A Research Protocol of Hands-On Healthy Meal Preparation Intervention (Kidchen Study) to Improve Children’s Nutritional Outcomes

The objective of this paper is to describe the protocol of a 12-week hands-on healthy meal preparation intervention among children, up to a 3-month follow-up. The aim of KidChen Study (kids in kitchen) is to improve children’s nutritional outcomes. In this randomized-controlled trial, simple random sampling will be used to select schools in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Subsequently, the selected schools (n=2) will be assigned randomly to either the intervention or control group. The current study will include healthy Malaysian children aged 10–11 years old with no serious disease or food allergy. The intervention is based on Social Cognitive Theory that addresses personal and environmental factors for changing children’s behaviour. Children from the intervention group will receive a 60-minute home food environment module with their parents consisting of nutrition talk, healthy food tasting, parent-child quiz; and five 60 minute interactive hands-on healthy meal preparation modules focusing on core food groups coupled withstorytelling sessions to incorporate nutrition education. Outcome measures are children’s psychosocial factors towards healthy meal preparation (knowledge, attitude, practice, self-efficacy), dietary behaviour, food consumption pattern, home food availability and anthropometric measures (BMI-for-age z-score, body fat percentage, waist circumference). Repeated measures ANOVA will be used to evaluate the intervention outcomes. KidChen Study is an experiential learning approach to instil a positive attitude towards nutrition and empower children with nutrition skills. We anticipate that the intervention will advocate healthy eating behaviour among children, impacting their nutritional outcomes over time

Milk Consumption Across Life Periods in Relation to Lower Risk of Nasopharyngeal Carcinoma: A Multicentre Case-Control Study

Background: The much higher incidence of nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC) in men suggests sex hormones as a risk factor, and dairy products contain measurable amounts of steroid hormones. Milk consumption has greatly increased in endemic regions of NPC. We investigated the association between NPC and milk consumption across life periods in Hong Kong.Methods: A multicentre case-control study included 815 histologically confirmed NPC incident cases and 1,502 controls who were frequency-matched on age and sex at five major hospitals in Hong Kong in 2014–2017. Odds ratios (ORs) of NPC (cases vs. controls) for milk consumption at different life periods were estimated by unconditional logistic regression, adjusting for sex, age, socioeconomic status score, smoking and alcohol drinking status, exposure to occupational hazards, family history of cancer, IgA against Epstein-Barr virus viral capsid antigen, and total energy intake.Results: Compared with abstainers, lower risks of NPC were consistently observed in regular users (consuming ≥5 glasses of milk [fresh and powdered combined] per month) across four life periods of age 6–12 (adjusted OR 0.74, 95% CI 0.54–0.86), 13–18 (0.68, 0.55–0.84), 19–30 (0.68, 0.55–0.84), and 10 years before recruitment (0.72, 0.59–0.87). Long-term average milk consumption of ≤2.5, >2.5, and ≤12.5, >12.5 glasses per month yielded adjusted OR (95% CI) of 1.00 (0.80–1.26), 0.98 (0.81–1.18), 0.95 (0.76–1.18), and 0.55 (0.43–0.70), respectively (all P-values for trend < 0.05).Conclusion: Consumption of milk across life periods was associated with lower risks of NPC. If confirmed to be causal, this has important implications for dairy product consumption and prevention of NPC

A retrospective cohort study on the clinical outcomes of patients admitted to intensive care units with dysnatremia

Abstract With evolving patient characteristics and patterns of ICU utilization, the impact of dysnatremias on patient outcomes and healthcare costs in the present era have not been well studied. Patients ≥ 18 years admitted to the ICUs in public hospitals in Hong Kong between January 2010 and June 2022 and had at least one serum sodium measurement obtained within 24 h prior to or following ICU admission were stratified into normonatremic (135-145 mmol/L), hyponatremic ( 145 mmol/L) groups. A total of 162,026 patients were included—9098 (5.6%), 40,533 (25.0%) and 112,395 (69.4%) patients were hypernatremic, hyponatremic and normonatremic at the time of ICU admission, respectively. The odds of patients with hypernatremia and hyponatremia dying in the ICU were 27% and 14% higher (aOR 1.27, 95% CI 1.19–1.36 and aOR 1.14, 95% CI 1.08–1.19, respectively; P < 0.001 for both), and 52% and 21% higher for dying in the hospital (aOR 1.52, 95% CI 1.43–1.62 and aOR 1.21, 95% CI 1.17–1.26, respectively; P < 0.001 for both] compared with those with normonatremia. Patients with dysnatremia also had longer ICU length of stay (LOS), hospital LOS, and higher healthcare costs than the normonatremic group. Dysnatremias at ICU admission were associated with increased ICU and in-hospital mortality and overall healthcare burden

Cosmeceutical therapy:Engaging the repercussions of uvr photoaging on the skin’s circadian rhythm

Sunlight is an important factor in regulating the central circadian rhythm, including the modulation of our sleep/wake cycles. Sunlight had also been discovered to have a prominent influence on our skin’s circadian rhythm. Overexposure or prolonged exposure to the sun can cause skin photodamage, such as the formation of irregular pigmentation, collagen degradation, DNA damage, and even skin cancer. Hence, this review will be looking into the detrimental effects of sunlight on our skin, not only at the aspect of photoaging but also at its impact on the skin’s circadian rhythm. The growing market trend of natural-product-based cosmeceuticals as also caused us to question their potential to modulate the skin’s circadian rhythm. Questions about how the skin’s circadian rhythm could counteract photodamage and how best to maximize its biopotential will be discussed in this article. These discoveries regarding the skin’s circadian rhythm have opened up a completely new level of understanding of our skin’s molecular mechanism and may very well aid cosmeceutical companies, in the near future, to develop better products that not only suppress photoaging but remain effective and relevant throughout the day

A non-destructive experimental-cum-numerical methodology for the characterization of 3D-printed materials — polycarbonate-acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (PC-ABS)

With increasing prevalence of the use of 3D-printing, the structural integrity of these 3D-printed parts becomes a concern, especially if bulk properties are assumed in the design phase since 3D-printing usually results in material properties inferior to that of bulk properties. In this paper, we present an experimental-cum-numerical methodology for the characterization of 3D-printed polycarbonate-acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (PC-ABS). This paper investigates the effects of raster angle and orientations on the elastic properties of the Fused Deposition Modelling (FDM) printed PC-ABS material. The orthotropic elastic properties of PC-ABS material were determined by conducting ultrasonic testing, which is a non-destructive test method that allows us to deduce all the anisotropic elastic constants from the bulk density and the velocities of shear and longitudinal ultrasound wave propagating along different directions. Several tensile tests were also carried out to validate the ultrasonic tests, and these were generally in good agreement, with an average of 11% deviations. Next numerical verification was by comparing numerical finite element simulation results (using properties from ultrasonic testing) with experimental four-point bending test and impact hammer test, where excellent correspondence between the experimental and numerical data was observed. Further, scanning electron microscopes were utilized to analyze the fracture surface to understand the effects of the raster angles and orientations on the fracture behavior and the microstructure of the FDM printed PC-ABS.Accepted versio

Outcome after curative resection of large (≥10 cm) gastric gastrointestinal stromal tumors: How frequent is adjacent organ involvement and is concomitant distal pancreatectomy necessary?

10.1007/s11605-009-1083-4Journal of Gastrointestinal Surgery144607-61