Weight-loss intervention using implementation intentions and mental imagery: A randomised control trial study protocol

Background: Overweight and obesity are major health problems worldwide. This protocol describes the HEALTHI (Healthy Eating and Active LifesTyle Health Intervention) Program, a 12-week randomised-controlled weight-loss intervention that adopts two theory-based intervention techniques, mental imagery and implementation intentions, a behaviour-change technique based on planning that have been shown to be effective in promoting health-behaviour change in previous research. The effectiveness of goal-reminder text messages to augment intervention effects will also be tested. The trial will determine the effects of a brief, low cost, theory-based weight-loss intervention to improve dietary intake and physical activity behaviour and facilitate weight-loss in overweight and obese individuals. Methods/Design: Overweight or obese participants will be randomly allocated to one of three conditions: (1) a psycho-education plus an implementation intentions and mental imagery condition; (2) a psycho-education plus an implementation intentions and mental imagery condition with text messages; or (3) a psycho-education control condition. The intervention will be delivered via video presentation to increase the intervention's applicability in multiple contexts and keep costs low. We hypothesise that the intervention conditions will lead to statistically-significant changes in the primary and secondary outcome variables measured at 6 and 12 weeks post-intervention relative to the psycho-education control condition after controlling for baseline values. The primary outcome variable will be body weight and secondary outcome variables will be biomedical (body mass, body fat percentage, muscle mass, waist-hip circumference ratio, systolic and diastolic blood pressure, low-density lipoprotein, high-density lipoprotein, total cholesterol, triglycerides, blood glucose and insulin levels), psychological (quality of life, motivation, risk perception, outcome expectancy, intention, action self-efficacy, maintenance self-efficacy, goal setting and planning), and behavioural (self-reported diet intake, and physical activity involvement) measures. We also expect the intervention condition augmented with text messages to lead to statistically significant differences in the primary and secondary outcome variables at the follow up periods after controlling for baseline values. Discussion: The planned trial will test the effectiveness of the theory-based HEALTHI program intervention to reduce weight and salient psychological, biomedical, and behavioural outcomes in overweight and obese adults. The study has been designed to maximise applicability to real world settings and could be integrated into existing weight management practices

Calcium mobilization via intracellular ion channels, store organization and mitochondria in smooth muscle

In smooth muscle, Ca2+ release from the internal store into the cytoplasm occurs via inositol trisphosphate (IP3R) and ryanodine receptors (RyR). The internal Ca2+ stores containing IP3R and RyR may be arranged as multiple separate compartments with various IP3R and RyR arrangements, or there may be a single structure containing both receptors. The existence of multiple stores is proposed to explain several physiological responses which include the progression of Ca2+ waves, graded Ca2+ release from the store and various local responses and sensitivities. We suggest that, rather than multiple stores, a single luminally-continuous store exists in which Ca2+ is in free diffusional equilibrium throughout. Regulation of Ca2+ release via IP3R and RyR by the local Ca2+ concentration within the stores explains the apparent existence of multiple stores and physiological processes such as graded Ca2+ release and Ca2+ waves. Close positioning of IP3R on the store with mitochondria or with receptors on the plasma membrane creates ‘IP3 junctions’ to generate local responses on the luminally-continuous store

Identification and Characterization of Proteins Encoded by Chromosome 12 as Part of Chromosome-centric Human Proteome Project

Chromosome-centric human proteome project (C-HPP) is a global initiative to comprehensively characterize proteins encoded by genes across all human chromosomes by teams focusing on individual chromosomes. Here, we report mass spectrometry-based identification and characterization of proteins encoded by genes on chromosome 12. Our study is based on proteomic profiling of 30 different histologically normal human tissues and cell types using high-resolution mass spectrometry. In our analysis, we identified 1,535 proteins encoded by 836 genes on human chromosome 12. This includes 89 genes that are designated as “missing proteins” by “neXtProt” as they did not have any prior evidence either by mass spectrometry or by antibody-based detection methods. We identified several variant peptides that reflected coding SNPs annotated in dbSNP database. We also confirmed the start sites of ∼200 proteins by identifying protein N-terminal acetylated peptides. We also identified alternative start sites for 11 proteins that were not annotated in public databases until now. Most importantly, we identified 12 novel protein coding regions on chromosome 12 using our proteogenomics strategy. All of the 12 regions have been annotated as pseudogenes in public databases. This study demonstrates that there is scope for significantly improving annotation of protein coding genes in the human genome using mass-spectrometry-derived data. Individual efforts as part of C-HPP initiative should significantly contribute toward enriching human protein annotation. The data have been deposited to ProteomeXchange with identifier PXD000561