Factors Influencing Consumption of Fruits and Vegetables in Older Adults in New Orleans, Louisiana

BACKGROUND

OBJECTIVES

The objective of this study was to identify demographic, social and structural factors associated with intake of fruit and vegetables in older adults in New Orleans, Louisiana.

DESIGN

A cross-sectional randomly sampled, address-based telephone survey of households in Orleans Parish, Louisiana was conducted with the household's main grocery shopper.

SETTING

All participants were in the New Orleans metro area and were surveyed in 2011.

PARTICIPANTS

Participants were 2,834 residents identified as the households' main grocery shopper in Orleans Parish, Louisiana. Participants were primarily female (75%), African-American (53%), approximately 10 percent of the sample reported receipt of government assistance. Approximately 37% of the sample was age 65 and older.

MEASUREMENTS

Measures included a telephone administered survey assessing demographic characteristics, food intake, access to supermarkets and other food sources, transportation, self-reported health, and frequency of grocery shopping.

RESULTS

Older adults consumed fewer fresh fruits and vegetables (FV) than younger adults (p<0.01). Bivariate associations with decreased FV included older age, receipt of government assistance, African American race, use of mobility aid, and poorer health. Multivariate factors associated with lower consumption include age, African American race, and poorer self-reported health. Women reported more fruit and vegetable consumption than men.

CONCLUSIONS

FV consumption is associated with improved health and reduced mortality. Older adults are less likely to consume fruits and vegetables, therefore addressing reduced FV consumption in older adults is a potential target for improving health outcomes in older adults. Specifically targeting African Americans and those with poorer health, as well as males may be an important focus for interventions.

Enrichment of cis-regulatory gene expression SNPs and methylation quantitative trait loci among bipolar disorder susceptibility variants

We conducted a systematic study of top susceptibility variants from a genome-wide association (GWA) study of bipolar disorder to gain insight into the functional consequences of genetic variation influencing disease risk. We report here the results of experiments to explore the effects of these susceptibility variants on DNA methylation and mRNA expression in human cerebellum samples. Among the top susceptibility variants, we identified an enrichment of cis regulatory loci on mRNA expression (eQTLs), and a significant excess of quantitative trait loci for DNA CpG methylation, hereafter referred to as methylation quantitative trait loci (mQTLs). Bipolar disorder susceptibility variants that cis regulate both cerebellar expression and methylation of the same gene are a very small proportion of bipolar disorder susceptibility variants. This finding suggests that mQTLs and eQTLs provide orthogonal ways of functionally annotating genetic variation within the context of studies of pathophysiology in brain. No lymphocyte mQTL enrichment was found, suggesting that mQTL enrichment was specific to the cerebellum, in contrast to eQTLs. Separately, we found that using mQTL information to restrict the number of single-nucleotide polymorphisms studied enhances our ability to detect a significant association. With this restriction a priori informed by the observed functional enrichment, we identified a significant association (rs12618769, P(bonferroni)<0.05) from two other GWA studies (TGen+GAIN; 2191 cases and 1434 controls) of bipolar disorder, which we replicated in an independent GWA study (WTCCC). Collectively, our findings highlight the importance of integrating functional annotation of genetic variants for gene expression and DNA methylation to advance the biological understanding of bipolar disorder.

Molybdenum emission from impurity-induced m = 1 snake-modes on the Alcator C-Mod tokamak

A suite of novel high-resolution spectroscopic imaging diagnostics has facilitated the identification and localization of molybdenum impurities as the main species during the formation and lifetime of m = 1 impurity-induced snake-modes on Alcator C-Mod. Such measurements made it possible to infer, for the first time, the perturbed radiated power density profiles from which the impurity density can be deduced.

Depressive disorder moderates the effect of the FTO gene on body mass index

There is evidence that obesity-related disorders are increased among people with depression. Variation in the FTO (fat mass and obesity associated) gene has been shown to contribute to common forms of human obesity. This study aimed to investigate the genetic influence of polymorphisms in FTO in relation to body mass index (BMI) in two independent samples of major depressive disorder (MDD) cases and controls. We analysed 88 polymorphisms in the FTO gene in a clinically ascertained sample of 2442 MDD cases and 809 controls (Radiant Study). In all, 8 of the top 10 single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) showing the strongest associations with BMI were followed-up in a population-based cohort (PsyCoLaus Study) consisting of 1292 depression cases and 1690 controls. Linear regression analyses of the FTO variants and BMI yielded 10 SNPs significantly associated with increased BMI in the depressive group but not the control group in the Radiant sample. The same pattern was found in the PsyCoLaus sample. We found a significant interaction between genotype and affected status in relation to BMI for seven SNPs in Radiant (P<0.0057), with PsyCoLaus giving supportive evidence for five SNPs (P-values between 0.03 and 0.06), which increased in significance when the data were combined in a meta-analysis. This is the first study investigating FTO and BMI within the context of MDD, and the results indicate that having a history of depression moderates the effect of FTO on BMI. This finding suggests that FTO is involved in the mechanism underlying the association between mood disorders and obesity.

Parents Empowering Parents (PEP) Program: understanding its impact on the bleeding disorders community

The Parents Empowering Parents (PEP) Program gives parents tools to improve the lives of children with bleeding disorders. The aim of this study was to evaluate the efficacy of PEP. Eleven haemophilia treatment centres (HTC) participated in the study and 301 participants completed the survey. Parents who did not attend PEP were divided into three groups based on their reasons for not attending: (Not Offered, Bad Time and Don't Need). Those who attended (Attended) PEP reported less use of yelling, spanking, slapping and giving-in after attending PEP. The Not Offered group used Praising (P = 0.016), Natural Consequences (P = 0.002), Being Consistent (P = 0.016), Ignoring (P = 0.006), Distracting (P = 0.002), Setting Limits (P=0.009), Giving Choices (P = 0.049), Being Consistent (P = 0.014) and Distracting (P = 0.019) less than all other groups. The Bad Time group used Time-Out (P = 0.037) and Ignoring (P = 0.019) more than the other groups that did not attend PEP. The Don't Need group used Spanking (P = 0.008) and Time-Out (P = 0.003) and Yelling (P = 0.014) less than all other groups. Attending PEP seems to decrease the use of negative parenting techniques. Those who reported PEP was not offered to them used positive parenting techniques less than all other participants.

Hip displacement and overall function in severe cerebral palsy

OBJECTIVE

The aim of this study was to investigate the relationship between hip displacement (HD) in individuals with severe cerebral palsy with function and quality of life (QOL). The second aim was to identify differences in these outcomes when comparing surgical and non-surgical management for HD.

DESIGN

Cross-sectional study of 26 participants born between 1988 and 1998 who had hip displacement on their most recent hip radiograph.

METHOD

Caregivers completed the Caregiver Priorities and Child Health Index of Life with Disabilities (CPCHILD©) questionnaire. Hip migration percentage and a validated hip classification were used.

RESULTS

Significant positive correlation coefficients (CC) were found for mobility and comfort (CC=0.620, ρ = 0.001) as well as for QOL and comfort (CC=0.683, ρ < 0.001). Orthopedic hip surgery was associated with better scores for mobility (median [95% CI]); surgery vs. none; (36.1 [27.7, 44.4]) vs. (25.6 [22.2, 29.8]) and personal care, (32.1 [27.1, 43.2]) vs. (25.9 [22.7, 30.8]). Severity of HD had no significant association with comfort or QOL.

CONCLUSION

Mobility and personal care scores were significantly better in children who had undergone reconstructive hip surgery. However, QOL and pain scores were not associated with the severity of hip displacement or undertaking reconstructive hip surgery.

Fast reconstruction and prediction of frozen flow turbulence based on structured Kalman filtering

Efficient and optimal prediction of frozen flow turbulence using the complete observation history of the wavefront sensor is an important issue in adaptive optics for large ground-based telescopes. At least for the sake of error budgeting and algorithm performance, the evaluation of an accurate estimate of the optimal performance of a particular adaptive optics configuration is important. However, due to the large number of grid points, high sampling rates, and the non-rationality of the turbulence power spectral density, the computational complexity of the optimal predictor is huge. This paper shows how a structure in the frozen flow propagation can be exploited to obtain a state-space innovation model with a particular sparsity structure. This sparsity structure enables one to efficiently compute a structured Kalman filter. By simulation it is shown that the performance can be improved and the computational complexity can be reduced in comparison with auto-regressive predictors of low order.

Innate Immune Responses in Swine Resuscitated from Severe Traumatic Hemorrhagic Shock with Hemoglobin-Based Oxygen Carrier-201

Hemoglobin-based oxygen carrier-201 transports oxygen and improves survival in swine with hemorrhagic shock, but has potential to be immune activating. Herein, we evaluated HBOC-201's immune effects in swine with more severe hemorrhagic shock due to soft tissue injury and 55% blood volume catheter withdrawal over 15 minutes followed by fluid resuscitation at 20 minutes with HBOC-201, Hextend, or no treatment (NON) before hospital arrival. Survival rates were similar with HBOC-201 and Hextend (p > 0.05), but were higher than in (p = 0.007). There were no significant group differences in blood cell count, percentages of leukocyte sub-populations and immunophenotype (CD4:CD8 ratio), adhesion markers expression (neutrophil CD11b; monocyte or neutrophil CD49d) and apoptosis. There was a trend to higher plasma IL-10 in HBOC-201 and groups vs. Hextend. We conclude that in swine with severe controlled HS and soft tissue injury, immune responses are similar with resuscitation with HBOC-201 and Hextend.

Depression, migraine with aura and migraine without aura: their familiality and interrelatedness

Migraine is frequently comorbid with depression. There appear to be common aetiological factors for both disorders, but the aetiology of migraine within depressed patients, in particular the significance of aura, has been little studied. A large sample of concordantly depressed sibling pairs [the Depression-Network (DeNT) sample] was assessed as having migraine with aura (MA), migraine without aura (MoA), probable migraine or no migraine according to International Headache Society guidelines. Correlations between siblings' migraine status were used to assess the nature of familial liability to migraine. A multiple threshold isocorrelational model fit best, in which different syndromes are conceptualized as different severities of one underlying dimension rather than as having separate aetiologies. Thus, MA and MoA were found to be different forms of the same disorder, with MA occupying the more extreme end of the spectrum of liability. Implications for our understanding of the relationship between migraine and depression are discussed.