Race and Disordered Eating: A Narrative Review of Current Literature

Research Problem: Eating disorder literature has well-established a correlation between childhood trauma and development of eating disorder symptomology. One type of trauma that is often overlooked in eating disorder research is that of racial stress faced by ethnic minorities. The literature on racism and eating disorders tends to focus on the transdiagnostic construct of disordered eating behavior rather than specific DSM-5 diagnoses. As such, the current literature review examined the findings regarding associations between racial stressors and disordered eating behavior. Methods: The current literature review between Nov 2007 and August 2020 searched 3 databases, PubMed, CINAHL, and PsycInfo for English-language publications pertaining to conflict in racial identity (e.g., racism and acculturative stress) and disordered eating (keywords provided below). As there is limited primary research examining the association between racial stress and clinical diagnoses of eating disorders, this literature review expanded the search term of “eating disorder” (and its associated subcategories) to include other types of disordered eating, a behavior that often precedes the development of clinically diagnosable eating disorders. The literature search yielded 42 results, 81% (N=34) of which were included in the review; the included articles examined the relationship between disordered eating and various racial identity conflicts, including racism, ethnic identity exploration, perceived discrimination, and acculturative stress. 32 articles were cross-sectional design, 1 article was a theoretical analysis, and 1 article was a review. Results: The included literature looked at multiple minority populations, including Asian Americans, African Americans, Hispanic Americans, and Native Americans, and overwhelmingly found that perceived racism is consistently associated with disordered eating, especially for minority women. Current research suggests that across minority groups, the mediating factor in this association is self-reported stress. Other studies (N=7) produced mixed findings (i.e., positive correlations or null results) regarding the relationship between acculturative stress and disordered eating behavior. The magnitude of the relationship often differed based on the ethnicity and gender of the population being studied. Finally, racial teasing and discrimination were associated with disordered eating, disturbed body image, and depressive symptoms primarily among females across multiple races. Conclusion: While there is a body of research examining racial stress and disordered eating behavior, samples were primarily drawn from college students, and this body of research relies almost entirely on cross-sectional methodology. Moreover, the current review did not identify any studies that examined clinically-diagnosed eating disorder populations or any studies that utilized a longitudinal design. As such, the current review indicates a need for prospective longitudinal studies examining relevant risk factors and their relationship to the development of disordered eating behaviors over time in minority populations. Additionally, it is important for physicians to assess for racial stress as a potential factor contributing to the physical and mental health outcomes of minority patients, especially among minority women

Fast Statistical Alignment

We describe a new program for the alignment of multiple biological sequences that is both statistically motivated and fast enough for problem sizes that arise in practice. Our Fast Statistical Alignment program is based on pair hidden Markov models which approximate an insertion/deletion process on a tree and uses a sequence annealing algorithm to combine the posterior probabilities estimated from these models into a multiple alignment. FSA uses its explicit statistical model to produce multiple alignments which are accompanied by estimates of the alignment accuracy and uncertainty for every column and character of the alignment—previously available only with alignment programs which use computationally-expensive Markov Chain Monte Carlo approaches—yet can align thousands of long sequences. Moreover, FSA utilizes an unsupervised query-specific learning procedure for parameter estimation which leads to improved accuracy on benchmark reference alignments in comparison to existing programs. The centroid alignment approach taken by FSA, in combination with its learning procedure, drastically reduces the amount of false-positive alignment on biological data in comparison to that given by other methods. The FSA program and a companion visualization tool for exploring uncertainty in alignments can be used via a web interface at http://orangutan.math.berkeley.edu/fsa/, and the source code is available at http://fsa.sourceforge.net/

Heterogeneity of Microglial Activation in the Innate Immune Response in the Brain

The immune response in the brain has been widely investigated and while many studies have focused on the proinflammatory cytotoxic response, the brain’s innate immune system demonstrates significant heterogeneity. Microglia, like other tissue macrophages, participate in repair and resolution processes after infection or injury to restore normal tissue homeostasis. This review examines the mechanisms that lead to reduction of self-toxicity and to repair and restructuring of the damaged extracellular matrix in the brain. Part of the resolution process involves switching macrophage functional activation to include reduction of proinflammatory mediators, increased production and release of anti-inflammatory cytokines, and production of cytoactive factors involved in repair and reconstruction of the damaged brain. Two partially overlapping and complimentary functional macrophage states have been identified and are called alternative activation and acquired deactivation. The immunosuppressive and repair processes of each of these states and how alternative activation and acquired deactivation participate in chronic neuroinflammation in the brain are discussed

Evolution of genes and genomes on the Drosophila phylogeny.

Comparative analysis of multiple genomes in a phylogenetic framework dramatically improves the precision and sensitivity of evolutionary inference, producing more robust results than single-genome analyses can provide. The genomes of 12 Drosophila species, ten of which are presented here for the first time (sechellia, simulans, yakuba, erecta, ananassae, persimilis, willistoni, mojavensis, virilis and grimshawi), illustrate how rates and patterns of sequence divergence across taxa can illuminate evolutionary processes on a genomic scale. These genome sequences augment the formidable genetic tools that have made Drosophila melanogaster a pre-eminent model for animal genetics, and will further catalyse fundamental research on mechanisms of development, cell biology, genetics, disease, neurobiology, behaviour, physiology and evolution. Despite remarkable similarities among these Drosophila species, we identified many putatively non-neutral changes in protein-coding genes, non-coding RNA genes, and cis-regulatory regions. These may prove to underlie differences in the ecology and behaviour of these diverse species

Evolution of genes and genomes on the Drosophila phylogeny

Affiliations des auteurs : cf page 216 de l'articleInternational audienceComparative analysis of multiple genomes in a phylogenetic framework dramatically improves the precision and sensitivity of evolutionary inference, producing more robust results than single-genome analyses can provide. The genomes of 12 Drosophila species, ten of which are presented here for the first time (sechellia, simulans, yakuba, erecta, ananassae, persimilis, willistoni, mojavensis, virilis and grimshawi), illustrate how rates and patterns of sequence divergence across taxa can illuminate evolutionary processes on a genomic scale. These genome sequences augment the formidable genetic tools that have made Drosophila melanogaster a pre-eminent model for animal genetics, and will further catalyse fundamental research on mechanisms of development, cell biology, genetics, disease, neurobiology, behaviour, physiology and evolution. Despite remarkable similarities among these Drosophila species, we identified many putatively non-neutral changes in protein-coding genes, non-coding RNA genes, and cis-regulatory regions. These may prove to underlie differences in the ecology and behaviour of these diverse species