Trends in Salmonella shedding by U.S. market hogs, swine 2000.

USDA’s National Animal Health Monitoring System’s (NAHMS) conducted a study of the health and management of swine as part of the Swine ‘95 study and Swine 2000 study. The studies were conducted in the top swine states in the U.S. A subset of participating farms allowed collection of fecal samples (50 samples per farm) from pens containing late finishers. The same methodology and laboratory was used in both studies so comparison of results provides a measure of change in on-farm Salmonella status between 1995 and 2000. Samples were tested for Salmonella and questionnaires were used to obtain management data regarding feed management, environmental conditions, vaccination policies, and other factors. The percent of farms with at least one positive sample was 38% in 1995 and 34% in 2000. The percent of samples positive was 6% in 1995 and 2000. The percent of pens positive was 17% in 1995 and 16% in 2000. In contrast to trends in slaughter HACCP Salmonella samples, the similarity in on-farm Salmonella status suggests that on-farm Salmonella intervention has yet to be initiated on a wide scale by producers and that on-farm Salmonella status is not directly related to slaughter Salmonella status

Sports, physical activity and academic performance : promoting physical activity among adolescents

Mémoire numérisé par la Direction des bibliothèques de l'Université de Montréal

USDA Multi-Agency Project: Collaboration in Animal Health, Food Safety & Epidemiology (CAHFSE)

Despite producer interventions, on-going research and continued surveillance, food borne outbreaks continue and multiple antimicrobial resistant bacteria have emerged. A multi-agency APublic Health Action Plan to Combat Antimicrobial Resistance@ was developed to address these concerns and one USDA response was the development of the Collaboration in Animal Health, Food Safety and Epidemiology (CAHFSE), a partnership among the Agriculture Research Service (ARS), Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS), and Food Safety Inspection Service (FSIS. The objective of CAHFSE is to implement and expand a surveillance system patterned after the APHIS National Animal Health Monitoring System (NAHMS) which focuses on animal health and food safety. Swine is the first commodity in CAHFSE. To date, fecal samples from 8 farms have been collected and processed for culture of Salmonella, Campylobacter, Enterococci and E. coli. Preliminary results indicate that all four bacteria have been recovered from a number of operations and are currently being characterized

Risk factors associated with shedding of salmonella by U.S. finishing hogs

Salmonellosis has long been considered an important food-borne pathogen since being isolated in 1885 by Dr Daniel Salmon, Chief ofUSDA\u27s Bureau of Animal industry. Non-typhoid Salmonella was recognized in the 1940\u27s as the most common cause of food poisoning due to bacteria. Some of the more frequent Salmonella serotypes associated with food-borne illness include S. enteritidis, S. heidelberg, S. newport, S. in/antis. S. mbandaka, and S. agona. (5) The potential for severe food-borne Salmonella outbreaks attributed to pork is evident in the Swedish epidentic which affected more than nine thousand people in 1954

Self-Reported Low Vitality, Poor Mental Health, and Low Dietary Restraint Are Associated with Overperception of Physical Exertion

Objective. We investigated whether perceived exertion, in comparison to the physiological response to exercise, was associated with self-reported vitality, mental health, and physical function during daily activities, or weight control behaviors. Design. Weight-reduced, formerly overweight women (n = 126, aged 22–46 years), completed health and dietary control questionnaires, and underwent a treadmill-walking task while heart rate, ventilation, respiratory exchange ratio, and ratings of perceived exertion were recorded. Results. Overperception of exertion (perceived exertion physiological exertion) was inversely associated with vitality (r = −0.190, P < .05), mental health (r = −0.188, P < .05), and dietary control (r values range −0.231 to −0.317, P < .05). In linear regression modeling, vitality or mental health, and cognitive dietary restraint were independently associated with accuracy of perceived exertion, independent of age, ethnicity, and engagement in exercise during weight loss. Each model explained 7%-8% of the variance in accuracy of perceived exertion. Conclusion. Women with low vitality or poor mental health, and poor dietary control may overperceive exertion. Such overperception may be a barrier to engage in physical activity and thus increase susceptibility to weight gain

Strain background determines lymphoma incidence in Atm knockout mice

About 10% to 30% of patients with ataxia-telangiectasia (A-T) develop leukemias or lymphomas. There is considerable interpatient variation in the age of onset and leukemia/lymphoma type. The incomplete penetrance and variable age of onset may be attributable to several factors. These include competing mortality from other A-T-associated pathologies, particularly neurodegeneration and interstitial lung disease, and allele-specific effects of ataxia-telangiectasia mutated (ATM) gene mutations. There is also limited evidence from clinical observations and studies using Atm knockout mice that modifier genes may account for some variation in leukemia/lymphoma susceptibility. We have introgressed the Atm knockout allele (Atm) onto several inbred murine strains and observed differences in thymic lymphoma incidence and latency between Atm mice on the different strain backgrounds and between their F1 hybrids. The lymphomas that arose in these mice had a pattern of sequence gains and losses that were similar to those previously described by others. These results provide further evidence for the existence of modifier genes controlling lymphomagenesis in individuals carrying defective copies of Atm, at least in mice, and the characterized Atm- congenic strain set provides a resource with which to identify these genes. In addition, we found that fewer than expected Atm pups were weaned on two strain backgrounds and that there was no correlation between body weight of young Atm mice and lymphoma incidence or latency

Intracellular amyloid formation in muscle cells of Aβ-transgenic Caenorhabditis elegans: determinants and physiological role in copper detoxification

Background: The amyloid β-peptide is a ubiquitous peptide, which is prone to aggregate forming soluble toxic oligomers and insoluble less-toxic aggregates. The intrinsic and external/environmental factors that determine Aβ aggregation in vivo are poorly understood, as well as the cellular meaning of this process itself. Genetic data as well as cell biological and biochemical evidence strongly support the hypothesis that Aβ is a major player in the onset and development of Alzheimer's disease. In addition, it is also known that Aβ is involved in Inclusion Body Myositis, a common myopathy of the elderly in which the peptide accumulates intracellularly. Results: In the present work, we found that intracellular Aβ aggregation in muscle cells of Caenorhabditis elegans overexpressing Aβ peptide is affected by two single amino acid substitutions, E22G (Arctic) and V18A (NIC). Both variations show decrease intracellular amyloidogenesis compared to wild type Aβ. We show that intracellular amyloid aggregation of wild type Aβ is accelerated by Cu2+ and diminished by copper chelators. Moreover, we demonstrate through toxicity and behavioral assays that Aβ-transgenic worms display a higher tolerance to Cu2+ toxic effects and that this resistance may be linked to the formation of amyloid aggregates. Conclusion: Our data show that intracellular Aβ amyloid aggregates may trap excess of free Cu2+ buffering its cytotoxic effects and that accelerated intracellular Aβ aggregation may be part of a cell protective mechanism

Antimicrobial susceptibility of salmonella isolates from swine

The emergence of antimicrobial resistance among bacteria is of growing concern to practitioners and producers. Problems associated with the emergence of resistance include treatment failure, prolonged shedding, and the development oflong term carriage of the resistant bacteria in the host. The emergence of resistance among Salmonella species is particularly worrisome as it is a zoonotic agent and is ubiquitous in nature