BACKGROUNDBody dysmorphic disorder (BDD) is defined as a syndrome characterized by an excessive preoccupation because of a presumed or minimal physical flaw in appearance that polarizes the energies ...of the subject. So far, its specular aspect, represented by the presence of an evident physical defect that is not recognized or is even denied and neglected, has been disregarded. The aim of our study was to examine the individual and relational meaning of BDD and to evaluate the efficacy of cognitive-behavioral and medical-aesthetical treatments. METHODS AND RESULTSWe describe two subjects with BDD, diagnosed by clinical interviews and test. Both patients were compliant to cognitive-behavioral approach. One out of two subjects underwent aesthetical treatments. CONCLUSIONSCognitive-behavioral therapy stimulates self-consciousness, rebuilds the body image, promotes health care, and improves relational capacity. Moreover, it ensures the success of any medical and/or surgical procedures by preventing unrealistic expectations. Lastly, it contributes to the definition of worldwide shared behavioral models.
Human gut microbiota directly influences health and provides an extra means of adaptive potential to different lifestyles. To explore variation in gut microbiota and to understand how these bacteria ...may have co-evolved with humans, here we investigate the phylogenetic diversity and metabolite production of the gut microbiota from a community of human hunter-gatherers, the Hadza of Tanzania. We show that the Hadza have higher levels of microbial richness and biodiversity than Italian urban controls. Further comparisons with two rural farming African groups illustrate other features unique to Hadza that can be linked to a foraging lifestyle. These include absence of Bifidobacterium and differences in microbial composition between the sexes that probably reflect sexual division of labour. Furthermore, enrichment in Prevotella, Treponema and unclassified Bacteroidetes, as well as a peculiar arrangement of Clostridiales taxa, may enhance the Hadza's ability to digest and extract valuable nutrition from fibrous plant foods.
Accurate medication reconciliation reduces the risk of drug incompatibilities and adverse events that can occur during transitions in care. Community pharmacies (CPs) are a crucial part of the health ...care system and could be involved in collecting essential information on conventional and supplementary drugs used at home.
The aim of this paper was to establish an alliance between our cancer institute, Istituto Romagnolo per lo Studio dei Tumori (IRST), and CPs, the latter entrusted with the completion of a pharmacological recognition survey. We also aimed to integrate the national information technology (IT) platform of CPs with the electronic medical records of IRST.
Cancer patients undergoing antiblastic treatments were invited to select a CP taking part in the study and to complete the pharmacological recognition step. The information collected by the pharmacist was sent to the electronic medical records of IRST through the new IT platform, after which the oncologist performed the reconciliation process.
A total of 66 CPs completed surveys for 134 patients. An average of 5.9 drugs per patient was used at home, with 12 or more used in the most advanced age groups. Moreover, 60% (80/134) of the patients used nonconventional products or critical foods. Some potential interactions between nonconventional medications and cancer treatments were reported.
In the PROF-1 (Progetto di Rete in Oncologia con le Farmacie di comunità della Romagna) study, an alliance was created between our cancer center and CPs to improve medication reconciliation, and a new integrated IT platform was validated.
ClinicalTrials.gov NCT04796142; https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT04796142.
Celotno besedilo
Dostopno za:
DOBA, IZUM, KILJ, NUK, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, UILJ, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK
Trimethylamine (TMA), trimethylamine-N-oxide (TMAO) and short chain fatty acids (SCFAs), as acetic, propionic, butyric and valeric acids are among the most important products of the gut microbiota ...(GM) metabolism. The present study is aimed at the determination of TMA, TMAO and SCFAs by a double step headspace-solid phase microextraction (HS-SPME) and gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS) analysis, allowing the simultaneous quantitation of both the acidic and basic metabolites in faecal samples. TMAO amount was evaluated after its reduction to TMA by using Fe(II)-EDTA complex as a reagent. Under the fully validated experimental conditions, adequate sensitivity (LOQ 0.011–0.23 µmol g−1), good accuracy (79 – 110%) and precision (CV% < 11%) were achieved for all the target analytes. The presented method is successfully applied to the quantitation of the considered gut metabolites in faecal samples from Italian healthy volunteers.
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•Short chain fatty acids SCFAs and trimethylamine TMA are major gut metabolites.•A two steps HS-SPME was developed for SCFAs and TMA capture from faeces.•Reduction by Fe(II)-EDTA of trimethylamine-N-oxide (TMAO) to TMA was optimized.•A single run GC-MS analysis allowed for simultaneous quantitation of SCFAs, TMA/TMAO.•The method was validate and applied to quantify gut metabolites in human faeces.
Very few data exist on risk factors for developing biofilm-forming Candida bloodstream infection (CBSI) or on variables associated with the outcome of patients treated for this infection.
We ...identified 207 patients with CBSI, from whom 84 biofilm-forming and 123 non biofilm-forming Candida isolates were recovered. A case-case-control study to identify risk factors and a cohort study to analyze outcomes were conducted. In addition, two sub-groups of case patients were analyzed after matching for age, sex, APACHE III score, and receipt of adequate antifungal therapy. Independent predictors of biofilm-forming CBSI were presence of central venous catheter (odds ratio OR, 6.44; 95% confidence interval 95% CI, 3.21-12.92) or urinary catheter (OR, 2.40; 95% CI, 1.18-4.91), use of total parenteral nutrition (OR, 5.21; 95% CI, 2.59-10.48), and diabetes mellitus (OR, 4.47; 95% CI, 2.03-9.83). Hospital mortality, post-CBSI hospital length of stay (LOS) (calculated only among survivors), and costs of antifungal therapy were significantly greater among patients infected by biofilm-forming isolates than those infected by non-biofilm-forming isolates. Among biofilm-forming CBSI patients receiving adequate antifungal therapy, those treated with highly active anti-biofilm (HAAB) agents (e.g., caspofungin) had significantly shorter post-CBSI hospital LOS than those treated with non-HAAB antifungal agents (e.g., fluconazole); this difference was confirmed when this analysis was conducted only among survivors. After matching, all the outcomes were still favorable for patients with non-biofilm-forming CBSI. Furthermore, the biofilm-forming CBSI was significantly associated with a matched excess risk for hospital death of 1.77 compared to non-biofilm-forming CBSI.
Our data show that biofilm growth by Candida has an adverse impact on clinical and economic outcomes of CBSI. Of note, better outcomes were seen for those CBSI patients who received HAAB antifungal therapy.
Celotno besedilo
Dostopno za:
DOBA, IZUM, KILJ, NUK, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, SIK, UILJ, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK
•Polyphenols extracted from grape skins and defatted seeds with subcritical water SW.•Operative conditions: 10MPa, 80–120°C, 2–5mL/min, 2h.•Polyphenols yield: higher at high temperature and low ...solvent flow rate.•Polyphenols yields: higher for grape seeds (124±1mg/g) than for skins (77±3mg/g).•Two-site kinetic model applies satisfactorily to SW extraction of polyphenols.
Polyphenols were extracted from grape skins and defatted grape seeds (cultivar: Pinot Nero) by using subcritical water in a semi-continuous mode. Extractions were performed at a pressure of 10MPa, at three different temperatures (80, 100 and 120°C) and with two water flows. For both skins and defatted seeds, total polyphenol (TP) yield significantly increased with temperature: for skins from 44.3±0.4 to 77±3mg/g, while for defatted seeds from 44±2 to 124±1mg/g when the temperature increased from 80 to 120°C. Importantly, TP yield decreased with flow rate at constant temperature. The extraction kinetics was simulated by a simple model from literature. The model adjustable parameters were calculated by best fitting procedures with experimental data: the model fitted the experimental kinetics curves in a satisfactory way, providing reference values for the adjustable parameters. The present research outlines the potentialities of using subcritical water for extracting valuable polyphenols from food processing by-products, and the effect of the operating conditions. Moreover, it proves that a very simple model from literature allows the interpretation of the extraction curves on the base of mass transfer and partition coefficients.
The recent characterization of the gut microbiome of traditional rural and foraging societies allowed us to appreciate the essential co-adaptive role of the microbiome in complementing our ...physiology, opening up significant questions on how the microbiota changes that have occurred in industrialized urban populations may have altered the microbiota-host co-metabolic network, contributing to the growing list of Western diseases. Here, we applied a targeted metabolomics approach to profile the fecal metabolome of the Hadza of Tanzania, one of the world's few remaining foraging populations, and compared them to the profiles of urban living Italians, as representative of people in the post-industrialized West. Data analysis shows that during the rainy season, when the diet is primarily plant-based, Hadza are characterized by a distinctive enrichment in hexoses, glycerophospholipids, sphingolipids, and acylcarnitines, while deplete in the most common natural amino acids and derivatives. Complementary to the documented unique metagenomic features of their gut microbiome, our findings on the Hadza metabolome lend support to the notion of an alternate microbiome configuration befitting of a nomadic forager lifestyle, which helps maintain metabolic homeostasis through an overall scarcity of inflammatory factors, which are instead highly represented in the Italian metabolome.
Wheat bran (WB) was investigated as potential filler for controlling the plasticizer migration in poly(lactic acid) (PLA)/poly(butylene succinate adipate) (PBSA) binary blends (with 60 wt.% of PLA ...and 40 wt.% of PBSA). The migration process of three different biobased and biodegradable plasticizers Triacetin (TA), acetyl tri-
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-butyl citrate (ATBC) and oligomeric lactic acid (OLA) was investigated adding them at a fixed amount of 10 wt.%. TA revealed the greater mass loss over the time as confirmed from the calculation of the diffusion coefficients. The addition of WB in different amount (from 10 to 30 wt.%) revealed its tendency to influence the diffusion process in a manner strictly dependent on its content. The great dimensions of the WB, however, weaken the material suggesting to adopt a preliminary dimensional reduction of the filler to mitigate the negative effect observed on the mechanical properties. From this study emerged the WB potential to be used as filler for controlling the plasticizer migration, thus suggesting a possible valorization of this waste byproduct in biobased and biodegradable materials.
The availability of nutrition applications (apps) has increased in recent years. The aim of this study was to assess the accuracy of nutrient intake calculations from some of the leading apps.
We ...identified five apps according to some selection criteria: >4-star ratings, >1 million downloads, including a food composition database, and in Italian language. Apps were used for 2 wk each. Using a 3-d food diary, the nutritional values obtained from each app were compared to a reference method including the Food Composition Database for Epidemiologic Studies in Italy. Energy intake differences were calculated for single nutrient and 3-d food diary between single app and reference method after food-item matching. Bland–Altman plots were used to assess agreement of the methods.
Apps identified were FatSecret, Lifesum, MyFitnessPal, Yazio, and Melarossa. Apps tended to underestimate total energy intake compared with the reference method, from a minimum of –2 kcal for Lifesum, to a maximum of –5.4 kcal for Yazio (average per item). Apps tended to underestimate lipids, and to a lesser extent carbohydrate and fiber intake, except for Yazio and Lifesum, which overestimated the intake of protein. These discrepancies appear to be due to the use of no country-specific food composition databases and to user customization of the food list.
The present findings suggest that the leading nutrition apps present critical issues in assessing the intake of energy and nutrients. Implementation of a framework for quality assessment is necessary to drive the design and development of higher-quality apps. Further research on efficacy and use of apps to monitor food intake is also warranted and some recommendations are provided.
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•Leading nutrition applications (apps) present critical issues in assessing nutrient intake.•The nutrition apps analyzed in the present study tended to underestimate the intake of energy and lipids.•The results found that protein intake is generally overestimated.•The cause of incorrect estimation may be linked to food composition databases.•The improper use of nutrition apps can affect nutritional status.
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