NIH guidelines for research involving recombinant DNA molecules (NIH guidelines)

132 pages.Defines the official National Institutes of Health guidelines for conducting research involving "recombinant DNA molecules", which includes the development of genetically-modified organisms such as transgenic animals and plants

Sharing clinical research data in the United States under the health insurance portability and accountability act and the privacy rule

Sharing of final research data from clinical research is an essential part of the scientific method. The U.S. National Institutes of Health require some grant applications to include plans for sharing final research data, which it defines as the factual materials necessary to document, support, and validate research findings. In the U.S., however, the Privacy Rule adopted under the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act impedes the sharing of final research data. In most situations, final research data may be shared only where all information that could possibly be used to identify the subject has been deleted, or where the subject has given authorization for specific research, or an Institutional Review Board has granted a waiver

Menthol cigarette smoking and obesity in young adult daily smokers in Hawaii

This study investigates 1) the relationship between menthol cigarette smoking and obesity and 2) the association of body mass index with the nicotine metabolite ratio among menthol and non-menthol daily smokers aged 18-35 (n = 175). A brief survey on smoking and measures of height and weight, carbon monoxide, and saliva samples were collected from participants from May to December 2013 in Honolulu, Hawaii. Multiple regression was used to estimate differences in body mass index among menthol and non-menthol smokers and the association of menthol smoking with obesity. We calculated the log of the nicotine metabolite ratio to examine differences in the nicotine metabolite ratio among normal, overweight, and obese smokers. Sixty-eight percent of smokers used menthol cigarettes. Results showed that 62% of normal, 54% of overweight, and 91% of obese smokers used menthol cigarettes (p =.000). The mean body mass index was significantly higher among menthol compared with non-menthol smokers (29.4 versus 24.5, p =.000). After controlling for gender, marital status, educational attainment, employment status, and race/ethnicity, menthol smokers were more than 3 times as likely as non-menthol smokers to be obese (p =.04). The nicotine metabolite ratio was significantly lower for overweight menthol smokers compared with non-menthol smokers (16 versus.26, p =.02) in the unadjusted model, but was not significant after adjusting for the covariates. Consistent with prior studies, our data show that menthol smokers are more likely to be obese compared with non-menthol smokers. Future studies are needed to determine how flavored tobacco products influence obesity among smokers

Type III Secretion Is Essential for the Rapidly Fatal Diarrheal Disease Caused by Non-O1, Non-O139 Vibrio cholerae

Cholera is a severe diarrheal disease typically caused by O1 serogroup strains of Vibrio cholerae. The pathogenicity of all pandemic V. cholerae O1 strains relies on two critical virulence factors: cholera toxin, a potent enterotoxin, and toxin coregulated pilus (TCP), an intestinal colonization factor. However, certain non-O1, non-O139 V. cholerae strains, such as AM-19226, do not produce cholera toxin or TCP, yet they still cause severe diarrhea. The molecular basis for the pathogenicity of non-O1, non-O139 V. cholerae has not been extensively characterized, but many of these strains encode related type III secretion systems (TTSSs). Here, we used infant rabbits to assess the contribution of the TTSS to non-O1, non-O139 V. cholerae pathogenicity. We found that all animals infected with wild-type AM-19226 developed severe diarrhea even more rapidly than rabbits infected with V. cholerae O1. Unlike V. cholerae O1 strains, which do not damage the intestinal epithelium in rabbits or humans, AM-19226 caused marked disruptions of the epithelial surface in the rabbit small intestine. TTSS proved to be essential for AM-19226 virulence in infant rabbits; an AM-19226 derivative deficient for TTSS did not elicit diarrhea, colonize the intestine, or induce pathological changes in the intestine. Deletion of either one of the two previously identified or two newly identified AM-19226 TTSS effectors reduced but did not eliminate AM-19226 pathogenicity, suggesting that at least four effectors contribute to this strain’s virulence. In aggregate, our results suggest that the TTSS-dependent virulence in non-O1, non-O139 V. cholerae represents a new type of diarrheagenic mechanism

Web-based interventions for weight loss and weight maintenance among rural midlife and older women: protocol for a randomized controlled trial

Background: Weight loss is challenging and maintenance of weight loss is problematic among midlife and older rural women. Finding effective interventions using innovative delivery methods that can reach underserved and vulnerable populations of overweight and obese rural women is a public health challenge. Methods/Design: This Women Weigh-In for Wellness (The WWW study) randomized-controlled trial is designed to compare the effectiveness of theory-based behavior-change interventions using (1) website only, (2) website with peer-led support, or (3) website with professional email-counseling to facilitate initial weight loss (baseline to 6 months), guided continuing weight loss and maintenance (7-18 months) and self-directed weight maintenance (19-30 months) among rural women ages 45-69 with a BMI of 28-45. Recruitment efforts using local media will target 306 rural women who live within driving distance of a community college site where assessments will be conducted at baseline, 3, 6, 12, 18, 24 and 30 months by research nurses blinded to group assignments. Primary outcomes include changes in body weight, % weight loss, and eating and activity behavioral and biomarkers from baseline to each subsequent assessment. Secondary outcomes will be percentage of women achieving at least 5% and 10% weight loss without regain from baseline to 6, 18, and 30 months and achieving healthy eating and activity targets. Data analysis will use generalized estimating equations to analyze average change across groups and group differences in proportion of participants achieving target weight loss levels. Discussion: The Women Weigh-In for Wellness study compares innovative web-based alternatives for providing lifestyle behavior-change interventions for promoting weight loss and weight maintenance among rural women. If effective, such interventions would offer potential for reducing overweight and obesity among a vulnerable, hard-to-reach, population of rural women

Physiological protection of probiotic microcapsules by coatings

Nowadays, food and nutrition have a greater impact in people's concerns, with the awareness that nutrition have a direct impact in health and wellbeing. Probiotics have an important role in this topic and consumers are starting to really understand their potential in health, leading to an increasing interest of the companies to their commercial use in foods. However, there are several limitations to the use of probiotics in foods and beverages, being one of them their efficiency (directly associated to their survival rate) upon ingestion. This work is focused in microencapsulation techniques that have been used to increase probiotics efficiency. More specifically, this work reviews the most recent and relevant research about the production and coating techniques of probiotic-loaded microcapsules, providing an insight in the effect of these coatings in probiotics survival during the gastrointestinal phase. This review shows that coatings with the better performances in probiotics protection, against the harsh conditions of digestion, are chitosan, alginate, poly-L-lysine and whey protein. Chitosan presented an interesting performance in probiotics protection being able to maintain the initial concentration of viable probiotics during a digestive test. The analyses of different works also showed that the utilization of several coatings does not guarantee a better protection in comparison with monocoated microcapsules.The author Philippe E. Ramos is recipient of fellowships from the Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia, POPH-QREN and FSE (FCT, Portugal) through the grant SFRH/BD/80800/2012. This study was supported by the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT) under the scope of the strategic funding of UID/BIO/04469/2013 unit and COMPETE 2020 (POCI-01-0145-FEDER-006684). RECI Project (Until December of 2017): This study was supported by the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT) under the scope of the Project RECI/BBBEBI/0179/2012 (FCOMP-01-0124-FEDER-027462).info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Parent-Led Activity and Nutrition (plan) for Healthy Living: Design and Methods

Child obesity has become an important public health concern, especially in rural areas. Primary care providers are well positioned to intervene with children and their parents, but encounter many barriers to addressing child overweight and obesity. This paper describes the design and methods of a cluster-randomized controlled trial to evaluate a parent-mediated approach utilizing physician\u27s brief motivational interviewing and parent group sessions to treat child (ages 5–11 years) overweight and obesity in the primary care setting in Southern Appalachia. Specific aims of this pilot project will be 1) to establish a primary care based and parent-mediated childhood overweight intervention program in the primary care setting, 2) to explore the efficacy of this intervention in promoting healthier weight status and health behaviors of children, and 3) to examine the acceptability and feasibility of the approach among parents and primary care providers. If proven to be effective, this approach may be an exportable model to other primary care practices

The independent and combined associations of physical activity and sedentary behavior with obesity in adults : NHANES 2003-06

Objective To examine the combined influence of moderate-to-vigorous physical activity (MVPA) and sedentary behavior on obesity in US adults. Design and Methods Cross-sectional analyses were undertaken on a nationally representative sample of 5,083 adults from the April 2003 and June 2005 National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey. Self-reported TV time was divided into low, moderate, and high categories. Accelerometer-derived total sedentary and MVPA minutes divided into low, moderate, and high tertiles. The independent associations between MVPA, TV, and total sedentary time and obesity were examined using logistic regression. Participants were then cross tabulated into nine MVPA-sedentary behavior groups, and logistic regression was used to examine the combined influence of MVPA and sedentary behavior on the odds of being obese. Results MVPA was consistently inversely associated with obesity, regardless of sedentary behavior [odds ratio (OR) = 1.80-4.00]. There were inconsistent positive associations between TV time and risk of obesity in men, but not between total sedentary time and risk of obesity in either men or women. Conclusions Obesity was more strongly related to MVPA than either TV time or total sedentary time in US adults. Small differences in daily MVPA (5-10 min) were associated with relatively large differences in risk of obesity