Which food-related behaviours are associated with healthier intakes of fruits and vegetables among women?

Objective To examine associations between shopping, food preparation, meal and eating behaviours and fruit and vegetable intake among women.Design Cross-sectional survey.Setting Community-based sample from metropolitan Melbourne, Australia.Subjects A sample of 1136 women aged 18&ndash;65 years, randomly selected from the electoral roll.Results Food-related behaviours reflecting organisation and forward-planning, as well as enjoyment of and high perceived value of meal shopping, preparation and consumption were associated with healthier intakes of fruits and vegetables. For example, women who more frequently planned meals before they went shopping, wrote a shopping list, enjoyed food shopping, planned in the morning what they will eat for dinner that night, planned what they will eat for lunch, reported they enjoy cooking, liked trying new recipes and who reported they sometimes prepare dishes ahead of time were more likely to consume two or more servings of vegetables daily. Conversely, women who frequently found cooking a chore, spent less than 15 minutes preparing dinner, decided on the night what they will eat for dinner, ate in a fast-food restaurant, ate takeaway meals from a fast-food restaurant, ate dinner and snacks while watching television and who frequently ate on the run were less likely to eat two or more servings of vegetables daily.Conclusions Practical strategies based on these behavioural characteristics could be trialled in interventions aimed at promoting fruit and vegetable consumption among women.<br /

Surface strength of materials to the method of friction

Influenza A virus (IAV) has its natural reservoir in wild waterfowl, and emerging human IAVs often contain gene segments from avian viruses. The active drug metabolite of oseltamivir (oseltamivir carboxylate [OC]), stockpiled as Tamiflu for influenza pandemic preparedness, is not removed by conventional sewage treatment and has been detected in river water. There, it may exert evolutionary pressure on avian IAV in waterfowl, resulting in the development of resistant viral variants. A resistant avian IAV can circulate among wild birds only if resistance does not restrict viral fitness and if the resistant virus can persist without continuous drug pressure. In this in vivo mallard (Anas platyrhynchos) study, we tested whether an OC-resistant avian IAV (H1N1) strain with an H274Y mutation in the neuraminidase (NA-H274Y) could retain resistance while drug pressure was gradually removed. Successively infected mallards were exposed to decreasing levels of OC, and fecal samples were analyzed for the neuraminidase sequence and phenotypic resistance. No reversion to wild-type virus was observed during the experiment, which included 17 days of viral transmission among 10 ducks exposed to OC concentrations below resistance induction levels. We conclude that resistance in avian IAV that is induced by exposure of the natural host to OC can persist in the absence of the drug. Thus, there is a risk that human-pathogenic IAVs that evolve from IAVs circulating among wild birds may contain resistance mutations. An oseltamivir-resistant pandemic IAV would pose a substantial public health threat. Therefore, our observations underscore the need for prudent oseltamivir use, upgraded sewage treatment, and surveillance for resistant IAVs in wild birds

Estimation of newborn risk for child or adolescent obesity:lessons from longitudinal birth cohorts

OBJECTIVES: Prevention of obesity should start as early as possible after birth. We aimed to build clinically useful equations estimating the risk of later obesity in newborns, as a first step towards focused early prevention against the global obesity epidemic. METHODS: We analyzed the lifetime Northern Finland Birth Cohort 1986 (NFBC1986) (N = 4,032) to draw predictive equations for childhood and adolescent obesity from traditional risk factors (parental BMI, birth weight, maternal gestational weight gain, behaviour and social indicators), and a genetic score built from 39 BMI/obesity-associated polymorphisms. We performed validation analyses in a retrospective cohort of 1,503 Italian children and in a prospective cohort of 1,032 U.S. children. RESULTS: In the NFBC1986, the cumulative accuracy of traditional risk factors predicting childhood obesity, adolescent obesity, and childhood obesity persistent into adolescence was good: AUROC = 0·78[0·74-0.82], 0·75[0·71-0·79] and 0·85[0·80-0·90] respectively (all p\u3c0·001). Adding the genetic score produced discrimination improvements ≤1%. The NFBC1986 equation for childhood obesity remained acceptably accurate when applied to the Italian and the U.S. cohort (AUROC = 0·70[0·63-0·77] and 0·73[0·67-0·80] respectively) and the two additional equations for childhood obesity newly drawn from the Italian and the U.S. datasets showed good accuracy in respective cohorts (AUROC = 0·74[0·69-0·79] and 0·79[0·73-0·84]) (all p\u3c0·001). The three equations for childhood obesity were converted into simple Excel risk calculators for potential clinical use. CONCLUSION: This study provides the first example of handy tools for predicting childhood obesity in newborns by means of easily recorded information, while it shows that currently known genetic variants have very little usefulness for such prediction

Совершенствование инновационной деятельности предприятия (на примере ОАО «СтанкоГомель»)

Background Wild waterfowl is the natural reservoir of influenza A virus (IAV); hosted viruses are very variable and provide a source for genetic segments which can reassort with poultry or mammalian adapted IAVs to generate novel species crossing viruses. Additionally, wild waterfowl act as a reservoir for highly pathogenic IAVs. Exposure of wild birds to the antiviral drug oseltamivir may occur in the environment as its active metabolite can be released from sewage treatment plants to river water. Resistance to oseltamivir, or to other neuraminidase inhibitors (NAIs), in IAVs of wild waterfowl has not been extensively studied. Aim and Methods In a previous in vivo Mallard experiment, an influenza A(H6N2) virus developed oseltamivir resistance by the R292K substitution in the neuraminidase (NA), when the birds were exposed to oseltamivir. In this study we tested if the resistance could be maintained in Mallards without drug exposure. Three variants of resistant H6N2/R292K virus were each propagated during 17 days in five successive pairs of naive Mallards, while oseltamivir exposure was decreased and removed. Daily fecal samples were analyzed for viral presence, genotype and phenotype. Results and Conclusion Within three days without drug exposure no resistant viruses could be detected by NA sequencing, which was confirmed by functional NAI sensitivity testing. We conclude that this resistant N2 virus could not compete in fitness with wild type subpopulations without oseltamivir drug pressure, and thus has no potential to circulate among wild birds. The results of this study contrast to previous observations of drug induced resistance in an avian H1N1 virus, which was maintained also without drug exposure in Mallards. Experimental observations on persistence of NAI resistance in avian IAVs resemble NAI resistance seen in human IAVs, in which resistant N2 subtypes do not circulate, while N1 subtypes with permissive mutations can circulate without drug pressure. We speculate that the phylogenetic group N1 NAs may easier compensate for NAI resistance than group N2 NAs, though further studies are needed to confirm such conclusions

Факторы риска развития синдрома вегетативных дисфункций и признаков дисплазии соединительной ткани

СОЕДИНИТЕЛЬНОЙ ТКАНИ БОЛЕЗНИФАКТОРЫ РИСКАНЕРВНОЙ СИСТЕМЫ ВЕГЕТАТИВНОЙ ДИСФУНКЦИЯ НАСЛЕДСТВЕННАЯНЕРВНОЙ СИСТЕМЫ ВЕГЕТАТИВНОЙ БОЛЕЗНИДЕТЕЙ ОХРАНЫ ЗДОРОВЬЯ СЛУЖБ

Тепловой расходомер

Полезная модель относится к области измерительной техники, а именно к тепловым устройствам для измерения расхода жидких или газообразных сред, и может быть использована в химической, электронной, энергетической и других отраслях промышленности

Genetic risk and a primary role for cell-mediated immune mechanisms in multiple sclerosis.

Multiple sclerosis is a common disease of the central nervous system in which the interplay between inflammatory and neurodegenerative processes typically results in intermittent neurological disturbance followed by progressive accumulation of disability. Epidemiological studies have shown that genetic factors are primarily responsible for the substantially increased frequency of the disease seen in the relatives of affected individuals, and systematic attempts to identify linkage in multiplex families have confirmed that variation within the major histocompatibility complex (MHC) exerts the greatest individual effect on risk. Modestly powered genome-wide association studies (GWAS) have enabled more than 20 additional risk loci to be identified and have shown that multiple variants exerting modest individual effects have a key role in disease susceptibility. Most of the genetic architecture underlying susceptibility to the disease remains to be defined and is anticipated to require the analysis of sample sizes that are beyond the numbers currently available to individual research groups. In a collaborative GWAS involving 9,772 cases of European descent collected by 23 research groups working in 15 different countries, we have replicated almost all of the previously suggested associations and identified at least a further 29 novel susceptibility loci. Within the MHC we have refined the identity of the HLA-DRB1 risk alleles and confirmed that variation in the HLA-A gene underlies the independent protective effect attributable to the class I region. Immunologically relevant genes are significantly overrepresented among those mapping close to the identified loci and particularly implicate T-helper-cell differentiation in the pathogenesis of multiple sclerosis

Pharmacogenetic meta-analysis of genome-wide association studies of LDL cholesterol response to statins

Statins effectively lower LDL cholesterol levels in large studies and the observed interindividual response variability may be partially explained by genetic variation. Here we perform a pharmacogenetic meta-analysis of genome-wide association studies (GWAS) in studies addressing the LDL cholesterol response to statins, including up to 18,596 statin-treated subjects. We validate the most promising signals in a further 22,318 statin recipients and identify two loci, SORT1/CELSR2/PSRC1 and SLCO1B1, not previously identified in GWAS. Moreover, we confirm the previously described associations with APOE and LPA. Our findings advance the understanding of the pharmacogenetic architecture of statin response

Meta-analysis of genome-wide association studies identifies novel loci that influence cupping and the glaucomatous process

Glaucoma is characterized by irreversible optic nerve degeneration and is the most frequent cause of irreversible blindness worldwide. Here, the International Glaucoma Genetics Consortium conducts a meta-analysis of genome-wide association studies of vertical cup-disc ratio (VCDR), an important disease-related optic nerve parameter. In 21,094 individuals of European ancestry and 6,784 individuals of Asian ancestry, we identify 10 new loci associated with variation in VCDR. In a separate risk-score analysis of five case-control studies, Caucasians in the highest quintile have a 2.5-fold increased risk of primary open-angle glaucoma as compared with those in the lowest quintile. This study has more than doubled the known loci associated with optic disc cupping and will allow greater understanding of mechanisms involved in this common blinding condition

A genome-wide association study of anorexia nervosa.

Anorexia nervosa (AN) is a complex and heritable eating disorder characterized by dangerously low body weight. Neither candidate gene studies nor an initial genome-wide association study (GWAS) have yielded significant and replicated results. We performed a GWAS in 2907 cases with AN from 14 countries (15 sites) and 14 860 ancestrally matched controls as part of the Genetic Consortium for AN (GCAN) and the Wellcome Trust Case Control Consortium 3 (WTCCC3). Individual association analyses were conducted in each stratum and meta-analyzed across all 15 discovery data sets. Seventy-six (72 independent) single nucleotide polymorphisms were taken forward for in silico (two data sets) or de novo (13 data sets) replication genotyping in 2677 independent AN cases and 8629 European ancestry controls along with 458 AN cases and 421 controls from Japan. The final global meta-analysis across discovery and replication data sets comprised 5551 AN cases and 21 080 controls. AN subtype analyses (1606 AN restricting; 1445 AN binge-purge) were performed. No findings reached genome-wide significance. Two intronic variants were suggestively associated: rs9839776 (P=3.01 × 10(-7)) in SOX2OT and rs17030795 (P=5.84 × 10(-6)) in PPP3CA. Two additional signals were specific to Europeans: rs1523921 (P=5.76 × 10(-)(6)) between CUL3 and FAM124B and rs1886797 (P=8.05 × 10(-)(6)) near SPATA13. Comparing discovery with replication results, 76% of the effects were in the same direction, an observation highly unlikely to be due to chance (P=4 × 10(-6)), strongly suggesting that true findings exist but our sample, the largest yet reported, was underpowered for their detection. The accrual of large genotyped AN case-control samples should be an immediate priority for the field