Dietary and other lifestyle characteristics of Cypriot school children: results from the nationwide CYKIDS study

Dietary and lifestyle behaviors at young ages have been associated with the development of various chronic diseases. Schools are regarded as an excellent setting for lifestyle modification; there is a lack, however, of published dietary data in Cypriot school children. Thus, the objective of this work was to describe lifestyle characteristics of a representative segment of Cypriot school children and provide implications for school health education. Methods. The CYKIDS (Cyprus Kids Study) is a national, cross-sectional study conducted among 1140 school children (10.7 0.98 years). Sampling was stratified and multistage in 24 primary schools of Cyprus. Dietary assessment was based on a 154-item semi-quantitative food-frequency questionnaire and three supplementary questionnaires, assessing dietary patterns and behaviors. Adherence to the Mediterranean diet was evaluated by the KIDMED index (Mediterranean Diet Quality Index for children and adolescents). Physical activity was assessed by a 32-item, semi-quantitative questionnaire. Results. Analysis revealed that 6.7% of the children were classified as high adherers, whereas 37% as low adherers to the Mediterranean diet. About 20% of boys and 25% of girls reported "not having breakfast on most days of the week", while more than 80% of the children reported having meals with the family at least 5 times/week. Some food-related behaviors, such as intake of breakfast, were associated with socio-demographic factors, mostly with gender and the geomorphological characteristics of the living milieu. With respect to physical activity, boys reported higher levels compared to girls, however, one fourth of children did not report any kind of physical activity. Conclusion. A large percentage of Cypriot school children have a diet of low quality and inadequate physical activity. Public health policy makers should urgently focus their attention to primary school children and design school health education programs that target the areas that need attention in order to reduce the future burden of metabolic disorders and chronic diseases

Transcriptome analysis of embryonic mammary cells reveals insights into mammary lineage establishment

Introduction: The mammary primordium forms during embryogenesis as a result of inductive interactions between its constitutive tissues, the mesenchyme and epithelium, and represents the earliest evidence of commitment to the mammary lineage. Previous studies of embryonic mouse mammary epithelium indicated that, by mid-gestation, these cells are determined to a mammary cell fate and that a stem cell population has been delimited. Mammary mesenchyme can induce mammary development from simple epithelium even across species and classes, and can partially restore features of differentiated tissue to mouse mammary tumours in co-culture experiments. Despite these exciting properties, the molecular identity of embryonic mammary cells remains to be fully characterised. Methods: Here, we define the transcriptome of the mammary primordium and the two distinct cellular compartments that comprise it, the mammary primordial bud epithelium and mammary mesenchyme. Pathway and network analysis was performed and comparisons of embryonic mammary gene expression profiles to those of both postnatal mouse and human mammary epithelial cell sub-populations and stroma were made. Results: Several of the genes we have detected in our embryonic mammary cell signatures were previously shown to regulate mammary cell fate and development, but we also identified a large number of novel candidates. Additionally, we determined genes that were expressed by both embryonic and postnatal mammary cells, which represent candidate regulators of mammary cell fate, differentiation and progenitor cell function that could signal from mammary lineage inception during embryogenesis through postnatal development. Comparison of embryonic mammary cell signatures with those of human breast cells identified potential regulators of mammary progenitor cell functions conserved across species. Conclusions: These results provide new insights into genetic regulatory mechanisms of mammary development, particularly identification of novel potential regulators of mammary fate and mesenchymal-epithelial cross-talk. Since cancers may represent diseases of mesenchymal-epithelial communications, we anticipate these results will provide foundations for further studies into the fundamental links between developmental, stem cell and breast cancer biology

New non-randomised model to assess the prevalence of discriminating behaviour: a pilot study on mephedrone

The main advantages of the SSC over other indirect methods are: simple administration, completion and calculation, maximum use of the data and good face validity for all respondents. Owing to the key feature that respondents are not required to answer the sensitive question directly, coupled with the absence of forced response or obvious self-protective response strategy, the SSC has the potential to cut across self-protective barriers more effectively than other estimation models. This elegantly simple, quick and effective method can be successfully employed in public health research investigating compromising behaviours

Biocomposites from polyhydroxybutyrate and bio-fillers by solvent casting method

Biocomposites from polyhydroxybutyrate (PHB) and some bio-fillers such as lignin (L), alpha cellulose (AC) and cellulose nanofibrils (CNFs) were prepared to investigate the effect of the bio-fillers on the properties of PHB by a solvent casting method. The thermal properties by thermogravimetry analysis (TGA-DTG and DTA) and differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) were determined; morphological characterization by scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and structural analysis by X-ray diffraction (XRD), and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) of the biocomposites were performed. TGA curves showed that the highest values for T-10\%, T-50\% of the biocomposites were 278.2(degrees)C for PHB+2\%AC and 291.7(degrees)C for PHB+2\%CNFs; however, the best value for T-75\% was obtained as 381.5(degrees)C for PHB+2\%L. According to DTG curves, the best results were found for PHB+0.5\%L and PHB+0.5\%CNFs. DTA showed an increase in temperature of maximum degradation with loading of lignin and CNFs. The addition of bio-fillers increases T-c and T-m for both first cooling/heating and second cooling/heating. T-c and T-m values for first cooling/healing were found to be lower as compared with second cooling/healing. Furthermore, the addition of bio-fillers acts as a nucleating agent in PHB and SEM pictures showed the porous structure in all biocomposites. SEM images revealed uniform distribution of the reinforcing particles in the polymer at low loadings (0.5 wt\%), while higher loadings (2 wt\%) of L and CNFs contributed to easy aggregation within the PHB matrix. In XRD studies, PHB in the range 5-55 degrees shows 6 main peaks. XRD patterns of the PHB biocomposites revealed 3 main peaks at 13.57(degrees), 16.87(degrees) and 22.1 degrees, and the other peaks disappeared in the patterns. The largest and lowest values of X-c were found for PHB+2\%AC and PHB+2\%CNFs, respectively