Evaluation of the Cancer Council NSW Eat It To Beat It Healthy Lunch Box Sessions: A short intervention to promote the intake of fruit and vegetables among families of primary school children in NSW Australia.

ISSUE ADDRESSED: Children and adults in Australia are not eating the recommended amounts of fruits and vegetables. Our objective was to assess the effectiveness of a health promotion intervention to improve fruit and vegetable intake among primary school children and their families in NSW. METHODS: The Cancer Council New South Wales Healthy Lunch Box sessions were a 25-minute session delivered to parents of primary school-aged children. The sessions provided information and resources about fruit and vegetables and healthy school lunch boxes. The evaluation is a quantitative uncontrolled pre-post design. Data were collected using three questionnaires, pre-intervention, 1 week post-intervention and 6 months post-intervention. RESULTS: A total of 204 parents completed all three evaluation questionnaires to 6 months. Knowledge of recommended intakes and serving sizes of fruit and vegetables improved significantly after the intervention. There was an increase in parents reporting packing vegetables (often/always) in the child's lunch box at 1 week (47%) and 6 months post-intervention (40%) compared to pre-intervention (32%). The proportion of parents reporting that they were confident in packing a healthy lunch box increased from 45% pre-intervention to 62% after the intervention. CONCLUSION: The Healthy Lunch Box sessions were effective in improving parental knowledge and practices related to fruit and vegetables and parental confidence with packing a healthy lunch box. SO WHAT?: This short intervention could be a useful component of a portfolio of interventions to support parents with knowledge and resources to pack a healthy lunch box for their children.

Is "incidental finding" the best term?: a study of patients' preferences.

PURPOSE: There is debate within the genetics community about the optimal term to describe genetic variants unrelated to the test indication but potentially important for health. Given the lack of consensus and the importance of adopting terminology that promotes effective clinical communication, we sought the opinion of clinical genetics patients. METHODS: Surveys and focus groups with two patient populations were conducted. Eighty-eight survey participants were asked to rank four terms according to how well each describes results unrelated to the test indication: incidental findings, secondary findings, additional findings, and ancillary findings. Participants in six focus groups were guided through a free-thought exercise to describe the desired attributes of such a term and then asked to formulate the best term to represent this concept. RESULTS: The term additional findings had the most first-choice rankings by survey participants, followed by secondary findings, incidental findings, and ancillary findings. Most focus group participants preferred the term additional findings; they also gave reasons why other terms were not optimal. CONCLUSION: Additional findings was preferred because it was more neutral and accessible than other terms currently in use. Patient perceptions and comprehension will be framed by the terminology used by healthcare providers. Thus, patient opinions should be considered by medical genetics professionals.Genet Med 19 2, 176-181.

Predicting one-year mortality in peritoneal dialysis patients: an analysis of the China Peritoneal Dialysis Registry.

This study aims to investigate basic clinical features of peritoneal dialysis (PD) patients, their prognostic risk factors, and to establish a prognostic model for predicting their one-year mortality. A national multi-center cohort study was performed. A total of 5,405 new PD cases from China Peritoneal Dialysis Registry in 2012 were enrolled in model group. All these patients had complete baseline data and were followed for one year. Demographic and clinical features of these patients were collected. Cox proportional hazards regression model was used to analyze prognostic risk factors and establish prognostic model. A validation group was established using 1,764 new PD cases between January 1, 2013 and July 1, 2013, and to verify accuracy of prognostic model. Results indicated that model group included 4,453 live PD cases and 371 dead cases. Multivariate survival analysis showed that diabetes mellitus (DM), residual glomerular filtration rate (rGFR), , SBP, Kt/V, high PET type and Alb were independently associated with one-year mortality. Model was statistically significant in both within-group verification and outside-group verification. In conclusion, DM, rGFR, SBP, Kt/V, high PET type and Alb were independent risk factors for short-term mortality in PD patients. Prognostic model established in this study accurately predicted risk of short-term death in PD patients.

Perceptions of adequacy of fruit and vegetable intake as a barrier to increasing consumption.

AIM: To investigate New South Wales adults' perceived adequacy of their fruit and vegetable consumption and to identify the barriers to consumption. METHOD: An online cross-sectional survey of a sample of adults in New South Wales (n = 1603) in February 2019 measured self-reported fruit and vegetable intakes, perception of consumption adequacy and barriers to consumption. Proportions of participants whose reported consumption met the daily recommended serves of fruit and vegetables per day were calculated. Chi-square and Fisher's exact tests were used to explore differences between demographic characteristics and meeting fruit and vegetable recommendations. For those not meeting recommendations, Chi-square and Fisher's exact tests were used to explore perceived adequacy of intake as a potential barrier to consumption. RESULTS: The sample included 52.7% women, 40.0% aged under 40 years and 28.6% over 59 years, 68.2% lived in a major city, and 32.6% were university educated. Overall, 64.8% of participants reported consuming adequate fruit and 12.4% reported consuming adequate vegetables. Of those consuming less than the guidelines, 21.3% perceived that they were eating enough fruit and 53.7% perceived they were eating enough vegetables. The most common barriers to eating more fruit were preference for other foods (29.6%), fruit spoiling too quickly (28.3%), and habit (27.0%). The most common barriers to eating more vegetables were the perception that they eat enough (26.8%), preference for other foods (21.9%), and habit (19.7%). CONCLUSIONS: Greater efforts are needed to support the public to eat adequate fruit and vegetables, consistent with dietary guidelines. Public education campaigns specifically targeting increasing vegetable consumption are required to address knowledge gaps, given a large proportion of our study population consumed inadequate levels of vegetables yet perceived their intake to be adequate.

The role of molecular size in antioxidant activity of peptide fractions from Pacific hake (Merluccius productus) hydrolysates.

The antioxidative properties of Pacific hake hydrolysates and their peptidic fractions varying in molecular size were assessed. Hydrolysates produced by different proteases (Alcalase, bromelain, Flavourzyme, Protamex, Protease A"Amano"2, Protease N"Amano"K, Protin SD NY10, Umamizyme-K, Validase BNP-L, Validase FPexo) generally possessed good metal ion chelating (33-73% at 3mg/ml), DPPH radical scavenging (18-30% at 1mg/ml), ferric ion reducing power (abs700nm 0.36-0.86 at 3 mg/ml) and ABTS radical scavenging (47-85% at 0.067 mg/ml) activity, as well as a good capability to suppress lipid peroxidation in a linoleic acid model system. Peptide size (<1.4 kDa) was important for ABTS radical scavenging activity, whereas specific peptide composition (which depended on the particular protease used) was the governing factor for effective lipid peroxidation. Validase BNP-L was the most promising enzyme for producing Pacific hake hydrolysates with good antioxidative activity in various assays and similar effectiveness as the synthetic antioxidant BHT to inhibit lipid peroxidation.