Eating at fast-food restaurants is associated with dietary intake, demographic, psychosocial and behavioural factors among African Americans in North Carolina

Objective: To examine associations of the frequency of eating at fast-food restaurants with demographic, behavioural and psychosocial factors and dietary intake in African American adults. Methods: Self-reported data from a population-based cross-sectional survey of 658 African Americans, aged 20–70 years, in North Carolina. An 11-page questionnaire assessed eating at fast-food restaurants, demographic, behavioural and diet-related psychosocial factors, and dietary intake (fruit, vegetable, total fat and saturated fat intakes, and fat-related dietary behaviours). Results: The participants were aged 43.9 ^ 11.6 years (mean ^ standard deviation), 41% were male, 37% were college graduates and 75% were overweight or obese. Seventy-six per cent reported eating at fast-food restaurants during the previous 3 months: 4% usually, 22% often and 50% sometimes. Frequency of eating at fast-food restaurants was positively associated with total fat and saturated fat intakes and fat-related dietary behaviours (P , 0.0001) and inversely associated with vegetable intake (P , 0.05). For example, mean daily fat intake was 39.0 g for usually/often respondents and 28.3 g for those reporting rare/never eating at fast-food restaurants. Participants who reported usual/often eating at fast-food restaurants were younger, never married, obese, physically inactive and multivitamin non-users (all P , 0.01). Frequency of eating at fast-food restaurants was positively associated with fair/poor self-rated health, weak belief in a diet–cancer relationship, low self-efficacy for healthy eating, weight dissatisfaction, and perceived difficulties of preparing healthy meals and ordering healthy foods in restaurants (all P , 0.05). Frequency of eating at fast-food restaurants did not differ significantly by sex, education, smoking, ability to purchase healthy foods or knowledge of the Food Guide Pyramid. Conclusions: Eating at fast-food restaurants is associated with higher fat and lower vegetable intakes in African Americans. Interventions to reduce fast-food consumption and obesity in African Americans should consider demographic and behavioural characteristics and address attitudes about diet–disease relationships and convenience barriers to healthy eating

Psychosocial correlates of dietary fat intake in African-American adults: a cross-sectional study

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Current dietary guidelines recommend that dietary fat should comprise 20–35% percent of total energy intake, with less than 10% of energy from saturated fat. However, many Americans exceed these goals and data suggest that African Americans tend to consume a higher percentage of energy from dietary fat than Whites. Because diets low in dietary fat, particularly saturated fat, are associated with lower risk for many chronic illnesses, it is important to identify strategies to reduce high fat intakes. This study examined associations of psychosocial factors with dietary fat intake in African American adults 18 to 70 years.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>Data are self-reported from a cross-sectional survey of African Americans (n = 658) using an 11-page questionnaire, collected from June to October 2003. Associations of psychosocial (predisposing, reinforcing, and enabling) factors based on the PRECEDE framework, dietary fat-related behaviors, and participant characteristics (e.g., age, sex, education, BMI) with total and saturated fat consumption are described using linear regression and analysis of variance.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>The mean age of participants was 43.9 years, 57% were female, 37% were college graduates, and 76% were overweight/obese. Respondents with lower fat intakes were female, older, had high education and very good/excellent perceived health. Among the psychosocial factors, the strongest (inverse) associations with fat intake were with two predisposing factors: <it>belief in the importance of a low-fat diet </it>(both genders) and <it>high self-efficacy </it>(women only). Fat intake was also significantly lower among participants who could <it>count on those close for encouragement to eat healthy foods </it>(a reinforcing factor) and among men who <it>needed more information about preparing healthy foods </it>(an enabling factor).</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>Dietary interventions to decrease fat intake in African American adults may benefit from incorporating predisposing factors, such as personal beliefs and self-efficacy, in their design and implementation.</p

Intravesical Treatments of Bladder Cancer: Review

For bladder cancer, intravesical chemo/immunotherapy is widely used as adjuvant therapies after surgical transurethal resection, while systemic therapy is typically reserved for higher stage, muscle-invading, or metastatic diseases. The goal of intravesical therapy is to eradicate existing or residual tumors through direct cytoablation or immunostimulation. The unique properties of the urinary bladder render it a fertile ground for evaluating additional novel experimental approaches to regional therapy, including iontophoresis/electrophoresis, local hyperthermia, co-administration of permeation enhancers, bioadhesive carriers, magnetic-targeted particles and gene therapy. Furthermore, due to its unique anatomical properties, the drug concentration-time profiles in various layers of bladder tissues during and after intravesical therapy can be described by mathematical models comprised of drug disposition and transport kinetic parameters. The drug delivery data, in turn, can be combined with the effective drug exposure to infer treatment efficacy and thereby assists the selection of optimal regimens. To our knowledge, intravesical therapy of bladder cancer represents the first example where computational pharmacological approach was used to design, and successfully predicted the outcome of, a randomized phase III trial (using mitomycin C). This review summarizes the pharmacological principles and the current status of intravesical therapy, and the application of computation to optimize the drug delivery to target sites and the treatment efficacy

MASTREE+: Time-series of plant reproductive effort from six continents.

Significant gaps remain in understanding the response of plant reproduction to environmental change. This is partly because measuring reproduction in long-lived plants requires direct observation over many years and such datasets have rarely been made publicly available. Here we introduce MASTREE+, a data set that collates reproductive time-series data from across the globe and makes these data freely available to the community. MASTREE+ includes 73,828 georeferenced observations of annual reproduction (e.g. seed and fruit counts) in perennial plant populations worldwide. These observations consist of 5971 population-level time-series from 974 species in 66 countries. The mean and median time-series length is 12.4 and 10 years respectively, and the data set includes 1122 series that extend over at least two decades (≥20 years of observations). For a subset of well-studied species, MASTREE+ includes extensive replication of time-series across geographical and climatic gradients. Here we describe the open-access data set, available as a.csv file, and we introduce an associated web-based app for data exploration. MASTREE+ will provide the basis for improved understanding of the response of long-lived plant reproduction to environmental change. Additionally, MASTREE+ will enable investigation of the ecology and evolution of reproductive strategies in perennial plants, and the role of plant reproduction as a driver of ecosystem dynamics

31st Annual Meeting and Associated Programs of the Society for Immunotherapy of Cancer (SITC 2016) : part two

Background The immunological escape of tumors represents one of the main ob- stacles to the treatment of malignancies. The blockade of PD-1 or CTLA-4 receptors represented a milestone in the history of immunotherapy. However, immune checkpoint inhibitors seem to be effective in specific cohorts of patients. It has been proposed that their efficacy relies on the presence of an immunological response. Thus, we hypothesized that disruption of the PD-L1/PD-1 axis would synergize with our oncolytic vaccine platform PeptiCRAd. Methods We used murine B16OVA in vivo tumor models and flow cytometry analysis to investigate the immunological background. Results First, we found that high-burden B16OVA tumors were refractory to combination immunotherapy. However, with a more aggressive schedule, tumors with a lower burden were more susceptible to the combination of PeptiCRAd and PD-L1 blockade. The therapy signifi- cantly increased the median survival of mice (Fig. 7). Interestingly, the reduced growth of contralaterally injected B16F10 cells sug- gested the presence of a long lasting immunological memory also against non-targeted antigens. Concerning the functional state of tumor infiltrating lymphocytes (TILs), we found that all the immune therapies would enhance the percentage of activated (PD-1pos TIM- 3neg) T lymphocytes and reduce the amount of exhausted (PD-1pos TIM-3pos) cells compared to placebo. As expected, we found that PeptiCRAd monotherapy could increase the number of antigen spe- cific CD8+ T cells compared to other treatments. However, only the combination with PD-L1 blockade could significantly increase the ra- tio between activated and exhausted pentamer positive cells (p= 0.0058), suggesting that by disrupting the PD-1/PD-L1 axis we could decrease the amount of dysfunctional antigen specific T cells. We ob- served that the anatomical location deeply influenced the state of CD4+ and CD8+ T lymphocytes. In fact, TIM-3 expression was in- creased by 2 fold on TILs compared to splenic and lymphoid T cells. In the CD8+ compartment, the expression of PD-1 on the surface seemed to be restricted to the tumor micro-environment, while CD4 + T cells had a high expression of PD-1 also in lymphoid organs. Interestingly, we found that the levels of PD-1 were significantly higher on CD8+ T cells than on CD4+ T cells into the tumor micro- environment (p < 0.0001). Conclusions In conclusion, we demonstrated that the efficacy of immune check- point inhibitors might be strongly enhanced by their combination with cancer vaccines. PeptiCRAd was able to increase the number of antigen-specific T cells and PD-L1 blockade prevented their exhaus- tion, resulting in long-lasting immunological memory and increased median survival

Determining the clinical performance of dynamic visual acuity test (DVAT) in the concussion assessment battery

Background: Dizziness and visual complaints are common symptoms reported post-concussion. Dynamic visual acuity test (DVAT) is emerging as a useful assessment for identification of head injuries and monitoring recovery; however, the clinical performance of DVAT in the concussion battery is currently unknown. Purpose: The first aim of this study was to determine the clinical performance of DVAT as a stand-alone test to identify symptomatic and asymptomatic athletes diagnosed with a concussion. The second aim of this study was to determine the clinical performance of DVAT in combination with other vestibular/balance measures, neurocognitive, and symptom report to identify symptomatic and asymptomatic athletes diagnosed with a concussion. The third aim of this study was to examine the effects of background noise and a complex visual background on DVAT performance in healthy collegiate athletes. Methods: To address aims one and two, a retrospective analysis of post-concussion vestibular, balance and neurocognitive testing was completed. Receiver-operating characteristic curve and area under the curve were used to determine the clinical performance (i.e., sensitivity/specificity) of individual and combined measures to accurately identify athletes diagnosed with a concussion. To address aim three, healthy athletes completed DVAT twice, once in the control environment and once in the experimental environment (background noise and a complex visual background). A dependent sample t-test was used to compare DVAT performance in the control and experimental condition. Results: As a stand-alone measure, DVAT clinical performance was not considered significant for any of the groups. When DVAT was combined with the traditional concussion protocol (BESS, ImPACT) the clinical performance improved. When DVAT replaced the BESS in the protocol, clinical performance did not change. Further, results from specific aim three revealed that background noise and a complex visual background did not affect DVAT performance. Discussion: Findings from this study suggest that DVAT could be used in the concussion assessment protocol; however, at this time DVAT should not replace BESS in the acute phase, but may have clinical use for monitoring recovery. Further, DVAT may serve as a more alternative in the sideline environment to avoid any wait time in making return to play decisions

Collegeville Connections: Metaphor as a Tool for Discernment

How do individuals and churches collectively discern what choices to make? And how can metaphors, such as pottery, help with the process? In Fall 2020, the Collegeville Institute’s Communities of Calling Initiative gathered leaders from the 13 participating congregations for the virtual Treasure in Clay Jars retreat. Designed by project director Rev. Dr. Jane Patterson and program associate Jessie Bazan, the retreat invited participants to play with the metaphor of pottery as a way of reflecting on their individual and congregational callings. In this Collegeville Connections presentation, Jane and Jessie will explore the value of metaphor as a tool for discernment and use the metaphor of pottery to reflect with some Communities of Calling Initiative participants about their recent experiences in congregational life

Bacillus: cells from culture

Mostra uma imagem de Bacillus, uma pequena bactéria arredondada, de grande mobilidade, identificada por técnicas molecularesComponente Curricular::Educação Superior::Ciências Biológicas::Microbiologi

Bacillus: cells from culture

Mostra uma imagem de Bacillus, uma pequena bactéria arredondada, de grande mobilidade, identificada por técnicas molecularesComponente Curricular::Educação Superior::Ciências Biológicas::Microbiologi