The importance of Mediterranean diet and hydration habitus in patients with lower limb ulcers: A pilot study.

Chronic leg ulcers are a common condition among adults, causing pain and social distress. Population aging has contributed to the amplification of the disease with increased cardiovascular diseases such as myocardial infarction, stroke, limb ischemia, cancers, chronic respiratory diseases, and diabetes. The aim of this study was to evaluate the influence of the Mediterranean Diet (MD) and hydration on the healing rate of the ulcers. A group of 35 patients (M/F 16/19, mean age 78 ± 10 years) with venous, arterial, or mixed ulcers was subjected to a Food Frequency Questionnaire (FFQ) and a Hydration Habits Questionnaire (HHQ). Clinical and anthropometric data were collected. A one-year follow-up was conducted. Complete ulcer healing was observed in 26% of the patients, of whom 67% had a habit of high hydration (more than 1 liter /day), regardless of adherence to the MD. In our study population, about half showed a low adherence to the MD. A moderate-high adherence to the MD showed an increase of arterial ulcer healing compared to subjects with a low adherence to the MD, however, only when associated to a consumption of more than 1 liter of water daily. In conclusion, dietary assessments could help identify patients who are likely to benefit from nutritional interventions for improving overall health and wound healing. The habit of high hydration, namely more than 1 liter daily, can influence the wound healing rate.

Detection of symmetry and anti-symmetry.

To assess the role of second-order channels in symmetry perception we measured the effects of check size, spatial frequency content, eccentricity and grey scale range on the detection of symmetrical and anti-symmetrical patterns. Thresholds for symmetrical stimuli were only moderately affected by these manipulations. Anti-symmetrical stimuli composed of large black and white checks elicited low thresholds. However, anti-symmetry became essentially undetectable at small check sizes. Removing low frequencies from large-check-size, anti-symmetrical stimuli had little effect on thresholds whereas removing high frequencies had a pronounced effect. Moving the stimuli from fixation to 8 degrees eccentricity caused a dramatic increase in thresholds for anti-symmetrical stimuli but not symmetrical stimuli. When the grey scale range was increased anti-symmetry was undetectable at any check size whereas symmetry was easily seen at all. We argue that these results and others in the literature suggest that anti-symmetry is only detected under conditions favourable to selective attention.