A good-quality breakfast is associated with better mental health in adolescence

Objective: Breakfast consumption has been associated with better mental health in adulthood, but the relationship between breakfast and mental health in adolescence is less well known. The aims of the present study were to evaluate breakfast quality in a cohort of adolescents and to investigate associations with mental health. Design: Cross-sectional population-based study. Breakfast quality was assessed by intake of core food groups at breakfast, as determined from 3 d food diaries. Mental health was assessed using the Child Behaviour Checklist (CBCL), with higher scores representing poorer behaviour. Setting: The Western Australian Pregnancy Cohort (Raine) Study, Perth, WesternAustralia. Subjects: Eight hundred and thirty-six males and females aged between 13 and 15 years. Results: Mean mental health score as assessed by the CBCL was 45.24 (SD 11.29). A high-quality breakfast consisting of at least three food groups was consumed by 11% of adolescents, while 7% of adolescents did not consume any items from core food groups on average over the 3 d period. The two most common core food groups consumed at breakfast in this population were dairy products followed by breads and cereals. For every additional food group eaten at breakfast, the associated total mental health score decreased by 1.66 (95% CI-22.74, -0.59) after adjustment for potential confounding factors, representing an improvement in mental health score. Conclusion: These findings support the concept that breakfast quality is an important component in the complex interaction between lifestyle factors and mental health in early adolescence.KeywordsAdolescent/adolescenceBreakfastMental healthChild Behaviour Checklis

Islet Autoantibody Standardization Program 2018 Workshop:Interlaboratory Comparison of Glutamic Acid Decarboxylase Autoantibody Assay Performance

BACKGROUND: The Islet Autoantibody Standardization Program (IASP) aims to improve the performance of immunoassays measuring type 1 diabetes (T1D)-associated autoantibodies and the concordance of results among laboratories. IASP organizes international interlaboratory assay comparison studies in which blinded serum samples are distributed to participating laboratories, followed by centralized collection and analysis of results, providing participants with an unbiased comparative assessment. In this report, we describe the results of glutamic acid decarboxylase autoantibody (GADA) assays presented in the IASP 2018 workshop. METHODS: In May 2018, IASP distributed to participants uniquely coded sera from 43 new-onset T1D patients, 7 multiple autoantibody-positive nondiabetic individuals, and 90 blood donors. Results were analyzed for the following metrics: sensitivity, specificity, accuracy, area under the ROC curve (ROC-AUC), partial ROC-AUC at 95% specificity (pAUC95), and concordance of qualitative and quantitative results. RESULTS: Thirty-seven laboratories submitted results from a total of 48 different GADA assays adopting 9 different formats. The median ROC-AUC and pAUC95 of all assays were 0.87 [interquartile range (IQR), 0.83-0.89] and 0.036 (IQR, 0.032-0.039), respectively. Large differences in pAUC95 (range, 0.001-0.0411) were observed across assays. Of formats widely adopted, bridge ELISAs showed the best median pAUC95 (0.039; range, 0.036-0.041). CONCLUSIONS: Several novel assay formats submitted to this study showed heterogeneous performance. In 2018, the majority of the best performing GADA immunoassays consisted of novel or established nonradioactive tests that proved on a par or superior to the radiobinding assay, the previous gold standard assay format for GADA measurement

Defining discovery:is Google Scholar a discovery platform? An essay on the need for a new approach to scholarly discovery

This essay discusses the concept of discovery, intended as content discovery, and defines it in the new context of Open Science, with a focus on Social Sciences and Humanities (SSH). Starting from the example of Google Scholar, the authors show that this well established service does not address the current needs, practices, and variety of discovery. Alternatives in terms of technical choices, features, and governance, do however exist, offering richer and more open discovery. The paper presents in particular the implementations and research work of the H2020 project TRIPLE (Transforming Research through Innovative Practices for Linked Interdisciplinary Exploration). Dedicated to the building of a discovery platform for the SSH, the project is meant to address the specificities and evolution of discovery in this field. Prevailing scholarly resource platforms like Google Scholar limit discovery by focussing only on publications, and favouring through their algorithm well-cited papers, English content, and discipline-specific resources. A limitation in the context of cross-disciplinary and collaborative Open Science, such a service more specifically hinders discovery in the SSH. Characterized by a fragmented landscape, a variety of languages, data types, and outputs, research in the SSH requires services that fully exploit discovery potentialities. Moreover, a survey conducted within the TRIPLE project showed that most SSH researchers use Google Scholar as their starting point, and that they recognise the lack of control they have with this system. Beyond the extension of features and content, transparency is the other important criterion for the building of an Open Infrastructure actually serving the research community. In light of this, we present in some detail the GoTriple platform, which exploits today's technological potential and incorporates the best known functionalities in order to unveil more and innovative scholarly outputs and lead to international and interdisciplinary research project collaborations

Low dietary intake of magnesium is associated with increased externalising behaviours in adolescents

Objective: Adequate Zn and Mg intakes may be beneficial for the prevention and treatment of mental health problems, such as depression, anxiety and attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder. We aimed to investigate the prospective association between dietary intakes of Zn and Mg and internalising and externalising behaviour problems in a population-based cohort of adolescents. Design: Prospective analysis (general linear mixed models) of dietary intakes of Zn and Mg assessed using a validated FFQ and mental health symptoms assessed using the Youth Self-Report (YSR), adjusting for sex, physical activity, family income, supplement status, dietary misreporting, BMI, family functioning and energy intake. Setting: Western Australian Pregnancy Cohort (Raine) Study. Subjects: Adolescents (n 684) at the 14- and 17-year follow-ups. Results: Higher dietary intake of Mg (per SD increase) was significantly associated with reduced externalising behaviours (β=−1·45; 95 % CI −2·40, −0·50; P=0·003). There was a trend towards reduced externalising behaviours with higher Zn intake (per SD increase; β=−0·73; 95 % CI −1·57, 0·10; P=0·085).Randomised controlled trials are necessary to determine any benefit of micronutrient supplementation in the prevention and treatment of mental health problems in adolescents.The study shows an association between higher dietary Mg intake and reduced externalising behaviour problems in adolescents. We observed a similar trend, although not statistically significant, for Zn intake. Randomised controlled trials are necessary to determine any benefit of micronutrient supplementation in the prevention and treatment of mental health problems in adolescents

Understanding the Mechanisms through Which an Influential Early Childhood Program Boosted Adult Outcomes

A growing literature establishes that high quality early childhood interventions targeted toward disadvantaged children have substantial impacts on later life outcomes. Little is known about the mechanisms producing these impacts. This paper uses longitudinal data on cognitive and personality skills from an experimental evaluation of the influential Perry Preschool program to analyze the channels through which the program boosted both male and female participant outcomes. Experimentally induced changes in personality skills explain a sizable portion of adult treatment effects

Detection of antibodies directed to the N-terminal region of GAD is dependent on assay format and contributes to differences in the specificity of GAD autoantibody assays for type 1 diabetes

Autoantibodies to glutamate decarboxylase (GADA) are sensitive markers of islet autoimmunity and type 1 diabetes. They form the basis of robust prediction models and are widely used for recruitment of subjects at high risk of type 1 diabetes to prevention trials. However GADA are also found in many individuals at low risk of diabetes progression. To identify the sources of diabetes irrelevant GADA reactivity therefore, we analyzed data from the 2009 and 2010 Diabetes Autoantibody Standardization Program GADA workshop and found that binding of healthy control sera varied according to assay type. Characterization of control sera found positive by radiobinding assay, but negative by ELISA showed that many of these sera reacted to epitopes in the N-terminal region of the molecule. This finding prompted development of an N-terminally truncated GAD65 radiolabel, (35)S-GAD65(96-585), which improved the performance of most GADA radiobinding assays (RBAs) participating in an Islet Autoantibody Standardization Program GADA substudy. These detailed workshop comparisons have identified a source of disease-irrelevant signals in GADA RBAs and suggest that N-terminally truncated GAD labels will enable more specific measurement of GADA in type 1 diabetes

Autoantibodies to truncated GAD(96-585) antigen stratify risk of early insulin requirement in adult-onset diabetes

We investigated whether characterisation of full-length (f-)GADA responses could identify early insulin requirement in adult-onset diabetes. In 179 f-GADA positive participants diagnosed with type 2 diabetes, we assessed associations of truncated (t-)GADA positivity, f-GADA IgG subclasses, and f-GADA affinity with early insulin requirement (<5 years), type 1 diabetes genetic risk score (T1D GRS), and C-peptide. t-GADA positivity was lower in f-GADA positive without early insulin in comparison to f-GADA positive type 2 diabetes requiring insulin within 5 years, and type 1 diabetes (75% vs. 91% and 95% respectively, p<0.0001). t-GADA positivity (in those f-GADA positive) identified a group with a higher type 1 diabetes genetic susceptibility (mean T1D GRS 0.248 vs. 0.225, p=0.003), lower C-peptide (1156 pmol/L vs. 4289 pmol/L, p=1x10-7), and increased IA-2A positivity (23% vs. 6%, p=0.03). In survival analysis, t-GADA positivity was associated with early insulin requirement compared with those only positive for f-GADA, independently from age of diagnosis, f-GADA titre and duration of diabetes [adjusted HR 5.7 (95% CI 1.4, 23.5), p=0.017]. The testing of t-GADA in f-GADA positive individuals with type 2 diabetes identifies those who have genetic and clinical characteristics comparable to type 1 diabetes and stratifies those at higher risk of early insulin requirement

Imputing Longitudinal Growth Data in International Pediatric Studies: Does CDC Reference Suffice?

This study investigates a missing value imputation approach for longitudinal growth data in pediatric studies from multiple countries. We analyzed a combined cohort from five natural history studies of type 1 diabetes (T1D) in the US and EU with longitudinal growth measurements for 23,201 subjects. We developed a multiple imputation methodology using LMS parameters of CDC reference data. We measured imputation errors on both combined and individual cohorts using mean absolute percentage error (MAPE) and normalized root-mean-square error (NRMSE). Our results show low imputation errors using CDC reference. Overall height imputation errors were lower than for weight. The largest MAPE for weight and height among all age groups was 4.8% and 1.7%, respectively. When comparing performance between CDC reference and country-specific growth charts, we found no significant differences for height (CDC vs. German: p =0.993, CDC vs. Swedish: p=0.368) and for weight (CDC vs. Swedish: p=0.513) for all ages

Prenatal stress and risk of behavioral morbidity from age 2 to 14 years: The influence of the number, type, and timing of stressful life events

The maternal experience of stressful events during pregnancy has been associated with a number of adverse consequences for behavioral development in offspring, but the measurement and interpretation of prenatal stress varies among reported studies. The Raine Study recruited 2900 pregnancies and recorded life stress events experienced by 18 and 34 weeks’ gestation along with numerous sociodemographic data. The mother’s exposure to life stress events was further documented when the children were followed-up in conjunction with behavioral assessments at ages 2, 5, 8, 10, and 14 years using the Child Behavior Checklist. The maternal experience of multiple stressful events during pregnancy was associated with subsequent behavioral problems for offspring. Independent (e.g., death of a relative, job loss) and dependent stress events (e.g., financial problems, marital problems) were both significantly associated with a greater incidence of mental health morbidity between age 2 and 14 years. Exposure to stressful events in the first 18 weeks of pregnancy showed similar associations with subsequent total and externalizing morbidity to events reported at 34 weeks of gestation. These results were independent of postnatal stress exposure. Improved support for women with chronic stress exposure during pregnancy may improve the mental health of their offspring in later life