Psychological predictors of the use of complementary and alternative medicines during pregnancy within a sample of Swiss women

Associations of maternal prenatal psychological symptoms and saliva cortisol with neonatal meconium microbiota: A cross-sectional study

Alterations in the diversity and relative abundances of the gut microbiome have been associated with a broad spectrum of medical conditions. Maternal psychological symptoms during pregnancy may impact on offspring development by altering the maternal and the foetal gut microbiome. We aimed to investigate whether self-reported maternal anxiety, depressive symptoms, and distress as well as saliva cortisol levels in late pregnancy alter the bacterial composition of the infant's meconium.

METHODS

A total of N = 100 mother-infant pairs were included. Maternal psychological symptoms were measured using psychological questionnaires (EPDS, PSS-10, STAI) at 34-36 weeks gestation and salivary cortisol was measured at 34-36 and 38 weeks gestation. Infant meconium samples were collected in the first five days postpartum and analysed using 16S rRNA amplicon sequencing.

RESULTS

Correlations showed that lower alpha diversity of the meconium microbiome was significantly associated with increased maternal prenatal depressive symptoms in late gestation (τ = -0.15, p = .04). Increased saliva cortisol AUCg at T2 was significantly related to higher beta diversity of the meconium samples (Pr(>F) = 0.003*). Pseudomonas was the most abundant phylum and was associated with maternal saliva cortisol total decline. No other associations were found.

CONCLUSIONS

Maternal prenatal depressive symptoms are associated with infant faecal microbiome alpha diversity, whereas maternal saliva cortisol AUCg is linked to increased beta diversity and total decline related to increased Psuedomonas. Future studies are warranted to understand how these microbiota community alterations are linked to child health outcomes.

Bullshit can be harmful to your health: Bullibility as a precursor to poor decision--making

Bullshitting is characterized by sharing information with little to no regard for truth, established knowledge, or genuine evidence. It involves the use of various rhetorical strategies to make one's statements sound knowledgeable, impressive, persuasive, influential, or confusing in order to aid bullshitters in explaining things in areas where their obligations to provide opinions exceed their actual knowledge in those domains. Distinct from gullibility (i.e., a propensity to accept a false premise in the presence of untrustworthiness cues), we highlight the research on bullibility (i.e., believing bullshit even in the face of social cues that signal something is bullshit) and its links to erroneous judgments and decisions. A deeper understanding of bullibility is critical to identifying and correcting poor decision-making.

The Relationship between Bullshit Receptivity and Willingness to Share Misinformation about Climate Change: The Moderating Role of Pregnancy

Widespread dissemination of misinformation about climate change has seriously harmed the health of future generations and the world. Moreover, misinformation-sharing behaviors exhibit strong individual characteristics. However, research is limited on the antecedents of and mechanism underlying the willingness to share misinformation about climate change in terms of individual personalities and physiological states. Accordingly, we surveyed 582 women (224 pregnant) using a questionnaire and constructed a moderated mediation model to explore the relationships among individuals' bullshit receptivity, belief in misinformation about climate change, willingness to share misinformation about climate change, and pregnancy. The results showed that: (1) bullshit receptivity is positively related to the willingness to share misinformation about climate change; (2) belief in misinformation about climate change mediates the relationship between bullshit receptivity and willingness to share misinformation about climate change; and (3) for individuals with higher bullshit receptivity, pregnancy exacerbates the detrimental effects of bullshit receptivity on belief in misinformation about climate change.

Health literacy in dietary supplement use among working-age groups: systematic review and meta-analysis

Background

Globally, dietary supplement use (DSU) is very popular against COVID19. This study aims to investigate the characteristics of research on health literacy (HL) in DSU and compare HL among working-age groups by reviewing related research between 2011 and 2021 in PubMed, SCOPUS, ClinicalKey, Google Scholar and ThaiJO.

Methods

Twenty-five articles that met the inclusion criteria were selected for study and analyzed using Cohen's d.

Results

The results showed that HL affected dietary supplement (DS) consumption behavior among working-age groups with an average effect size of 0.423 (95% CI = 0.249-0.598), followed by disclosure of DSU with an average effect size of 0.220 (95% CI = 0.087-0.353). No effect was found on awareness of dietary supplement advertisements.

Conclusion

The discovery of such knowledge is a significant contribution to public health, leading to the development of interventions and policies for enhancing HL in DSU e.g. organizing knowledge-sharing workshops on DSU and building support networks across all sectors.