Friends and Symptom Dimensions in Patients with Psychosis: A Pooled Analysis

PMCID: PMC3503760This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited

Adherence to the traditional Mediterranean diet in a population of South of Italy: factors involved and proposal of an educational field-based survey tool

We developed and validated a tool assessing the adherence to the Mediterranean diet based on current nutritional recommendations for health promotion (MEDI-Quest). Four-hundred-and-eleven clinically healthy subjects completed both the MEDI-Quest-score and the validated MedDietScore (MDS). A good accordance between MEDI-Quest and MDS was observed (R = 0.638), as well as for the percentage of individuals having similar scores with both methods for each food group. Regarding socio-cultural-factors, higher adherence was observed in people with older-age (OR = 1.030, p < .0001), more qualifier-employment (OR = 1.136, p < .005), higher-income (OR = 1.925, p < .0001), interest in reading-food-labels (OR = 2.057, p < .0001), and having frequent physical activity (OR = 1.608, p < .05). In conclusion, our findings show that (1) the MEDI-Quest score well correlate with MDS, and (2) the adherence to the Mediterranean diet is not particularly high due to less cultural roots. It could be necessary to improve people's knowledge about food and nutrition, taking into consideration believes embedded in their family, tradition and religion

Friends and Symptom Dimensions in Patients with Psychosis: A Pooled Analysis

Background Having friends is associated with more favourable clinical outcomes and a higher quality of life in mental disorders. Patients with schizophrenia have fewer friends than other mentally ill patients. No large scale studies have evaluated so far what symptom dimensions of schizophrenia are associated with the lack of friendships. Methods Data from four multi-centre studies on outpatients with schizophrenia and related disorders (ICD F20-29) were included in a pooled analysis (N = 1396). We established whether patients had close friends and contact with friends by using the equivalent items on friendships of the Manchester Short Assessment of Quality of Life or of the Lancashire Quality of Life Profile. Symptoms were measured by the Brief Psychiatric Rating Scale or by the identical items included in the Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale. Results Seven hundred and sixty-nine patients (55.1%) had seen a friend in the previous week and 917 (65.7%) had someone they regarded as a close friend. Low levels of negative symptoms and hostility were significantly associated with having a close friend and contact with a friend. Overall, almost twice as many patients with absent or mild negative symptoms had met a friend in the last week, compared with those with moderate negative symptoms. Conclusions Higher levels of negative symptoms and hostility are specifically associated with the lack of friendships in patients with psychotic disorders. These findings suggest the importance of developing effective treatments for negative symptoms and hostility in order to improve the probability of patients with schizophrenia to have friends

Clinical pitfalls of leishmaniasis and Whipple’s disease hidden behind systemic lupus erythematosus: A case series

Systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) is a multisystemic autoimmune disease that can affect major organs possibly leading to life-threatening complications and appears with heterogeneous clinical picture. SLE could present with broad spectrum of clinical and laboratory features that can resemble those of other diseases, such as hemopoietic malignancies, infections, or immune-mediated disorders. Its complexity and protean features overlap with many other diseases, hindering the differential diagnosis. Rarely, true overlap with other diseases may occur. Herein, we report a case series of two patients affected by infectious diseases, namely visceral leishmaniasis and Whipple’s disease (WD), intertwined with clinical or serological features of SLE. In both cases, several confounding factors have led to a delay in the diagnosis. Moreover, we first describe the persistent elevation of autoantibodies and a monoclonal gammopathy in a patient with WD. Awareness of unusual presentations of infections or other rare disorders, which may be encountered in clinical practice when taking care of SLE patients, is essential for timely diagnosis and treatment of potentially lethal diseases

Social isolation in mental health: a conceptual and methodological review

PURPOSE: Social isolation and related concepts have been discussed increasingly in the field of mental health. Despite this, there is a lack of conceptual clarity and consistency in the definition and operationalisation of these terms. This review aimed to provide a clear framework for social isolation and related concepts, and to identify well-established measures in the field of mental health for each conceptual domain discussed. METHODS: We used an iterative strategy of expert consultation and literature searching. A multi-disciplinary group of senior academics was consulted both before and after the literature searching to identify relevant terms, conceptual papers, or recommended measures. Our conceptual framework was also validated through expert consultation. We searched the Web of Science database using terms suggested by experts and subsequently identified further relevant studies through review articles and by reading full texts and reference lists of included studies. A narrative synthesis was conducted. RESULTS: We developed a model with five domains incorporating all the concepts relevant to social isolation in regular use in the mental health research literature. These five domains are: social network—quantity; social network—structure; social network—quality; appraisal of relationships—emotional; and appraisal of relationships—resources. We also identified well-developed measures suitable for assessing each of the five conceptual domains or covering multi-domains. CONCLUSIONS: Our review proposes a conceptual model to encompass and differentiate all terms relating to social isolation. Potential uses are in allowing researchers and intervention developers to identify precisely the intended outcomes of interventions, and to choose the most appropriate measures to use in mental health setting

Genetic susceptibility to Candida infection: A new look at an old entity

In recent years, several studies have shed light on the pathogenesis of many novel immune defects associated with narrow susceptibility to bacterial, viral and fungal infections. Genetically determined forms of susceptibility to Candida species infection, which had been elusive for a long time, have been recognized. Refractory or recurrent infections of skin, nails and the mucous membranes are clinical signs of chronic mucocutaneous candidiasis, frequently associated with immunological defects in the Th17 subset, which is crucial for host response against infections at mucosal and epithelial sites. Here we review the main clinical features and the mechanisms of diseases which share CMC as main phenotype

The MEDGICarb-Study: Design of a multi-center randomized controlled trial to determine the differential health-promoting effects of low- and high-glycemic index Mediterranean-style eating patterns

Adults with central adiposity and other features of the metabolic syndrome have a markedly elevated risk of developing type 2 diabetes (T2D) and cardiovascular disease (CVD). A Mediterranean-style healthy eating pattern (MED-HEP) and consumption of foods with a lower glycemic index (GI) are potential dietary approaches to curb the T2D and CVD epidemic. However, experimental evidence of the effectiveness of MED-HEP and of the contribution of GI towards improving indices of glucose homeostasis, especially among non-diabetic people, are lacking. Therefore, we developed the MedGI-Carb trial, a multi-center (Italy, Sweden, and United States) intervention in adults with at least two components of the metabolic syndrome (elevated waist circumference + one other component) that aims to improve markers of glucose homeostasis through dietary modification. All participants were randomized to consume an isocaloric high- or low-GI MED-HEP for 12 weeks. We hypothesized that indexes of insulinemia (primary outcome: postprandial insulin and glucose after standardized breakfast and lunch; secondary outcomes: fasting plasma glucose and insulin, HbA1c, 24-h continuous glucose monitoring) would be improved more with the low-GI versus the high-GI MED-HEP. Additionally, we hypothesized that consumption of a MED-HEP would improve other markers of cardiometabolic health and well-being (fasting blood pressure, fasting lipid profile, sleep quality, satiety, global metabolic alterations in the plasma metabolome, changes in the gut microbiota, subjective health and well-being), with no difference between groups. Collectively, the design of MEDGI-Carb allows several different research questions to be explored. TRIAL REGISTRATION: ClinicalTrials.gov identifier: NCT03410719

Solvent-Free Synthetic Route for Cerium(IV) Metal–Organic Frameworks with UiO-66 Architecture and Their Photocatalytic Applications

A near solvent-free synthetic route for Ce-UiO-66 metal–organic frameworks (MOFs) is presented. The MOFs are obtained by energetically grinding the reagents, cerium ammonium nitrate (CAN) and the carboxylic linkers, in a mortar for a few minutes with the addition of a small amount of acetic acid (AcOH) as a modulator (8.75 equiv, 0.5 mL). The slurry is then transferred into a 2 mL vial and heated at 120 °C for 1 day. The MOFs have been characterized for their composition, crystallinity, and porosity and employed as heterogeneous catalysts for the photo-oxidation reaction of substituted benzylic alcohols to benzaldaldehydes under near-ultraviolet light irradiation. The catalytic performances, such as selectivity, conversion, and kinetics, exceed those of similar systems studied by chemical oxidation using similar Ce-MOFs as a catalyst. Moreover, the MOFs were found to be reusable up to three cycles without loss of activity. Density functional theory (DFT) calculations were used to fully describe the electronic structure of the best performing MOFs and to provide useful information on the catalytic activity experimentally observed

Mental health in hospital emergency departments: cross-sectional analysis of attendances in England 2013/2014

Objective: To describe the population of patients who attend emergency departments (ED) in England for mental health reasons. / Methods: Cross-sectional observational study of 6 262 602 ED attendances at NHS (National Health Service) hospitals in England between 1 April 2013 and 31 March 2014. We assessed the proportion of attendances due to psychiatric conditions. We compared patient sociodemographic and attendance characteristics for mental health and non-mental health attendances using logistic regression. / Results: 4.2% of ED attendances were attributable to mental health conditions (median 3.2%, IQR 2.6% to 4.1%). Those attending for mental health reasons were typically younger (76.3% were aged less than 50 years), of White British ethnicity (73.2% White British), and resident in more deprived areas (59.9% from the two most deprived Index of Multiple Deprivation quintiles (4 and 5)). Mental health attendances were more likely to occur ‘out of hours’ (68.0%) and at the weekend (31.3%). Almost two-thirds were brought in by ambulance. A third required admission, but around a half were discharged home. / Conclusions: This is the first national study of mental health attendances at EDs in England. We provide information for those planning and providing care, to ensure that clinical resources meet the needs of this patient group, who comprise 4.2% of attendances. In particular, we highlight the need to strengthen the availability of hospital and community care ‘out of hours.