Associations between eating speed, diet quality, adiposity, and cardiometabolic risk factors

Objective: To assess the associations between eating speed, adiposity, cardiometabolic risk factors, and diet quality in a cohort of Spanish preschool-children. Study design: A cross-sectional study in 1371 preschool age children (49% girls; mean age, 4.8 ± 1.0 years) from the Childhood Obesity Risk Assessment Longitudinal Study (CORALS) cohort was conducted. After exclusions, 956 participants were included in the analyses. The eating speed was estimated by summing the total minutes used in each of the 3 main meals and then categorized into slow, moderate, or fast. Multiple linear and logistic regression models were fitted to assess the β-coefficient, or OR and 95% CI, between eating speed and body mass index, waist circumference, fat mass index (FMI), blood pressure, fasting plasma glucose, and lipid profile. Results: Compared with participants in the slow-eating category, those in the fast-eating category had a higher prevalence risk of overweight/obesity (OR, 2.9; 95% CI, 1.8-4.4; P < .01); larger waist circumference (β, 2.6 cm; 95% CI, 1.5-3.8 cm); and greater FMI (β, 0.3 kg/m2; 95% CI, 0.1-0.5 kg/m2), systolic blood pressure (β, 2.8 mmHg; 95% CI, 0.6-4.9 mmHg), and fasting plasma glucose levels (β, 2.7 mg/dL, 95% CI, 1.2-4.2 mg/dL) but lower adherence to the Mediterranean diet (β, −0.5 points; 95% CI, −0.9 to −0.1 points). Conclusions: Eating fast is associated with higher adiposity, certain cardiometabolic risk factors, and lower adherence to a Mediterranean diet. Further long-term and interventional studies are warranted to confirm these associations

Effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of a multicomponent intervention to improve medication adherence in people with depressive disorders - MAPDep: a study protocol for a cluster randomized controlled trial

Tasmania del Pino-Sede&ntilde;o,1,2 Wenceslao Pe&ntilde;ate,1 Carlos de las Cuevas,3 Cristina Valcarcel-Nazco,2,4 Ascensi&oacute;n Fumero,1 Pedro Guillermo Serrano-P&eacute;rez,5,6 Francisco Javier Acosta Artiles,7 Vanesa Ramos Garc&iacute;a,4 Beatriz Le&oacute;n Salas,4 Daniel Bejarano-Quisoboni,8 Mar&iacute;a M Trujillo-Mart&iacute;n2,4 1Department of Clinical Psychology, Psychobiology and Methodology, University of La Laguna, Canary Islands, Spain; 2Health Services Research on Chronic Patients Network (REDISSEC), Madrid, Spain; 3Department of Internal Medicine, Dermatology and Psychiatry, University of La Laguna, Canary Islands, Spain; 4Canary Islands Foundation of Health Research (FUNCANIS), Canary Islands, Spain; 5Department of Psychiatry, Hospital Universitari Vall d&rsquo; Hebron, Catalonia, Spain; 6Department of Psychiatry and Legal Medicine, Universitat Aut&ograve;noma de Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain; 7Service of Mental Health, General Health Care Programs Direction, Canary Health Service, Canary Islands, Spain; 8Center for Public Health Research (CSISP-FISABIO), Valencia, Spain Purpose: Depression is a widespread mental disorder which can be treated effectively. However, low adherence to antidepressants is very common. The study of medication adherence in depression (MAPDep study) assesses the effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of a multicomponent strategy to enhance adherence toward medications in patients with depression.Intervention: The intervention is a multicomponent one consisting of an educational program for psychiatrists and/or a collaborative care program for patients and relatives, plus a reminder system that works through the use of an already available high-quality medication reminder application.Study design: MAPDep study is an open, multicenter, four-arm cluster randomized controlled trial. The clusters are mental health units where psychiatrists are invited to participate. The clusters are randomly allocated to one of the three interventions or to usual care (control arm). Patients (18&ndash;65 years of age) diagnosed with depressive disorder, those taking antidepressant medication for an existing diagnosis of depression, and mobile phone users are selected. In group 1, only patients and relatives receive intervention; in group 2, only psychiatrists receive intervention; and in group 3, patients/relatives and psychiatrists receive intervention. The primary outcome is adherence to the antidepressant drug. The calculated sample size is 400 patients. To examine changes across time, generalized linear mixed model with repeated measures will be used. A cost-effectiveness analysis will be conducted. The effectiveness measure is quality-adjusted life years. Deterministic sensitivity analyses are planned.Conclusion: MAPDep study aims to assess a multicomponent strategy to improve adherence toward medications in patients with depression, based not only on clinical effectiveness but also on cost-effectiveness. This methodology will enhance the transferability of the expected results beyond mental health services (patients and psychiatrists) to health care policy decision making.Clinical trial identifier: NCT03668457. Keywords: depression, medication adherence, education, behavior modification, mobile phone technology, cost-effectivenes

Pros and Cons of Clinical Basophil Testing (BAT)

PURPOSE OF REVIEW: We review basophil testing by flow cytometry with an emphasis on advantages and disadvantages. RECENT FINDINGS: There are many tools available to assess the presence and severity of allergic diseases in patients. For 50 years, peripheral blood basophils have been used as tools to study these diseases. It is a very accessible cell that binds IgE antibody and secretes the classical mediators responsible for the symptoms of allergic reactions. In the last decade, an even more accessible methodology, using flow cytometry, has been developed to enhance the ability to use basophils for both mechanistic and clinical diagnostics. Basophil testing has been included in diagnostics for different forms of allergies as well as to monitor disease status. A variety of studies have begun to establish both precise methods and their clinical relevance for disease diagnosis, but there remain some important questions on how to take optimal advantage of the behaviours of basophils

Plasma-derived extracellular vesicles from Plasmodium vivax patients signal spleen fibroblasts via NF-kB facilitating parasite cytoadherence

Plasmodium vivax is the most widely distributed human malaria parasite. Previous studies have shown that circulating microparticles during P. vivax acute attacks are indirectly associated with severity. Extracellular vesicles (EVs) are therefore major components of circulating plasma holding insights into pathological processes. Here, we demonstrate that plasma-derived EVs from Plasmodium vivax patients (PvEVs) are preferentially uptaken by human spleen fibroblasts (hSFs) as compared to the uptake of EVs from healthy individuals. Moreover, this uptake induces specific upregulation of ICAM-1 associated with the translocation of NF-kB to the nucleus. After this uptake, P. vivax-infected reticulocytes obtained from patients show specific adhesion properties to hSFs, reversed by inhibiting NF-kB translocation to the nucleus. Together, these data provide physiological EV-based insights into the mechanisms of human malaria pathology and support the existence of P. vivax-adherent parasite subpopulations in the microvasculature of the human spleen.We also thank the Advanced Light Microscopy Unit at the Centre for Genomic Regulation (CRG, Barcelona, Spain) for access to the Leica STED microscope. H.T. (2017FI_B1_00202) and M.D.V. (2017FI_B2_00029) are predoctoral fellows supported by Secretaria d’Universitats i Recerca del Departament d’Economia iCreixement, Generalitat de Catalunya. M.G.L. is a postdoctoral fellow supported by the Plan Estratégico (PERIS) of the Generalitat de Catalunya. I.A.H. is a predoctoral fellow supported by the Ministerio de Economia y Competitividad (FPI BES-2017081657). J.C. is supported by European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie grant agreement No. 793830. MSP3 and PHIST antibodies were generated with funding from NIH to M.R.G. (RO1A124710 and RO1AI0555994). The CRG/UPF Proteomics Unit is part of the Spanish Infrastructure for Omics Technologies (ICTS OmicsTech) and it is a member of the ProteoRed PRB3 consortium which is supported by grant PT17/0019 of the PE I+D+i 2013–2016 from the Instituto de Salud Carlos III (ISCIII) and ERDF. We acknowledge support from the Spanish Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities, “Centro de Excelencia Severo Ochoa 2013–2017”, SEV-2012-0208, and “Secretaria d’Universitats i Recerca del Departament d’Economia i Coneixement de la Generalitat de Catalunya” (2017SGR595). This research is part of ISGlobal’s Programme on the Molecular Mechanisms of Malaria which is partially supported by the Fundación Ramón Areces. Work in the laboratory of Carmen Fernandez-Becerra and Hernando A del Portillo is funded by the Ministerio Español de Economía y Competitividad (SAF2016-80655-R)