When the Braves open Spring Training next week, their bid to defend their National League East crown will be significantly influenced by whether Josh Donaldson is capable of reestablishing himself as one of baseball's elite superstars.

Everyone hopes for health this early in spring. But few more than Nate Karns, who has trudged a longer road back than any player in Orioles camp.

The ability to switch fuels for oxidation in response to changes in macronutrient composition of diet (metabolic flexibility) may be informative of individuals’ susceptibility to weight gain. Seventy-nine healthy, weight-stable participants underwent 24-h assessments of energy expenditure and respiratory quotient (RQ) in a whole-room calorimeter during energy balance (EBL) (50% carbohydrate, 30% fat) and then during 24-h fasting and three 200% overfeeding diets in a crossover design. Metabolic flexibility was defined as the change in 24-h RQ from EBL during fasting and standard overfeeding (STOF) (50% carbohydrate, 30% fat), high-fat overfeeding (HFOF) (60% fat, 20% carbohydrate), and high-carbohydrate overfeeding (HCOF) (75% carbohydrate, 5% fat) diets. Free-living weight change was assessed after 6 and 12 months. Compared with EBL, RQ decreased on average by 9% during fasting and by 4% during HFOF but increased by 4% during STOF and by 8% during HCOF. A smaller decrease in RQ, reflecting a smaller increase in lipid oxidation rate, during HFOF but not during the other diets predicted greater weight gain at both 6 and 12 months. An impaired metabolic flexibility to acute HFOF can identify individuals prone to weight gain, indicating that an individual’s capacity to oxidize dietary fat is a metabolic determinant of weight change.

You can't help but learn a few things when you had the kind of year Astros star shortstop Carlos Correa experienced last season, when a nagging back injury derailed him in the second half and forced him to deal with the biggest adversity of his career.

Masayuki Saito
Jul 1, 2009; 58:1526-1531
Metabolism

Studies on magnetic resonance neurography (MRN) in diabetic polyneuropathy (DPN) have found proximal sciatic nerve lesions. The aim of this study was to evaluate the functional relevance of sciatic nerve lesions in DPN, with the expectation of correlations with the impairment of large-fiber function. Sixty-one patients with type 2 diabetes (48 with and 13 without DPN) and 12 control subjects were enrolled and underwent MRN, quantitative sensory testing, and electrophysiological examinations. There were differences in mechanical detection (Aβ fibers) and mechanical pain (A fibers) but not in thermal pain and thermal detection clusters (C fibers) among the groups. Lesion load correlated with lower Aα-, Aβ-, and A-fiber but not with C-fiber function in all participants. Patients with lower function showed a higher load of nerve lesions than patients with elevated function or no measurable deficit despite apparent DPN. Longer diabetes duration was associated with higher lesion load in patients with DPN, suggesting that nerve lesions in DPN may accumulate over time and become clinically relevant once a critical amount of nerve fascicles is affected. Moreover, MRN is an objective method for determining lower function mainly in medium and large fibers in DPN.

Ralph A. DeFronzo
Oct 1, 2013; 36:3169-3176
Emerging Technologies and Therapeutics

Rob M. van Dam
Dec 1, 2004; 27:2990-2992
Brief Reports

Greater compliance with dietary guidelines may reduce the chance of untreated caries in adults, according to a study published in the February issue of The Journal of the American Dental Association.

Here’s my Q&A column from the WSJ this week — and if you have any questions for me, you can tweet them to @danariely with the hashtag #askariely, post a comment on my Ask Ariely Facebook page, or email them to AskAriely@wsj.com. ___________________________________________________ Dear Dan, I know that because of the...

Michele Heisler
Oct 1, 2008; 26:161-165
Practical Pointers

These are unprecedented times. Much of the world is currently living under lockdown conditions and practicing social distancing in order to curb the spread of the COVID-19 coronavirus. So how is this affecting people’s intimate lives? How are our sex lives and relationships holding up, and is there anything we can do to more effectively navigate this complex and challenging situation? For the answers to these questions, I spoke to Dr. Lori Brotto, a Professor at the University of British Columbia, a practicing psychologist, and author of the book Better Sex Through Mindfulness. I asked Dr. Brotto what she has been seeing in her clinical practice since the pandemic began and how it’s different from usual.

This paper sets out three challenges to the creation of a future for Indo-Pacific states and peoples consistent with the visions of a ‘free and open Indo-Pacific’ (FOIP) expressed by Japan, India, the US and Australia, and now by the ASEAN outlook on the Indo-Pacific. It also describes a path for states to operate in an environment of coercive Chinese state power that seeks to influence how states relate and how they operate within their domestic boundaries.

[London] : [publisher not identified], [2019]

Application and use of deep learning algorithms for different healthcare applications is gaining interest at a steady pace. However, use of such algorithms can prove to be challenging as they require large amounts of training data that capture different possible variations. This makes it difficult to use them in a clinical setting since in most health applications researchers often have to work with limited data. Less data can cause the deep learning model to over-fit. In this paper, we ask how can we use data from a different environment, different use-case, with widely differing data distributions. We exemplify this use case by using single-sensor accelerometer data from healthy subjects performing activities of daily living - ADLs (source dataset), to extract features relevant to multi-sensor accelerometer gait data (target dataset) for Parkinson's disease classification. We train the pre-trained model using the source dataset and use it as a feature extractor. We show that the features extracted for the target dataset can be used to train an effective classification model. Our pre-trained source model consists of a convolutional autoencoder, and the target classification model is a simple multi-layer perceptron model. We explore two different pre-trained source models, trained using different activity groups, and analyze the influence the choice of pre-trained model has over the task of Parkinson's disease classification.

Treat the babe in your life to one (or two or three) of these indulgent gifts.

FAO will use World Food Day this year to promote one of the five pillars of Zero Hunger Challenge. The theme of the campaign will be “Sustainable Food Systems for Food Security and Nutrition.” Events in more than 120 countries – supported by videos, an issues paper, posters, media interviews and more – will communicate the message that our food systems [...]

Diets vary greatly from place to place based on food availability, eating habits and culture. Yet, when it comes to food, there is a lot that we know about what is and what is not good for us and this is true no matter where we live. Societal changes, however, are making these choices more complicated. While many countries are [...]

Nutrition, sleep, exercise, and avoiding drugs are associated with not just better grades, but higher aspirations for college, a new study suggests

In the North Alleghenny School District in Pittsburgh, leaders have made staff health a priority. This year, district educators trained and participated in relay teams at a local marathon.

School-based health centers can powerfully expand health-care access and support academic achievement, argue John Jackson and John Schlitt.

Active video games can enable children under laboratory conditions to participate in moderate, and even vigorous, physical activity. There are inconsistencies in the literature, however, about whether active video games enable children to increase physical activity under more naturalistic circumstances.

This study tests whether children receiving a new active video game spontaneously engaged in more physical activity, and whether commercially available active video games have a public health benefit. No additional physical activity was detected, suggesting no public health benefit. (Read the full article)

Changes in BMI category appear to be common in young children and are associated with cardiometabolic risk in cross-sectional studies. However, there are few longitudinal studies and little information from multiethnic samples of US middle school children.

Findings demonstrate that shifts in BMI category are common in middle-school-aged children and associated with clinically meaningful changes in cardiometabolic risk factors. Programs to promote decreases in BMI, prevent increases, and moderate risk are indicated. (Read the full article)

Although observational studies have consistently reported an association between media use and child sleep problems, it is unclear whether the relationship is causal or if an intervention targeting healthy media use can improve sleep in preschool-aged children.

This study demonstrates that a healthy media use intervention can improve child sleep outcomes and adds evidence that the relationship between media and sleep in preschool-aged children is indeed causal in nature. (Read the full article)

The relationship between energy intake and obesity in children has yielded inconsistent results. Efforts to improve dietary intake as a means of improving weight status have largely yielded disappointing results.

Self-reported energy intake for younger, but not older, overweight/obese children is higher than healthy-weight peers. In early childhood, higher (or excessive) energy intake may lead to onset of obesity, but other mechanisms may be important to maintain obesity through adolescence. (Read the full article)

Obesity is associated with cardiometabolic risk factors and chronic conditions, such as type 2 diabetes. However, a proportion of overweight and obese youth remain free from cardiometabolic risk factors and are considered metabolically healthy.

This study provides insight into the determinants of cardiometabolic risk factors and the concept in health promotion of "fitness versus fatness." Hepatic lipid accumulation and not fitness level appears to drive cardiometabolic risk factor clustering among overweight and obese youth. (Read the full article)

High sodium intake is considered an indirect cause of obesity because it is often accompanied by higher energy intake and sugar-sweetened soft drink consumption. High sodium intake is associated with increased inflammatory response in adult patients.

This study shows that high sodium intake is positively associated with adiposity, leptin, and tumor necrosis factor-α independent of total energy intake and sugar-sweetened soft drink consumption in healthy white and African American adolescents. (Read the full article)

A national probability study based on time diaries for 2 days indicated that black and white adolescents get close to the recommended amount of sleep. Sleep should be measured by using multiple methods to get an accurate picture of adolescent sleep.

Based on actigraphy and daily diary assessments, healthy adolescents from a lower socioeconomic community got less than the recommended amount of sleep; black male students were likely to have short, fragmented sleep, which may play a role in their health risks. (Read the full article)

In the United States, given the high burden of disease, influenza vaccine is recommended for all children from age 6 months. The paucity of vaccine effectiveness data in children <2 years has led some to argue against routine vaccination in this age group.

This study reveals the effectiveness of trivalent influenza vaccine in young children and supports the current Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices recommendation. This study provides the strongest evidence to date confirming the effectiveness of trivalent influenza vaccine in children <2 years of age. (Read the full article)

Previous studies have examined state regulations for child care facilities and found substantial variation among states. None of these studies examined regulations related to healthy sleep practices, which is an important and often overlooked intervention target for obesity prevention.

We reviewed state regulations related to healthy sleep in child care and compared them to recent national recommendations put forth by the Institute of Medicine. We found that many states lacked regulations, highlighting an important and timely opportunity for improvement. (Read the full article)

Increasing data suggest that neonatal pain has long-term consequences. Pharmacologic interventions for minor pain are ineffective, and nonpharmacologic techniques (sucrose taste, pacifier suckling, breastfeeding) are effective and now widely used.

The taste of sucrose has been shown to be an effective and widely used analgesic for infants, and this study demonstrates that combining brief exposure to natural radiant warmth with the taste of sucrose improves the analgesic effect for the infant. (Read the full article)

Contezolid (MRX-I), a new oxazolidinone, is an antibiotic in development for treating complicated skin and soft tissue infections (cSSTI) caused by resistant Gram-positive bacteria. This was a thorough QT study conducted in 52 healthy subjects who were administered oral contezolid at a therapeutic (800 mg) dose, a supratherapeutic (1600 mg) dose, placebo, and oral moxifloxacin 400 mg in 4 separate treatment periods. The pharmacokinetic profile of contezolid was also evaluated. Time-point analysis indicated that the upper bounds of the two-sided 90% confidence interval (CI) for placebo-corrected change-from-baseline QTc (QTc) were <10 ms for the contezolid therapeutic dose at each time point. The upper bound of the 90% CI for QTc were slightly more than 10 ms with the contezolid supratherapeutic dose at 3 and 4 hours postdose, and the prolongation effect on the QT/QTc interval was less than that of the positive control, moxifloxacin 400 mg. At 3 and 4 h after the moxifloxacin dose, the moxifloxacin group met the assay sensitivity criteria outlined in ICH Guidance E14 with having a lower confidence bound ≥5 ms. The results of a linear exposure-response model which were similar to that of a time point analysis demonstrated a slightly positive relationship between contezolid plasma levels and QTcF interval with a slope of 0.227 ms per mg/L (90% CI: 0.188 to 0.266). In summary, contezolid did not prolong the QT interval at a therapeutic dose and may have a slight effect on QT interval prolongation at a supratherapeutic dose.

Durlobactam (DUR, also known as ETX2514) is a novel β-lactamase inhibitor with broad activity against Ambler class A, C, and D β-lactamases. Addition of DUR to sulbactam (SUL) in vitro restores SUL activity against clinical isolates of Acinetobacter baumannii. The safety and pharmacokinetics (PK) of DUR alone and with SUL and/or imipenem/cilastatin (IMI/CIL) were evaluated in healthy subjects. This was a randomized, placebo-controlled study. In Part A, subjects including an elderly cohort (DUR 1 g) received single ascending doses of DUR 0.25-8 g. In Part B, multiple ascending dose of DUR 0.25-2 g were administered every 6 hours (q6h) for 29 doses. In Parts C and D, the drug-drug interaction (DDI) potential, including safety, of DUR (1 g) with SUL (1 g) and/or IMI/CIL (0.5/0.5 g) was investigated after single and multiple doses. Plasma and urine concentrations of DUR, SUL, and IMI/CIL were determined. Among 124 subjects, DUR was generally safe and well tolerated either alone or in combination with SUL and/or IMI/CIL. After single and multiple doses, DUR demonstrated linear dose proportional exposure across the studied dose ranges. Renal excretion was a predominant clearance mechanism. No drug:drug interaction potential was identified between DUR and SUL and/or IMI/CIL. SUL-DUR, 1 g (of each component) administered q6h with a 3 hour IV infusion, is under development for the treatment of serious infections due to A. baumannii.

The off-label use of third generation cephalosporin (3GC) during in ovo vaccination or vaccination of newly hatched chicks, was a common practice worldwide. CMY-2-producing Escherichia coli have been disseminated among broiler production. The objectives of this study were to determine the epidemiological linkage of bla_CMY-2-positive plasmids among broilers both within and outside Japan because grandparent stock and parent stock were imported in Japan. We examined the whole genome sequences of 132 3GC-resistant E. coli isolates collected from healthy broilers during 2002-2014. The predominant 3GC-resistance gene was bla_CMY-2, which was detected in the plasmids of 87 (65.9%) isolates. The main plasmid replicon types were IncI1-I (n=21; 24.1%), IncI (n=12; 13.8%), IncB/O/K/Z (n=28; 32.2%), and IncC (n=22; 25.3%). Those plasmids were subjected to gene clustering and network analyses and plasmid multi-locus sequence typing (pMLST). The chromosomal DNA of isolates was subjected to MLST and single nucleotide variant (SNV)-based phylogenetic analysis.

MLST and SNV-based phylogenetic analysis revealed high diversity of E. coli isolates. ST429 harboring bla_CMY-2-positive IncB/O/K/Z was closely related to isolates from broiler in Germany harboring bla_CMY-2-positive IncB/O/K/Z. pST55-IncI and pST12-IncI1-I and pST3-IncC were prevalent in western Japan. pST12-IncI1-I and pST3-IncC were closely related to those detected in E. coli isolates from chicken in American continent, whereas 26 IncB/O/K/Z were related to those in Europe. These data will be useful to reveal the whole picture of transmission of CMY-2-producing bacteria in and out of Japan.

Vinod K. Bhutani
Jan 1, 1999; 103:6-14
ARTICLES

Three ways that the burgeoning healthy afterschool movement can be a leader in incorporating social, emotional, and academic development, as explained by Daniel Hatcher.

Residents of the Liberty Court community in Dover joined Delaware State Housing Authority (DSHA) Director Anas Ben Addi, Sherani Patterson, Population Health Manager at Nemours, and Cassandra Codes-Johnson, Delaware Division of Public Health’s Director of Community Health to celebrate the kick-off of the Healthy Homes Initiative. Dover Mayor Robin Christiansen, Senator Brian Bushweller, and Representative Darryl Scott were also on hand for the festivities. The initiative promotes Safe Cleaning, which is designed to reduce asthma-related hospitalization by educating residents on asthma awareness, safe cleaning techniques, and pest management. The event featured face-painting for the children, refreshments, and the 4-H Club distributed raffle tickets for door prizes.

Teacher Adrianne G. Williams cultivates an environment where she focuses on students' interpersonal qualities as well as their academic ones. The students see her effort, she says, and the parents follow.

Home Minister Amit Shah today tweeted to say he is healthy and not suffering from any disease, dismissing recent speculations on social media about his health.

The Delaware Department of Agriculture has announced the winners of its 2016 Happy and Healthy Chickens Photo Contest, celebrating the best snapshots of Delaware backyard poultry flocks. The winner, chosen from a field of nearly 100 photographs, was Weston Williams, 11, of Felton, for his photo “Proud Stance.”

The Division of Public Health announced updates to its My Healthy Community data portal. DPH launched My Healthy Community earlier this year to allow Delawareans to access information about the overall health of their communities.

As part of National Alzheimer’s Awareness Month, the Delaware Division of Public Health (DPH) urges Delawareans to make lifestyle adjustments to help reduce their risk factors for Alzheimer’s and dementia.

Such studies, which pose significant potential dangers to subjects, may be considered in dire situations and with certain disclosures and protections, a working group of the United Nations health agency said in a report posted Wednesday on its website.

Healthy feet are vital for mobility. And because feet are so essential for keeping mobile and independent, when something goes wrong it can be a psychological strain too.

Home Minister Amit Shah has said he is totally healthy and not suffering from any disease.