Is reducing appetite beneficial for body weight management in the context of overweight and obesity? A systematic review and meta‐analysis from clinical trials assessing body weight management after exposure to satiety enhancing and/or hunger reducing products

This review aims to investigate whether interventions that enhance satiety and/or reduce hunger lead to beneficial effects on body weight management in the context of overweight and obesity. A comprehensive review protocol was prepared before conducting a systematic search in PubMed identifying 517 papers with 12 meeting the inclusion criteria. A thorough risk of bias assessment was performed based on the Cochrane collaboration's tool for assessing risk of bias. Based on a meta‐analysis, the average of 75 subjects exposed to satiety enhancing and/or hunger reducing foods during more than 8 weeks coincidently reduced their body weight by 3.60 (1.05; 6.15) kg (mean (95% confidence interval)) more compared with controls. Two studies analysed whether individual reductions in appetite were associated with body weight. Decreased ad libitum energy intake after exposure to the satiety enhancing and/or hunger reducing interventions explained 58% (P < 0.001) and 23% (P < 0.001) of the variations in the subsequent weight losses over 12 and 8 weeks, respectively. Robust acute effects on appetite were found equally likely to be linked to improved body weight management as sustained effects. Satiety enhancing and/or hunger reducing interventions are supported to improve body weight management, but studies specifically designed to demonstrate a causal link remain needed

Musculoskeletal pain intensity in different body regions and risk of disability pension among female eldercare workers: prospective cohort study with 11-year register follow-up

Background Musculoskeletal pain is a risk factor for leaving the labour market temporarily and permanently. While the presence of multi-site pain increases the risk of disability pension, we lack detailed knowledge about pain intensity as a risk factor. This study investigated the association between musculoskeletal pain intensity in different body regions and risk of future disability pension among eldercare workers. Methods Eight thousand seven hundred thirty-one female eldercare workers replied to a questionnaire on work and health in 2005 and were followed for 11 years in the Danish Register for Evaluation of Marginalization. Time-to-event analyses estimated hazard ratios (HR) for disability pension from pain intensities (0-9 numeric rating scale (NRS)) in the low-back, neck/shoulders, and knees during the previous 3 months. Analyses were mutually adjusted for pain regions, age, education, lifestyle, psychosocial work factors, and physical exertion at work. Results During 11-year follow-up, 1035 (11.9%) of the eldercare workers received disability pension. For all body regions among all eldercare workers, dose-response associations were observed between higher pain intensity and risk of disability pension (p = 7 points on the 0-9 NRS) in the low-back (HR 2.19, 95% CI 1.70-2.82), neck/shoulders (HR 2.34, 95% CI 1.88-2.92), and knees (HR 1.89, 95% CI 1.44-2.47). Population attributable risks (PAR) were 15.5, 23.2, and 9.6% for pain > 2 on NRS in the low-back, neck/shoulders, and knees, respectively, indicating that 15.5, 23.2, and 9.6% fewer eldercare workers would likely receive disability pension if the pain intensity was reduced to 2 or less. For workers 45 years, PAR was highest for neck/shoulder pain (27.6%) and low-back pain (18.8%), respectively. Conclusions The present study found positive dose-response associations between pain intensity in the low-back, neck/shoulders, and knees, and risk of disability pension during 11-year follow-up. Moderate to very high levels of musculoskeletal pain in eldercare workers should, therefore, be considered an early warning sign of involuntary premature exit from the labour market. These findings underscore the importance of preventing, managing, and reducing musculoskeletal pain to ensure a long and healthy working life

Novrup kirkegård i Esbjerg

Intet resumé

What limits supercurrents in high temperature superconductors? A microscopic model of cuprate grain boundaries

The interface properties of high-temperature cuprate superconductors have been of interest for many years, and play an essential role in Josephson junctions, superconducting cables, and microwave electronics. In particular, the maximum critical current achievable in high-Tc wires and tapes is well known to be limited by the presence of grain boundaries, regions of mismatch between crystallites with misoriented crystalline axes. In studies of single, artificially fabricated grain boundaries the striking observation has been made that the critical current Jc of a grain boundary junction depends exponentially on the misorientation angle. Until now microscopic understanding of this apparently universal behavior has been lacking. We present here the results of a microscopic evaluation based on a construction of fully 3D YBCO grain boundaries by molecular dynamics. With these structures, we calculate an effective tight-binding Hamiltonian for the d-wave superconductor with a grain boundary. The critical current is then shown to follow an exponential suppression with grain boundary angle. We identify the buildup of charge inhomogeneities as the dominant mechanism for the suppression of the supercurrent.Comment: 28 pages, 12 figure

Protocol for Work place adjusted Intelligent physical exercise reducing Musculoskeletal pain in Shoulder and neck (VIMS): a cluster randomized controlled trial

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Neck and shoulder complaints are common among employees in sedentary occupations characterized by intensive computer use. Specific strength training is a promising type of physical exercise for relieving neck and shoulder pain in office workers. However, the optimal combination of frequency and exercise duration, as well as the importance of exercise supervision, is unknown. The VIMS study investigates in a cluster randomized controlled design the effectiveness of different time wise combinations of specific strength training with identical accumulated volume, and the relevance of training supervision for safe and effective training.</p> <p>Methods/design</p> <p>A cluster randomized controlled trial of 20 weeks duration where employed office workers are randomized to 1 × 60 min, 3 × 20 min, 9 × 7 min per week of specific strength training with training supervision, to 3 × 20 min per week of specific strength training with a minimal amount of training supervision, or to a reference group without training. A questionnaire will be sent to 2000 employees in jobs characterized by intensive computer work. Employees with cardiovascular disease, trauma, hypertension, or serious chronic disease will be excluded. The main outcome measure is pain in the neck and shoulders at week 20.</p> <p>Trial Registration</p> <p>The trial is registered at ClinicalTrials.gov, number NCT01027390.</p

Impact of change in maternal age composition on the incidence of Caesarean section and low birth weight: analysis of delivery records at a tertiary hospital in Tanzania, 1999–2005

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Previous studies on change in maternal age composition in Tanzania do not indicate its impact on adverse pregnancy outcomes. We sought to establish temporal changes in maternal age composition and their impact on annual Caesarean section (CS) and low birth weight deliveries (LBWT) at Muhimbili National Hospital in Tanzania.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>We conducted data analysis of 91,699 singleton deliveries that took place in the hospital between 1999 and 2005. The data were extracted from the obstetric data base. Annual proportions of individual age groups were calculated and their trends over the years studied. Multiple logistic analyses were conducted to ascertain trends in the risks of CS and LBWT. The impact of age composition changes on CS and LBWT was estimated by calculating annual numbers of these outcomes with and without the major changes in age composition, all others remaining equal. In all statistics, a p value < 0.05 was considered significant.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>The proportion of teenage mothers (12–19 years) progressively decreased over time while that of 30–34 years age group increased. From 1999, the risk of Caesarean delivery increased steadily to a maximum in 2005 [adjusted OR = 1.7; 95%CI (1.6–1.8)] whereas that of LBWT declined to a minimum in 2005 (adjusted OR = 0.76; 95% CI (0.71–0.82). The current major changes in age trend were responsible for shifts in the number of CS of up to206 cases per year. Likewise, the shift in LBWT was up to 158 cases per year, but the 30–34 years age group had no impact on this.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>The population of mothers giving birth at MNH is progressively becoming older with substantial impact on the incidence of CS and LBWT. Further research is needed to estimate the health cost implications of this change.</p

Stable reference genes for the measurement of transcript abundance during larval caste development in the honeybee

Many genes are differentially regulated by caste development in the honeybee. Identifying and understanding these differences is key to discovering the mechanisms underlying this process. To identify these gene expression differences requires robust methods to measure transcript abundance. RT-qPCR is currently the gold standard to measure gene expression, but requires stable reference genes to compare gene expression changes. Such reference genes have not been established for honeybee caste development. Here, we identify and test potential reference genes that have stable expression throughout larval development between the two female castes. In this study, 15 candidate reference genes were examined to identify the most stable reference genes. Three algorithms (GeNorm, Bestkeeper and NormFinder) were used to rank the candidate reference genes based on their stability between the castes throughout larval development. Of these genes Ndufa8 (the orthologue of a component of complex one of the mitochondrial electron transport chain) and Pros54 (orthologous to a component of the 26S proteasome) were identified as being the most stable. When these two genes were used to normalise expression of two target genes (previously found to be differentially expressed between queen and worker larvae by microarray analysis) they were able to more accurately detect differential expression than two previously used reference genes (awd and RpL12). The identification of these novel reference genes will be of benefit to future studies of caste development in the honeybee

On the renormalization of multiparton webs

We consider the recently developed diagrammatic approach to soft-gluon exponentiation in multiparton scattering amplitudes, where the exponent is written as a sum of webs - closed sets of diagrams whose colour and kinematic parts are entangled via mixing matrices. A complementary approach to exponentiation is based on the multiplicative renormalizability of intersecting Wilson lines, and their subsequent finite anomalous dimension. Relating this framework to that of webs, we derive renormalization constraints expressing all multiple poles of any given web in terms of lower-order webs. We examine these constraints explicitly up to four loops, and find that they are realised through the action of the web mixing matrices in conjunction with the fact that multiple pole terms in each diagram reduce to sums of products of lower-loop integrals. Relevant singularities of multi-eikonal amplitudes up to three loops are calculated in dimensional regularization using an exponential infrared regulator. Finally, we formulate a new conjecture for web mixing matrices, involving a weighted sum over column entries. Our results form an important step in understanding non-Abelian exponentiation in multiparton amplitudes, and pave the way for higher-loop computations of the soft anomalous dimension.Comment: 60 pages, 15 figure