A randomized controlled trial for overweight and obesity in preschoolers: the More and Less Europe study- an intervention within the STOP project

Background Childhood overweight and obesity is a serious public health issue with an increase being observed in preschool-aged children. Treating childhood obesity is difficult and few countries use standardized treatments. Therefore, there is a need to find effective approaches that are feasible for both health care providers and families. Thus, the overall aim of this study is to assess the acceptance and effectiveness of a parent support program (the More and Less, ML) for the management of overweight and obesity followed by a mobile health (mHealth) program (the MINISTOP application) in a socially diverse population of families. Methods/design A two-arm, parallel design randomized controlled trial in 300 2-to 6-year-old children with overweight and obesity from Romania, Spain and Sweden (n = 100 from each). Following baseline assessments children are randomized into the intervention or control group in a 1:1 ratio. The intervention, the ML program, consists of 10-weekly group sessions which focus on evidence-based parenting practices, followed by the previously validated MINISTOP application for 6-months to support healthy eating and physical activity behaviors. The primary outcome is change in body mass index (BMI) z-score after 9-months and secondary outcomes include: waist circumference, eating behavior (Child Eating Behavior Questionnaire), parenting behavior (Comprehensive Feeding Practices Questionnaire), physical activity (ActiGraph wGT3x-BT), dietary patterns (based on metabolic markers from urine and 24 h dietary recalls), epigenetic and gut hormones (fasting blood samples), and the overall acceptance of the overweight and obesity management in young children (semi-structured interviews). Outcomes are measured at baseline and after: 10-weeks (only BMI z-score, waist circumference), 9-months (all outcomes), 15- and 21-months (all outcomes except physical activity, dietary patterns, epigenetics and gut hormones) post-baseline. Discussion This study will evaluate a parent support program for weight management in young children in three European countries. To boost the effect of the ML program the families will be supported by an app for 6-months. If the program is found to be effective, it has the potential to be implemented into routine care to reduce overweight and obesity in young children and the app could prove to be a viable option for sustained effects of the care provided. Trial registration ClinicalTrials.gov NCT03800823; 11 Jan 2019

The Greenland Telescope: Antenna Retrofit Status and Future Plans

Since the ALMA North America Prototype Antenna was awarded to the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory (SAO), SAO and the Academia Sinica Institute of Astronomy & Astrophysics (ASIAA) are working jointly to relocate the antenna to Greenland. This paper shows the status of the antenna retrofit and the work carried out after the recommissioning and subsequent disassembly of the antenna at the VLA has taken place. The next coming months will see the start of the antenna reassembly at Thule Air Base. These activities are expected to last until the fall of 2017 when commissioning should take place. In parallel, design, fabrication and testing of the last components are taking place in Taiwan

Breast Cancer, Sickness Absence, Income and Marital Status. A Study on Life Situation 1 Year Prior Diagnosis Compared to 3 and 5 Years after Diagnosis

Background: Improved cancer survival poses important questions about future life conditions of the survivor. We examined the possible influence of a breast cancer diagnosis on subsequent working and marital status, sickness absence and income. Materials: We conducted a matched cohort study including 4,761 women 40–59 years of age and registered with primary breast cancer in a Swedish population-based clinical register during 1993–2003, and 2,3805 women without breast cancer. Information on socioeconomic standing was obtained from a social database 1 year prior and 3 and 5 years following the diagnosis. In Conditional Poisson Regression models, risk ratios (RRs) and 95 % confidence intervals (CIs) were estimated to assess the impact of a breast cancer diagnosis. Findings: Three years after diagnosis, women who had had breast cancer more often had received sickness benefits (RR = 1.49, 95 % CI 1.40–1.58) or disability pension (RR = 1.47, 95 % CI 1.37–1.58) than had women without breast cancer. W

Early versus Delayed Decompression for Traumatic Cervical Spinal Cord Injury: Results of the Surgical Timing in Acute Spinal Cord Injury Study (STASCIS)

BACKGROUND:There is convincing preclinical evidence that early decompression in the setting of spinal cord injury (SCI) improves neurologic outcomes. However, the effect of early surgical decompression in patients with acute SCI remains uncertain. Our objective was to evaluate the relative effectiveness of early (<24 hours after injury) versus late (≥ 24 hours after injury) decompressive surgery after traumatic cervical SCI. METHODS:We performed a multicenter, international, prospective cohort study (Surgical Timing In Acute Spinal Cord Injury Study: STASCIS) in adults aged 16-80 with cervical SCI. Enrolment occurred between 2002 and 2009 at 6 North American centers. The primary outcome was ordinal change in ASIA Impairment Scale (AIS) grade at 6 months follow-up. Secondary outcomes included assessments of complications rates and mortality. FINDINGS:A total of 313 patients with acute cervical SCI were enrolled. Of these, 182 underwent early surgery, at a mean of 14.2(± 5.4) hours, with the remaining 131 having late surgery, at a mean of 48.3(± 29.3) hours. Of the 222 patients with follow-up available at 6 months post injury, 19.8% of patients undergoing early surgery showed a ≥ 2 grade improvement in AIS compared to 8.8% in the late decompression group (OR = 2.57, 95% CI:1.11,5.97). In the multivariate analysis, adjusted for preoperative neurological status and steroid administration, the odds of at least a 2 grade AIS improvement were 2.8 times higher amongst those who underwent early surgery as compared to those who underwent late surgery (OR = 2.83, 95% CI:1.10,7.28). During the 30 day post injury period, there was 1 mortality in both of the surgical groups. Complications occurred in 24.2% of early surgery patients and 30.5% of late surgery patients (p = 0.21). CONCLUSION:Decompression prior to 24 hours after SCI can be performed safely and is associated with improved neurologic outcome, defined as at least a 2 grade AIS improvement at 6 months follow-up

Connectivity and systemic resilience of the Great Barrier Reef

Australia’s iconic Great Barrier Reef (GBR) continues to suffer from repeated impacts of cyclones, coral bleaching, and outbreaks of the coral-eating crown-of-thorns starfish (COTS), losing much of its coral cover in the process. This raises the question of the ecosystem’s systemic resilience and its ability to rebound after large-scale population loss. Here, we reveal that around 100 reefs of the GBR, or around 3%, have the ideal properties to facilitate recovery of disturbed areas, thereby imparting a level of systemic resilience and aiding its continued recovery. These reefs (1) are highly connected by ocean currents to the wider reef network, (2) have a relatively low risk of exposure to disturbances so that they are likely to provide replenishment when other reefs are depleted, and (3) have an ability to promote recovery of desirable species but are unlikely to either experience or spread COTS outbreaks. The great replenishment potential of these ‘robust source reefs’, which may supply 47% of the ecosystem in a single dispersal event, emerges from the interaction between oceanographic conditions and geographic location, a process that is likely to be repeated in other reef systems. Such natural resilience of reef systems will become increasingly important as the frequency of disturbances accelerates under climate change

Delayed Recovery of Skeletal Muscle Mass following Hindlimb Immobilization in mTOR Heterozygous Mice

The present study addressed the hypothesis that reducing mTOR, as seen in mTOR heterozygous (+/−) mice, would exaggerate the changes in protein synthesis and degradation observed during hindlimb immobilization as well as impair normal muscle regrowth during the recovery period. Atrophy was produced by unilateral hindlimb immobilization and data compared to the contralateral gastrocnemius. In wild-type (WT) mice, the gradual loss of muscle mass plateaued by day 7. This response was associated with a reduction in basal protein synthesis and development of leucine resistance. Proteasome activity was consistently elevated, but atrogin-1 and MuRF1 mRNAs were only transiently increased returning to basal values by day 7. When assessed 7 days after immobilization, the decreased muscle mass and protein synthesis and increased proteasome activity did not differ between WT and mTOR+/− mice. Moreover, the muscle inflammatory cytokine response did not differ between groups. After 10 days of recovery, WT mice showed no decrement in muscle mass, and this accretion resulted from a sustained increase in protein synthesis and a normalization of proteasome activity. In contrast, mTOR+/− mice failed to fully replete muscle mass at this time, a defect caused by the lack of a compensatory increase in protein synthesis. The delayed muscle regrowth of the previously immobilized muscle in the mTOR+/− mice was associated with a decreased raptor•4EBP1 and increased raptor•Deptor binding. Slowed regrowth was also associated with a sustained inflammatory response (e.g., increased TNFα and CD45 mRNA) during the recovery period and a failure of IGF-I to increase as in WT mice. These data suggest mTOR is relatively more important in regulating the accretion of muscle mass during recovery than the loss of muscle during the atrophy phase, and that protein synthesis is more sensitive than degradation to the reduction in mTOR during muscle regrowth

Environmental sensing and response genes in cnidaria : the chemical defensome in the sea anemone Nematostella vectensis

Author Posting. © The Author(s), 2008. This is the author's version of the work. It is posted here by permission of Springer for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Cell Biology and Toxicology 24 (2008): 483-502, doi:10.1007/s10565-008-9107-5.The starlet sea anemone Nematostella vectensis has been recently established as a new model system for the study of the evolution of developmental processes, as cnidaria occupy a key evolutionary position at the base of the bilateria. Cnidaria play important roles in estuarine and reef communities, but are exposed to many environmental stressors. Here I describe the genetic components of a ‘chemical defensome’ in the genome of N. vectensis, and review cnidarian molecular toxicology. Gene families that defend against chemical stressors and the transcription factors that regulate these genes have been termed a ‘chemical defensome,’ and include the cytochromes P450 and other oxidases, various conjugating enyzymes, the ATP-dependent efflux transporters, oxidative detoxification proteins, as well as various transcription factors. These genes account for about 1% (266/27200) of the predicted genes in the sea anemone genome, similar to the proportion observed in tunicates and humans, but lower than that observed in sea urchins. While there are comparable numbers of stress-response genes, the stress sensor genes appear to be reduced in N. vectensis relative to many model protostomes and deuterostomes. Cnidarian toxicology is understudied, especially given the important ecological roles of many cnidarian species. New genomic resources should stimulate the study of chemical stress sensing and response mechanisms in cnidaria, and allow us to further illuminate the evolution of chemical defense gene networks.WHOI Ocean Life Institute and NIH R01-ES01591