Plant-based dietary practices in Canada: examining definitions, prevalence and correlates of animal source food exclusions using nationally representative data from the 2015 Canadian Community Health Survey-Nutrition.

OBJECTIVE: While plant-based dietary practices (PBDPs) have been recommended to improve both population health and environmental sustainability outcomes, no nationally representative Canadian studies have described the prevalence or correlates of excluding animal source foods. The current study therefore: (1) created operationalised definitions of PBDPs based on animal source food exclusions to estimate the prevalence of Canadians who adhere to PBDPs and (2) examined key correlates of PBDPs. DESIGN: Population representative, cross-sectional data were from the 2015 Canadian Community Health Survey-Nutrition. Respondents' PBDPs were categorised as: (1) vegan (excluded red meat, poultry, fish, eggs and dairy); (2) vegetarian (excluded red meat, poultry and fish); (3) pescatarian (excluded red meat and poultry) and (4) red meat excluder (excluded red meat). Descriptive statistics and multivariable regression analyses were used to examine the prevalence and correlates of these PBDP categories. SETTING: All ten provinces in Canada. PARTICIPANTS: Canadians aged 2 years and above (n 20 477). RESULTS: In 2015, approximately 5 % of Canadians reported adhering to any PBDP (all categories combined) with the majority (2·8 %) categorised as a red meat excluder, 1·3 % as vegetarian, 0·7 % as pescatarian and 0·3 % as vegan. South Asian cultural identity (OR 19·70 (95 % CI 9·53, 40·69)) and higher educational attainment (OR 1·97 (95 % CI 1·02, 3·80)) were significantly associated with reporting a vegetarian/vegan PBDP. CONCLUSIONS: Despite growing public discourse around PBDPs, only 5 % of Canadians reported PBDPs in 2015. Understanding the social and cultural factors that influence PBDPs is valuable for informing future strategies to promote environmentally sustainable dietary practices.

Risperidone adjunctive therapy duration in the maintenance treatment of bipolar I disorder: A post hoc analysis.

BACKGROUND: Risperidone, an atypical antipsychotic medication, is recommended as a first line treatment for acute mania in patients with bipolar disorder I (BD I). It is unknown if continuing treatment with risperidone adjunct to lithium or valproate after remission of the manic episode offers additional benefit in prevention of mood episode relapse. METHODS: A post-hoc subgroup analysis was conducted using data from a 52-week, double-blind, placebo controlled trial involving 93 patients treated with oral risperidone adjunct to mood stabilizer, randomized to arms discontinuing risperidone at entry ("0-week arm"), 24 weeks after entry ("24-week arm") or continuing risperidone ("52-week arm"). Time to any episode, manic episode, and depressive episode was compared between arms using Cox regression models. RESULTS: Time to any mood episode was longer in the 24-week arm versus the 0-week arm (HR: 0.57, 95% CI: 0.31-1.05, P = 0.07) and shorter in the 52-week arm versus 24-week arm (HR: 1.85, 95% CI: 1.00-3.41, P = 0.05), though these results were not significant. Time to relapse into manic episode was significantly longer in the 24-week arm versus 0-week arm (HR: 0.14, 95% CI: 0.03, 0.65, P = 0.01). No other significant differences were observed between arms. LIMITATIONS: The sample size was modest, as the original dataset was powered to study optimal duration for two atypical antipsychotics. CONCLUSIONS: Adjunctive risperidone treatment was observed to reduce the risk of manic episodes during the first 24 weeks, but not after 24 weeks. Treatment did not appear to reduce the risk of depressive episodes.