Does the quantity of enteral nutrition affect outcomes in critically ill trauma patients?

Abstract from Clinical Nutrition Week, Orlando, FL, January 29-February 2, 2005

Negotiating daughterhood and strangerhood: retrospective accounts of serial migration

Most considerations of daughtering and mothering take for granted that the subjectivities of mothers and daughters are negotiated in contexts of physical proximity throughout daughters’ childhoods. Yet many mothers and daughters spend periods separated from each other, sometimes across national borders. Globally, an increasing number of children experience life in transnational families. This paper examines the retrospective narratives of four women who were serial migrants as children (whose parents migrated before they did) . It focuses on their accounts of the reunion with their mothers and how these fit with the ways in which they construct their mother-daughter relationships. We take a psychosocial approach by using a psychoanalytically-informed reading of these narratives to acknowledge the complexities of the attachments produced in the context of migration and to attend to the multi-layered psychodynamics of the resulting relationships. The paper argues that serial migration positioned many of the daughters in a conflictual emotional landscape from which they had to negotiate ‘strangerhood’ in the context of sadness at leaving people to whom they were attached in order to join their mothers (or parents). As a result, many were resistant to being positioned as daughters, doing daughtering and being mothered in their new homes

Pilot randomized trial demonstrating reversal of obesity-related abnormalities in reward system responsivity to food cues with a behavioral intervention

Objectives: Obesity is associated with hyperactivation of the reward system for high-calorie (HC) versus low-calorie (LC) food cues, which encourages unhealthy food selection and overeating. However, the extent to which this hyperactivation can be reversed is uncertain, and to date there has been no demonstration of changes by behavioral intervention. Subjects and methods: We used functional magnetic resonance imaging to measure changes in activation of the striatum for food images at baseline and 6 months in a pilot study of 13 overweight or obese adults randomized to a control group or a novel weight-loss intervention. Results: Compared to controls, intervention participants achieved significant weight loss (−6.3±1.0 kg versus +2.1±1.1 kg, P<0.001) and had increased activation for LC food images with a composition consistent with that recommended in the behavioral intervention at 6 months versus baseline in the right ventral putamen (P=0.04), decreased activation for HC images of typically consumed foods in the left dorsal putamen (P=0.01). There was also a large significant shift in relative activation favoring LC versus HC foods in both regions (P<0.04). Conclusions: This study provides the first demonstration of a positive shift in activation of the reward system toward healthy versus unhealthy food cues in a behavioral intervention, suggesting new avenues to enhance behavioral treatments of obesity

Blood glucose concentration does not correlate with organ failure or outcome in trauma patients receiving enteral nutrition

Abstract from American College of Clinical Pharmacy 2005 Spring Practice and Research Forum/Updates in Therapeutics, Myrtle Beach, SC, April 10-13, 2005

Till death (or an intruder) do us part: intrasexual-competition in a monogamous Primate

Polygynous animals are often highly dimorphic, and show large sex-differences in the degree of intra-sexual competition and aggression, which is associated with biased operational sex ratios (OSR). For socially monogamous, sexually monomorphic species, this relationship is less clear. Among mammals, pair-living has sometimes been assumed to imply equal OSR and low frequency, low intensity intra-sexual competition; even when high rates of intra-sexual competition and selection, in both sexes, have been theoretically predicted and described for various taxa. Owl monkeys are one of a few socially monogamous primates. Using long-term demographic and morphological data from 18 groups, we show that male and female owl monkeys experience intense intra-sexual competition and aggression from solitary floaters. Pair-mates are regularly replaced by intruding floaters (27 female and 23 male replacements in 149 group-years), with negative effects on the reproductive success of both partners. Individuals with only one partner during their life produced 25% more offspring per decade of tenure than those with two or more partners. The termination of the pair-bond is initiated by the floater, and sometimes has fatal consequences for the expelled adult. The existence of floaters and the sporadic, but intense aggression between them and residents suggest that it can be misleading to assume an equal OSR in socially monogamous species based solely on group composition. Instead, we suggest that sexual selection models must assume not equal, but flexible, context-specific, OSR in monogamous species.Wenner-Gren Foundation, L.S.B. Leakey Foundation, the National Geographic Society, National Science Foundation (BCS- 0621020), the University of Pennsylvania Research Foundation and the Zoological Society of San Diego, German Science Foundation (HU 1746-2/1

Canine respiratory coronavirus employs caveolin-1-mediated pathway for internalization to HRT-18G cells

Canine respiratory coronavirus (CRCoV), identified in 2003, is a member of the Coronaviridae family. The virus is a betacoronavirus and a close relative of human coronavirus OC43 and bovine coronavirus. Here, we examined entry of CRCoV into human rectal tumor cells (HRT-18G cell line) by analyzing co-localization of single virus particles with cellular markers in the presence or absence of chemical inhibitors of pathways potentially involved in virus entry. We also targeted these pathways using siRNA. The results show that the virus hijacks caveolin-dependent endocytosis to enter cells via endocytic internalization

Associations between police harassment and distrust in and reduced access to healthcare among Black sexual minority men: A longitudinal analysis of HPTN 061

Objective: Evaluate associations between racialized and homophobia-based police harassment (RHBPH) and healthcare distrust and utilization among Black Sexual Minority Men (BSMM). Methods: We utilized data from a longitudinal cohort study from HIV Prevention Trials Network (HPTN) 061 with baseline, six and 12 month follow-up assessments. Using multivariable analysis, we evaluated associations between RHBPH and healthcare distrust and utilization reported at the 6 and 12 month visits. Results: Of 1553 BSMM present at baseline, 1160 were available at six-month follow-up. In multivariable analysis, increasing frequency of RHBPH was associated with increasing levels of distrust in healthcare providers (aOR 1.31, 95% CI: 1.00, 1.74) and missing 50% or more of healthcare visits at six-month follow-up (aOR 1.93, 95% CI: 1.09, 3.43). Conclusions: Recent experiences of RHBPH are associated with reduced trust in and access to healthcare among BSMM, with more frequent RHBPH associated with greater vulnerability.</p

Reproductive Failure of Landlocked Atlantic Salmon from New York's Finger Lakes: Investigations into the Etiology and Epidemiology of the “Cayuga Syndrome”

We describe a disease syndrome that afflicts larval, landlocked Atlantic salmon Salmo salar from Cayuga Lake, one of central New York's Finger Lakes. Mortality associated with the “Cayuga syndrome” is 98–100%. Death usually occurs between 650 and 850 centigrade degree-days after fertilization, approximately 2–4 weeks before yolk resorption is complete. Although there is minor temporal variation in the onset of the Cayuga syndrome in progeny from individual females, all sac fry eventually succumb. Incubation of embryos and sac fry under constant, ambient, or reduced temperature regimens slightly alters the degree-day timing of syndrome onset, but does not improve survival. Based on mortality rate, manifestation of the Cayuga syndrome has not changed in the past 10 years, even though incubation waters of varying chemistry and temperature have been used. Mortality of the negative control stocks used for these studies never exceeded 10% from hatching to first feeding. Findings from reciprocal crossbreeding experiments indicate the problem is associated with ova only. A noninfectious etiology is indicated by the lack of consistently identifiable fish pathogens from syndrome-afflicted sac fry and by the failure to transmit the condition horizontally. Suspect contaminants were eliminated as potential causative factors. Epidemiological studies on the viability of other Finger Lakes stocks indicate that Atlantic salmon from Keuka and Seneca lakes are also afflicted (100% mortality). yet those from Skaneateles Lake are not. The cause of this syndrome appears to be nutritional.This is the publisher’s final pdf. The published article is copyrighted by the American Fisheries Society and can be found at: http://www.tandfonline.com/toc/uahh20/current#.Ug5ocnfAF8E