Descriptions of Disordered Eating in German Psychiatric Textbooks, 1803–2017

The most common eating disorders (EDs) according to DSM-5 are anorexia nervosa (AN), bulimia nervosa (BN) and binge eating disorder (BED). These disorders have received increasing attention in psychiatry due to rising prevalence and high morbidity and mortality. The diagnostic category “anorexia nervosa,” introduced by Ernest-Charles Lasègue and William Gull in 1873, first appears a century later in a German textbook of psychiatry, authored by Gerd Huber in 1974. However, disordered eating behavior has been described and discussed in German psychiatric textbooks throughout the past 200 years. We reviewed content regarding eating disorder diagnoses but also descriptions of disordered eating behavior in general. As material, we carefully selected eighteen German-language textbooks of psychiatry across the period 1803–2017. Previously, in German psychiatry, disordered eating behaviors were seen as symptoms of depressive disorders, bipolar disorder or schizophrenia, or as manifestations of historical diagnoses no longer used by the majority of psychiatrists such as neurasthenia, hypochondria and hysteria. Interestingly, 19th and early 20th century psychiatrists like Kraepelin, Bumke, Hoff, Bleuler, and Jaspers reported symptom clusters such as food refusal and vomiting under these outdated diagnostic categories, whereas nowadays they are listed as core criteria for specific eating disorder subtypes. A wide range of medical conditions such as endocrinopathies, intestinal or brain lesions were also cited as causes of abnormal food intake and body weight. An additional consideration in the delayed adoption of eating disorder diagnoses in German psychiatry is that people with EDs are commonly treated in the specialty discipline of psychosomatic medicine, introduced in Germany afterWorld War II, rather than in psychiatry. Viewed from today’s perspective, the classification of disorders associated with disordered eating is continuously evolving. Major depressive disorder, schizophrenia and physical diseases have been enduringly associated with abnormal eating behavior and are listed as important differential diagnoses of EDs in DSM-5. Moreover, there are overlaps regarding the neurobiological basis and psychological and psychopharmacological therapies applied to all of these disorders

SERUM CONCENTRATIONS OF TNF-a AND ITS SOLUBLE RECEPTORS DURING PSYCHOTHERAPY IN GERMAN SOLDIERS SUFFERING FROM COMBAT-RELATED PTSD

Background: Changes in serum concentrations of tumor necrosis factor

Impact of Serum Cytokine Levels on EEG-Measured Arousal Regulation in Patients with Major Depressive Disorder and Healthy Controls

Background: In major depressive disorder (MDD), findings include hyperstable regulation of brain arousal measured by electroencephalography (EEG) vigilance analysis and alterations in serum levels of cytokines. It is also known that cytokines affect sleep-wake regulation. This study investigated the relationship between cytokines and EEG vigilance in participants with MDD and nondepressed controls, and the influence of cytokines on differences in vigilance between the two groups. Methods: In 60 patients with MDD and 129 controls, 15-min resting-state EEG recordings were performed and vigilance was automatically assessed with the VIGALL 2.0 (Vigilance Algorithm Leipzig). Serum levels of the wakefulness-promoting cytokines interleukin (IL)-4, IL-10, IL-13 and somnogenic cytokines tumor necrosis factor-alpha, interferon-gamma and IL-2 were measured prior to the EEG. Results: Summed wakefulness-promoting cytokines, but not somnogenic cytokines, were significantly associated with the time course of EEG vigilance in the MDD group only. In both groups, IL-13 was significantly associated with the course of EEG vigilance. In MDD compared to controls, a hyperstable EEG vigilance regulation was found, significant for group and group x time course interaction. After controlling for wakefulness-promoting cytokines, differences in vigilance regulation between groups remained significant. Conclusions: The present study demonstrated a relationship between wakefulness-promoting cytokines and objectively measured EEG vigilance as an indicator for brain arousal. Altered brain arousal regulation in MDD gives support for future evaluation of vigilance measures as a biomarker in MDD. Since interactions between cytokines and EEG vigilance only moderately differed between the groups and cytokine levels could not explain the group differences in EEG vigilance regulation, cytokines and brain arousal regulation are likely to be associated with MDD in independent ways. (C) 2016 S. Karger AG, Base

Inflammatory Cytokines in General and Central Obesity and Modulating Effects of Physical Activity

Context Chronic systemic inflammation in obesity originates from local immune responses in visceral adipose tissue. However, assessment of a broad range of inflammation-mediating cytokines and their relationship to physical activity and adipometrics has scarcely been reported to date. Objective To characterize the profile of a broad range of pro-and anti-inflammatory cytokines and the impact of physical activity and energy expenditure in individuals with general obesity, central obesity, and non-obese subjects. Design, Setting, and Participants A cross-sectional study comprising 117 obese patients (body mass index (BMI) >= 30) and 83 non-obese community-based volunteers. Main Outcomes Measures Serum levels of interleukin (IL)-2, IL-4, IL-5, IL-10, IL-12, IL-13, granulocyte-macrophage colony-stimulating factor (GM-CSF),interferon (IFN)-gamma and tumor necrosis factor (TNF)-alpha were measured. Physical activity and energy expenditure (MET) were assessed with actigraphy. Adipometrics comprised BMI, weight, abdominal-, waist-and hip-circumference, waist to hip ratio (WHR),and waist-to-height-ratio (WHtR). Results General obesity was associated with significantly elevated levels of IL-5, IL-10, IL-12, IL-13, IFN-gamma and TNF-alpha, central obesity with significantly elevated IL-5, IL-10, IL-12, IL-13 and IFN-gamma-levels. In participants with general obesity, levels of IL-4, IL-10 and IL-13 were significantly elevated in participants with low physical activity, even when controlled for BMI which was negatively associated with physical acitivity. Cytokines significantly correlated with adipometrics, particularly in obese participants. Conclusions Results confirm up-regulation of certain pro-and anti-inflammatory cytokines in obesity. In obese subjects, physical activity may lower levels and thus reduce pro-inflammatory effects of cytokines that may link obesity, insulin resistance and diabetes

LSST: from Science Drivers to Reference Design and Anticipated Data Products

(Abridged) We describe here the most ambitious survey currently planned in the optical, the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST). A vast array of science will be enabled by a single wide-deep-fast sky survey, and LSST will have unique survey capability in the faint time domain. The LSST design is driven by four main science themes: probing dark energy and dark matter, taking an inventory of the Solar System, exploring the transient optical sky, and mapping the Milky Way. LSST will be a wide-field ground-based system sited at Cerro Pach\'{o}n in northern Chile. The telescope will have an 8.4 m (6.5 m effective) primary mirror, a 9.6 deg$^2$ field of view, and a 3.2 Gigapixel camera. The standard observing sequence will consist of pairs of 15-second exposures in a given field, with two such visits in each pointing in a given night. With these repeats, the LSST system is capable of imaging about 10,000 square degrees of sky in a single filter in three nights. The typical 5$\sigma$ point-source depth in a single visit in $r$ will be $\sim 24.5$ (AB). The project is in the construction phase and will begin regular survey operations by 2022. The survey area will be contained within 30,000 deg$^2$ with $\delta<+34.5^\circ$, and will be imaged multiple times in six bands, $ugrizy$, covering the wavelength range 320--1050 nm. About 90\% of the observing time will be devoted to a deep-wide-fast survey mode which will uniformly observe a 18,000 deg$^2$ region about 800 times (summed over all six bands) during the anticipated 10 years of operations, and yield a coadded map to $r\sim27.5$. The remaining 10\% of the observing time will be allocated to projects such as a Very Deep and Fast time domain survey. The goal is to make LSST data products, including a relational database of about 32 trillion observations of 40 billion objects, available to the public and scientists around the world.Comment: 57 pages, 32 color figures, version with high-resolution figures available from https://www.lsst.org/overvie

Neutral molecular cluster formation of sulfuric acid-dimethylamine observed in real time under atmospheric conditions

Peer reviewe

Reduced anthropogenic aerosol radiative forcing caused by biogenic new particle formation

The magnitude of aerosol radiative forcing caused by anthropogenic emissions depends on the baseline state of the atmosphere under pristine preindustrial conditions. Measurements show that particle formation in atmospheric conditions can occur solely from biogenic vapors. Here, we evaluate the potential effect of this source of particles on preindustrial cloud condensation nuclei (CCN) concentrations and aerosol-cloud radiative forcing over the industrial period. Model simulations show that the pure biogenic particle formation mechanism has a much larger relative effect on CCN concentrations in the preindustrial atmosphere than in the present atmosphere because of the lower aerosol concentrations. Consequently, preindustrial cloud albedo is increased more than under present day conditions, and therefore the cooling forcing of anthropogenic aerosols is reduced. The mechanism increases CCN concentrations by 20-100% over a large fraction of the preindustrial lower atmosphere, and the magnitude of annual global mean radiative forcing caused by changes of cloud albedo since 1750 is reduced by 0.22 W m-2 (27%) to -0.60 W m-2. Model uncertainties, relatively slow formation rates, and limited available ambient measurements make it difficult to establish the significance of a mechanism that has its dominant effect under preindustrial conditions. Our simulations predict more particle formation in the Amazon than is observed. However, the first observation of pure organic nucleation has now been reported for the free troposphere. Given the potentially significant effect on anthropogenic forcing, effort should be made to better understand such naturally driven aerosol processes

Enhanced growth rate of atmospheric particles from sulfuric acid

In the present-day atmosphere, sulfuric acid is the most important vapour for aerosol particle formation and initial growth. However, the growth rates of nanoparticles (<10 nm) from sulfuric acid remain poorly measured. Therefore, the effect of stabilizing bases, the contribution of ions and the impact of attractive forces on molecular collisions are under debate. Here, we present precise growth rate measurements of uncharged sulfuric acid particles from 1.8 to 10 nm, performed under atmospheric conditions in the CERN (European Organization for Nuclear Research) CLOUD chamber. Our results show that the evaporation of sulfuric acid particles above 2 nm is negligible, and growth proceeds kinetically even at low ammonia concentrations. The experimental growth rates exceed the hard-sphere kinetic limit for the condensation of sulfuric acid. We demonstrate that this results from van der Waals forces between the vapour molecules and particles and disentangle it from charge–dipole interactions. The magnitude of the enhancement depends on the assumed particle hydration and collision kinetics but is increasingly important at smaller sizes, resulting in a steep rise in the observed growth rates with decreasing size. Including the experimental results in a global model, we find that the enhanced growth rate of sulfuric acid particles increases the predicted particle number concentrations in the upper free troposphere by more than 50 %