Dietary supplements usage among elderly Taiwanese during 2005-2008

This study describes dietary supplement consumption practices among the Taiwanese population over the age of 65. Data for the analyses were derived from the [2005][2006][2007][2008] Nutrition and Health Survey in Taiwan. Data from a total of 914 participants (456 men and 458 women) was collected in the study to delineate patterns of supplement usage. The results indicated that the percentage of individuals taking supplements was 45.7% for men and 52.2% for women. There were no significant differences in supplement use by gender, age group, geographic stratum, current employment status, household monthly income, self-reported health status or marital status, except for higher education and adequate perceived financial resources. Half of both men and women chose to take only one supplement. In addition, as the number of supplements taken increased, the number of people decreased. The elderly with higher education levels were more likely to take two kinds of supplements. The top five supplements consumed from highest to lowest were: glucosamine, multivitamins and minerals, calcium, fish oil and vitamin B complex. The major reason for supplements use for men was to supplement an unbalanced diet, and that for women was to prevent joint degeneration. The main factor influencing choice of supplements in the elderly was receiving the supplement as a gift from another person. Note that mean intakes of vitamins A, C, E, B-1, B-2, B-6, B-12, biotin, niacin, and pantothenic acid from supplements over-exceeded DRIs in Taiwan. Key Words: dietary supplements, the elderly, Nutrition and Health Survey in INTRODUCTION Increased dissemination of medical information, greater health consciousness in the population and advances in medical technology has resulted in increased life expectancy in Taiwan. In addition, in recent years the birth rate has declined and the age structure of society has changed with an increase in older persons in the population. The World Health Organization has defined an aging society as one in which the proportion of the population aged 65 years and over is more than 7%. According to data from the Department of Household Registration, Ministry of the Interior, the proportion of older persons in Taiwan reached the 7% cut-off for an ageing society in 1993. In 2010 the proportion of the population aged 65 years and over reached 10.74%. 1 As a result, Taiwan, like Europe, the United States and Japan, has become an ageing society and therefore, chronic diseases (e.g. cancer, cardiovascular disease, the metabolic syndrome or diabetes) and health issues common to older persons (e.g. joint health, bone density, cardiovascular health, immune function and delayed aging) are becoming increasingly important. 2 More recently, the concept of preventative medicine has begun to gradually replace more traditional disease treatment methods. People's attitudes towards medical therapy have also changed from passive to active. Their expectations of health and quality of life have increased, which is the main contributing factor behind the rise in use of supplements. In order to satisfy the demands of different consumer groups, the dietary supplement market has become increasingly individualized, with reported health 328 SY Chen, JR Lin, TH Chen, SG Guo, MD Kao and WH Pan protection effects also becoming more diversified. 2,3 Dietary supplements have already become an important product in the food market. Consumer expenditure on supplements in Taiwan has continued to grow in recent years and the proportion of people taking supplements has increased. In 1995-96 it reached a value of NT$25 billion and further increased to approximately NT$46.1 billion in 2008. 3-5 The scale of the supplement market continues to increase year by year, along with associated import and export market values. 3 Supplement marketing channels have also diversified. The early stages of direct selling were followed by the introduction of television sales and the conversion of pharmacies to mixed businesses that sell both pharmaceuticals and cosmetic products. The 2008 survey of food products found an increasing trend of supplement purchasing through television, online and door-to-door sales. 3 Many researches have found that women, Caucasians, older persons, those living in highly urbanized environments, those with high education or high income are all more likely to take supplements. 2,14 However, little is known about the effectiveness of supplements in appropriately compensating for dietary deficits. Each product is alleged to have health benefits, many of which have not yet been established, and companies use exaggerated and unrealistic advertising to promote their products. The aim of this study was to understand the following in regards to older persons in Taiwan: 1) the characteristics associated with use of supplements; 2) the characteristics associated with use of single or multiple supplements; 3) the types of supplements used, the motivations behind taking supplements and factors influencing choice of supplements; 4) the associations between supplement use behavior and medical history; and 5) nutrient intakes from supplements. An understanding of older people's use of supplements and the motivations behind such use will enable the development of recommendations for improving appropriate supplement intake in elderly Taiwanese and will facilitate the appropriate management of supplements and other health products in this age group. MATERIALS AND METHODS Data source and sample This study describes dietary supplement consumption practices among the Taiwanese population over the age of 65, including the purpose and motivation behind supplement usage as well as the personal characteristics of supplement takers. Data for the analyses were retrieved from the Nutrition and Health Survey in Taiwan (2005Taiwan ( -2008 which was carried out during [2005][2006][2007][2008]. Data from a total of 914 participants (456 men and 458 women) was collected in the study to delineate patterns of supplement usage. A complex multistage, area probability sample design was used to select persons within households. Individuals aged 65 years and older were oversampled. Details of the sample design and methods have been enumerated elsewhere. 19 Data were collected by household interviews in the above survey. Household interviews were carried out by local part-time interviewers who systematically collected cases from 2005 to 2008. The local public health department nutritionist was responsible for supervising the household interview. Sociodemographic variables for this analysis included variables shown in previous studies to be related to supplement use, including gender, age group, education level, geographic location, current employment status, household and personal monthly income, perceived financial resources, selfreported health status or marital status. 20,21 Data processing from supplements Supplement information was collected through a series of questions, including the frequency of consumption in the past month, the amount of each nutrient in the supplement (the formulation) and the brand name. Supplement users were defined as individuals who took any kind of vitamin or mineral supplement, or health promotion products in the past month. Based on the nutritional characteristics of the supplements, we classified dietary supplements in this study into eight categories for descriptive statistics: "vitamins", "vitamins and minerals", "minerals", "Chinese herbs", "lipids", "protein and formula food", "plant derived products" and "other health promotional foods". Data from the Nutrition and Health Survey in Taiwan (2005Taiwan ( -2008 were used to calculate nutrient intake from supplement users. Some nutrients required conversion to standardized measurement units before comparison of dietary intakes to the dietary reference intakes (DRIs) could be made. Vitamin A had to be converted to micrograms retinol activity equivalents, and vitamin E to milligrams α-tocopherol. 12 Statistical analyses Most of the results were obtained from logistic regression analyses and describe the use of dietary supplements based on information collected by the questionnaire based interview. In order to produce representative estimates of certain attributes, a weighting process was needed. LogisSupplements use among elderly Taiwanese 2005Taiwanese -2008 tic regression analysis was carried out using SUDAAN 8.0. The descriptive analyses were done by Window's SAS software. Statistical significance was taken as p<0.05. RESULTS Relationships between demographic characteristics of the elderly and use of supplements Relationships between demographic characteristics of the elderly and use of single or multiple supplement

Non-invasive and transdermal measurement of blood uric acid level in human by electroporation and reverse iontophoresis

The aim of this study was to find out the optimum combination of electroporation (EP) and reverse iontophoresis (RI) on noninvasive and transdermal determination of blood uric acid level in humans. EP is the use of high-voltage electric pulse to create nano-channels on the stratum corneum, temporarily and reversibly. RI is the use of small current to facilitate both charged and uncharged molecule transportation across the skin. It is believed that the combination of these two techniques has additional benefits on the molecules’ extraction across the human skin. In vitro studies using porcine skin and diffusion cell have indicated that the optimum mode for transdermal uric acid extraction is the combination of RI with symmetrical biphasic direct current (current density = 0.3 mA/cm2; phase duration = 180 s) and EP with 10 pulses per second (voltage = 100 V/cm2; pulse width = 1 ms). This optimum mode was applied to six human subjects. Uric acid was successfully extracted through the subjects’ skin into the collection solution. A good correlation (r2 = 0.88) between the subject’s blood uric acid level and uric acid concentrations in collection solutions was observed. The results suggest that it may be possible to noninvasively and transdermally determine blood uric acid levels

Robust estimation of bacterial cell count from optical density

Optical density (OD) is widely used to estimate the density of cells in liquid culture, but cannot be compared between instruments without a standardized calibration protocol and is challenging to relate to actual cell count. We address this with an interlaboratory study comparing three simple, low-cost, and highly accessible OD calibration protocols across 244 laboratories, applied to eight strains of constitutive GFP-expressing E. coli. Based on our results, we recommend calibrating OD to estimated cell count using serial dilution of silica microspheres, which produces highly precise calibration (95.5% of residuals <1.2-fold), is easily assessed for quality control, also assesses instrument effective linear range, and can be combined with fluorescence calibration to obtain units of Molecules of Equivalent Fluorescein (MEFL) per cell, allowing direct comparison and data fusion with flow cytometry measurements: in our study, fluorescence per cell measurements showed only a 1.07-fold mean difference between plate reader and flow cytometry data

Finishing the euchromatic sequence of the human genome

The sequence of the human genome encodes the genetic instructions for human physiology, as well as rich information about human evolution. In 2001, the International Human Genome Sequencing Consortium reported a draft sequence of the euchromatic portion of the human genome. Since then, the international collaboration has worked to convert this draft into a genome sequence with high accuracy and nearly complete coverage. Here, we report the result of this finishing process. The current genome sequence (Build 35) contains 2.85 billion nucleotides interrupted by only 341 gaps. It covers ∼99% of the euchromatic genome and is accurate to an error rate of ∼1 event per 100,000 bases. Many of the remaining euchromatic gaps are associated with segmental duplications and will require focused work with new methods. The near-complete sequence, the first for a vertebrate, greatly improves the precision of biological analyses of the human genome including studies of gene number, birth and death. Notably, the human enome seems to encode only 20,000-25,000 protein-coding genes. The genome sequence reported here should serve as a firm foundation for biomedical research in the decades ahead

Phospho-regulation of the Wnt/β-cat Pathway by VEGFR-1

The Wnt/β-catenin (β-cat) signaling cascade is essential to many fundamental processes. Perturbation of this pathway results in various diseases, including colorectal cancer (CRC). Previously, our group identified VEGFR-1 as a positive regulator of β-cat signaling. As such, this study aims to further explore VEGFR-1-mediated regulation of β-cat signaling in CRC, specifically examining Tyr phosphorylation of β-cat. We monitored changes in a β-cat/TCF transcriptional reporter, TOPflash, in CRC cells after pharmacological inhibition and genetic knockdown of VEGFR-1 activity. A proteomic approach, in conjunction with mutagenesis analysis, was employed to map novel β-cat phosphorylation sites targeted by VEGFR-1 tyrosine kinase activity. Additionally, a β-cat firefly luciferase reporter (β-cat-FLuc) was used to evaluate changes in β-cat stabilization in response to inhibition of VEGFR-1 activity. Finally, we monitored phenotypic changes in CRC cells subjected to VEGFR-1 knockdown. The data confirmed that VEGFR-1 is a positive modulator of β-cat signaling by showing attenuation of TF reporter signals after abrogating VEGFR-1 activity. An in vitro kinase (IVK) assay demonstrated that β-cat could be a direct substrate of VEGFR-1 and physical association of the two proteins was confirmed by co-immunoprecipitation. Collectively, proteomics, mutagenesis analysis and functional assays identified pTyr709 and pTyr716 as phospho-specific targets of VEGFR-1. Phosphorylations at these sites were critical for β-cat signaling activities and might affect stabilization of β-cat. Finally, VEGFR-1 knockdown induced reductions in cell migration rates and cell viability due to an increase in apoptosis in CRC cells. In summary, our data suggest that VEGFR-1 impacts stabilization of β-cat in a Tyr phosphorylation-dependent manner, which involves, at least, phosphorylation of Tyr709 and Tyr716 of β-cat. Importantly, VEGFR-1 per se could be a potential therapeutic target for refractory CRC

Gallium-67 scintigraphy and f-18 fluorodeoxyglucose position emission tomography in posttransplant lymphoproliferative disorder

A 21-year-old man, who underwent heart transplantation 5 years earlier because of dilated cardiomyopathy, was admitted for recent onset of intermittent abdominal pain and poor appetite. Whole-body Ga-67 scintigraphy showed intense gastrointestinal uptake. Fluorodeoxyglucose position emission tomography (FDG PET) revealed hypermetabolism in the left lower neck, mediastinum, stomach, and extensively in a bowel loop. The histologic findings of a gastric biopsy through endoscopy disclosed the typical "starry sky" appearance of Burkitt's lymphoma. Based on these findings, the patient was diagnosed as having a posttransplant lymphoproliferative disorder. Chemotherapy was then arranged for subsequent treatment

Different Fibrovascularization Rate between Coralline Hydroxyapatite and High Density Porous Polyethylene (Medpore) Measured by 99mtc-Mdp Bone Scintigraphy 6 Months after Intraorbital Implantation

Many materials and types of implant have been used to achieve a cosmetic effect and prosthesis motility in the anophthalmic socket. Hydroxyapatite remains the implant material of choice for producing the most natural prosthesis motility while porous polyethylene shows promising characteristics as another useful material. The aim of this study was to compare the fibrovascular ingrowth rates of orbital implants between coralline hydroxyapatite and high density porous polyethylene (Medpore). The fibrovascularization rate is determined by bone imaging using 99mTc methylene diphosphonate (99mTc-MDP) 6 months after implantation. Our study included 29 patients with coralline, and nine patients with Medpore implants. Our results showed that groups with coralline implants appearing to achieve complete fibrovascularization at a much more rapid rate than those with Medpore. The differences in rate were statistically significant

Study of Optical Resonant Micro-ring Cavity Based on SOI and Application

[[abstract]]In this thesis, we integrated development of optical waveguide for the active and the passive device has become the future trend. We propose optical waveguide components for optical micro-ring resonator building on silicon-on-insulator (SOI) wafers, and also integrated air-bridge structure and the simulation is based on the well-known Finite-difference Time Domain (FDTD) technique. We used the free-carrier plasma dispersion effect and Schottky diode structure to modulate our filter and optical switch device; we devote our attraction on the electro-optical micro-ring resonator to apply in optical communication system. In sensing applications, we also design the geometric structure of resonance cavity to see different resonances are discussed in the thesis. We design the micro-ring their have small size, low cost, and potential for high sensitivity make them attractive for bio-sensing applications.