Long‐lasting housing environment manipulation and acute loss of environmental enrichment impact BALB/c mice behaviour in multiple functional domains

Understanding environmental influences on individuals' behaviour is challenging. Here we have investigated the housing impact of 9 weeks of enriched environment (EE) and social isolation (SI) and the impact of abrupt deprivation of EE (enrichment removal: ER) on BALB/c mice. Compared with the widely used C57BL/6 strain in research, BALB/c synthesises serotonin less efficiently due to a genetic variation and thus may potentially represent human populations at higher risk of stress-related disorders. We assessed the effects of EE and SI by conducting a behavioural test battery and the effects of acute ER by monitoring homecage activities and social behaviour. We found that EE and SI impact BALB/c's physiological states and behavioural performances from lower to higher cognitive processes: increased body weight, increased rectal temperature, altered performance in motor and sensory tasks, the activity level in a novel environment and altered performance in tests of anxiety-like behaviour, stress-coping strategies and learning and memory. Furthermore, acute ER triggered stress/frustration-like behaviour in BALB/c, with increased aggression, increased social distancing and disrupted daily/nightly activities. Our results demonstrate that long-lasting housing manipulation such as EE and SI, impact behaviour via multilayered processes over a wide range of functional domains, and unforeseen change to a negative environment, ER, is a major stressor that causes behavioural and psychological consequences through environment-gene interactions, a model of direct relevance to human health

Health-Promoting Lifestyle of Breast Cancer Patients and Family Members in a Chinese Genetic Counseling Clinic: A Cross-Sectional Study

Background: Risk management strategies play a significant role in genetic counseling, which involves lifestyle modification with respect to nutrition and unhealthy living habits, enhanced screening imaging, endocrine therapy, and following the physician’s advice etc. This study aimed to describe the health-promoting lifestyle of breast cancer patients and their family members in a Chinese genetic counseling clinic, and to explore its various levels encompassing different socio-economic variables. Methods: This was a cross-sectional study. The participants in this study originated from a genetic counseling clinic of a cancer center in Shanghai, China. Two hundred and fifty nine patients conforming to the inclusion and exclusion criteria were screened from November 2019 to March 2022. Participants agreeing to participate were sent a questionnaire web-link with an invitation to finish this survey. Two questionnaires were included in the link, one referring to socio-economic information and the other referring to the health-promoting lifestyle. Chinese Health-promoting lifestyle profile-Ⅱ (HPLP-Ⅱ) was used to evaluate the health-promoting lifestyle. Results: One hundred and forty participants were finally included in this study. The mean scores for health-promoting lifestyle was 141.22 ± 19.77, and multiple liner regression revealed monthly family income to be a statistically significant predictor of health-promoting lifestyle (p < 0.05). In the six subscales, health responsibility got the highest score (26.43 ± 4.40), and nutrition received the lowest score (17.81 ± 4.73). Self-actualization was 25.84 ± 4.19, physical activity 24.02 ± 4.97, interpersonal relationship 22.21 ± 4.42, and stress management 24.91 ± 4.39. Conclusions: A representative level of health-promoting lifestyle of breast cancer patients and family members in a Chinese genetic counseling clinic were acquired. More education and intervention should be tailored to enhance and encourage health-promoting lifestyle behaviors in participants with low monthly family income. Additionally, developing nutritional curriculum and strengthening the publicity of nutritional popular science are priorities for future improvement measures