Parenting Styles, Parenting Practices, and Dietary Intakes of Preschoolers and Their Parents

Emerging research efforts have focused on the role of parents in the development of dietary behaviors of their children. Parental influences play a particularly important role in determining the children’s weight and shaping children’s dietary behaviors, especially during early childhood. Parent-related determinants can be classified as two types—general parenting (parenting style) and specific parenting practices (e.g, food parenting practices). Examining the interactions between parental influences and preschoolers’ and their parental dietary behaviors and may reveal important insights into how parents influence children’s dietary behaviors. Therefore, the goal of this research is to examine the associations between parenting styles, food parenting practices, and dietary intakes of preschoolers and their parents. This research was a part of the iGrow Readers program conducted in 2016. A total of 293 parent/child (3-5 years old) dyads were recruited from preschools/daycare centers in South Dakota, Minnesota, and Nebraska. In general, this dissertation includes: 1) conducting exploratory factor analysis to an original existing home environment assessment—the Comprehensive Home Environment Survey (CHES), to identify and evaluate modified factor structures about food parenting practices; 2) identifying the associations between parenting styles and dietary intakes (including nutrients and food group intakes) of preschool-aged children and their parents; and 3) examining the relationship between food parenting practices and dietary intakes of preschool-aged children and their parents. To modify the original CHES, a content map of food parenting practices was used as a framework to help select items from CHES and guide identification of relevant constructs. A total of 172 parents completed the original CHES. The exploratory factor analysis revealed 40 items that identified 10 food parenting practices factors (subconstructs) under three broad constructs; 4 subconstructs (21 items) within Structure, 4 subconstructs (14 items) within Coercive Control, and 2 subconstructs (5 items) within Autonomy Support. By identifying alternative factor structures, the refined CHES was expected to provide a comprehensive measurement of food parenting practices. In addition, this study examined the relationship between general parenting styles and dietary intakes of preschool-aged children and their parents. Parenting styles was measured by Parenting Dimensions Inventory-Short (PDI-S) survey and dietary information were collected by Harvard Service Food Frequency Questionnaire (HSFFQ). A total of 218 parent participants completed both surveys. Kruskal-Wallis test and multiple linear regression analyses were performed to examine the association between dietary intakes of preschool children/parents and four parenting styles (i.e., authoritative, authoritarian, indulgent, and uninvolved). Overall, the main findings indicated no significant differences were seen for most assessed children’s and parental dietary nutrients and food group intakes between authoritative parenting style and other three parenting styles. Children’s food group intakes were positively associated with corresponding parental food group intakes, moreover, authoritative parents predicted more child fruits consumption. measured by refined CHES and dietary information were collected by HSFFQ. Spearman’s correlation analyses and multiple linear regression analyses were performed to examine the association between dietary intakes of preschool children/parents and food parenting practices (including 3 constructs and 10 subconstructs). Generally, the main findings indicated that for both preschoolers and their parents, food parenting practices construct—Structure and its subconstructs were positively related to healthy dietary intakes (e.g., fruits) and inversely related to unhealthy dietary intakes (e.g., sweets). The results suggest that food parenting practices for preschoolers are important to consider when trying to improve healthy children’s dietary intakes as well as modify parents’ dietary intakes. This dissertation demonstrated that parenting influence is a key factor for preschoolers on healthy dietary intakes. The results of this study create the opportunity for future investigation of interactive effects between parents’ dietary behavior, parenting influences, and children’s dietary behavior

A Semi-Parametric Model Simultaneously Handling Unmeasured Confounding, Informative Cluster Size, and Truncation by Death with a Data Application in Medicare Claims

Nearly 300,000 older adults experience a hip fracture every year, the majority of which occur following a fall. Unfortunately, recovery after fall-related trauma such as hip fracture is poor, where older adults diagnosed with Alzheimer's Disease and Related Dementia (ADRD) spend a particularly long time in hospitals or rehabilitation facilities during the post-operative recuperation period. Because older adults value functional recovery and spending time at home versus facilities as key outcomes after hospitalization, identifying factors that influence days spent at home after hospitalization is imperative. While several individual-level factors have been identified, the characteristics of the treating hospital have recently been identified as contributors. However, few methodological rigorous approaches are available to help overcome potential sources of bias such as hospital-level unmeasured confounders, informative hospital size, and loss to follow-up due to death. This article develops a useful tool equipped with unsupervised learning to simultaneously handle statistical complexities that are often encountered in health services research, especially when using large administrative claims databases. The proposed estimator has a closed form, thus only requiring light computation load in a large-scale study. We further develop its asymptotic properties that can be used to make statistical inference in practice. Extensive simulation studies demonstrate superiority of the proposed estimator compared to existing estimators.Comment: Contact Emails: [email protected]

Critical Roles of STAT3 in β-Adrenergic Functions in the Heart

BACKGROUND: β-Adrenergic receptors (βARs) play paradoxical roles in the heart. On one hand, βARs augment cardiac performance to fulfill the physiological demands, but on the other hand, prolonged activations of βARs exert deleterious effects that result in heart failure. The signal transducer and activator of transcription 3 (STAT3) plays a dynamic role in integrating multiple cytokine signaling pathways in a number of tissues. Altered activation of STAT3 has been observed in failing hearts in both human patients and animal models. Our objective is to determine the potential regulatory roles of STAT3 in cardiac βAR-mediated signaling and function. METHODS AND RESULTS: We observed that STAT3 can be directly activated in cardiomyocytes by β-adrenergic agonists. To follow up this finding, we analyzed βAR function in cardiomyocyte-restricted STAT3 knockouts and discovered that the conditional loss of STAT3 in cardiomyocytes markedly reduced the cardiac contractile response to acute βAR stimulation, and caused disengagement of calcium coupling and muscle contraction. Under chronic β-adrenergic stimulation, Stat3cKO hearts exhibited pronounced cardiomyocyte hypertrophy, cell death, and subsequent cardiac fibrosis. Biochemical and genetic data supported that Gαs and Src kinases are required for βAR-mediated activation of STAT3. Finally, we demonstrated that STAT3 transcriptionally regulates several key components of βAR pathway, including β1AR, protein kinase A, and T-type Ca(2+) channels. CONCLUSIONS: Our data demonstrate for the first time that STAT3 has a fundamental role in βAR signaling and functions in the heart. STAT3 serves as a critical transcriptional regulator for βAR-mediated cardiac stress adaption, pathological remodeling, and heart failure

PI3Ks Maintain the Structural Integrity of T-Tubules in Cardiac Myocytes

Phosphoinositide 3-kinases (PI3Ks) regulate numerous physiological processes including some aspects of cardiac function. Although regulation of cardiac contraction by individual PI3K isoforms has been studied, little is known about the cardiac consequences of downregulating multiple PI3Ks concurrently.Genetic ablation of both p110α and p110β in cardiac myocytes throughout development or in adult mice caused heart failure and death. Ventricular myocytes from double knockout animals showed transverse tubule (T-tubule) loss and disorganization, misalignment of L-type Ca(2+) channels in the T-tubules with ryanodine receptors in the sarcoplasmic reticulum, and reduced Ca(2+) transients and contractility. Junctophilin-2, which is thought to tether T-tubules to the sarcoplasmic reticulum, was mislocalized in the double PI3K-null myocytes without a change in expression level.PI3K p110α and p110β are required to maintain the organized network of T-tubules that is vital for efficient Ca(2+)-induced Ca(2+) release and ventricular contraction. PI3Ks maintain T-tubule organization by regulating junctophilin-2 localization. These results could have important medical implications because several PI3K inhibitors that target both isoforms are being used to treat cancer patients in clinical trials

Flavonoid Consumption of College Athletes

Flavonoids have great potential in prevention of several chronic diseases. The objective of this study was to determine the flavonoid intake levels, their major food sources, and effects of flavonoid intake on BMI from dietary data of 33 college athletes at South Dakota State University in 2011. Food intake data was from a 3-day dietary recall survey. The flavonoid intakes were calculated using Food and Nutrient Database for Dietary Studies (FNDDS) and USDA flavonoid databases. Correlation and multiple regression analysis was used to determine the relationship between flavonoid consumption and BMI. The study showed the average intake of total flavonoids for 33 SDSU college athletes was about 73.13 mg/day and median was 39.43 mg/day. These values are much lower than that of a typical American populations due to the unique dietary habits of college athletes. The flavan-3-ols was the most abundant subclass, followed by flavonols, flavanones, anthocyanidins, and flavones. These rankings are consistent with findings from similar studies. The main food group sources of flavonoids were fruits, beverages, and vegetables. Top five food sources for total flavonoids were black tea, orange juice, onions, apples with skin, and blueberries. Spearman’s correlation analysis revealed that high consumption of cyaniding, pelargonidin, peonidin, petunidin, epicatechin-3-gallate, epigallocatechin, epigallocatechin-3-gallate, gallocatechin, kaempferol, and quercetin were associated with lower BMI. So are the intakes of flavones, flavonols and total flavonoids. Multiple regression model including gender, daily calorie value, and intakes of 5 flavonoid subclasses concluded that high intakes of flavonols were associated with low BMI value. This study will prove to be useful in encouraging college athletes to achoose a balanced diet. It also laid a great foundation for future studies on health benefits of flavonoids by providing unique methodology of estimating flavonoid intake

Persistent Increases In Ca\u3csup\u3e2+\u3c/sup\u3e Influx Through Cav1.2 Shortens Action Potential And Causes Ca\u3csup\u3e2+\u3c/sup\u3e Overload-Induced Afterdepolarizations And Arrhythmias

Persistent elevation of Ca2+ influx due to prolongation of the action potential (AP), chronic activation of the β-adrenergic system and molecular remodeling occurs in stressed and diseased hearts. Increases in Ca2+ influx are usually linked to prolonged myocyte action potentials and arrhythmias. However, the contribution of chronic enhancement of Cav1.2 activity on cardiac electrical remodeling and arrhythmogenicity has not been completely defined and is the subject of this study. Chronically increased Cav1.2 activity was produced with a cardiac specific, inducible double transgenic (DTG) mouse system overexpressing the β2a subunit of Cav (Cavβ2a). DTG myocytes had increased L-type Ca2+ current (ICa-L), myocyte shortening, and Ca2+ transients. DTG mice had enhanced cardiac performance, but died suddenly and prematurely. Telemetric electrocardiograms revealed shortened QT intervals in DTG mice. The action potential duration (APD) was shortened in DTG myocytes due to significant increases of potassium currents and channel abundance. However, shortened AP in DTG myocytes did not fully limit excess Ca2+ influx and increased the peak and tail ICa-L. Enhanced ICa promoted sarcoplasmic reticulum (SR) Ca2+ overload, diastolic Ca2+ sparks and waves, and increased NCX activity, causing increased occurrence of early and delayed afterdepolarizations (EADs and DADs) that may contribute to premature ventricular beats and ventricular tachycardia. AV blocks that could be related to fibrosis of the AV node were also observed. Our study suggests that increasing ICa-L does not necessarily result in AP prolongation but causes SR Ca2+ overload and fibrosis of AV node and myocardium to induce cellular arrhythmogenicity, arrhythmias, and conduction abnormalities