The quality of girls' diets declines and tracks across middle childhood

BACKGROUND: Food group intakes by US children are below recommendations and micronutrient inadequacies have been reported. There are few longitudinal data that focus on developmental changes in food and nutrient intake from early to middle childhood. We examined changes in nutrient and food group intakes over time and the tracking of intakes across middle childhood in a longitudinal sample of girls. METHODS: Three multiple-pass 24-hour diet recalls were conducted in a sample of 181 non-Hispanic White girls at ages 5, 7, and 9 years. Food and nutrient data were averaged across 3 days. Analyses of time effects were conducted using repeated measures analysis of variance and tracking of intakes was assessed via rank analysis. RESULTS: We found significant decreases in nutrient densities (intakes per 1000 kcal) of vitamins C and D, calcium, phosphorus, magnesium and zinc at age 9. Girls maintained their relative quartile positions for these micronutrients from ages 5–9. Analysis of food group data showed similar trends. At age 9, significantly fewer girls were meeting the recommendations for dairy, fruit and vegetable servings than at age 5 and girls also tended to remain in their respective quartiles over time, especially for fruit and dairy intakes. CONCLUSIONS: These results highlight the importance of developing healthy eating practices during early childhood when caretakers have considerable control over children's food intake

A lack of confirmation with alternative assays questions the validity of IL-17A expression in human neutrophils using immunohistochemistry

We identified IL-17A-positive neutrophils in Wolbachia-positive Onchocerca volvulus nodules using an antibody that has previously reported IL-17A-positive neutrophils in several inflammatory conditions. However, we could not detect IL-17A using a range of alternative assays. Our data question the IL-17A antibody specificity and the ability of human neutrophils to express IL-17A

Human filarial Wolbachia lipopeptide directly activates human neutrophils in vitro.

The host inflammatory response to the Onchocerca volvulus endosymbiont, Wolbachia, is a major contributing factor in the development of chronic pathology in humans (onchocerciasis/river blindness). Recently, the toll-like pattern recognition receptor motif of the major inflammatory ligands of filarial Wolbachia, membrane-associated diacylated lipoproteins, were functionally defined in murine models of pathology, including mediation of neutrophil recruitment to the cornea. However, the extent to which human neutrophils can be activated in response to this Wolbachia pattern recognition motif is not known. Therefore, the responses of purified peripheral blood human neutrophils to a synthetic N-terminal diacylated lipopeptide (WoLP) of filarial Wolbachia peptidoglycan-associated lipoprotein (PAL) were characterised. WoLP exposure led to a dose-dependent activation of healthy, human neutrophils that included gross morphological alterations and modulation of surface expressed integrins involved in tethering, rolling and extravasation. WoLP exposure induced chemotaxis but not chemokinesis of neutrophils, and secretion of the major neutrophil chemokine, interleukin 8. WoLP also induced and primed the respiratory burst, and enhanced neutrophil survival by delay of apoptosis. These results indicate that the major inflammatory motif of filarial Wolbachia lipoproteins directly activates human neutrophils in vitro and promotes a molecular pathway by which human neutrophils are recruited to sites of Onchocerca parasitism

Type I Interferon regulates cytokine-delayed neutrophil apoptosis, reactive oxygen species production and chemokine expression via activation of p38 MAPK

ABSTRACTInterferons (IFNs) are key regulators of a number of inflammatory conditions in which neutrophils play an important role in pathology, such as rheumatoid arthritis (RA) and systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE), where Type I IFNs are implicated in disease pathology. However, IFNs are usually generated in vivo together with other cytokines that also have immunoregulatory functions but such interactions are poorly-defined experimentally. We measured the effects of Type-I IFN (IFNα), elevated in both RA and SLE, on the functions of healthy neutrophils incubated in vitro in the absence and presence of pro-inflammatory cytokines typically elevated in inflammatory diseases (TNFα, GM-CSF). IFNα alone had no effect on neutrophil apoptosis, however it did abrogate the anti-apoptotic effect of GM-CSF (18h, p&lt; 0.01). The enhanced stabilty of the anti-apoptotic protein Mcl-1 and delayed activation of caspase activation normally regulated by GM-CSF were blocked by IFNα: this effect was mediated, in part, by activation of p38 MAPK, increased turnover of the anti-apoptotic protein Mcl-1 and cleavage of caspases. IFNα alone also primed ROS production alone and maintained the transient priming effect of TNF for up to 4h: it also down-regulated GM-CSF and TNFα-activated expression of CXCL1, CXCL2, CXCL3, CXCL8, CCL3 and CCL4, but in contrast increased the expression of CXCL10. These novel data identify complex regulatory signalling networks in which Type I IFNs profoundly alter the response of neutrophils to inflammatory cytokines. This is likely to have important consequences in vivo and may explain the complexity and heterogeneity of inflammatory diseases such as RA, in which multiple cytokine cascades have been activated.</jats:p

Girls’ Dairy Intake, Energy Intake, and Weight Status

We explored the relationships among girls’ weight status, dairy servings, and total energy intake. The hypothesis that consuming dairy could reduce risk for overweight was evaluated by comparing energy intake and weight status of girls who met or consumed less than the recommended three servings of dairy per day. Participants included 172 11-year-old non-Hispanic white girls, assessed cross-sectionally. Intakes of dairy, calcium, and energy were measured using three 24-hour recalls. Body mass index and body fat measures from dual-energy x-ray absorptiometry were obtained. Because preliminary analyses suggested systematic underreporting of energy intake, the relationships among dairy servings and measures of weight status were examined for the total sample and for subsamples of under-, plausible, and overreporters. Data for the total sample provided support for the hypothesized relationship among weight status, dairy servings, and energy intake. Thirty-nine percent of girls reported consuming the recommended ≥3 servings of dairy per day; these girls also reported higher energy intake but had lower body mass index z scores and body fat than the girls who consumed fewer than three dairy servings each day. Among plausible reporters, no relationship between dairy intake and weight status was noted. This discrepancy may be attributable to a high percentage (45%) of overweight underreporters in the total sample. Our findings reveal that reporting bias, resulting from the presence of a substantial proportion of underreporters of higher weight status, can contribute to obtaining spurious associations between dairy intake and weight status. These findings underscore the need for randomly controlled trials to assess the role of dairy in weight management. The prevalence of pediatric obesity has been rising for more than 20 years (1). There is evidence that increased intake of dairy foods and calcium may play a significant role in maintaining a healthful weight and moderating body fat (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14 and 15). However, results across studies have been inconsistent (16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27 and 28), and this may be attributable to major challenges in using self-reported dietary intake data. Self-reported intakes tend to be subject to underreporting bias and the underreporting of energy intake tends to be positively related to weight status. Underreporters also tend to weigh more (29 and 30). Doubly labeled water techniques assessing energy expenditure suggest underreporting results in a 10% to 50% underestimation of actual energy intake and is a significant problem in older children (31). Doubly labeled water techniques are expensive and not feasible for large samples; thus, several methods have been developed that use estimated energy requirements to assess reporting bias (29 and 32). Therefore, in this study the method suggested by Huang and colleagues (29) was used to classify children as under-, plausible, or overreporters. The objective of this study was to assess the relationship among girls’ weight status, dairy servings, and total energy intake. The hypothesis that consuming dairy could reduce risk for overweight was evaluated by comparing energy intake and weight status of girls who met or consumed less than the recommended three servings of dairy per day. To explore the effect of reporting bias on this relationship, the hypothesis was evaluated using the total sample, and subgroups of girls identified as plausible, under-, or overreporters

Thematic Research network for emergency and UnScheduled Treatment (TRUST): scoping the potential

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>To identify the benefits of a network in emergency and unscheduled care research, a six week scoping study was undertaken. Objectives were to: draw together stakeholders; identify and prioritise research topics; identify sites for recruitment to studies; and agree a research strategy for a network.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>A workshop was held to discuss and agree a research strategy based on results from four activities: visits to established research centres in emergency and unscheduled care; a literature overview; interviews with stakeholders in a GP out-of-hours service; and an exploration of the potential for routine data to support research in emergency care.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Participants attended the workshop from user groups, primary care, the ambulance service, social care, the national telephone based health helpline, the Welsh Assembly Government and the academic sector. Site visits identified opportunities for collaboration. Gaps in knowledge were identified concerning the effectiveness of alternative models of emergency care delivery. Interview data highlighted a lack of evidence related to the quality of out-of-hours provision of primary care. The All Wales Injury Surveillance System (AWISS) was found to offer the potential to use routine data to support quantitative studies in emergency care. Three key issues emerged across all activities: working across boundaries; patient involvement; and triage.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>The study included views from patient, provider, policy and academic perspectives and built the case for a research network in emergency care. Now funded, TRUST (Thematic Research network for emergency and UnScheduled Treatment) will allow the development of research proposals, building of research teams and recruitment of sites and patients both in Wales and across the UK. It aims to address the imbalance between investment and research in this area and help support provision of 'the right care to the right people at the right time'.</p

Animals can assign novel odours to a known category

The ability to identify a novel stimulus as a member of a known category allows an organism torespond appropriately towards it. Categorisation is thus a fundamental component of cognition andan essential tool for processing and responding to unknown stimuli. Therefore, one might expectto observe it throughout the animal kingdom and across sensory domains. There is much evidenceof visual categorisation in non-human animals, but we currently know little about this process inother modalities. In this experiment, we investigated categorisation in the olfactory domain. Dogswere trained to discriminate between 40 odours; the presence or absence of accelerants formed thecategorical rule. Those in the experimental group were rewarded for responding to substrates withaccelerants (either burnt or un-burnt) and inhibit responses to the same substrates (either burnt or unburnt)without accelerants (S+ counterbalanced). The pseudocategory control group was trained onthe same stimuli without the categorical rule. The experimental group learned the discrimination andanimals were able to generalise to novel stimuli from the same category. None of the control animalswere able to learn the discrimination within the maximum number of trials. This study provides the firstevidence that non-human animals can learn to categorise non-biologically relevant odour information

Black Carbon Exposure, Oxidative Stress Genes, and Blood Pressure in a Repeated-Measures Study

BACKGROUND. Particulate matter (PM) air pollution has been associated with cardiovascular morbidity and mortality, and elevated blood pressure (BP) is a known risk factor for cardiovascular disease. A small number of studies have investigated the relationship between PM and BP and found mixed results. Evidence suggests that traffic-related air pollution contributes significantly to PM-related cardiovascular effects. OBJECTIVES. We hypothesized that black carbon (BC), a traffic-related combustion by-product, would be more strongly associated with BP than would fine PM [aerodynamic diameter ≤ 2.5 μm (PM2.5)], a heterogeneous PM mixture, and that these effects would be larger among participants with genetic variants associated with impaired antioxidative defense. METHODS. We performed a repeated-measures analysis in elderly men to analyze associations between PM2.5 and BC exposure and BP using mixed-effects models with random intercepts, adjusting for potential confounders. We also examined statistical interaction between BC and genetic variants related to oxidative stress defense: GSTM1, GSTP1, GSTT1, NQO1, catalase, and HMOX-1. RESULTS. A 1-SD increase in BC concentration was associated with a 1.5-mmHg increase in systolic BP [95% confidence interval (CI), 0.1-2.8] and a 0.9-mmHg increase in diastolic BP (95% CI, 0.2-1.6). We observed no evidence of statistical interaction between BC and any of the genetic variants examined and found no association between PM2.5 and BP. CONCLUSIONS. We observed positive associations between BP and BC, but not between BP and PM2.5, and found no evidence of effect modification of the association between BC and BP by gene variants related to antioxidative defense.National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (ES015172, ES014663); National Cancer Institute (2-T32-CA009330); United States Environmental Protection Agency (R832416); United States Deparment of Veterans Affairs; Massachusetts Veterans Epidemiology Research and Information Cente

Object Relations in the Museum: A Psychosocial Perspective

This article theorises museum engagement from a psychosocial perspective. With the aid of selected concepts from object relations theory, it explains how the museum visitor can establish a personal relation to museum objects, making use of them as an ‘aesthetic third’ to symbolise experience. Since such objects are at the same time cultural resources, interacting with them helps the individual to feel part of a shared culture. The article elaborates an example drawn from a research project that aimed to make museum collections available to people with physical and mental health problems. It draws on the work of the British psychoanalysts Donald Winnicott and Wilfred Bion to explain the salience of the concepts of object use, potential space, containment and reverie within a museum context. It also refers to the work of the contemporary psychoanalyst Christopher Bollas on how objects can become evocative for individuals both by virtue of their intrinsic qualities and by the way they are used to express personal idiom

Isolation of Microvesicles from Human Circulating Neutrophils.

Neutrophil-derived microvesicles (NDMVs) are liberated by neutrophils upon cell activation by molecules. Once activated, neutrophils are primarily involved in acute inflammation; however, the microvesicles they produce are largely anti-inflammatory. NDMVs have been shown to protect cartilage during inflammatory arthritis. They exert these effects by inhibiting or affecting the function of target cells, including macrophages. NDMVs have the potential to act as disease-modifying agents, especially for inflammatory diseases. This protocol describes a method using differential centrifugation to separate neutrophils from whole human blood. Subsequently, neutrophils are identified by cytospin and Wright's staining, and then the NDMVs are isolated using differential centrifugation