Making personalised nutrition the easy choice: creating policies to break down the barriers and reap the benefits

Personalised diets based on people\u27s existing food choices,and/or phenotypic, and/or genetic information hold potential to improve public dietary-related health. The aim of this analysis, therefore, has been to examine the degree to which factors which determine uptake of personalised nutrition vary between EU countries to better target of policies to encourage uptake, and optimise the health benefits of personalised nutrition technology. A questionnaire developed from previous qualitative research was used to survey nationally representative samples from 9 EU countries (N=9381). Perceived barriersto the uptake of personalised nutrition comprised three factors (data protection; the eating context; and societal acceptance). Trust insources of information comprised 4 factors (commerce and media;practitioners; government; family and friends). Benefits comprised single factor. Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) was employed to comparedifferences in responses between the United Kingdom; Ireland; Portugal;Poland; Norway; the Netherlands; Germany; and Spain. The resultsindicated that those in Greece, Poland, Ireland, Portugal and Spain,rated the benefits of personalised nutrition highest, suggesting aparticular readiness in these countries to adopt personalised nutritioninterventions. Greek participants were more likely to perceive the socialcontext of eating as a barrier to adoption of personalised nutrition,implying a need for support in negotiating social situations whilst on aprescribed diet. Those in Spain, Germany, Portugal and Poland scoredhighest on perceived barriers related to data protection. Government wasmore trusted than commerce to deliver and provide information onpersonalised nutrition overall. This was particularly the case inIreland, Portugal and Greece, indicating an imperative to build trust,particularly in the ability of commercial service providers to deliverpersonalised dietary regimes effectively in these countries. These findings, obtained from a nationally representative sample of EU citizensimply that a parallel, integrated, public-private delivery system would capture the needs of most potential consumer

What traits are carried on mobile genetic elements, and why?

Although similar to any other organism, prokaryotes can transfer genes vertically from mother cell to daughter cell, they can also exchange certain genes horizontally. Genes can move within and between genomes at fast rates because of mobile genetic elements (MGEs). Although mobile elements are fundamentally self-interested entities, and thus replicate for their own gain, they frequently carry genes beneficial for their hosts and/or the neighbours of their hosts. Many genes that are carried by mobile elements code for traits that are expressed outside of the cell. Such traits are involved in bacterial sociality, such as the production of public goods, which benefit a cell's neighbours, or the production of bacteriocins, which harm a cell's neighbours. In this study we review the patterns that are emerging in the types of genes carried by mobile elements, and discuss the evolutionary and ecological conditions under which mobile elements evolve to carry their peculiar mix of parasitic, beneficial and cooperative genes

Psychological Determinants of Consumer Acceptance of Personalised Nutrition in 9 European Countries

YesObjective: To develop a model of the psychological factors which predict people’s intention to adopt personalised nutrition. Potential determinants of adoption included perceived risk and benefit, perceived self-efficacy, internal locus of control and health commitment. Methods: A questionnaire, developed from exploratory study data and the existing theoretical literature, and including validated psychological scales was administered to N = 9381 participants from 9 European countries (Germany, Greece, Ireland, Poland, Portugal, Spain, the Netherlands, the UK, and Norway). Results: Structural equation modelling indicated that the greater participants’ perceived benefits to be associated with personalised nutrition, the more positive their attitudes were towards personalised nutrition, and the greater their intention to adopt it. Higher levels of nutrition self-efficacy were related to more positive attitudes towards, and a greater expressed intention to adopt, personalised nutrition. Other constructs positively impacting attitudes towards personalised nutrition included more positive perceptions of the efficacy of regulatory control to protect consumers (e.g. in relation to personal data protection), higher self-reported internal health locus of control, and health commitment. Although higher perceived risk had a negative relationship with attitude and an inverse relationship with perceived benefit, its effects on attitude and intention to adopt personalised nutrition was less influential than perceived benefit. The model was stable across the different European countries, suggesting that psychological factors determining adoption of personalised nutrition have generic applicability across different European countries. Conclusion: The results suggest that transparent provision of information about potential benefits, and protection of consumers’ personal data is important for adoption, delivery of public health benefits, and commercialisation of personalised nutrition.This project has received funding from the European Union’s Seventh Framework Programme for research, technological development and demonstration under grant agreement n u 265494 (http://cordis.europa.eu/fp7/home_en.html). Food4Me is the acronym of the project ‘‘Personalised nutrition: an integrated analysis of opportunities and challenges’’ (http://www.food4me.org/). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript

Surveillance of multiple congenital anomalies; searching for new associations

\ua9 2023, The Author(s).Many human teratogens are associated with a spectrum of congenital anomalies rather than a single defect, and therefore the identification of congenital anomalies occurring together more frequently than expected may improve the detection of teratogens. Thirty-two EUROCAT congenital anomaly registries covering 6,599,765 births provided 123,566 cases with one or more major congenital anomalies (excluding chromosomal and genetic syndromes) for the birth years 2008–2016. The EUROCAT multiple congenital anomaly algorithm identified 8804 cases with two or more major congenital anomalies in different organ systems, that were not recognized as part of a syndrome or sequence. For each pair of anomalies, the odds of a case having both anomalies relative to having only one anomaly was calculated and the p value was estimated using a two-sided Fisher’s exact test. The Benjamini–Hochberg procedure adjusted p values to control the false discovery rate and pairs of anomalies with adjusted p values < 0.05 were identified. A total of 1386 combinations of two anomalies were analyzed. Out of the 31 statistically significant positive associations identified, 20 were found to be known associations or sequences already described in the literature and 11 were considered “potential new associations” by the EUROCAT Coding and Classification Committee. After a review of the literature and a detailed examination of the individual cases with the anomaly pairs, six pairs remained classified as new associations. In summary, systematically searching for congenital anomalies occurring together more frequently than expected using the EUROCAT database is worthwhile and has identified six new associations that merit further investigation

Policy volatility and growth

The paper aims to examine how fiscal and monetary volatility might affect the balanced economic growth rate using a standard monetary growth model characterized by nominal wage rigidity and productive public spending. The model shows that any type of shock — monetary or fiscal — can generate either a negative or positive relationship between short-run volatility and long-run growth, critically de- pending on the size of government and the elasticity of output with respect to labor/ capital. In particular, given the labor income share, it shows that excessive government spending may cause the impact of fiscal volatility on long-run growth to turn from positive to negative. In addition, a rise in the volatility of the monetary shock is capable of generating either an increase or decrease in the mean of growth. With the range of the labor share values in reality, the model produces results consistent with the fact that the relationship between volatility and growth is generally found empirically to be more negative in developing than in developed countries. The model can be seen as a further explanation for the ambiguous empirical evidence in the existing literature.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Supersymmetric QCD corrections to e+e−→tbˉH−e^+e^-\to t\bar{b}H^- and the Bernstein-Tkachov method of loop integration

The discovery of charged Higgs bosons is of particular importance, since their existence is predicted by supersymmetry and they are absent in the Standard Model (SM). If the charged Higgs bosons are too heavy to be produced in pairs at future linear colliders, single production associated with a top and a bottom quark is enhanced in parts of the parameter space. We present the next-to-leading-order calculation in supersymmetric QCD within the minimal supersymmetric SM (MSSM), completing a previous calculation of the SM-QCD corrections. In addition to the usual approach to perform the loop integration analytically, we apply a numerical approach based on the Bernstein-Tkachov theorem. In this framework, we avoid some of the generic problems connected with the analytical method.Comment: 14 pages, 6 figures, accepted for publication in Phys. Rev.

The Good, the Bad, and the Rare: Memory for Partners in Social Interactions

For cooperation to evolve via direct reciprocity, individuals must track their partners' behavior to avoid exploitation. With increasing size of the interaction group, however, memory becomes error prone. To decrease memory effort, people could categorize partners into types, distinguishing cooperators and cheaters. We explored two ways in which people might preferentially track one partner type: remember cheaters or remember the rare type in the population. We assigned participants to one of three interaction groups which differed in the proportion of computer partners' types (defectors rare, equal proportion, or cooperators rare). We extended research on both hypotheses in two ways. First, participants experienced their partners repeatedly by interacting in Prisoner's Dilemma games. Second, we tested categorization of partners as cooperators or defectors in memory tests after a short and long retention interval (10 min and 1 week). Participants remembered rare partner types better than they remembered common ones at both retention intervals. We propose that the flexibility of responding to the environment suggests an ecologically rational memory strategy in social interactions

Abnormal cortical responses to somatosensory stimulation in medication-overuse headache

BACKGROUND: Medication-overuse headache (MOH) is a frequent, disabling disorder. Despite a controversial pathophysiology convincing evidence attributes a pivotal role to central sensitization. Most patients with MOH initially have episodic migraine without aura (MOA) characterized interictally by an absent amplitude decrease in cortical evoked potentials to repetitive stimuli (habituation deficit), despite a normal initial amplitude (lack of sensitization). Whether central sensitization alters this electrophysiological profile is unknown. We therefore sought differences in somatosensory evoked potential (SEP) sensitization and habituation in patients with MOH and episodic MOA. METHODS: We recorded median-nerve SEPs (3 blocks of 100 sweeps) in 29 patients with MOH, 64 with MOA and 42 controls. Episodic migraineurs were studied during and between attacks. We measured N20-P25 amplitudes from 3 blocks of 100 sweeps, and assessed sensitization from block 1 amplitude, and habituation from amplitude changes between the 3 sequential blocks. RESULTS: In episodic migraineurs, interictal SEP amplitudes were normal in block 1, but thereafter failed to habituate. Ictal SEP amplitudes increased in block 1, then habituated normally. Patients with MOH had larger-amplitude block 1 SEPs than controls, and also lacked SEP habituation. SEP amplitudes were smaller in triptan overusers than in patients overusing nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) or both medications combined, lowest in patients with the longest migraine history, and highest in those with the longest-lasting headache chronification. CONCLUSIONS: In patients with MOH, especially those overusing NSAIDs, the somatosensory cortex becomes increasingly sensitized. Sensory sensitization might add to the behavioral sensitization that favors compulsive drug intake, and may reflect drug-induced changes in central serotoninergic transmission

How Many Scientists Fabricate and Falsify Research? A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of Survey Data

The frequency with which scientists fabricate and falsify data, or commit other forms of scientific misconduct is a matter of controversy. Many surveys have asked scientists directly whether they have committed or know of a colleague who committed research misconduct, but their results appeared difficult to compare and synthesize. This is the first meta-analysis of these surveys