Desafios da hidratação no envelhecimento

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Smoking, alcohol, and dietary choices: evidence from the Portuguese National Health Survey

Background: Unhealthy lifestyle choices tend to cluster, but controversy remains regarding relationships between smoking and dietary habits. The aim of this study was to compare dietary intake and alcohol consumption, according to smoking status, in the Portuguese population. Methods: The study sample included all participants in the third Portuguese National Health Survey who were older than 19 years (20,302 women and 17,923 men). Participants were selected from households in the five regions of Portugal (NUTS II classification), using a multi-stage random probability design. Trained interviewers conducted face-to-face interviews in each household and obtained information on social and demographic characteristics, lifestyle and health, smoking, and intakes of selected food and beverages. Age-adjusted and education-adjusted binomial and multinomial logistic regression models were fitted separately for males and females, to estimate the magnitude of the association between smoking and the consumption of various food and beverage groups. Results: When heavy smokers were compared with non-smokers, the odds ratio (OR) favouring soup consumption was 0.60 (95% Confidence Interval [95% CI]: 0.54 - 0.68) in males and 0.46 (95% CI: 0.33 - 0.65) in females. Similar ORs were observed for vegetables (males: OR = 0.56, 95% CI: 0.49 - 0.64; females: OR = 0.47, 95% CI: 0.32 - 0.69) and fruit (males: OR = 0.36, 95% CI: 0.31 - 0.41; females: OR = 0.29, 95% CI: 0.19 - 0.44). Overall, these food items were consumed at significantly lower levels as cigarette consumption increased. Heavy male smokers, compared to non- smokers, presented lower odds favouring milk consumption (OR = 0.89; 95% CI: 0.67 - 0.89). When heavy smokers were compared with non- smokers, the ORs favouring wine drinking, among heavy drinkers, were 1.47 (95% CI: 1.27 - 1.70) in men and 3.97 (95% CI: 2.07 - 7.61) in women. Similar ORs were observed for beer ( males: OR = 3.30; 95% CI: 2.87 - 3.78; females: OR = 23.1; 95% CI: 12.2 43.6), Port wine (males: OR = 2.21 95% CI: 1.65 - 2.98; females: OR = 2.85; 95% CI: 0.68 - 12.1), brandy (males: OR = 3.67 95% CI: 2.98 - 4.52; females: OR = 13.2; 95% CI: 3.72 - 46.6) and whisky (males: OR = 3.31; 95% CI: 2.71 - 4.03; females: OR = 41.4; 95% CI: 18.5 - 92.5). Conclusion: This study showed that smokers have a higher intake of alcoholic beverages and a lower consumption of food items rich in fibre, antioxidants, or phytochemicals, which are suspected to have beneficial roles in the prevention of multiple chronic diseases

The Effectiveness of Web-Based Interventions to Promote Health Behaviour Change in Adolescents: A Systematic Review

Although web-based interventions are attractive to researchers and users, the evidence about their effectiveness in the promotion of health behaviour change is still limited. Our aim was to review the effectiveness of web-based interventions used in health behavioural change in adolescents regarding physical activity, eating habits, tobacco and alcohol use, sexual behaviour, and quality of sleep. Studies published from 2016 till the search was run (May-to-June 2021) were included if they were experimental or quasi-experimental studies, pre-post-test studies, clinical trials, or randomized controlled trials evaluating the effectiveness of web-based intervention in promoting behaviour change in adolescents regarding those health behaviours. The risk of bias assessment was performed by using the Effective Public Health Practice Project (EPHPP)-Quality Assessment Tool for Quantitative Studies. Fourteen studies were included. Most were in a school setting, non-probabilistic and relatively small samples. All had a short length of follow-up and were theory driven. Thirteen showed significant positive findings to support web-based interventions' effectiveness in promoting health behaviour change among adolescents but were classified as low evidence quality. Although this review shows that web-based interventions may contribute to health behaviour change among adolescents, these findings rely on low-quality evidence, so it is urgent to test these interventions in larger controlled trials with long-term maintenance

O ensino da comunicação na formação universitária em ciências da Nutrição: momento atual e sua evolução até aos dias de hoje

O percurso da crescente integração das ciências da comunicação no ensino das Ciências da Nutrição reflete a importância de dotar os nutricionistas de competências comunicacionais capazes de influenciar os comportamentos dos indivíduos e populações para escolhas alimentares mais conscientes e saudáveis. O presente texto pretende contextualizar a evolução da integração da área das ciências da comunicação no ensino das Ciências da Nutrição, tendo como caso de estudo as unidades curriculares de Comunicação e de Projeto de Comunicação, do 1º ciclo de estudos em Ciências da Nutrição da FCNAUP. Estas duas unidades curriculares, no âmbito das ciências da comunicação, são complementares, atuando de forma concertada. Face aos atuais desafios da comunicação na área da nutrição, as metodologias de ensino utilizadas nestas unidades curriculares têm procurado promover a realização de atividades pedagógicas muito diversificadas e em contexto real. Pretende-se que os futuros nutricionistas sejam capazes de utilizar formatos de comunicação e modelos de educação alimentar inovadores e, ao mesmo tempo, apelativos, com o objetivo final de tornarem a sua intervenção cada vez mais eficaz do ponto de vista da tomada de consciência para a mudança de comportamentos alimentares por parte da população

Diet and Asthma: A Narrative Review

Asthma is a chronic respiratory disease that impacts millions of people worldwide. Recent studies suggest that diet may play a role in asthma pathophysiology. Several dietary factors have been recognized as potential contributors to the development and severity of asthma for its inflammatory and oxidative effects. Some food groups such as fruits and vegetables, whole grains, and healthy fats appear to exert positive effects on asthma disease. On the other hand, a high consumption of dietary salt, saturated fats, and trans-fat seems to have the opposite effect. Nonetheless, as foods are not consumed separately, more research is warranted on the topic of dietary patterns. The mechanisms underlying these associations are not yet fully understood, but it is thought that diet can modulate both the immune system and inflammation, two key factors in asthma development and exacerbation. The purpose of this review is to examine how common food groups and dietary patterns are associated with asthma. In general, this research demonstrated that fruits and vegetables, fiber, healthy fats, and dietary patterns considered of high quality appear to be beneficial to asthma disease. Nonetheless, additional research is needed to better understand the interrelation between diet and asthma, and to determine the most effective dietary interventions for asthma prevention and management. Currently, there is no established dietary pattern for asthma management and prevention, and the nuances of certain food groups in relation to this disease require further investigation

Risk Factors for non-communicable diseases in Mozambique.

Non-communicable diseases (NCD) are the main cause of mortality worldwide, having accounted for two thirds of all deaths in 2010. In Mozambique, although communicable diseases are the most important contributors for the morbidity and mortality burden, NCD are becoming more frequent, being estimated to have accounted for one fifth of all deaths in 2010. Worldwide, the most common NCD - cardiovascular (CV) diseases, cancer, chronic respiratory diseases and diabetes - share four main lifestyle risk factors (harmful use of alcohol, unhealthy diet, tobacco use, and insufficient physical activity), and frequent metabolic/physiologic changes (high blood pressure, high fasting blood glucose, high blood lipids, and overweight/obesity). Surveillance is essential to identify the population groups at higher risk, in different settings and over time, in order to develop policies for NCD prevention and control, although evidence from countries undergoing epidemiological transition is scarce. This thesis aimed to characterize the exposure to excessive alcohol consumption, low fruit and vegetables intake, tobacco use, and insufficient physical activity, in the adult Mozambican population (papers I-IV), and to assess the clustering of the latter lifestyles and metabolic/physiologic risk factors, using a priori (paper V) and a posteriori (paper VI) approaches. We also aimed to obtain preliminary exploratory data on dietary intake and culinary practices in Maputo city (paper VII) and to quantify the sodium content of bread sold in the same region (paper VIII). (...

The Planetary Health Diet and Its Association with Asthma and Airway Inflammation in School-Aged Children

Poor dietary choices have been rising concurrently with an increase in asthma prevalence, especially in children. Dietary indexes that simultaneously measure the healthiness and sustainability of dietary patterns have emerged to address the dual concerns of human and planetary health. Accordingly, we aimed to evaluate adherence to a sustainable dietary pattern and its impact on airway inflammation and asthma. In this study, 660 school-aged children (49.1% females, 712 years) were considered. A cross-sectional analysis was performed to assess the association between diet and asthma and airway inflammation according to overweight/obesity. Diet was evaluated through the Planetary Health Diet Index (PHDI). Higher scores represent a healthier and more sustainable diet. Three definitions of asthma were considered based on a self-reported medical diagnosis, symptoms, asthma medication, measured lung function, and airway reversibility. Airway inflammation was assessed by exhaled fractional nitric oxide (eNO). We considered two categories of body mass index: non-overweight/non-obese and overweight/obese. The associations between diet with asthma and airway inflammation were estimated using adjusted binary logistic regressions. The odds of having airway inflammation decreased with the increase in PHDI score. Moreover, children in the non-overweight/non-obesity group in the fourth quartile of the PHDI had lower odds of having airway inflammation compared to children in the first quartile. Our study indicates that a healthier and sustainable diet is associated with lower levels of eNO, but only among children without overweight/obesity.</jats:p

Hydration status and water sources in free-living physically active elderly

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