The COVID-19 pandemic and its global effects on dental practice. An international survey

Objectives A multicentre survey was designed to evaluate the impact of COVID-19 outbreak on dental practice worldwide, estimate the COVID-19 related symptoms/signs, work attitudes and behaviour and the routine use of protective measures and personal protective equipment (PPE). Methods A global survey using a standardized questionnaire with research groups from 36 countries was designed. The questionnaire was developed and pretested during April 2020 and contained three domains: 1) personal data; 2) COVID-19 positive rate and symptoms/signs presumably related to the coronavirus; 3) working conditions and PPE adopted after the outbreak. Countries’ data were grouped by the country positive rate (CPR) during the survey period and by Gross-National-Income per capita. An ordinal multinomial logistic regression model was carried out with COVID-19 self-reported rate referred by dental professionals as dependent variable to assess the association with questionnaire items. Results A total of 52,491 questionnaires were returned with a male/female ratio of 0.63. Out of the total respondents, 7,859 dental professionals (15%) reported symptoms/signs compatible with COVID-19. More than half of the sample (n=27,818; 53%) stated to use FFP2/N95 masks, while 21,558 (41.07%) used eye protection. In the bivariate analysis, CPR and N95/FFP2 were significantly associated (OR=1.80 95%CI=1.60/2.82 and OR=5.20 95%CI=1.44/18.80, respectively), while Gross-National-Income was not statistically associated with CPR (OR=1.09 95%CI=0.97/1.60). The same significant associations were observed in the multivariate analysis. Conclusions Oral health service provision has not been significantly affected by COVID-19, although access to routine dental care was reduced due to country-specific temporary lockdown periods. While the dental profession has been identified at high-risk, the reported rates of COVID-19 for dental professionals were not significantly different to those reported for the general population in each country. These findings may help to better plan oral health care for future pandemic events

Prebióticos y su efecto en la biod sponibilidad del calcio Prebiotics and their effect on calcium bioavailability

En la búsqueda de medidas de prevención de enfermedades crónicas no trasmisibles, se piensa en los prebióticos como una forma efectiva, saludable y relativamente barata para la optimización de la absorción de Ca. El aumento de la expectativa de vida de la población y el incremento de enfermedades como la osteoporosis traen graves consecuencias a la salud del individuo, acarreando importantes desembolsos económicos. En esta revisión se condensa el conocimiento presente sobre el efecto fisiológico del consumo de carbohidratos prebióticos y su posible interferencia en la biodisponibilidad del Ca, como también las posibilidades de su empleo en estrategias para combatir las deficiencias del mineral. Se elaboró una recopilación de los estudios originales realizados con mayor impacto en el tema, dando preferencia a los publicados en los últimos 6 años. Utilizamos las bases de datos PubMed, Lilacs e SciELO, usando las palabras claves calcio, prebióticos e probióticos.<br>The increased life expectancy and prevalence of non-communicable chronic diseases have serious health and economic consequences on the population. Among the useful tools for preventing osteoporosis, prebiotics are thought to be an effective, healthy and relatively cheap way of optimizing calcium absorption. The objective of this review was to summarize the present knowledge on the physiological effects of prebiotic carbohydrate consumption and its possible interference with calcium bioavailability. The possibility of using prebiotics to fight calcium deficiency was also assessed. The keywords calcium, prebiotics and probiotics were used to search the PubMed, Lilacs and SciELO databases for the most significant original studies on the subject published in the last 6 years

The emerging science of gastrophysics and its application to the algal cuisine

<p>Abstract</p> <p>This paper points to gastrophysics as an emerging scientific discipline that will employ a wide range of the most powerful theoretical, simulational and experimental biophysical techniques to study the empirical world of cooking and gastronomy. Gastrophysics aims to exploit recent advances in the physical sciences to forward the scientific study of food, its raw materials, the effects of processing food and quantitative aspects of the physical basis for food quality, flavour and absorption into the human body. It suggests the use in cooking of a class of raw materials little used in the Western world, the marine macroalgae or seaweeds, as a laboratory for defining, characterizing and shaping the emerging scientific discipline of gastrophysics. In relation to gastronomy, seaweed materials are virtually unexplored scientifically by physical experimentation and theory. The sea is one of the last resorts for humankind to exploit the ability to obtain more food to feed a hungry world, because world fisheries can no longer meet the need for healthy seafood. Hence, seaweeds offer a rich and virtually unexploited source of primary marine foodstuff in the Western world. To explore the full gastronomical potential of this resource, there is a need for fundamental research into the gastrophysics of seaweeds.</p