Relationship between caries in primary teeth and defects in permanent teeth

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Impact of the growing healthy mhealth program on maternal feeding practices, infant food preferences, and satiety responsiveness: Quasi-experimental study

© Catherine Georgina Russell, Elizabeth Denney-Wilson, Rachel A Laws, Gavin Abbott, Miaobing Zheng, Sharyn J Lymer, Sarah Taki, Eloise-Kate V Litterbach, Kok-Leong Ong, Karen J Campbell. Background: Infancy is an important life stage for obesity prevention efforts. Parents’ infant feeding practices influence the development of infants’ food preferences and eating behaviors and subsequently diet and weight. Mobile health (mHealth) may provide a feasible medium through which to deliver programs to promote healthy infant feeding as it allows low cost and easy access to tailored content. Objective: The objective of this study was to describe the effects of an mHealth intervention on parental feeding practices, infant food preferences, and infant satiety responsiveness. Methods: A quasi-experimental study was conducted with an mHealth intervention group (Growing Healthy) and a nonrandomized comparison group (“Baby's First Food"). The intervention group received access to a free app with age-appropriate push notifications, a website, and an online forum that provided them with evidence-based advice on infant feeding for healthy growth from birth until 9 months of age. Behavior change techniques were selected using the Behaviour Change Wheel framework. Participants in both groups completed three Web-based surveys, first when their infants were less than 3 months old (baseline, T1), then at 6 months (time 2, T2), and 9 months of age (time 3, T3). Surveys included questions on infant feeding practices and beliefs (Infant Feeding Questionnaire, IFQ), satiety responsiveness (Baby Eating Behaviour Questionnaire), and infant’s food exposure and liking. Multivariate linear regression models, estimated using maximum likelihood with bootstrapped standard errors, were fitted to compare continuous outcomes between the intervention groups, with adjustment for relevant covariates. Multivariate logistic regression adjusting for the same covariates was performed for categorical outcomes. Results: A total of 645 parents (Growing Healthy: n=301, Baby's First Food: n=344) met the eligibility criteria and were included in the study, reducing to a sample size of 546 (Growing Healthy: n=234, Baby's First Food: n=312) at T2 and a sample size of 518 (Growing Healthy: n=225, Baby's First Food: n=293) at T3. There were approximately equal numbers of boy and girl infants, and infants were aged less than 3 months at baseline (Growing Healthy: mean 7.0, SD 3.7 weeks; Baby's First Food: mean 7.9, SD 3.8 weeks), with Growing Healthy infants being slightly younger than Baby's First Food infants (P=.001). All but one (IFQ subscale “concerns about infant overeating or becoming overweight” at T2) of the measured outcomes did not differ between Growing Healthy and Baby's First Food. Conclusions: Although mHealth can be effective in promoting some health behaviors and offers many advantages in health promotion, the results of this study suggest that design and delivery characteristics needed to maximize the impact of mHealth interventions on infant feeding are uncertain. The sensitivity of available measurement tools and differences in baseline characteristics of participants may have also affected the results

Chronic excitotoxin-induced axon degeneration in a compartmented neuronal culture model

Glutamate excitotoxicity is a major pathogenic process implicated in many neurodegenerative conditions, including AD (Alzheimer's disease) and following traumatic brain injury. Occurring predominantly from over-stimulation of ionotropic glutamate receptors located along dendrites, excitotoxic axonal degeneration may also occur in white matter tracts. Recent identification of axonal glutamate receptor subunits within axonal nanocomplexes raises the possibility of direct excitotoxic effects on axons. Individual neuronal responses to excitotoxicity are highly dependent on the complement of glutamate receptors expressed by the cell, and the localization of the functional receptors. To enable isolation of distal axons and targeted excitotoxicity, murine cortical neuron cultures were prepared in compartmented microfluidic devices, such that distal axons were isolated from neuronal cell bodies. Within the compartmented culture system, cortical neurons developed to relative maturity at 11 DIV (days in vitro) as demonstrated by the formation of dendritic spines and clustering of the presynaptic protein synaptophysin. The isolated distal axons retained growth cone structures in the absence of synaptic targets, and expressed glutamate receptor subunits. Glutamate treatment (100 μM) to the cell body chamber resulted in widespread degeneration within this chamber and degeneration of distal axons in the other chamber. Glutamate application to the distal axon chamber triggered a lesser degree of axonal degeneration without degenerative changes in the untreated somal chamber. These data indicate that in addition to current mechanisms of indirect axonal excitotoxicity, the distal axon may be a primary target for excitotoxicity in neurodegenerative conditions

Nonlinear superchiral meta-surfaces: tuning chirality and disentangling non-reciprocity at the nanoscale.

Circularly polarized light is incident on a nanostructured chiral meta-surface. In the nanostructured unit cells whose chirality matches that of light, superchiral light is forming and strong optical second harmonic generation can be observed

Is telomere length socially patterned? Evidence from the West of Scotland Twenty-07 study

Lower socioeconomic status (SES) is strongly associated with an increased risk of morbidity and premature mortality, but it is not known if the same is true for telomere length, a marker often used to assess biological ageing. The West of Scotland Twenty-07 Study was used to investigate this and consists of three cohorts aged approximately 35 (N = 775), 55 (N = 866) and 75 years (N = 544) at the time of telomere length measurement. Four sets of measurements of SES were investigated: those collected contemporaneously with telomere length assessment, educational markers, SES in childhood and SES over the preceding twenty years. We found mixed evidence for an association between SES and telomere length. In 35-year-olds, many of the education and childhood SES measures were associated with telomere length, i.e. those in poorer circumstances had shorter telomeres, as was intergenerational social mobility, but not accumulated disadvantage. A crude estimate showed that, at the same chronological age, social renters, for example, were nine years (biologically) older than home owners. No consistent associations were apparent in those aged 55 or 75. There is evidence of an association between SES and telomere length, but only in younger adults and most strongly using education and childhood SES measures. These results may reflect that childhood is a sensitive period for telomere attrition. The cohort differences are possibly the result of survival bias suppressing the SES-telomere association; cohort effects with regard different experiences of SES; or telomere possibly being a less effective marker of biological ageing at older ages

A bovine lymphosarcoma cell line infected with theileria annulata exhibits an irreversible reconfiguration of host cell gene expression

Theileria annulata, an intracellular parasite of bovine lymphoid cells, induces substantial phenotypic alterations to its host cell including continuous proliferation, cytoskeletal changes and resistance to apoptosis. While parasite induced modulation of host cell signal transduction pathways and NFκB activation are established, there remains considerable speculation on the complexities of the parasite directed control mechanisms that govern these radical changes to the host cell. Our objectives in this study were to provide a comprehensive analysis of the global changes to host cell gene expression with emphasis on those that result from direct intervention by the parasite. By using comparative microarray analysis of an uninfected bovine cell line and its Theileria infected counterpart, in conjunction with use of the specific parasitacidal agent, buparvaquone, we have identified a large number of host cell gene expression changes that result from parasite infection. Our results indicate that the viable parasite can irreversibly modify the transformed phenotype of a bovine cell line. Fifty percent of genes with altered expression failed to show a reversible response to parasite death, a possible contributing factor to initiation of host cell apoptosis. The genes that did show an early predicted response to loss of parasite viability highlighted a sub-group of genes that are likely to be under direct control by parasite infection. Network and pathway analysis demonstrated that this sub-group is significantly enriched for genes involved in regulation of chromatin modification and gene expression. The results provide evidence that the Theileria parasite has the regulatory capacity to generate widespread change to host cell gene expression in a complex and largely irreversible manner

Clinical, Virological and Immunological Features from Patients Infected with Re-Emergent Avian-Origin Human H7N9 Influenza Disease of Varying Severity in Guangdong Province

The second wave of avian influenza H7N9 virus outbreak in humans spread to the Guangdong province of China by August of 2013 and this virus is now endemic in poultry in this region.Background The second wave of avian influenza H7N9 virus outbreak in humans spread to the Guangdong province of China by August of 2013 and this virus is now endemic in poultry in this region. Methods Five patients with H7N9 virus infection admitted to our hospital during August 2013 to February 2014 were intensively investigated. Viral load in the respiratory tract was determined by quantitative polymerase chain reaction (Q-PCR) and cytokine levels were measured by bead-based flow cytometery. Results Four patients survived and one died. Viral load in different clinical specimens was correlated with cytokine levels in plasma and broncho-alveolar fluid (BALF), therapeutic modalities used and clinical outcome. Intravenous zanamivir appeared to be better than peramivir as salvage therapy in patients who failed to respond to oseltamivir. Higher and more prolonged viral load was found in the sputum or endotracheal aspirates compared to throat swabs. Upregulation of proinflammatory cytokines IP-10, MCP-1, MIG, MIP-1α/β, IL-1β and IL-8 was found in the plasma and BALF samples. The levels of cytokines in the plasma and viral load were correlated with disease severity. Reactivation of herpes simplex virus type 1(HSV-1) was found in three out of five patients (60%). Conclusion Expectorated sputum or endotracheal aspirate specimens are preferable to throat swabs for detecting and monitoring H7N9 virus. Severity of the disease was correlated to the viral load in the respiratory tract as well as the extents of cytokinemia. Reactivation of HSV-1 may contribute to clinical outcome.published_or_final_versio

The origin of second harmonic generation hotspots in chiral optical metamaterials [Invited]

Novel ways to detect the handedness in chiral optical metamaterials by means of the second harmonic generation (SHG) process have recently been proposed. However, the precise origin of the SHG emission has yet to be unambiguously established. In this paper, we present computational simulations of both the electric currents and the electromagnetic fields in chiral planar metamaterials, at the fundamental frequency (FF), and discuss the implications of our results on the characteristics of experimentally measured SHG. In particular, we show that the results of our numerical simulations are in good agreement with the experimental mapping of SHG sources. Thus, the SHG in these metamaterials can be attributed to a strong local enhancement of the electromagnetic fields at the FF, which depends on the particular structure of the patterned metamaterial