Measurement: Food

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Associations between macronutrient intake and serum lipid profile depend on body fat in European adolescents: The Healthy Lifestyle in Europe by Nutrition in Adolescence (HELENA) study

© 2014 The Authors. The present study aimed to investigate the relationships between macronutrient intake and serum lipid profile in adolescents from eight European cities participating in the HELENA (Healthy Lifestyle in Europe by Nutrition in Adolescence) cross-sectional study (2006-7), and to assess the role of body fat-related variables in these associations. Weight, height, waist circumference, skinfold thicknesses, total cholesterol, HDL-cholesterol (HDL-C), LDL-cholesterol, TAG, apoB and apoA1 were measured in 454 adolescents (44 % boys) aged 12·5-17·5 years. Macronutrient intake (g/4180 kJ per d (1000 kcal per d)) was assessed using two non-consecutive 24 h dietary recalls. Associations were evaluated by multi-level analysis and adjusted for sex, age, maternal education, centre, sum of four skinfolds, moderate-to-vigorous physical activity, sedentary behaviours and diet quality index for adolescents. Carbohydrate intake was inversely associated with HDL-C (β =-0·189, P< 0·001). An inverse association was found between fat intake and TAG (β =-0·319, P< 0·001). Associations between macronutrient intake and serum lipids varied according to adiposity levels, i.e. an inverse association between carbohydrate intake and HDL-C was only observed in those adolescents with a higher waist:height ratio. As serum lipids and excess body fat are the major markers of CVD, these findings should be considered when developing strategies to prevent the risk of CVD among adolescents.TheHELENA study was financially supported by the European Community Sixth RTD Framework Programme (contract FOOD-CT-2005-007034).Peer Reviewe

Dieta, estilos de vida y factores de riesgo cardiovascular en niños y adolescentes europeos

La infancia y la adolescencia no sólo se caracterizan por ser periodos de crecimiento rápido y maduración, sino también porque se adquiere el comportamiento alimentario para toda la vida. También se ha observado que las primeras manifestaciones de arteriosclerosis se dan de forma temprana durante la infancia y que, además, están relacionadas con la dieta y otros estilos de vida como la actividad física y los comportamientos sedentarios, entre otros factores. Por todo ello, es de gran importancia valorar de forma precisa la dieta de los niños y adolescentes para poder establecer relaciones entre dieta y enfermedad, así como identificar posibles asociaciones entre los factores de riesgo cardiovascular y el estilo de vida en este grupo poblacional, que permitan desarrollar estrategias dirigidas a mejorar el estilo de vida de los niños y adolescentes y así prevenir la aparición de enfermedades crónicas en el futuro. A nivel general, los objetivos de la presente Tesis Doctoral son: 1) determinar el grado de validez de dos métodos de valoración de la dieta para ser usados en niños y 2) analizar la asociación de la dieta y otros estilos de vida con los factores de riesgo cardiovascular en niños y adolescentes para ampliar el conocimiento científico en este grupo de la población e identificar posibles brechas dentro de este área de investigación. Para la validación de los métodos de valoración de la dieta se obtuvieron mediciones de niños participantes en el estudio IDEFICS (Identification and prevention of dietary- and lifestyle induced health effects in children and infants). Un total de 36 niños (4-10 años) de España y Bélgica fueron medidos para determinar la validez de un recuerdo dietético de 24-horas en comparación con la técnica del agua doblemente marcada. En la validación del cuestionario de frecuencia de consumo de alimentos semi-cuantitativo se incluyeron 2.508 niños (2-8 años) procedentes de ocho países europeos (Italia, Estonia, Chipre, Bélgica, Suecia, Alemania, Hungría, España). Para la consecución del segundo objetivo se obtuvieron mediciones tanto de niños europeos (n=5.548) participantes en el estudio IDEFICS como de adolescentes europeos (n=511) de entre 12,5-17,5 años que participaron en el estudio HELENA (Healthy Lifestyle in Europe by Nutrition in Adolescence) el cual se llevó a cabo en diez ciudades europeas (Atenas en Grecia, Dortmund en Alemania, Gante en Bélgica, Heraklion en Grecia, Lille en Francia, Pécs en Hungría, Roma en Italia, Estocolmo en Suecia, Viena en Austria y Zaragoza en España). Los resultados del presente trabajo muestran que la capacidad del cuestionario de frecuencia de consumo de alimentos para clasificar a los individuos en función de su ingesta fue diferente en función de grupo de alimentos considerado; sin embargo, el recuerdo dietético de 24-horas resultó ser un buen método para determinar la ingesta de energía a nivel del grupo, pero no a nivel individual. En cuanto al riesgo cardiovascular, la ingesta elevada de algunos alimentos como los frutos secos y semillas y los cereales de desayuno, entre otros, en niños y como los lácteos en adolescentes se asoció inversamente con el riesgo cardiovascular. Aparte de la dieta, los estilos de vida, concretamente el sedentarismo, también se asociaron con el riesgo cardiovascular ya que jugar a los videojuegos durante más de cuatro horas los fines de semana aumentó al doble el riesgo de enfermedad cardiovascular en chicos adolescentes. Además, el tener un tamaño de muestra suficientemente amplio permitió valorar la relación entre conjuntos o clusters de algunos estilos de vida y el riesgo cardiovascular. Por ejemplo, el tener un comportamiento caracterizado por niveles bajos de sedentarismo y baja ingesta de bebidas azucaradas se asoció con un menor riesgo cardiovascular. La influencia de los macronutrientes en el perfil lipídico sérico también fue investigada en la presente Tesis Doctoral. De hecho, los resultados mostraron que una ingesta elevada de hidratos de carbono y baja de lípidos estaba asociada con un peor perfil lipídico; además, cabe destacar que dichas asociaciones fueron dependientes de la masa grasa del individuo. Así mismo, también se observó que la asociación entre la ingesta de aminoácidos y la concentración de lípidos plasmáticos era dependiente de la ingesta de grasa del individuo. En resumen, estos resultados ponen de manifiesto la necesidad de desarrollar métodos de valoración de la dieta capaces de estimarla de forma más precisa. Además, existe evidencia de que tanto la dieta como los comportamientos sedentarios están asociados con el riesgo cardiovascular durante la infancia y la adolescencia, por ello es necesario diseñar estrategias destinadas a prevenir el desarrollo de riesgo cardiovascular a edades tan tempranas promoviendo el consumo de alimentos saludables y la práctica de actividad física, a expensas de la disminución de los niveles de sedentarismo, tanto en niños como en adolescentes

Influence Of Substratum Position And Acquired Pellicle On Candida Albicans Biofilm.

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the influence of the substratum position and the saliva acquired pellicle (AP) on Candida albicans biofilm development. Poly(methylmethacrylate) (PMMA) disks were fabricated and randomly allocated to experimental groups: HNP (disks placed in a horizontal position and uncoated by pellicle), VNP (disks placed in a vertical position and uncoated by pellicle), HCP (disks placed in a horizontal position and coated by pellicle), and VCP (disks placed in a vertical position and coated by pellicle). Disks were placed in a 24-well plate and a suspension of 107 cells/mL of Candida albicans was added to each well for biofilm development. The plates were aerobically incubated at 35°C. The biofilms were evaluated at 1.5 (adhesion time point), 24, 48, 72, and 96 hours. The number of viable cells was quantified in terms of the colony-forming units per milliliter (CFU/mL). Metabolic activity was measured by the XTT assay. The biofilm structure was analyzed by scanning electron microscopy. The data were analyzed by three-way ANOVA followed by Tukey's test, with significance set at 5%. The vertical groups showed less biofilm formation and lower metabolic activity than the horizontal groups (p0.05). It can be concluded that the substratum position influenced biofilm development.27369-7

Entre Halloween y Navidad

Los centros educativos son un lugar donde los niños aprenden a socializarse, a convivir y a respetar la alteridad. Deben proporcionar las condiciones ambientales para educar en una ética cívica laica que nos lleve hacia una convivencia democrática y hacia la comprensión de la diversidad, aunque siempre ligada al territorio y la cultura

The Paleolithic in Cartoons: The Prehistoric World of Fiction

The Palaeolithic period has been always surrounded by a «fiction universe», often transmited to the society by Cinema. The way it has been, and is being, transmited by cartoon to the children is the main focus of this paper. We classify the cartoons about prehistory and we integrate them into the current studies about historic or prehistoric films. We also have analized the most relevant and recent cartoon centred on the Palaeolithic period (Ice Age films and the Croods). The data obtained allow us to reflect about the role that Prehistory has on the cinema, showing a complex relationship between films and science. To conclude, it can be said that Cinema has created its own Stone Age, with dinosaurs and cavemen, but only sometimes by keeping the scientific research in mind.El presente artículo es una indagación en el universo de ficción que en torno al paleolítico se ha transmitido a través de los dibujos animados. Se integran los dibujos animados de prehistoria dentro de las investigaciones presentes sobre cine histórico o prehistórico y se lleva a cabo una clasificación previa de los mismos. Por último, se analizan las películas de dibujos (la saga Ice Age y Los Croods) más relevantes para el periodo paleolítico. Todo ello nos permite reflexionar acerca del papel de la prehistoria en el mundo de las imágenes cinematográficas y concluir que la relación entre ciencia y cine es más compleja de lo que parece. En conclusión se puede decir que el cine ha inventado su propia Edad de Piedra poblada de dinosaurios y Hombres de las cavernas no sin tener en cuenta a veces las investigaciones científicas

Prenatal Betamethasone Exposure and its Impact on Pediatric Type 1 Diabetes Mellitus : A Preliminary Study in a Spanish Cohort

Betamethasone, a glucocorticoid used to induce lung maturation when there is a risk of preterm delivery, can affect the immune system maturation and type 1 diabetes (T1D) incidence in the progeny. It has been described that prenatal betamethasone protects offspring from experimental T1D development. The main aim of this study was to evaluate the possible association between betamethasone prenatal exposure and T1D in humans. Research Design and Methods. A retrospective case-control study with a total of 945 children, including 471 patients with T1D and 474 healthy siblings, was performed. Participants were volunteers from the Germans Trias i Pujol Hospital and DiabetesCero Foundation. Parents of children enrolled in the study completed a questionnaire that included questions about weeks of gestation, preterm delivery risk, weight at birth, and prenatal betamethasone exposure of their children. Multiple logistic regression was used to detect the association between betamethasone exposure and T1D. We compared T1D prevalence between subjects prenatally exposed or unexposed to betamethasone. The percent of children with T1D in the exposed group was 37.5% (21 of 56), and in the unexposed group was 49.52% (410 of 828) (p = 0.139). The percentage of betamethasone-treated subjects with T1D in the preterm group (18.05%, 13 of 72) was significantly higher than that found in the control group (12.5%, 9 of 72) (p = 0.003). The odds ratio for T1D associated with betamethasone in the univariate logistic regression was 0.59 (95% confidence interval, 0.33; 1.03 [ p = 0.062]) and in the multivariate logistic regression was 0.83 (95% confidence interval, 0.45; 1.52 [ p = 0.389]). The results demonstrate that the prenatal exposure to betamethasone does not increase T1D susceptibility, and may even be associated with a trend towards decreased risk of developing the disease. These preliminary findings require further prospective studies with clinical data to confirm betamethasone exposure effect on T1D risk

Impaired Phagocytosis in Dendritic Cells From Pediatric Patients With Type 1 Diabetes Does Not Hamper Their Tolerogenic Potential

Type 1 diabetes (T1D) is prompted by defective immunological tolerance, an event in which dendritic cells (DCs) are crucial as immune response orchestrators. In fact, they contribute to maintaining tolerance to self-antigens, but they can also prompt an immunogenic response against them, leading to autoimmunity. Countless factors can potentially impact on the proper functionality of the DCs, which range from altered subset distribution, impaired phagocytic function to abnormal gene expression. Moreover, in T1D, metabolic dysregulation could impair DC functions as well. Indeed, since T1D clinical course is likely to be more aggressive in children and adolescents and entails severe dysglycemia, the aim of this study was to analyze circulating DCs subpopulations in pediatric T1D at different stages, as well as to characterize their phagocytosis ability and tolerance induction potential. Thus, pediatric patients newly diagnosed with T1D, with established disease and control subjects were recruited. Firstly, DCs subsets from peripheral blood were found quantitatively altered during the first year of disease, but recovered in the second year of progression. Secondly, to study the tolerogenic functionality of DCs, liposomes with phosphatidylserine (PS) were designed to mimic apoptotic beta cells, which are able to induce tolerance, as previously demonstrated by our group in DCs from adult patients with T1D. In this study, monocyte-derived DCs from pediatric patients with T1D and control subjects were assessed in terms of PS-liposomes capture kinetics, and transcriptional and phenotypic changes. DCs from pediatric patients with T1D were found to phagocyte PS-liposomes more slowly and less efficiently than DCs from control subjects, inversely correlating with disease evolution. Nonetheless, the transcription of PS receptors and immunoregulatory genes, cytokine profile, and membrane expression of immunological markers in DCs was consistent with tolerogenic potential after PS-liposomes phagocytosis. In conclusion, T1D progression in childhood entails altered peripheral blood DCs subsets, as well as impaired DCs phagocytosis, although tolerance induction could still function optimally. Therefore, this study provides useful data for patient follow-up and stratification in immunotherapy clinical trials

Prediction and Monitoring of Partial Remission in Pediatric Type 1 Diabetes

[EN] The partial remission (PR) phase, a period experienced by most patients with type 1 diabetes (T1D) soon after diagnosis, is characterized by low insulin requirements and improved glycemic control. Given the great potential of this phase as a therapeutic window for immunotherapies because of its association with immunoregulatory mechanisms and beta-cell protection, our objective was to find peripheral immunological biomarkers for its better characterization, monitoring, and prediction. The longitudinal follow-up of 17 pediatric patients with new-onset T1D over one year revealed that, during the PR phase, remitter patients show increased percentages of effector memory (EM) T lymphocytes, terminally differentiated EM T lymphocytes, and neutrophils in comparison to non-remitter patients. On the contrary, remitter patients showed lower percentages of naive T lymphocytes, regulatory T cells (T-REG), and dendritic cells (DCs). After a year of follow-up, these patients also presented increased levels of regulatory B cells and transitional T1 B lymphocytes. On the other hand, although none of the analyzed cytokines (IL-2, IL-6, TGF-beta 1, IL-17A, and IL-10) could distinguish or predict remission, IL-17A was increased at T1D diagnosis in comparison to control subjects, and remitter patients tended to maintain lower levels of this cytokine than non-remitters. Therefore, these potential monitoring immunological biomarkers of PR support that this stage is governed by both metabolic and immunological factors and suggest immunoregulatory attempts during this phase. Furthermore, since the percentage of T-REG, monocytes, and DCs, and the total daily insulin dose at diagnosis were found to be predictors of the PR phase, we next created an index-based predictive model comprising those immune cell percentages that could potentially predict remission at T1D onset. Although our preliminary study needs further validation, these candidate biomarkers could be useful for the immunological characterization of the PR phase, the stratification of patients with better disease prognosis, and a more personalized therapeutic management.Funding for this study was provided by the Spanish Government (FIS PI18/00436) co-financed with the European Regional Development funds (FEDER), and by DiabetesCero Foundation. LGM is supported by the Generalitat de Catalunya (PERIS PIF-Salut Grant No. SLT017/20/000049). This work has been supported by positive discussion through Consolidated Research Group #2017 SGR 103, AGAUR, Generalitat de Catalunya

NK Cell Subsets Changes in Partial Remission and Early Stages of Pediatric Type 1 Diabetes

Type 1 diabetes (T1D) is a chronic metabolic disease characterized by the autoimmune destruction of β-cells in the pancreatic islets. T1D is preceded by islet-specific inflammation led by several immune cells. Among them, natural killer (NK) cells are emerging as important players in T1D development. Human NK cells are characterized by CD56 and CD16 expression, which allows classifying NK cells into four subsets: 1) CD56 dim CD16 + or effector NK cells (NK); 2) CD56 bright CD16 − or regulatory NK cells (NK); 3) intermediate CD56 bright CD16 + NK cells; and 4) CD56 dim CD16 − NK cells, whose function is not well determined. Since many studies have shown that T1D progression is associated with changes in various immune cell types, we hypothesize that the kinetics of NK cell subsets in the blood could correlate with different stages of T1D. To that aim, pediatric patients newly diagnosed with T1D were recruited, and peripheral NK cell subsets were analyzed by flow cytometry at several disease checkpoints: disease onset, partial remission (PR), 8 months (for non-remitters), and 12 months of progression. Our results showed that total NK cells and their four subsets are altered at the early stages of T1D. A decrease in the counts and percentage of total NK cells and NK cells at the different disease stages was found when compared to controls. These results suggest the extravasation of these cells into the islets at disease onset, which is maintained throughout the follow-up. By contrast, NK cells increased during the early stages after T1D onset, and both intermediate NK cells and CD56 dim CD16 - NK cells diminished at the PR stage, which might reflect the immunoregulatory attempts and could be candidate biomarkers for this stage. Also, CD56 dim CD16 - NK cells increased during T1D progression. Finally, changes in CD16 expression were identified in the different T1D stages, highlighting a CD16 expression reduction in total NK cells and NK cells 1 year after diagnosis. That may reflect a state of exhaustion after multiple cell-to-cell interactions. Altogether, our preliminary data provide a longitudinal picture of peripheral NK cell subpopulations during the different T1D stages, which could be potential candidate biomarkers indicators of disease progression