Medical Students: Abuse of Psychoactive Substances and Sexuality Aspects

University students aged 17 to 24 years of age are prone to many risk factors. OBJECTIVES: Identify risk factors related to exploring sexuality and characteristics of consumption of psychoactive substances in students attending medical school. METHODS: 465 Medical students from Santa Casa of São Paulo Faculty of Medical Sciences (FCMSCSP) were prospectively and transversely evaluated during 2005. An anonymous, semi-structured, self-filling questionnaire was used. The average age of the students was 21.5 years, 43% females. 76.2% preferred alcohol, and 11.1% tobacco consumption; chloroethane (lança-perfume) consumption occurred in 22.6% and 15.3% consumption of other types of illicit drugs, with marijuana as the most used one (94%). 70.3%, of the parents drink alcohol and 30.5% smoke tobacco. As for the students\u27 sexuality, 85.3% have already had sexual intercourses, starting at average age of 17. 88.8% used condom during the first sexual intercourse, however, 35.6% did not use it regularly; 5.4% had already had some type of DST. 79.8% of the females preferred having used contraceptive methods; however, 28.1% had a suspicion of pregnancy, which was confirmed in 7.9% of the cases. 9.9% of the students had ideas of abortion, 12.5% have effectively attempted it. 85% found medical school stressing and to relieve tension, 33.8% practiced sports; 6.9% preferred either licit or illicit drug consumption, and 5% used tranquilizers. The results showed risk behaviors: unsafe sex and the use of licit and illicit drugs indicated the need to establish guidance programs on reproductive health, improving self-esteem, and prevention during medical education

Pregnant Teenager Involvement in Sexual Activity and the Social Context

Pregnancy during adolescence represents a challenge to society as a whole. Its incidence is increasing and brings about social and medical consequences to both the teen mothers and their children. The purpose of this study was to evaluate pregnant teenager involvement in sexual activity and the social context. The group studied comprised 152 pregnant teenagers attending the Department of Pediatrics, Santa Casa de Sao Paulo (SCSP) General Hospital. All information was analyzed. The age at first intercourse was 14.2 years and the average period between first intercourse and pregnancy was 1.4 years. Most pregnancies (75%) were neither planned nor wanted, however, most teen mothers (64.3%) did not use any contraceptive method. Of the pregnant teenagers, 68.1% came from unstructured families where in 71% of the teen pregnancy cases, there was a role model (mother, sister, or cousin who already experienced teen pregnancy). The average number of school years attended by the analyzed pregnant teenagers was 8.1 years, however, there was a high dropout rate of 40.1%. The age at first intercourse was low and concurs with the high incidence of unstructured families. The average number of school years attended was high, which would theoretically reflect a greater knowledge with regard to human reproduction, pointing to the multicausality of teen pregnancy and the role played by the family. Conclusions: We confirmed that teen pregnancy presents multicausal etiology; sexual initiation of pregnant teenagers was quite early with high dropout rates, which indicated that prevention methodology should be based on early detection of risk factors for elaboration of appropriate prevention proposals

Sexuality and Persons with Down Syndrome. A Study from Brazil

In recent years, important gains and changes have been observed in the life of teenagers with Down syndrome (DS) with increased inclusion into society. This review will discuss adolescence and sexuality in teenagers with DS from a descriptive study of 50 patients with DS between the ages of 10 and 20 years. The mean age was 13.5 years, 50% females; 86% went to school with 62.2% in school for over six years. Of the patients that attended school, 60% went to special education school and only 10% read and wrote correctly. In an evaluation of autonomy, 66% took showers, 78% performed their physiological needs, 77% intimate hygiene and 76% oral hygiene without help. 42% affirmed being able to do anything that is asked; 22% perform all tasks in the home; 10% felt they were incapable of doing anything and 4% used public transportation without help. 42% of the teenagers masturbated, 24% on a daily basis, 75% in private, and 25% in a public location. 42% had already kissed at a mean age of 12.9 years, mean age of the partner 16.1 years; 26.8% of these partners had DS. 82% found themselves attractive and 33% would not change anything in their appearance. We found that they presented normal development in the exercise of their sexuality, but with important difficulties in their autonomy and difficulties in school, needing careful interventions to make their social interaction the best possible. Their pubertal development was normal and they were satisfied with their body image with future perspectives of working, finding a partner, and living a normal life of getting married and having children

Brazilian Adolescents Infected by HIV: Epidemiologic Characteristics and Adherence to Treatment

Over the last 3 decades since the first AIDS cases appeared, we have witnessed great progress in therapeutic methodologies that have transformed the evolution of the disease from debilitating and fatal, into chronic and controllable. HIV-infected children are arriving at adolescence and bringing specific challenges, not only to themselves, but also to their families and caregivers. This retrospective study sets forth epidemiological and treatment characteristics of 46 HIV-infected adolescents followed in a specialized university service relating said characteristics to therapy adherence assessed through a combination of three indirect methods. Therapy adherence did not reveal any association with either epidemiologic characteristics regarding age, sex, school level, household composition, age at diagnosis, mode of infection, knowledge of diagnosis, treatment time, or initial antiretroviral scheme. Patients with good therapy adherence presented lower viral load and used a smaller number of antiretroviral schemes

Down Syndrome and Sexuality

In recent years important gains and changes have been observed in the life of teenagers with Down syndrome (DS) with increased inclusion into society. This chapter will discuss adolescence and sexuality in teenagers with DS from a descriptive study of 50 patients with DS between the ages of 10 and 20 years. The mean age was 13.5 years, 50% females. 86% went to school with 62.2% in school for over six years. Of the patients that attended school, 60% went to special education school and only 10% read and wrote correctly. In evaluation of autonomy, 66% took shower, 78% performed their physiological needs, 77% intimate hygiene and 76% oral hygiene without help. 42% affirmed being able to do anything that is asked; 22% perform all tasks in the home; 10% felt they were incapable of doing anything and 4% used public transportation without help. 42% of the teenagers masturbated, 24% on a daily basis, 75% in private, and 25% in a public location. 42% had already kissed at a mean age of 12.9 years, mean age of the partner 16.1 years; 26.8% of these partners had DS. 82% found themselves attractive and 33% would not change anything in their appearance. We found that they presented normal development in the exercise of their sexuality, but with important difficulties in their autonomy and difficulties in school, needing careful interventions in order to make their social interaction the best possible. Their pubertal development was normal and they were satisfied with their body image with future perspectives of working, finding a partner and living a normal life getting married and having children

The GRAPPA-OMERACT Working Group:4 Prioritized Domains for Completing the Core Outcome Measurement Set for Psoriatic Arthritis 2019 Updates

The Group for Research and Assessment of Psoriasis and Psoriatic Arthritis (GRAPPA)-Outcome Measures in Rheumatology (OMERACT) Psoriatic Arthritis (PsA) working group provided updates at the 2019 GRAPPA annual meeting on its work toward developing a core outcome set for PsA. The working group prioritized 4 domains, including musculoskeletal disease activity (enthesitis and dactylitis), fatigue, physical function, and structural damage. In this report, the working group summarizes its progress in standardizing the core outcome set for these 4 domains.</p

Evolution of a key enzyme of aerobic metabolism reveals Proterozoic functional subunit duplication events and an ancient origin of animals

The biological toolkits for aerobic respiration were critical for the rise and diversification of early animals. Aerobic life forms generate ATP through the oxidation of organic molecules in a process known as Krebs’ Cycle, where the enzyme isocitrate dehydrogenase (IDH) regulates the cycle's turnover rate. Evolutionary reconstructions and molecular dating of proteins related to oxidative metabolism, such as IDH, can therefore provide an estimate of when the diversification of major taxa occurred, and their coevolution with the oxidative state of oceans and atmosphere. To establish the evolutionary history and divergence time of NAD-dependent IDH, we examined transcriptomic data from 195 eukaryotes (mostly animals). We demonstrate that two duplication events occurred in the evolutionary history of NAD-IDH, one in the ancestor of eukaryotes approximately at 1967 Ma, and another at 1629 Ma, both in the Paleoproterozoic Era. Moreover, NAD-IDH regulatory subunits β and γ are exclusive to metazoans, arising in the Mesoproterozoic. Our results therefore support the concept of an ‘‘earlier-than-Tonian’’ diversification of eukaryotes and the pre-Cryogenian emergence of a metazoan IDH enzyme

Unraveling Substituent Effects on the Glass Transition Temperatures of Biorenewable Polyesters

Converting biomass-based feedstocks into polymers not only reduces our reliance on fossil fuels, but also furnishes multiple opportunities to design biorenewable polymers with targeted properties and functionalities. Here we report a series of high glass transition temperature (Tg up to 184 °C) polyesters derived from sugar-based furan derivatives as well as a joint experimental and theoretical study of substituent effects on their thermal properties. Surprisingly, we find that polymers with moderate steric hindrance exhibit the highest Tg values. Through a detailed Ramachandran-type analysis of the rotational flexibility of the polymer backbone, we find that additional steric hindrance does not necessarily increase chain stiffness in these polyesters. We attribute this interesting structure-property relationship to a complex interplay between methylinduced steric strain and the concerted rotations along the polymer backbone. We believe that our findings provide key insight into the relationship between structure and thermal properties across a range of synthetic polymers