14 research outputs found
COVID Feel Good-An Easy Self-Help Virtual Reality Protocol to Overcome the Psychological Burden of Coronavirus
Background: Living in the time of the COVID-19 means experiencing not only a global health emergency but also extreme psychological stress with potential emotional side effects such as sadness, grief, irritability, and mood swings. Crucially, lockdown and confinement measures isolate people who become the first and the only ones in charge of their own mental health: people are left alone facing a novel and potentially lethal situation, and, at the same time, they need to develop adaptive strategies to face it, at home. In this view, easy-to-use, inexpensive, and scientifically validated self-help solutions aiming to reduce the psychological burden of coronavirus are extremely necessary. Aims: This pragmatic trial aims to provide the evidence that a weekly self-help virtual reality (VR) protocol can help overcome the psychological burden of the Coronavirus by relieving anxiety, improving well-being, and reinforcing social connectedness. The protocol will be based on the 'Secret Garden' 360 VR video online (www.covidfeelgood.com) which simulates a natural environment aiming to promote relaxation and self-reflection. Three hundred sixty-degree or spherical videos allow the user to control the viewing direction. In this way, the user can explore the content from any angle like a panorama and experience presence and immersion. The 'Secret Garden' video is combined with daily exercises that are designed to be experienced with another person (not necessarily physically together), to facilitate a process of critical examination and eventual revision of core assumptions and beliefs related to personal identity, relationships, and goals. Methods: This is a multicentric, pragmatic pilot randomized controlled trial involving individuals who experienced the COVID-19 pandemic and underwent a lockdown and quarantine procedures. The trial is approved by the Ethics Committee of the Istituto Auxologico Italiano. Each research group in all the countries joining the pragmatic trial, aims at enrolling at least 30 individuals in the experimental group experiencing the self-help protocol, and 30 in the control group, over a period of 3 months to verify the feasibility of the intervention. Conclusion: The goal of this protocol is for VR to become the 'surgical mask' of mental health treatment. Although surgical masks do not provide the wearer with a reliable level of protection against the coronavirus compared with FFP2 or FFP3 masks, surgical masks are very effective in protecting others from the wearer's respiratory emissions. The goal of the VR protocol is the same: not necessarily to solve complex mental health problems but rather to improve well-being and preserve social connectedness through the beneficial social effects generated by positive emotions
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Dietary αâLinolenic Acid, Marine Ïâ3 Fatty Acids, and Mortality in a Population With High Fish Consumption: Findings From the PREvenciĂłn con DIeta MEDiterrĂĄnea (PREDIMED) Study
Background: Epidemiological evidence suggests a cardioprotective role of αâlinolenic acid (ALA), a plantâderived Ïâ3 fatty acid. It is unclear whether ALA is beneficial in a background of high marine Ïâ3 fatty acids (longâchain nâ3 polyunsaturated fatty acids) intake. In persons at high cardiovascular risk from Spain, a country in which fish consumption is customarily high, we investigated whether meeting the International Society for the Study of Fatty Acids and Lipids recommendation for dietary ALA (0.7% of total energy) at baseline was related to allâcause and cardiovascular disease mortality. We also examined the effect of meeting the society's recommendation for longâchain nâ3 polyunsaturated fatty acids (â„500 mg/day). Methods and Results: We longitudinally evaluated 7202 participants in the PREvenciĂłn con DIeta MEDiterrĂĄnea (PREDIMED) trial. Multivariableâadjusted Cox regression models were fitted to estimate hazard ratios. ALA intake correlated to walnut consumption (r=0.94). During a 5.9ây followâup, 431 deaths occurred (104 cardiovascular disease, 55 coronary heart disease, 32 sudden cardiac death, 25 stroke). The hazard ratios for meeting ALA recommendation (n=1615, 22.4%) were 0.72 (95% CI 0.56â0.92) for allâcause mortality and 0.95 (95% CI 0.58â1.57) for fatal cardiovascular disease. The hazard ratios for meeting the recommendation for longâchain nâ3 polyunsaturated fatty acids (n=5452, 75.7%) were 0.84 (95% CI 0.67â1.05) for allâcause mortality, 0.61 (95% CI 0.39â0.96) for fatal cardiovascular disease, 0.54 (95% CI 0.29â0.99) for fatal coronary heart disease, and 0.49 (95% CI 0.22â1.01) for sudden cardiac death. The highest reduction in allâcause mortality occurred in participants meeting both recommendations (hazard ratio 0.63 [95% CI 0.45â0.87]). Conclusions: In participants without prior cardiovascular disease and high fish consumption, dietary ALA, supplied mainly by walnuts and olive oil, relates inversely to allâcause mortality, whereas protection from cardiac mortality is limited to fishâderived longâchain nâ3 polyunsaturated fatty acids. Clinical Trial Registration URL: http://www.Controlled-trials.com/. Unique identifier: ISRCTN35739639
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Chemoinformatics and artificial intelligence colloquium: progress and challenges in developing bioactive compounds
We report the main conclusions of the first Chemoinformatics and Artificial Intelligence Colloquium, Mexico City, June 15â17, 2022. Fifteen lectures were presented during a virtual public event with speakers from industry, academia, and non-for-profit organizations. Twelve hundred and ninety students and academics from more than 60 countries. During the meeting, applications, challenges, and opportunities in drug discovery, de novo drug design, ADME-Tox (absorption, distribution, metabolism, excretion and toxicity) property predictions, organic chemistry, peptides, and antibiotic resistance were discussed. The program along with the recordings of all sessions are freely available at https://www.difacquim.com/english/events/2022-colloquium/. © 2022, The Author(s).Open access journalThis item from the UA Faculty Publications collection is made available by the University of Arizona with support from the University of Arizona Libraries. If you have questions, please contact us at [email protected]
Association between type 2 diabetes and depressive symptoms after a 1-year follow-up in an older adult Mediterranean population
Altres ajuts: Recercaixa (number 2013ACUP00194); grants from the ConsejerĂa de Salud de la Junta de AndalucĂa (PI0458/2013, PS0358/2016, PI0137/2018); the PROMETEO/2017/017 grant from the Generalitat Valenciana; University of Rovira i Virgili (2020PMF-PIPF-37); Juan de la Cierva-IncorporaciĂłn research grant (IJC2019-042420-I).To examine the cross-sectional association between baseline depressive symptoms and the presence of type 2 diabetes (T2D), and its association with glycated hemoglobin (HbA1c) and other metabolic variables, and the prospective association of depressive symptoms and HbA1c after 1 year of follow-up. n = 6224 Mediterranean older adults with overweight/obesity and metabolic syndrome (48% females, mean age 64.9 ± 4.9 years) were evaluated in the framework of the PREDIMED-Plus study cohort. Depressive symptoms were assessed using the Beck Depression Inventory-II and HbA1c was used to measure metabolic control. The presence of T2D increased the likelihood of higher levels of depressive symptoms (Ï 2 = 15.84, p = 0.001). Polynomial contrast revealed a positive linear relationship (Ï 2 = 13.49, p = 0.001), the higher the depressive symptoms levels, the higher the prevalence of T2D. Longitudinal analyses showed that the higher baseline depressive symptoms levels, the higher the likelihood of being within the HbA1c â„ 7% at 1-year level (Wald-Ï 2 = 24.06, df = 3, p < .001, for the full adjusted model). Additionally, depressive levels at baseline and duration of T2D predicted higher HbA1c and body mass index, and lower physical activity and adherence to Mediterranean Diet at 1 year of follow-up. This study supports an association between T2D and the severity of depressive symptoms, suggesting a worse metabolic control from mild severity levels in the short-medium term, influenced by lifestyle habits related to diabetes care. Screening for depressive symptoms and a multidisciplinary integrative therapeutic approach should be ensured in patients with T2D