Impact of Socialization in Elderly Public-Housing Residents

Older adults who experience social isolation have higher rates of mortality relative to their counterparts. Social interactions are an important way to combat this isolation. This research aims to better understand how social isolation in older adults living in low-income households in Richmond, Virginia (RVA) is related to their economic, physical, and psychological health status. As part of the iCubed Health and Wellness Aging Core and in collaboration with the Richmond Memorial: East End Housing Coalition for Older Adults, older adults from a selected public housing unit (n=28) self-reported their financial status, experiences with physical and psycho-social health, and feelings of social isolation. Survey participants were 71.4% female, the mean age was 69.75 years, and 25% were high school graduates. Participants averaged 34 years living in the East End and reported an average of $300 to spend on rent monthly. Overall, 55% (n=20) reported having two or more supports and 61% (n=22) reported hardly ever feeling isolated. However, a small subset of the sample reported having either no supports (5.6%, n=2) and 41.7% (n=15) lacked companionship some of the time or often. A one-way ANOVA was conducted and it was determined that participants who reported feeling left out more often were significantly more likely to report stress, anxiety, and depression (F[2, 25] = 6.998). Findings support the existence of supportive communities formed in low-income areas. Findings also indicate some older individuals residing in public housing in RVA experience social isolation and that this status is linked to poorer psycho-social health.https://scholarscompass.vcu.edu/gradposters/1048/thumbnail.jp

Comparative analysis of the kinomes of three pathogenic trypanosomatids: Leishmania major, Trypanosoma brucei and Trypanosoma cruzi

BACKGROUND: The trypanosomatids Leishmania major, Trypanosoma brucei and Trypanosoma cruzi cause some of the most debilitating diseases of humankind: cutaneous leishmaniasis, African sleeping sickness, and Chagas disease. These protozoa possess complex life cycles that involve development in mammalian and insect hosts, and a tightly coordinated cell cycle ensures propagation of the highly polarized cells. However, the ways in which the parasites respond to their environment and coordinate intracellular processes are poorly understood. As a part of an effort to understand parasite signaling functions, we report the results of a genome-wide analysis of protein kinases (PKs) of these three trypanosomatids. RESULTS: Bioinformatic searches of the trypanosomatid genomes for eukaryotic PKs (ePKs) and atypical PKs (aPKs) revealed a total of 176 PKs in T. brucei, 190 in T. cruzi and 199 in L. major, most of which are orthologous across the three species. This is approximately 30% of the number in the human host and double that of the malaria parasite, Plasmodium falciparum. The representation of various groups of ePKs differs significantly as compared to humans: trypanosomatids lack receptor-linked tyrosine and tyrosine kinase-like kinases, although they do possess dual-specificity kinases. A relative expansion of the CMGC, STE and NEK groups has occurred. A large number of unique ePKs show no strong affinity to any known group. The trypanosomatids possess few ePKs with predicted transmembrane domains, suggesting that receptor ePKs are rare. Accessory Pfam domains, which are frequently present in human ePKs, are uncommon in trypanosomatid ePKs. CONCLUSION: Trypanosomatids possess a large set of PKs, comprising approximately 2% of each genome, suggesting a key role for phosphorylation in parasite biology. Whilst it was possible to place most of the trypanosomatid ePKs into the seven established groups using bioinformatic analyses, it has not been possible to ascribe function based solely on sequence similarity. Hence the connection of stimuli to protein phosphorylation networks remains enigmatic. The presence of numerous PKs with significant sequence similarity to known drug targets, as well as a large number of unusual kinases that might represent novel targets, strongly argue for functional analysis of these molecules

Body mass index, prudent diet score and social class across three generations: evidence from the Hertfordshire Intergenerational Study.

BACKGROUND: Studies describing body mass index (BMI) and prudent diet score have reported that they are associated between parents and children. The Hertfordshire Intergenerational Study, which contains BMI, diet and social class information across three generations, provides an opportunity to consider the influence of grandparental and parental BMI and prudent diet score across multiple generations, and the influence of grandparental and parental social class on child BMI. METHODS: Linear regressions examining the tracking of adult BMI and prudent diet score across three generations (grandparent (F0), parent (F1) and child (F2)) were run from parent to child and from grandparent to grandchild. Linear mixed models investigated the influence of F0 and F1 BMI or prudent diet score on F2 BMI and prudent diet score. Linear regressions were run to determine whether social class and prudent diet score of parents and grandparents influenced the BMI of children and grandchildren. RESULTS: BMI was significantly associated across each generational pair and from F0 to F1 in multilevel models. Prudent diet score was significantly positively associated between grandparents and grandchildren. Lower grandparental and parental social class had a significantly positive association with F2 BMI (F0 low social class: b=1.188 kg/m2, 95% CI 0.060 to 2.315, p=0.039; F1 middle social class: b=2.477 kg/m2, 95% CI 0.726 to 4.227, p=0.006). CONCLUSION: Adult BMI tracks across generations of the Hertfordshire Intergenerational Study, and child BMI is associated with parental and grandparental social class. The results presented here add to literature supporting behavioural and social factors in the transmission of BMI across generations

Sleep quality is associated with emotion experience and adaptive regulation of positive emotion: An experience sampling study

Poor sleep patterns have been strongly linked to disrupted emotional experiences. Emotion regulation, defined as the capacity to manage one's own emotional responses, comprises strategies to increase, maintain, or decrease the intensity, duration, and trajectory of positive and negative emotions. Poor sleep has been identified as a risk factor for emotional dysregulation, but most of the focus has been on negative emotion regulation. We therefore asked whether natural variations in sleep are associated with the experience and regulation of both positive and negative emotion. Young adults, aged between 18–24 years (N = 101), completed 7 days of ecological momentary assessments using a smartphone application. Duration and quality of the previous night's sleep was reported each morning. Levels of positive and negative emotions, and strategies used to regulate emotions, were measured at pseudorandom timepoints four times a day. Multilevel modelling indicated that higher self-reported sleep quality was significantly associated with increased intensity and duration of positive emotion, and decreased intensity of negative emotion. There were no statistically significant associations between sleep duration and emotion intensity or duration. Sleep quality, and not sleep duration, was also associated with the reported use of positive emotion regulation strategies. For negative emotion regulation strategy use, we found no associations with sleep quality or duration. Naturally occurring fluctuations in daily sleep quality may be important for the experience and regulation of positive emotion in young adults. These findings emphasise the need to examine both positive and negative emotion, and emotion regulation to understand the links between sleep and mood

The role of menopause and reproductive senescence in a long-lived social mammal

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Menopause is a seemingly maladaptive life-history trait that is found in many long-lived mammals. There are two competing evolutionary hypotheses for this phenomenon; in the adaptive view of menopause, the cessation of reproduction may increase the fitness of older females; in the non-adaptive view, menopause may be explained by physiological deterioration with age. The decline and eventual cessation of reproduction has been documented in a number of mammalian species, however the evolutionary cause of this trait is unknown.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>We examined a unique 30-year time series of killer whales, tracking the reproductive performance of individuals through time. Killer whales are extremely long-lived, and may have the longest documented post-reproductive lifespan of any mammal, including humans. We found no strong support for either of the adaptive hypotheses of menopause; there was little support for the presence of post-reproductive females benefitting their daughter's reproductive performance (interbirth interval and reproductive lifespan of daughters), or the number of mature recruits to the population. Oldest mothers (> 35) did appear to have a small positive impact on calf survival, suggesting that females may gain experience with age. There was mixed support for the grandmother hypothesis – grandoffspring survival probabilities were not influenced by living grandmothers, but grandmothers may positively influence survival of juveniles at a critical life stage.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>Although existing data do not allow us to examine evolutionary tradeoffs between survival and reproduction for this species, we were able to examine the effect of maternal age on offspring survival. Our results are consistent with similar studies of other mammals – oldest mothers appear to be better mothers, producing calves with higher survival rates. Studies of juvenile survival in humans have reported positive benefits of grandmothers on newly weaned infants; our results indicate that 3-year old killer whales may experience a positive benefit from helpful grandmothers. While our research provides little support for menopause evolving to provide fitness benefits to mothers or grandmothers, our work supports previous research showing that menopause and long post-reproductive lifespans are not a human phenomenon.</p

NEIL1 excises 3′ end proximal oxidative DNA lesions resistant to cleavage by NTH1 and OGG1

Base excision repair is the major pathway for the repair of oxidative DNA damage in human cells that is initiated by a damage-specific DNA glycosylase. In human cells, the major DNA glycosylases for the excision of oxidative base damage are OGG1 and NTH1 that excise 8-oxoguanine and oxidative pyrimidines, respectively. We find that both enzymes have limited activity on DNA lesions located in the vicinity of the 3′ end of a DNA single-strand break, suggesting that other enzymes are involved in the processing of such lesions. In this study, we identify and characterize NEIL1 as a major DNA glycosylase that excises oxidative base damage located in close proximity to the 3′ end of a DNA single-strand break

Association of ventricular arrhythmia and in-hospital mortality in stroke patients in Florida: A nonconcurrent prospective study

Stroke remains one of the leading causes of death in the United States. Current evidence identified electrocardiographic abnormalities and cardiac arrhythmias in 50% of patients with an acute stroke. The purpose of this study was to assess whether the presence of ventricular arrhythmia (VA) in adult patients hospitalized in Florida with acute stroke increased the risk of in-hospital mortality. Secondary data analysis of 215,150 patients with ischemic and hemorrhagic stroke hospitalized in the state of Florida collected by the Florida Agency for Healthcare Administration from 2008 to 2012. The main outcome for this study was in-hospital mortality. The main exposure of this study was defined as the presence of VA. VA included the ICD-9 CM codes: paroxysmal ventricular tachycardia (427.1), ventricular fibrillation (427.41), ventricular flutter (427.42), ventricular fibrillation and flutter (427.4), and other – includes premature ventricular beats, contractions, or systoles (427.69). Differences in demographic and clinical characteristics and hospital outcomes were assessed between patients who developed versus did not develop VA during hospitalization (χ2 and t tests). Binary logistic regression was used to estimate unadjusted and adjusted odds ratios and 95% confidence intervals (CIs) between VA and in-hospital mortality. VA was associated with an increased risk of in-hospital mortality after adjusting for all covariates (odds ratio [OR]: 1.75; 95% CI: 1.6–1.2). There was an increased in-hospital mortality in women compared to men (OR: 1.1; 95% CI: 1.1–1.14), age greater than 85 years (OR: 3.9, 95% CI: 3.5–4.3), African Americans compared to Whites (OR: 1.1; 95% CI: 1.04–1.2), diagnosis of congestive heart failure (OR: 2.1; 95% CI: 2.0–2.3), and atrial arrhythmias (OR: 2.1, 95% CI: 2.0–2.2). Patients with hemorrhagic stroke had increased odds of in-hospital mortality (OR: 9.0; 95% CI: 8.6–9.4) compared to ischemic stroke. Identifying VAs in stroke patients may help in better target at risk populations for closer cardiac monitoring during hospitalization. The impact of implementing methods of quick assessment could potentially reduce VA associated sudden cardiac death