: a comprehensive approach towards understanding genetic and behavioral influences” (POCI-01-0145-FEDER-030334; PTDC/SAUEPI/30334/2017) and “Appetite and adiposity—evidence for gene-environment interplay in children” (IF/01350/2015), and the Investigator Contract (IF/01350/2015—Andreia Oliveira)

Tratamento conservador do carcinoma do pênis - estudo retrospectivo de 10 anos

Conservative treatment of penile squamous cell carcinoma has been advocated as a method of choice for tumours at early stages. Thirty patients with a mean age of 63.2 years were treated with CO2 laser ablation, radical local excision with preputial flap, direct closure or healing by secondary intention, circumcision alone or associated with CO2 laser and topical imiquimod. Sixteen patients had local recurrence. Partial penectomy was necessary in 3 patients. Conservative treatments of penile squamous cell carcinoma in early stages (< T1a) do not seem to compromise the survival rate, so it may be advisable for this subset of patients

The impact of breast cancer treatments on sleep quality 1 year after cancer diagnosis

Purpose: The increasing number of women living longer with potential side effects of breast cancer treatment highlights the need of a comprehensive assessment of its burden. Therefore, we aimed to quantify the relation between different breast cancer treatments and sleep quality 1 year after diagnosis. Methods: A cohort of 502 newly diagnosed breast cancer patients was prospectively followed. Sleep quality was evaluated with the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI), at baseline and at the 1-year follow-up. Odds ratios (OR) were computed to quantify the association between patient characteristics and poor sleep quality (PSQI score >5) at baseline, and relative risks (RR) were computed for the association between treatments and the occurrence of poor sleep quality at 1 year. Results A total of 60.2% of the patients had poor sleep quality before breast cancer treatments, especially those with anxiety [OR = 2.86, 95% confidence interval (95%CI) 1.92 to 4.27] or depression (OR = 5.25, 95%CI 2.01 to 13.67). Radiotherapy increased the risk of poor sleep quality at 1 year (RR = 3.71, 95%CI 1.15 to 11.96, for a cumulative dose >50 Gy) and there was a tendency for a higher risk in those submitted to chemotherapy, although not statistically significant. Conclusions Our study shows that sleep disturbances are frequent before cancer treatment and confirms their co-occurrence with other medical conditions, such as anxiety and depression. Different breast cancer treatments increase the risk of impaired sleep quality, therefore contributing to the global disability associated with cancer treatments.FF and ARC have received co-funded by the BFundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia^ and the POPH/FSE Program (grant numbers SFRH/BD/92630/2013 and SFRH/BD/102181/2014, respectively). Data management activities were supported by the Chair on Pain Medicine of the Faculty of Medicine, University of Porto and by the Grünenthal Foundation – Portugal

Cumulative Effect of Cardiovascular Risk Factors on Regulation of AMPK/SIRT1-PGC-1 alpha-SIRT3 Pathway in the Human Erectile Tissue

Cardiovascular disease risk factors (CVDRF), especially diabetes mellitus (DM), disrupt oxidative stress response. This condition underlies endothelial dysfunction, early manifested in men as erectile dysfunction. The current study is aimed at elucidating the impact of CVDRF in the oxidation responsive AMPK/SIRT1-PGC-1 alpha-SIRT3 pathway and related miRNAs in the human corpus cavernosum. Human penile tissue fragments from individuals submitted to programmed urological surgeries (n=27), aged 43-63 years, were clustered depending on the presence of CVDRF; the control group included samples from patients without CVDRF, and groups A and B included samples from patients with DM and additional CVDRF, totalizing = 3 CVDRF (group B). Dual-immunolabelling of SIRT3, SOD2, or GPX1 with alpha-actin in tissue sections was carried out. The assessment of expression levels of NOX1, phospho-AMPK alpha, total AMPK alpha, SIRT1, PGC-1 alpha, SIRT3, SOD2, and GPX1 was performed by western blotting and of miR-200a, miR-34a, miR-421, and miR-206 by real-time PCR. Phospho-AMPK alpha and SIRT3 expression was found significantly increased in group B relative to other groups, suggesting a marked influence of CVDRF, additional to DM, in the regulation of these enzymes. NOX1 was also increased in group B relative to controls. Only an increasing tendency was observed in the phospho-AMPK alpha/total AMPK alpha ratio, SIRT1, and PGC-1 alpha expression in groups A and B when compared with controls. Concerning antioxidant enzymes, GPX1 expression was found incremented in group A, but SOD2 expression was decreased in groups A and B, comparative with controls. Group B presented significantly diminished levels of miR-421 and miR-200a, but only a decreasing trend on miR-34 and miR-206 expression was observed. Taken together, our findings demonstrated that besides DM, additional CVDRF presented a cumulative effect in the cellular response to oxidative unbalance, contributing to AMPK/SIRT1-PGC-1 alpha-SIRT3 pathway activation. SOD2, a major mitochondrial antioxidant defence, did not follow the same variation

A ansiedade, medo e stress nos Profissionais de Saude Oral durante o primeiro ano de pandemia por Covid-19

Objetivos: Caracterizar o impacto da atual pandemia de COVID-19 na ansiedade, medo e stress nos profissionais de saude oral. Metodos: Utilizou-se um questionario autoaplicado online que foi enviado, via email, para tres associacoes na area da Medicina Dentaria. As variaveis categoricas foram descritas atraves de frequencias absolutas e relativas. As variaveis continuas foram descritas utilizando a media e o desvio-padrao. Utilizou-se um modelo de regressao linear multipla para selecio-nar preditores da ansiedade avaliados no questionario. Resultados: Obteve-se uma taxa de participacao de 21,1%. A maioria dos participantes era do sexo feminino (67,2%). Atraves da escala GAD-7 apuramos que 18,3% dos profissionais apresentaram uma perturbacao de ansiedade moderada e grave. A maioria dos participan-tes (86,7%) referiu ter medo de infetar os familiares e amigos. Verificamos que ser do sexo feminino, o medo de infetar a familia e amigos, a possibilidade de a pandemia afetar nega-tivamente a profissao, a perda de rendimentos e as novas condicoes de trabalho eram pre-ditores estaticamente significativos para o aumento da ansiedade (p < 0,05). Pelo contrario, a medida que o numero de anos de pratica clinica aumenta, a ansiedade diminui significa-tivamente (p.0,006). Conclusoes: A pandemia de COVID-19 afetou negativamente os profissionais de saude oral. As medidas de prevencao e os protocolos de controlo de infecao devem ser rigorosamente cumpridos, para que haja diminuicao da transmissao do virus e, consequentemente, dimi-nua a ansiedade, o stress e o medo sentidos por estes profissionais. (Rev Port Estomatol Med Dent Cir Maxilofac. 2023;64(2):84-92) & COPY; 2023 Sociedade Portuguesa de Estomatologia e Medicina Dentaria. Publicado por SPEMD. Este e um artigo Open Access sob uma licenca CC BY-NC-ND (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/)

Kaposi’s sarcoma, case report

O Sarcoma de Kaposi (SK) é um distúrbio angioproliferativo descrito como doença benigna de pessoas idosas. Divide- se em 4 tipos: O Clássico, epidémico, endêmico e iatrogénico. Os autores descrevem o caso de um homem caucasiano de 50 anos, português, que iniciou a sintomatologia 6 anos antes do internamento com lesões urticariformes na perna direita e perda ponderal de 10 kg em 6 meses. Por agravamento das lesões e aparecimento de púrpura nos membros inferiores recorreu ao hospital. O exame objetivo era normal à exceção de púrpuras dispersas com relevo, descamativas e violáceas na região plantar e restante membros inferiores, membros superiores e tronco. As serologias para o HIV 1 e 2 foram negativas a serologia viral para o Herpes virus humano 8 IGG foi positivo, PCR H8 positivo, a biópsia das lesões com histologia foi compatível com Sarcoma de Kaposi. Iniciou o 1º ciclo de Doxorrubicina lipossómica peguilhada e manteve seguimento em Hospital dia de Oncologia.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Exclusive Breastfeeding After 40 Years of Age – Where Are We Going?

info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

L\'evy flights of photons in hot atomic vapours

Properties of random and fluctuating systems are often studied through the use of Gaussian distributions. However, in a number of situations, rare events have drastic consequences, which can not be explained by Gaussian statistics. Considerable efforts have thus been devoted to the study of non Gaussian fluctuations such as L\'evy statistics, generalizing the standard description of random walks. Unfortunately only macroscopic signatures, obtained by averaging over many random steps, are usually observed in physical systems. We present experimental results investigating the elementary process of anomalous diffusion of photons in hot atomic vapours. We measure the step size distribution of the random walk and show that it follows a power law characteristic of L\'evy flights.Comment: This final version is identical to the one published in Nature Physic

An Unexpected Association in a Patient with Heart Failure Presenting a Surgical Challenge

Bicuspid aortic valve (BAV) is the most common form of congenital heart disease and frequently leads to premature valvular dysfunction. BAV is associated with aortic wall abnormalities and a high prevalence of ascending aorta dilatation and coarctation of the aorta (CoA). Consequently, in patients with BAV a careful assessment of the valve, and also of the aortic root and the ascending aorta, should be performed. The most feared complication is aortic dissection, however, the actual incidence of this complication is low. We report the case of a 58-year-old man who presented with New York Heart Association class III heart failure. The work-up revealed BAV with severe stenosis and severe compromise of left ventricle systolic function. In addition, CoA in the isthmus region, and type B dissection of the aorta were diagnosed.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio