Factors associated with fruit and vegetable intake in Japanese-Brazilians

The determination of factors associated with fruit and vegetable intake is an important tool for the development of effective intervention programs aimed at increasing the consumption of these foods. The objective of the present cross-sectional study was to identify the factors associated with the adequate consumption of fruit and vegetables (> 400g/day) among 581 adult Japanese-Brazilians, 1st and 2nd generations of immigrants, living in Bauru, SP, Brazil. Food consumption was estimated using three 24-hour recalls. On adjusted logistic regression models, higher meal frequencies were associated with a better chance of adequate daily intake of fruit and vegetables [OR (95% CI)]: [1.31 (1.05, 1.63)]. Nevertheless, individuals at the highest tertile of saturated fat intake were less likely to have adequate daily intake of these foods [0.35 (0.21, 0.60)]. A trend toward adequate intake of fruit and vegetables was found among older participants. These results suggest that more intensive intervention programs are needed among young individuals with higher saturated fat intake. Moreover, higher meal frequency might promote better adherence to the goals of daily fruit and vegetable intake.A identificação de fatores associados ao consumo de frutas, verduras e legumes constitui-se em ferramenta chave na elaboração de programas de intervenção mais eficazes, visando o aumento no consumo desses alimentos. O objetivo do presente estudo foi identificar, em análise transversal, fatores associados ao consumo adequado de frutas, verduras e legumes (> 400g/dia) em 581 nipo-brasileiros adultos, de 1ª e 2ª gerações, residentes em Bauru, SP, Brasil. O consumo alimentar foi avaliado por meio de três inquéritos recordatórios de 24 horas. Em modelos de regressão logística ajustados, verificou-se que o relato de um maior número de refeições diárias estava associado à maior chance [OR (IC 95%)]: [1,31 (1,05; 1,63)] de consumo adequado de frutas, verduras e legumes. Por outro lado, indivíduos no terceiro tercil de consumo de ácidos graxos saturados apresentaram menor chance de consumo adequado destes alimentos [0,35 (0,21; 0,60)]. Verificou-se maior tendência de consumo adequado de frutas, verduras e legumes entre indivíduos de maior idade. Os resultados sugerem que programas de intervenção mais intensivos são necessários entre indivíduos jovens e com consumo elevados de ácidos graxos saturados. Além disso, o estímulo ao maior fracionamento da dieta poderá favorecer a adesão às metas de consumo de frutas, verduras e legumes.USP Faculdade de MedicinaUSP Faculdade de Medicina de Ribeirão Preto Departamento de Medicina SocialUniversidade Federal de São Paulo (UNIFESP) Departamento de Medicina PreventivaUniversidade Sagrado CoraçãoFaculdade de Saúde Pública Departamento de NutriçãoUNIFESP, Depto. de Medicina PreventivaSciEL

A “Wear and Tear” Hypothesis to Explain Sudden Infant Death Syndrome

Sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) is the leading cause of death among USA infants under 1 year of age accounting for ~2,700 deaths per year. Although formally SIDS dates back at least 2,000 years and was even mentioned in the Hebrew Bible (Kings 3:19), its etiology remains unexplained prompting the CDC to initiate a sudden unexpected infant death case registry in 2010. Due to their total dependence, the ability of the infant to allostatically regulate stressors and stress responses shaped by genetic and environmental factors is severely constrained. We propose that SIDS is the result of cumulative painful, stressful, or traumatic exposures that begin in utero and tax neonatal regulatory systems incompatible with allostasis. We also identify several putative biochemical mechanisms involved in SIDS. We argue that the important characteristics of SIDS, namely male predominance (60:40), the significantly different SIDS rate among USA Hispanics (80% lower) compared to whites, 50% of cases occurring between 7.6 and 17.6 weeks after birth with only 10% after 24.7 weeks, and seasonal variation with most cases occurring during winter, are all associated with common environmental stressors, such as neonatal circumcision and seasonal illnesses. We predict that neonatal circumcision is associated with hypersensitivity to pain and decreased heart rate variability, which increase the risk for SIDS. We also predict that neonatal male circumcision will account for the SIDS gender bias and that groups that practice high male circumcision rates, such as USA whites, will have higher SIDS rates compared to groups with lower circumcision rates. SIDS rates will also be higher in USA states where Medicaid covers circumcision and lower among people that do not practice neonatal circumcision and/or cannot afford to pay for circumcision. We last predict that winter-born premature infants who are circumcised will be at higher risk of SIDS compared to infants who experienced fewer nociceptive exposures. All these predictions are testable experimentally using animal models or cohort studies in humans. Our hypothesis provides new insights into novel risk factors for SIDS that can reduce its risk by modifying current infant care practices to reduce nociceptive exposures

White matter diffusion estimates in obsessive-compulsive disorder across 1653 individuals: machine learning findings from the ENIGMA OCD Working Group

White matter pathways, typically studied with diffusion tensor imaging (DTI), have been implicated in the neurobiology of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). However, due to limited sample sizes and the predominance of single-site studies, the generalizability of OCD classification based on diffusion white matter estimates remains unclear. Here, we tested classification accuracy using the largest OCD DTI dataset to date, involving 1336 adult participants (690 OCD patients and 646 healthy controls) and 317 pediatric participants (175 OCD patients and 142 healthy controls) from 18 international sites within the ENIGMA OCD Working Group. We used an automatic machine learning pipeline (with feature engineering and selection, and model optimization) and examined the cross-site generalizability of the OCD classification models using leave-one-site-out cross-validation. Our models showed low-to-moderate accuracy in classifying (1) “OCD vs. healthy controls” (Adults, receiver operator characteristic-area under the curve = 57.19 ± 3.47 in the replication set; Children, 59.8 ± 7.39), (2) “unmedicated OCD vs. healthy controls” (Adults, 62.67 ± 3.84; Children, 48.51 ± 10.14), and (3) “medicated OCD vs. unmedicated OCD” (Adults, 76.72 ± 3.97; Children, 72.45 ± 8.87). There was significant site variability in model performance (cross-validated ROC AUC ranges 51.6–79.1 in adults; 35.9–63.2 in children). Machine learning interpretation showed that diffusivity measures of the corpus callosum, internal capsule, and posterior thalamic radiation contributed to the classification of OCD from HC. The classification performance appeared greater than the model trained on grey matter morphometry in the prior ENIGMA OCD study (our study includes subsamples from the morphometry study). Taken together, this study points to the meaningful multivariate patterns of white matter features relevant to the neurobiology of OCD, but with low-to-moderate classification accuracy. The OCD classification performance may be constrained by site variability and medication effects on the white matter integrity, indicating room for improvement for future research.publishedVersio

Subcortical volumes across the lifespan: Data from 18,605 healthy individuals aged 3-90 years

Age has a major effect on brain volume. However, the normative studies available are constrained by small sample sizes, restricted age coverage and significant methodological variability. These limitations introduce inconsistencies and may obscure or distort the lifespan trajectories of brain morphometry. In response, we capitalized on the resources of the Enhancing Neuroimaging Genetics through Meta-Analysis (ENIGMA) Consortium to examine age-related trajectories inferred from cross-sectional measures of the ventricles, the basal ganglia (caudate, putamen, pallidum, and nucleus accumbens), the thalamus, hippocampus and amygdala using magnetic resonance imaging data obtained from 18,605 individuals aged 3-90 years. All subcortical structure volumes were at their maximum value early in life. The volume of the basal ganglia showed a monotonic negative association with age thereafter; there was no significant association between age and the volumes of the thalamus, amygdala and the hippocampus (with some degree of decline in thalamus) until the sixth decade of life after which they also showed a steep negative association with age. The lateral ventricles showed continuous enlargement throughout the lifespan. Age was positively associated with inter-individual variability in the hippocampus and amygdala and the lateral ventricles. These results were robust to potential confounders and could be used to examine the functional significance of deviations from typical age-related morphometric patterns

Viral variants that initiate and drive maturation of V1V2-directed HIV-1 broadly neutralizing antibodies.

CAPRISA, 2015.Abstract available in pdf

Developmental pathway for potent V1V2-directed HIV-neutralizing antibodies.

CAPRISA, 2014.Antibodies capable of neutralizing HIV-1 often target variable regions 1 and 2 (V1V2) of the HIV-1 envelope, but the mechanism of their elicitation has been unclear. Here we define the developmental pathway by which such antibodies are generated and acquire the requisite molecular characteristics for neutralization. Twelve somatically related neutralizing antibodies (CAP256-VRC26.01-12) were isolated from donor CAP256 (from the Centre for the AIDS Programme of Research in South Africa (CAPRISA)); each antibody contained the protruding tyrosine-sulphated, anionic antigen-binding loop (complementarity-determining region (CDR) H3) characteristic of this category of antibodies. Their unmutated ancestor emerged between weeks 30-38 post-infection with a 35-residue CDR H3, and neutralized the virus that superinfected this individual 15 weeks after initial infection. Improved neutralization breadth and potency occurred by week 59 with modest affinity maturation, and was preceded by extensive diversification of the virus population. HIV-1 V1V2-directed neutralizing antibodies can thus develop relatively rapidly through initial selection of B cells with a long CDR H3, and limited subsequent somatic hypermutation. These data provide important insights relevant to HIV-1 vaccine development

Evidence for similar structural brain anomalies in youth and adult attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder: a machine learning analysis

Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) affects 5% of children world-wide. Of these, two-thirds continue to have impairing symptoms of ADHD into adulthood. Although a large literature implicates structural brain differences of the disorder, it is not clear if adults with ADHD have similar neuroanatomical differences as those seen in children with recent reports from the large ENIGMA-ADHD consortium finding structural differences for children but not for adults. This paper uses deep learning neural network classification models to determine if there are neuroanatomical changes in the brains of children with ADHD that are also observed for adult ADHD, and vice versa. We found that structural MRI data can significantly separate ADHD from control participants for both children and adults. Consistent with the prior reports from ENIGMA-ADHD, prediction performance and effect sizes were better for the child than the adult samples. The model trained on adult samples significantly predicted ADHD in the child sample, suggesting that our model learned anatomical features that are common to ADHD in childhood and adulthood. These results support the continuity of ADHD’s brain differences from childhood to adulthood. In addition, our work demonstrates a novel use of neural network classification models to test hypotheses about developmental continuity