Meat Consumption and Health Outcomes: The Economic Risk Factors of Non-Communicable Disease

Noncommunicable diseases (NCDs) are the most prominent cause of adult mortality, killing 38 million people each year and on the rise[1]. Cancer, heart disease, diabetes and chronic respiratory diseases are responsible for 82% of NCD-related illness and death. These four diseases, along with mental illness, are estimated to cost the developing world $21 trillion over the next two decades.[2] Given the substantial health and economic detriments of NCDs, policy makers, government officials, and enterprises around the globe have begun to focus efforts on better understanding and preventing the proliferation of these diseases. Lifestyle factors, including increased inactivity, poor diet, and alcohol and tobacco consumption are currently the most commonly attributed risk factors of NCDs. With the influx of epidemiological literature linking meat consumption to western disease prevalence, and the World Health Organization (WHO) releasing a statement this year classifying processed meat as a Group 1 carcinogen alongside cigarette smoking, this thesis seeks to understand more thoroughly the role of diet, specifically meat consumption, in the incidence of cancer, heart disease and diabetes around the world. This paper analyzes previous epidemiological studies on dietary consumption and disease incidence as well as conducts an empirical analysis of data from the WHO and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) to understand the relationship between meat consumption and disease prominence. This paper is the first of its kind to compare country-level data on dietary and lifestyle factors with respective disease incidence and mortality rates in order to observe the impact of country consumption trends on health outcomes. The results of this analysis may provide insight into global economic, health policy and individual-level consumption recommendations in order to mitigate the occurrence of ill-health

Virtual faces as a tool to study emotion recognition deficits in schizophrenia

Studies investigating emotion recognition in patients with schizophrenia predominantly presented photographs of facial expressions. Better control and higher flexibility of emotion displays could be afforded by virtual reality (VR). VR allows the manipulation of facial expression and can simulate social interactions in a controlled and yet more naturalistic environment. However, to our knowledge, there is no study that systematically investigated whether patients with schizophrenia show the same emotion recognition deficits when emotions are expressed by virtual as compared to natural faces. Twenty schizophrenia patients and 20 controls rated pictures of natural and virtual faces with respect to the basic emotion expressed (happiness, sadness, anger, fear, disgust, and neutrality). Consistent with our hypothesis, the results revealed that emotion recognition impairments also emerged for emotions expressed by virtual characters. As virtual in contrast to natural expressions only contain major emotional features, schizophrenia patients already seem to be impaired in the recognition of basic emotional features. This finding has practical implication as it supports the use of virtual emotional expressions for psychiatric research: the ease of changing facial features, animating avatar faces, and creating therapeutic simulations makes validated artificial expressions perfectly suited to study and treat emotion recognition deficits in schizophrenia

Service-users’ experiences of an early intervention in psychosis service: an interpretative phenomenological analysis

OBJECTIVES: Previous research regarding Early Intervention in Psychosis (EIP) services has mainly adopted quantitative methodologies, in order to study the effectiveness of EIP services. Research studies that have explored service-users' experiences of EIP services are small in number. This research aimed to explore service-users' experiences of being in contact with an EIP service, its impact of their experience of psychosis and current life situation. DESIGN: Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) was used to conduct an in-depth qualitative study of a small sample of EIP service-users, in order to explore their experiences of being in contact with the service. METHOD: Flexibly guided interviews were conducted with eight service-users who had been receiving a service from an EIP team for more than 2 years and were recruited using a purposive sampling method. Verbatim interview transcripts were analysed using IPA. RESULTS: Five super-ordinate themes, developed from the analysis, are discussed in sections: Stigma, Relationships, Understanding the experiences, Sense of agency, and Impact on sense of self. Sub-themes of these super-ordinate themes are also discussed. CONCLUSIONS: The themes developed from the analysis were envisioned as representing an overarching theme of 'A personal journey of recovery', which was influenced by participants' involvement with the EIP service. Clinical implications include the need for EIP services, as with other mental health services, to find ways to promote recovery and create opportunities for agency and control. Future research directions are also discussed

An intervention study to prevent relapse in patients with schizophrenia

Purpose: To determine whether the use of relapse prevention plans (RPPs) in nursing practice is an effective intervention in reducing relapse rates among patients with schizophrenia. Design and Methods: Experimental design. Patients with schizophrenia (or a related psychotic disorder) and nurses from three mental health organizations were randomly assigned to either an experimental (RPP) or control condition (care as usual). The primary outcome measure was the psychotic relapses in the research groups. Results: The relapse rates in the experimental and control groups after 1-year follow-up were 12.5% and 26.2%, respectively (p=.12, ns). The relative risk of a relapse in the experimental versus the control group was 0.48(ns). Conclusions: In this study no statistically significant effects of the intervention were found. Effectiveness research in this area should be continued with larger sample sizes and longer follow-up periods

S-layers at second glance? Altiarchaeal grappling hooks (hami) resemble archaeal S-layer proteins in structure and sequence

This is the final version of the article. Available from Frontiers Media via the DOI in this recordResearch on SM1-MSI was supported by the German Research Foundation (Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft), grant no. MO 1977/3-1 given to CM-E. AJP was supported by the German National Academic Foundation (Studienstiftung des deutschen Volkes)

Attachment and coping in psychosis in relation to spiritual figures

Background: Studies have found higher levels of insecure attachment in individuals with schizophrenia. Attachment theory provides a framework necessary for conceptualizing the development of interpersonal functioning. Some aspects of the attachment of the believer to his/her spiritual figure are similar to those between the child and his/her parents. The correspondence hypothesis suggests that early child-parent interactions correspond to a person's relation to a spiritual figure. The compensation hypothesis suggests that an insecure attachment history would lead to a strong religiousness/spirituality as a compensation for the lack of felt security. The aim of this study is to explore attachment models in psychosis vs. healthy controls, the relationships between attachment and psychopathology and the attachment processes related to spiritual figures. Methods: Attachment models were measured in 30 patients with psychosis and 18 controls with the AAI (Adult Attachment interview) in relationship with psychopathology. Beliefs and practices related to a spiritual figure were investigated by qualitative and quantitative analyses. Results: Patients with psychosis showed a high prevalence of insecure avoidant attachment. Spiritual entities functioned like attachment figures in two thirds of cases. Interviews revealed the transformation of internal working models within relation to a spiritual figure: a compensation process was found in 7 of the 32 subjects who showed a significant attachment to a spiritual figure. Conclusions: Attachment theory allows us to highlight one of the underlying dimensions of spiritual coping in patients with psychosis

Biological CO2-Methanation: an Approach to Standardization

Power-to-Methane as one part of Power-to-Gas has been recognized globally as one of the key elements for the transition towards a sustainable energy system. While plants that produce methane catalytically have been in operation for a long time, biological methanation has just reached industrial pilot scale and near-term commercial application. The growing importance of the biological method is reflected by an increasing number of scientific articles describing novel approaches to improve this technology. However, these studies are difficult to compare because they lack a coherent nomenclature. In this article, we present a comprehensive set of parameters allowing the characterization and comparison of various biological methanation processes. To identify relevant parameters needed for a proper description of this technology, we summarized existing literature and defined system boundaries for Power-to-Methane process steps. On this basis, we derive system parameters providing information on the methanation system, its performance, the biology and cost aspects. As a result, three different standards are provided as a blueprint matrix for use in academia and industry applicable to both, biological and catalytic methanation. Hence, this review attempts to set the standards for a comprehensive description of biological and chemical methanation processes

Validity of the Distinction between Generalized Social Phobia and Avoidant Personality Disorder

Disorders of pervasive social anxiety and inhibition are divided into 2 categories, generalized social phobia (GSP) and avoidant personality disorder (APD). We explored the discriminative validity of this categorization by examining the comorbidity of GSP and APD and by comparing these groups on anxiety level, social skills, dysfunctional cognitions, impairment in functioning, and presence of concurrent disorders. Results from 23 subjects showed high comorbidity of the 2 diagnoses: All subjects who met criteria for APD also met criteria for GSP. APD was associated with greater social anxiety, impairment in functioning, and comorbidity with other psychopathology, but no differences in social skills or performance on an impromptu speech. GSP and APD seem to represent quantitatively different variants of the same spectrum of psychopathology rather than qualitatively distinct disorders. We also investigated a proposed social phobia subtyping scheme