‘I can’t accept that feeling’: Relationships between interoceptive awareness, mindfulness and eating disorder symptoms in females with, and at-risk of an eating disorder

Mindfulness based therapies (MBTs) for eating disorders show potential benefit for outcomes yet evidence is scarce regarding the mechanisms by which they influence remission from symptoms. One way that mindfulness approaches create positive outcomes is through enhancement of emotion regulation skills. Maladaptive emotion regulation is a key psychological feature of all eating disorders. The aim of the current study was to identify facets of emotion regulation involved in the relationship between mindfulness and maladaptive eating behaviours. In three cross-sectional studies, clinical (n=39) and non-clinical (n=137 and 119) female participants completed: 1) the Eating Disorder Inventory (EDI) eating specific scales (drive-for-thinness and bulimia) and the EDI psychological symptom scales (emotion dysregulation and interoceptive deficits); and 2) mindfulness, impulsivity, and emotion regulation questionnaires. In all samples mindfulness was significantly and inversely associated with EDI eating and psychological symptom scales, and impulsivity. In non-clinical samples interoceptive deficits mediated the relationship between mindfulness and EDI eating specific scales. Non-acceptance of emotional experience, a facet of interoceptive awareness, mediated the relationship between mindfulness and eating specific EDI scores. Further investigations could verify relationships identified so that mindfulness based approaches can be optimised to enhance emotion regulation skills in sufferers, and those at-risk, of eating disorders

The role of mindfulness in physical activity: A systematic review

Despite continued public health campaigns to promote physical activity, a majority of the population is inactive. In recent years, mindfulness-based approaches have been used in health and lifestyle interventions for physical activity promotion. We conducted a systematic literature review using the PRISMA guidelines to investigate the evidence for the potential of mindfulness-based approaches for physical activity. We searched electronic databases for papers that met eligibility criteria and identified 40 studies for inclusion. Evidence from cross-sectional studies (n = 20) indicated a positive relationship between dispositional mindfulness and physical activity, particularly with psychological factors related to physical activity. Five studies found that the mindfulness-physical activity relationship was mediated by stress, psychological flexibility, negative affect and shame, satisfaction, and state mindfulness. Evidence from mindfulness-based interventions (n = 20) suggested positive between-subjects effects on physical activity, but interventions varied in duration, session length, group size, delivery, content, and follow-up. Mindfulnessbased interventions were more likely to be successful if they were physical activityspecific and targeted psychological factors related to physical activity. The body of research shows a need for more methodologically rigorous studies to establish the effect of mindfulness on physical activity and to identify potential mechanisms involved in the mindfulness-physical activity relationship reliably

Contact with HIV prevention services highest in gay and bisexual men at greatest risk: cross-sectional survey in Scotland

Background: Men who have sex with men (MSM) remain the group most at risk of acquiring HIV in the UK and new HIV prevention strategies are needed. In this paper, we examine what contact MSM currently have with HIV prevention activities and assess the extent to which these could be utilised further.Methods: Anonymous, self-complete questionnaires and Orasure (TM) oral fluid collection kits were distributed to men visiting the commercial gay scenes in Glasgow and Edinburgh in April/May 2008. 1508 men completed questionnaires (70.5% response rate) and 1277 provided oral fluid samples (59.7% response rate); 1318 men were eligible for inclusion in the analyses.Results: 82.5% reported some contact with HIV prevention activities in the past 12 months, 73.1% obtained free condoms from a gay venue or the Internet, 51.1% reported accessing sexual health information (from either leaflets in gay venues or via the Internet), 13.5% reported talking to an outreach worker and 8.0% reported participating in counselling on sexual health or HIV prevention. Contact with HIV prevention activities was associated with frequency of gay scene use and either HIV or other STI testing in the past 12 months, but not with sexual risk behaviours. Utilising counselling was also more likely among men who reported having had an STI in the past 12 months and HIV-positive men.Conclusions: Men at highest risk, and those likely to be in contact with sexual health services, are those who report most contact with a range of current HIV prevention activities. Offering combination prevention, including outreach by peer health workers, increased uptake of sexual health services delivering behavioural and biomedical interventions, and supported by social marketing to ensure continued community engagement and support, could be the way forward. Focused investment in the needs of those at highest risk, including those diagnosed HIV-positive, may generate a prevention dividend in the long term

The Princeton Protein Orthology Database (P-POD): A Comparative Genomics Analysis Tool for Biologists

Many biological databases that provide comparative genomics information and tools are now available on the internet. While certainly quite useful, to our knowledge none of the existing databases combine results from multiple comparative genomics methods with manually curated information from the literature. Here we describe the Princeton Protein Orthology Database (P-POD, http://ortholog.princeton.edu), a user-friendly database system that allows users to find and visualize the phylogenetic relationships among predicted orthologs (based on the OrthoMCL method) to a query gene from any of eight eukaryotic organisms, and to see the orthologs in a wider evolutionary context (based on the Jaccard clustering method). In addition to the phylogenetic information, the database contains experimental results manually collected from the literature that can be compared to the computational analyses, as well as links to relevant human disease and gene information via the OMIM, model organism, and sequence databases. Our aim is for the P-POD resource to be extremely useful to typical experimental biologists wanting to learn more about the evolutionary context of their favorite genes. P-POD is based on the commonly used Generic Model Organism Database (GMOD) schema and can be downloaded in its entirety for installation on one's own system. Thus, bioinformaticians and software developers may also find P-POD useful because they can use the P-POD database infrastructure when developing their own comparative genomics resources and database tools

Dietary patterns and the risk of oral, pharyngeal and laryngeal cancer in Syria:a case control study

BACKGROUND: No study has investigated the relationship between dietary patterns and the risk of oral, pharyngeal and laryngeal cancer in the Middle East and North Africa region. Thus, the present study aimed to investigate the association between dietary patterns and the risk of oral, pharyngeal and laryngeal cancer in Syria. METHODS: A hospital-based unmatched case–control study was conducted on 108 cases with histologically confirmed oral, pharyngeal or laryngeal squamous cell carcinoma and 105 healthy controls, who did not suffer from any diet-related diseases. Dietary intake data were collected by a face-to-face interview, using a food frequency questionnaire. Socio-demographic and health risk behavioural information was collected using a self-completed questionnaire. Factor analysis and logistic and linear regression analyses were performed. The level of significance was set at 5 %. RESULTS: The factor analysis revealed three dietary patterns labeled “Western”, “Traditional Syrian” and “High Protein”. The results of logistic regression analyses showed that consumption of Western food in the middle and high tertiles posed a significant increased oral, pharyngeal and laryngeal cancer risk of four and three-fold, respectively (adjusted OR = 4.05, 2.80; 95 % CI = 1.57–10.44, 1.05–7.51; P = 0.004, 0.041; respectively). In contrast, consumption of Traditional Syrian in the high tertile and High Protein in the middle and high tertiles displayed significant protective effects in relation to oral, pharyngeal and laryngeal cancer risk (adjusted OR = 0.28, 0.24, 0.10; 95 % CI = 0.10–0.80, 0.10–0.62, 0.03–0.25; P = 0.018, 0.003, <0.001; respectively). Compared to males, females were more likely to adhere to the High Protein dietary pattern. Traditional Syrian pattern’s scores decreased with increasing level of education and smoking. High Protein pattern’s scores decreased with age and smoking and increased with working status. CONCLUSIONS: Traditional Syrian and High Protein dietary patterns were associated with a decreased oral, pharyngeal and laryngeal cancer risk, whereas Western pattern was associated with an increased oral, pharyngeal and laryngeal cancer risk