The Prevalence of obesity and overweight has been increasing in many countries. Many factors have been identified as contributing to obesity including the food environment, especially the access, ...availability and affordability of healthy foods in grocery stores and supermarkets. Several interventions have been carried out in retail grocery/supermarket settings as part of an effort to understand and influence consumption of healthful foods. The review's key outcome variable is sale/purchase of healthy foods as a result of the interventions. This systematic review sheds light on the effectiveness of food store interventions intended to promote the consumption of healthy foods and the methodological quality of studies reporting them.
Systematic literature search spanning from 2003 to 2015 (inclusive both years), and confined to papers in the English language was conducted. Studies fulfilling search criteria were identified and critically appraised. Studies included in this review report health interventions at physical food stores including supermarkets and corner stores, and with outcome variable of adopting healthier food purchasing/consumption behavior. The methodological quality of all included articles has been determined using a validated 16-item quality assessment tool (QATSDD).
The literature search identified 1580 publications, of which 42 met the inclusion criteria. Most interventions used a combination of information (e.g. awareness raising through food labeling, promotions, campaigns, etc.) and increasing availability of healthy foods such as fruits and vegetables. Few used price interventions. The average quality score for all papers is 65.0%, or an overall medium methodological quality. Apart from few studies, most studies reported that store interventions were effective in promoting purchase of healthy foods.
Given the diverse study settings and despite the challenges of methodological quality for some papers, we find efficacy of in-store healthy food interventions in terms of increased purchase of healthy foods. Researchers need to take risk of bias and methodological quality into account when designing future studies that should guide policy makers. Interventions which combine price, information and easy access to and availability of healthy foods with interactive and engaging nutrition information, if carefully designed can help customers of food stores to buy and consume more healthy foods.
Celotno besedilo
Dostopno za:
DOBA, IZUM, KILJ, NUK, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, SIK, UILJ, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK
Context: An upper body/visceral fat distribution in obesity is closely linked with metabolic complications, whereas increased lower body fat is independently predictive of reduced cardiovascular ...risk.
Evidence Acquisition: The measured functions of different fat depots with regards to fatty acid storage and release in health and obesity were reviewed. The adverse effects of experimentally increasing free fatty acid (FFA) concentrations on liver, muscle, pancreatic β-cell, and endothelial function were noted.
Evidence Synthesis: The most dramatic abnormality in FFA metabolism is failure to suppress FFA concentrations/adipose tissue lipolysis normally in response to postprandial hyperinsulinemia. Upper body sc fat delivers the majority of FFA to the systemic circulation under postabsorptive and postprandial conditions. In upper body obesity, portal FFA concentrations resulting from both systemic and visceral adipose tissue lipolysis may be significantly greater than arterial FFA concentrations, exposing the liver to even greater amounts of FFA. Visceral fat also releases sufficient IL-6 to increase portal vein IL-6 concentrations, which can affect hepatic metabolism as well.
Conclusions: Lower body, upper body sc, and visceral fat depots have unique characteristics with regards to fatty acid metabolism. Selective dysregulation of these depots probably plays an important role with the metabolic complications of obesity.
The field of population genomics has grown rapidly in response to the recent advent of affordable, large-scale sequencing technologies. As opposed to the situation during the majority of the 20th ...century, in which the development of theoretical and statistical population genetic insights outpaced the generation of data to which they could be applied, genomic data are now being produced at a far greater rate than they can be meaningfully analyzed and interpreted. With this wealth of data has come a tendency to focus on fitting specific (and often rather idiosyncratic) models to data, at the expense of a careful exploration of the range of possible underlying evolutionary processes. For example, the approach of directly investigating models of adaptive evolution in each newly sequenced population or species often neglects the fact that a thorough characterization of ubiquitous nonadaptive processes is a prerequisite for accurate inference. We here describe the perils of these tendencies, present our consensus views on current best practices in population genomic data analysis, and highlight areas of statistical inference and theory that are in need of further attention. Thereby, we argue for the importance of defining a biologically relevant baseline model tuned to the details of each new analysis, of skepticism and scrutiny in interpreting model fitting results, and of carefully defining addressable hypotheses and underlying uncertainties.
Celotno besedilo
Dostopno za:
DOBA, IZUM, KILJ, NUK, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, SIK, UILJ, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK
Aging and metabolism are inextricably linked, and many age-related changes in body composition, including increased central adiposity and sarcopenia, have underpinnings in fundamental aging ...processes. These age-related changes are further exacerbated by a sedentary lifestyle and can be in part prevented by maintenance of activity with aging. Here we explore the age-related changes seen in individual metabolic tissues - adipose, muscle, and liver - as well as globally in older adults. We also discuss the available evidence for therapeutic interventions such as caloric restriction, resistance training, and senolytic and senomorphic drugs to maintain healthy metabolism with aging, focusing on data from human studies.
An algorithm capable of incorporating multi-step reaction mechanisms into atomistic molecular dynamics simulations using traditional fixed valence force fields is proposed and implemented within the ...framework of LAMMPS (Large-scale Atomic Molecular Massively Parallel Simulator). This extension, referred to as fix bond/react, enables bonding topology modifications during a running MD simulation using pre- and post-reaction bonding templates to carry out a pre-specified reaction. Candidate reactants are first identified by interatomic separation, followed by the application of a generalized topology matching algorithm to confirm they match the pre-reaction template. This is followed by a topology conversion to match the post-reaction template and a dynamic relaxation to minimize high energy configurations. Two case studies, the condensation polymerization of nylon 6,6 and the formation of a highly-crosslinked epoxy, are simulated to demonstrate the robustness, stability, and speed of the algorithm. Improvements which could increase its utility are discussed.
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•A new approach for building polymers in molecular dynamics (MD) simulations using conventional force fields is described.•The method effects bonding changes during a MD simulation using structure templates to carry out pre-specified reactions.•Performance is quantified in two case studies to demonstrate applicability to both thermoset and thermoplastic polymers.•The method has been implemented in the LAMMPS simulation package and will be available in an upcoming release.
Fat distribution is closely linked to metabolic disease risk. Distribution varies with sex, genetic background, disease state, certain drugs and hormones, development, and aging. Preadipocyte ...replication and differentiation, developmental gene expression, susceptibility to apoptosis and cellular senescence, vascularity, inflammatory cell infiltration, and adipokine secretion vary among depots, as do fatty-acid handling and mechanisms of enlargement with positive-energy and loss with negative-energy balance. How interdepot differences in these molecular, cellular, and pathophysiological properties are related is incompletely understood. Whether fat redistribution causes metabolic disease or whether it is a marker of underlying processes that are primarily responsible is an open question.
Abstract
The prevalence of obesity, measured by body mass index, has risen to unacceptable levels in both men and women in the United States and worldwide with resultant hazardous health ...implications. Genetic, environmental, and behavioral factors influence the development of obesity, and both the general public and health professionals stigmatize those who suffer from the disease. Obesity is associated with and contributes to a shortened life span, type 2 diabetes mellitus, cardiovascular disease, some cancers, kidney disease, obstructive sleep apnea, gout, osteoarthritis, and hepatobiliary disease, among others. Weight loss reduces all of these diseases in a dose-related manner-the more weight lost, the better the outcome. The phenotype of "medically healthy obesity" appears to be a transient state that progresses over time to an unhealthy phenotype, especially in children and adolescents. Weight loss is best achieved by reducing energy intake and increasing energy expenditure. Programs that are effective for weight loss include peer-reviewed and approved lifestyle modification programs, diets, commercial weight-loss programs, exercise programs, medications, and surgery. Over-the-counter herbal preparations that some patients use to treat obesity have limited, if any, data documenting their efficacy or safety, and there are few regulatory requirements. Weight regain is expected in all patients, especially when treatment is discontinued. When making treatment decisions, clinicians should consider body fat distribution and individual health risks in addition to body mass index.
This Scientific Statement critically reviews the definition of obesity, providing a list of assessment methods, obesity-related diseases, and prevention measures.
The ability to accurately identify and quantify genetic signatures associated with soft selective sweeps based on patterns of nucleotide variation has remained controversial. We here provide counter ...viewpoints to recent publications in PLOS Genetics that have argued not only for the statistical identifiability of soft selective sweeps, but also for their pervasive evolutionary role in both Drosophila and HIV populations. We present evidence that these claims owe to a lack of consideration of competing evolutionary models, unjustified interpretations of empirical outliers, as well as to new definitions of the processes themselves. Our results highlight the dangers of fitting evolutionary models based on hypothesized and episodic processes without properly first considering common processes and, more generally, of the tendency in certain research areas to view pervasive positive selection as a foregone conclusion.
Celotno besedilo
Dostopno za:
DOBA, IZUM, KILJ, NUK, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, SIK, UILJ, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK
Mercury is a pollutant of concern and mercury emissions from cement plants are under environmental regulation. After coal-fired power plants, mercury emissions from cement and mineral production are ...the second largest anthropogenic sources. Compared to fuels, cement raw materials are the major sources of mercury in the cement kiln flue gas. Cement plants are quite different from power plants and waste incinerators regarding the flue gas composition, temperature, residence time, and material circulation. Cement kiln systems have some inherent ability to retain mercury in the solid materials due to the adsorption of mercury on the solids in the cold zone. However, recirculation of the kiln dust to the kiln will cause release of the captured mercury. The mercury chemistry in cement kiln systems is complicated and knowledge obtained from power plants and incinerators cannot be directly applied in cement kilns.
Among the mercury control technologies, sorbent injection upstream of a particulate control device has shown the most promise. Due to material recirculation, and high moisture level in the cement kiln flue gas the application of sorbent injection to cement plants will be more challenging. The sorbent injection system should be installed downstream of the main kiln filter and upstream of a new added polishing fabric filter to avoid the cement kiln dust recycling and disposal issues. To reduce the sorbent cost and possible disposal expense, non-carbon based sorbents that could be added to cement or regenerated in-situ are desired and should be developed.
Various mathematical models have been developed to simulate mercury removal in fixed-bed reactors and by sorbent injection upstream of a fabric filter. The fabric filter adsorption models use the adsorption isotherms coupled with diffusion in the sorbent particle and the parameters are obtained by fitting the model to experimental data. Verification of the models by full-scale or pilot-scale data is very limited.
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