Managing interactions between household food security and preschooler health:

Food security does not assure good nutrition. The nutritional status of an individual is influenced not only by food but also by nonfood factors, such as clean water, sanitation, and health care. The effect of all of these factors must be considered in efforts to rid the world of malnutrition. Food security will result in good nutrition only if nonfood factors are effectively dealt with. In this paper, Lawrence Haddad, Saroj Bhattarai, Maarten Immink, and Shubh Kumar show how malnutrition among preschool children is determined by a complex interaction of illness and lack of food. The authors look at three countries —Ethiopia, Pakistan, and the Philippines — to study how food availability and diarrhea interact and what this interaction means for preschooler malnutrition. Their results show that the links between food consumption, diarrhea, and malnutrition are stronger than most economic studies have assumed. When diarrhea is prevalent, the effects of food shortages on child malnutrition are worse, and when food is scarce, the effects of diarrhea on child malnutrition are worse.Food security Ethiopia., Malnutrition in children Ethiopia., Food security Pakistan., Malnutrition in children Pakistan., Food security Philippines., Malnutrition in children Philippines.,

Instantaneous effects of mindfulness meditation on tennis return performance in elite junior athletes completing an implicitly sequenced serve return task

Single-session meditation augmentation of sport-specific skill performance was tested with elite junior tennis athletes. Athletes completed one of two styles of mindfulness meditation (focused-attention or open-monitoring) or a control listening condition prior to performing an implicitly sequenced tennis serve return task involving the goal of hitting a target area placed on the service court. Unbeknownst to athletes, six distinct serves followed a repeating second-order conditional sequence for two task blocks before the sequence was altered in a third transfer block. Task performance was operationalized as serve return outcome and analyzed using beta regression modeling. Models analyzed group by block differences in the proportion of returned serves (i.e., non-aces), returns placed in the service court, and target hits. Contrary to previous laboratory findings, results did not support meditation-related augmentation of performance and/or sequence learning. In fact, compared to control, meditation may have impaired performance improvements and acquisition of serve sequence information. It is possible that the effects of single-session meditation seen in laboratory research may not extend to more complex motor tasks, at least in highly-trained adolescents completing a well-learned skill. Further research is required to elucidate the participant, task, and meditation-related characteristics that might promote single-session meditation performance enhancement

The effects of yoga on shoulder and spinal actions for women with breast cancer-related lymphoedema of the arm: A randomised controlled pilot study

Open AccessThis article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated.Abstract Background: We aimed to evaluate the effect of an 8-week yoga intervention on the shoulder and spinal actions of women with breast cancer-related arm lymphoedema. Method: A randomised controlled pilot trial. The intervention group (n = 12) completed eight weeks of daily yoga sessions while the control group (n = 11) continued with best current care including information on compression sleeves, skin care, risks of temperature variations and recommended safe use of affected arm. Lumbo-pelvic posture, range of motion (ROM) in the shoulder and spine, and strength in shoulder and pectoral major and minor, and serratus anterior were taken at baseline, week 8 and after a 4-week follow-up. Outcome assessors were blinded to allocation. Results: At week eight the intervention group had an improvement in lumbo-pelvic posture, as indicated by a reduction in pelvic obliquity compared to the control group (mean difference = −8.39°, 95 % CI: −15.64 to −1.13°, p = 0.023). A secondary finding was that strength in shoulder abduction significantly increased following the yoga intervention in both the affected (9.5 kg; CI: 0.34 to 18.66, p = 0.042) and non-affected arm (11.58 kg; CI: 0.25 to 22.91; p = 0.045). There were no significant between group changes in any ROM measures as a result of the yoga intervention. Conclusion: This pilot study demonstrates that participation in yoga may provide benefits for posture and strength in women with Breast Cancer Related Lymphoedema. The improvements may be attributed to the focus of yoga on overall postural and functional movement patterns. Further trials with longer intervention that follow this methodology are warranted. Trial registration: The Australian New Zealand Clinical Trials Registry ACTRN12611000202965. Keywords: Yoga, Arm lymphoedema, Breast cancer, Range of motion, Strength testing Abbreviations: BCRL, Breast cancer related lymphoedema; ROM, Range of motion; QOL, Quality of life; RCT, Randomised controlled trial; BIS, Bioimpedance spectroscopy; LPSI, Left posterior superior iliac spine; RPSI, Right posterior superior iliac spine; LACR, Left acromion; RACR, Right acromio

Hypohydration alters pre-frontal cortex haemodynamics, but does not impair motor learning

It is unknown how hypohydration influences fine motor performance training and motor learning. Here, 30 participants (aged 19-46 years) were randomly assigned to a hypohydration (HYPO) or control (CON) group (both n = 15). Moderate hypohydration (~ 2.4% loss in body mass) was produced in HYPO via active dehydration before a 46 min fluid restricted rest period was undertaken. The conclusion of rest coincided with when CON attended the facilities. Both groups undertook a discrete sequence production task consisting of 6 training blocks, and returned ~ 300 min later to complete a delayed retention and transfer test while euhydrated. Bilateral pre-frontal cortex (PFC) haemodynamics were assessed using functional near-infrared spectroscopy throughout training and delayed learning assessments. Response time improved across training (P P = 0.22). Analysis of training PFC haemodynamics revealed a significant group by block interaction for oxygenated (O2Hb; P P = 0.77). In training block 1, bilateral O2Hb was higher in HYPO (P = 0.02), while bilateral O2Hb increased in CON between blocks 2-3 and 5-6 (both P ≤ 0.03). During the delayed retention and transfer test, no group differences or interactions were found in response time, response error, or PFC haemodynamics (all P ≥ 0.27). Moderate hypohydration does increase PFC activation during motor skill learning, however, this appears to be transient and of little consequence to training or delayed retention or transfer performance

Nontraditional export crops in Guatemala: effects on production, consumption, and nutrition

Vegetable trade Guatemala., Exports Guatemala., Farms, Small Guatemala., Food supply Guatemala., Agricultural laborers Guatemala., Household surveys Guatemala.,

Métodos para monitorear el derecho humano a la alimentación adecuada

Apoyo financiero de los Gobiernos de Alemania, Austria, Holanda y España. La traducción al español de esta Guía fue posible gracias a la contribución de la Agencia Española de Cooperación Internacional para el Desarrollo (AECID)Vol. 1: Fundamentos para el monitoreo enfocado y basado en los derechos humanos. -- Vol. 2: Una visión general sobre enfoques y herramienta

Continuous-time modeling of cell fate determination in Arabidopsis flowers

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>The genetic control of floral organ specification is currently being investigated by various approaches, both experimentally and through modeling. Models and simulations have mostly involved boolean or related methods, and so far a quantitative, continuous-time approach has not been explored.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>We propose an ordinary differential equation (ODE) model that describes the gene expression dynamics of a gene regulatory network that controls floral organ formation in the model plant <it>Arabidopsis thaliana</it>. In this model, the dimerization of MADS-box transcription factors is incorporated explicitly. The unknown parameters are estimated from (known) experimental expression data. The model is validated by simulation studies of known mutant plants.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>The proposed model gives realistic predictions with respect to independent mutation data. A simulation study is carried out to predict the effects of a new type of mutation that has so far not been made in <it>Arabidopsis</it>, but that could be used as a severe test of the validity of the model. According to our predictions, the role of dimers is surprisingly important. Moreover, the functional loss of any dimer leads to one or more phenotypic alterations.</p

Blood Pressure During Endovascular Treatment Under Conscious Sedation or Local Anesthesia

OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the role of blood pressure (BP) as mediator of the effect of conscious sedation (CS) compared to local anesthesia (LA) on functional outcome after endovascular treatment (EVT). METHODS: Patients treated in the Multicenter Randomized Clinical Trial of Endovascular Treatment for Acute Ischemic Stroke in the Netherlands (MR CLEAN) Registry centers with CS or LA as preferred anesthetic approach during EVT for ischemic stroke were analyzed. First, we evaluated the effect of CS on area under the threshold (AUT), relative difference between baseline and lowest procedural mean arterial pressure (∆LMAP), and procedural BP trend, compared to LA. Second, we assessed the association between BP and functional outcome (modified Rankin Scale [mRS]) with multivariable regression. Lastly, we evaluated whether BP explained the effect of CS on mRS. RESULTS: In 440 patients with available BP data, patients treated under CS (n = 262) had larger AUTs (median 228 vs 23 mm Hg*min), larger ∆LMAP (median 16% vs 6%), and a more negative BP trend (-0.22 vs -0.08 mm Hg/min) compared to LA (n = 178). Larger ∆LMAP and AUTs were associated with worse mRS (adjusted common odds ratio [acOR] per 10% drop 0.87, 95% confidence interval [CI] 0.78-0.97, and acOR per 300 mm Hg*min 0.89, 95% CI 0.82-0.97). Patients treated under CS had worse mRS compared to LA (acOR 0.59, 95% CI 0.40-0.87) and this association remained when adjusting for ∆LMAP and AUT (acOR 0.62, 95% CI 0.42-0.92). CONCLUSIONS: Large BP drops are associated with worse functional outcome. However, BP drops do not explain the worse outcomes in the CS group