Transcription factor DREF regulates expression of the microRNA gene bantam in Drosophila melanogaster.

The bantam gene encodes a vital microRNA and has a complex expression pattern in various tissues at different stages of Drosophila development. This microRNA is involved in the control of normal development of the ocular and wing imaginal discs, the central nervous system, and also in maintaining the undifferentiated state of stem cells in the ovaries of adult females. At the cellular level, bantam stimulates cell proliferation and prevents apoptosis. The bantam gene is a target of several conserved signaling cascades, in particular, Hippo. At the moment, at least ten proteins are known to directly regulate the expression of this gene in different tissues of Drosophila. In this study, we found that the bantam regulatory region contains motifs characteristic of binding sites for DREF, a transcription factor that regulates the expression of Hippo cascade genes. Using transgenic lines containing a full-length bantam lethality-rescuing deletion fragment and a fragment with a disrupted DREF binding site, we show that these motifs are functionally significant because their disruption at the bantam locus reduces expression levels in the larvae and ovaries of homozygous flies, which correlates with reduced vitality and fertility. The effect of DREF binding to the promoter region of the bantam gene on its expression level suggests an additional level of complexity in the regulation of expression of this microRNA. A decrease in the number of eggs laid and a shortening of the reproductive period in females when the DREF binding site in the regulatory region of the bantam gene is disrupted suggests that, through bantam, DREF is also involved in the regulation of Drosophila oogenesis.

School breakfast and body mass index: a longitudinal observational study of middle school students.

OBJECTIVES: The objectives are to identify breakfast location patterns (frequency and place of breakfast consumption) and explore the association between breakfast patterns and weight status over time among preadolescents. METHODS: Surveys and physical measurements were completed among students from 12 randomly selected schools in a medium-sized urban school district. All students were followed from fifth (Fall, 2011) to seventh grade (Fall, 2013). Latent transition analysis and longitudinal analyses were used in the study. RESULTS: Six distinct breakfast location patterns emerged at baseline (1) frequent skippers; (2) inconsistent school eaters; (3) inconsistent home eaters; (4) regular home eaters; (5) regular school eaters and (6) double breakfast eaters. Results from the longitudinal analyses revealed that there was an increased odds of overweight/obesity among frequent skippers compared with double breakfast eaters after adjusting for school, year and students' race/ethnicity (AOR: 2.66, 95% CI: 1.67, 4.24). Weight changes from year to year were similar between double breakfast eaters and other students. CONCLUSIONS: Concerns that a second breakfast at school increases risk of excessive weight gain are unsupported. Students who regularly consumed breakfasts at school, including double breakfast eaters, were more likely to exhibit a healthy weight trajectory. Additional research is needed to understand the impact of universal school breakfast on students' overall diets.

Food and beverage advertising on children's web sites.

BACKGROUND: Food marketing contributes to childhood obesity. Food companies commonly place display advertising on children's web sites, but few studies have investigated this form of advertising. OBJECTIVES: Document the number of food and beverage display advertisements viewed on popular children's web sites, nutritional quality of advertised brands and proportion of advertising approved by food companies as healthier dietary choices for child-directed advertising. METHODS: Syndicated Internet exposure data identified popular children's web sites and food advertisements viewed on these web sites from July 2009 through June 2010. Advertisements were classified according to food category and companies' participation in food industry self-regulation. The percent of advertisements meeting government-proposed nutrition standards was calculated. RESULTS: 3.4 billion food advertisements appeared on popular children's web sites; 83% on just four web sites. Breakfast cereals and fast food were advertised most often (64% of ads). Most ads (74%) promoted brands approved by companies for child-directed advertising, but 84% advertised products that were high in fat, sugar and/or sodium. Ads for foods designated by companies as healthier dietary choices appropriate for child-directed advertising were least likely to meet independent nutrition standards. CONCLUSIONS: Most foods advertised on popular children's web sites do not meet independent nutrition standards. Further improvements to industry self-regulation are required.

Childhood obesity: a societal problem to solve.

In contrast to other threats to American children's health, the treatment and prevention of childhood obesity are considered the responsibility of individual children and their parents. This pressure exists in the context of the societal stigmatization of overweight children and the powerful environmental inducements aimed directly at children to eat nutritionally poor foods. Parents of overweight children are left in the difficult position of fearing the social and health consequences of their child's obesity, and fighting a losing battle against the omnipotent presence of the media and constant exposure to unhealthy foods. This paper brings together several literatures to provide a comprehensive examination of the major challenges facing obese children and their families. In particular, this paper documents the extent of stigmatization towards overweight children and reviews evidence of the conflicting advice given to parents about how to help children develop healthful eating in the face of biological and learned food preferences. We conclude with a call for a shift in thinking about the role of our society in the aetiology, treatment and prevention of childhood obesity.

"Before and after" diet advertisements escalate weight stigma.

The stigma-producing effects of "before and after" diet advertisements on a healthy weight sample were examined. Subjects (n = 59) were exposed to a presentation containing either a "before and after" diet ad, or solely the "before" or "after" picture embedded in a different ad. Subjects were then given measures to assess negative attitudes and endorsement of stereotypes about overweight people. Across all subjects, strong implicit anti-fat bias was present. Subjects in the Before and After condition indicated that weight is more easily controllable than did subjects in either the Before Picture Only or the After Picture Only conditions. There were two moderating variables for this effect. Subjects who reported greater life satisfaction endorsed fewer anti-fat stereotypes, and those who enjoyed an emotionally close relationship with an overweight person were less biased. These results suggest that "before and after" diet ads enhance weight stigma and perpetuate damaging stereotypes.

TWGDAM validation of the AmpFlSTR Profiler Plus and AmpFlSTR COfiler STR multiplex systems using capillary electrophoresis.

Prior to forensic implementation, a profiling system requires validation following the recommendations presented by the Technical Working Group on DNA Analysis Methods (TWGDAM). In this work two such systems, AmpFlSTR Profiler Plus and AmpFfSTR COfiler have been validated according to the guidelines provided by TWGDAM. Profiler Plus and COfiler simultaneously amplify nine and six STR loci respectively; both also amplify a portion of the amelogenin gene. Performance of the two STR multiplex systems under conditions set forth by TWGDAM was robust and reproducible, indicating that these systems are suitable for use in forensic analysis. Additionally, specific sections of the TWGDAM validation guidelines are especially valuable in terms of familiarizing users with particular limitations of the systems prior to taking on casework.

Using the eating disorder examination to identify the specific psychopathology of binge eating disorder.

OBJECTIVE: The clinical features of binge eating disorder (BED) are not well established. Therefore, a comprehensive assessment of the specific psychopathology of BED as compared to anorexia nervosa (AN) and bulimia nervosa (BN) is warranted. This comparison was the aim of the present study. METHOD: Detailed ratings from an investigator-based interview, the Eating Disorders Examination (EDE), were compared across three groups of female patients: those with BED, AN, and BN, as well as normal-weight and overweight control subjects. RESULTS: When comparing BED to AN and BN, patients with BED had lower levels of restraint, eating concerns comparable to AN patients but lower than BN patients, and weight and shape concerns comparable to BN patients but higher than AN patients. Significantly more eating disorder psychopathology was found for BED patients as compared to the overweight controls on all bar the EDE restraint subscale. On the majority of individual EDE items, BED patients' scores were similar to those of AN and BN patients, including importance of shape and weight in self-evaluation and preoccupation with shape and weight. No significant relationship was found between BED patients' degree of overweight and eating psychopathology. DISCUSSION: Our findings support the status of BED as an eating disorder and suggest that the elevated EDE scores reflect the combined impact of being objectively overweight and having disordered cognitions and behaviors about eating, shape, and weight.

Hippocrates, Maimonides and the doctor's responsibility.

Jack Kevorkian criticizes the Hippocratic tradition in Greek medicine, which bans the physician from giving his patient a lethal medication. He sees this prohibition as potentially bringing harm to a suffering patient and not reflective of the larger Greek society which was tolerant and even approving of suicide. However, Kevorkian's advocacy of doctor-assisted suicide can be seen as the polarity of doctor abandonment of the suffering patient rather than as an antidote to it. Both positions involve an outcome of physician removal from the suffering patient, which can be contrasted with Maimonides' command to the physician to watch over the life and death of his patients.

Differential relation of psychological functioning with the history and experience of weight cycling.

Two measures of weight cycling and indexes of psychological functioning were examined in a large sample of dieters. History of weight cycling was assessed to include number of dieting attempts, total lifetime weight lost and regained, and number of weight cycles over 20 lb (9.1 kg). Experience of weight cycling measured perception of being a yo-yo dieter and perceived success at maintaining past weight losses. Experience was more strongly related than history to all psychological measures. Further, when controlling for the effects of age, body mass index, and experience, the relation between history and the psychological variables was nonsignificant. This finding suggests that an individual's perception of being a weight cycler may be more related to psychological problems than the actual number of pounds lost and regained over time.

Capillary electrophoresis STR analysis: comparison to gel-based systems.

Capillary electrophoresis is a relatively new technology for the forensic analysis of STRs, and may be an excellent alternative to traditional gel-based methods. Eighty samples, obtained from six different laboratories which had previously analyzed the samples using a variety of gel-based methods, were reanalyzed by CE. It was determined that CE could obtain the same allelic designation as that reported by the comparison laboratory. Seven different loci employing two separate multiplex amplifications were used for the comparison study. One basepair resolution and average standard deviations within the range of 0.075 to 0.117 basepairs were observed.

Assessing the specific psychopathology of binge eating disorder patients: interview or self-report?

Research addressing the assessment of binge eating and associated eating disorder psychopathology has steadily increased in recent years. Few studies have examined the relationship between the various assessment methods. This study compared an investigator-based interview, the Eating Disorder Examination (EDE), with a self-report version of that interview, the EDE-Q. Fifty-two individuals (six men and 46 women) with binge eating disorder (BED) completed both instruments. Modest-to-good agreement and significant correlations (P < 0.0001) were found between the two methods on all four subscales assessing specific eating disorder psychopathology (i.e., Restraint, Eating Concern, Weight Concern, and Shape Concern subscales). However, higher levels of disturbance were consistently reported on the EDE-Q than the EDE interview. The two methods were not significantly or reliably related to one another when assessing binge eating. This may be due in part to the difficulty inherent in identifying binges in subjects with BED. Examination of individual item scores suggest that it might be possible to improve the performance of the EDE-Q by clarifying the definitions of certain complex features, although this should not be at the expense of compromising the practical utility of its self-report format.

Validation of probe EFD52 (D17S26) for forensic DNA analysis.

Validation studies that meet TWGDAM (The Working Group on DNA Analysis Methods) and CAC (California Association of Criminalists) guidelines for RFLP (restriction fragment length polymorphism) analysis were performed with the DNA probe EFD52 (D17S26). These studies demonstrate that the probe EFD52 is suitable for forensic casework. No unexpected DNA banding patterns were obtained from controlled studies examining various tissues, sample consistency over many gels, mixtures of body fluids, various substrates, various contaminants and non-human DNA sources. Of all the animal DNAs tested, only one higher primate yielded a single band to EFD52 hybridization. The sensitivity of EFD52 was shown to be comparable to that of other forensic probes. Population frequency distribution tables were prepared from over 4000 alleles and two-locus studies were conducted on nine forensically useful probes. Black, White, Hispanic and Lumbee Indian populations were found to be in Hardy-Weinberg and linkage equilibrium. Comparisons between victim blood standards and epithelial fractions of mixed strains from sexual assault cases were used to demonstrate the robustness of the EFD52 probe in forensic casework.

Matching individuals to weight loss treatments: a survey of obesity experts.

For identification of factors for matching individuals to treatments, experts in the field of obesity were surveyed about the indications and contraindications for 11 common approaches to weight loss. The experts provided 170 client characteristics as possible matching factors, yet only 5 factors were matched to specific programs by 50% or more of the respondents. The results are discussed with regard to potential variables for studies on matching individuals to treatments, working hypotheses to be tested, and the value of matching information for clinical decision making

Amino acid sequence of Sp23, a structural protein of the spermatophore of the mealworm beetle, Tenebrio molitor.

In this paper we present the amino acid sequence of Sp23, a structural protein of the spermatophore of the mealworm beetle (Tenebrio molitor). This is the first report of the primary structure of a spermatophorin. The protein is rich in proline (24%), relatively rich in tyrosine (9%) and glutamine (10%), and does not contain sulfur-containing amino acids. In the carboxyl-terminal half of the protein a peptide motif is repeated which is similar to a repetitive motif in a group of dipteran chorion proteins.

Glutamate and other CSF amino acids in Alzheimer's disease.

The authors compared CSF amino acid levels of 10 patients with mild to moderate dementia and probable Alzheimer's disease who had never received antidepressant or neuroleptic medication with those of 10 normal subjects of similar age. The Alzheimer's patients had significantly higher levels of CSF glutamate. This finding was not related to age, sex, or severity of dementia. Elevated CSF glutamate may reflect greater glutamatergic activity early in the course of Alzheimer's disease. The authors speculate that the excitotoxic effects of glutamate may contribute to progressive neuronal loss in Alzheimer's disease.

Treatment of persistent trophoblastic tissue after salpingostomy with methotrexate.

Salpingostomy has become a common treatment of unruptured ectopic pregnancies. A complication of salpingostomy is persistent trophoblastic tissue. All reported cases to date of salpingostomy with persistent trophoblastic tissue have required salpingectomy. We reported a case of persistent trophoblastic tissue after salpingostomy treated successfully with methotrexate.

Analysis of metamorphosis in Drosophila melanogaster: characterization of giant, an ecdysteroid-deficient mutant.

The mutant allele giant of Drosophila melanogaster affects the timing and the level of increase in ecdysteroid titer normally occurring at puparium formation. The third larval instar is extended by 4 days in phenotypically "giant" individuals during which the imaginal discs mature slower than normal and finally take on the folding pattern characteristic of maturity at a time when normal individuals have already formed puparia. After puparium formation, development occurs at the same rate in giant and wild-type animals. Feeding 20-hydroxyecdysone at 94 hr after oviposition allows giant larvae to develop at the same rate as wild-type larvae and to produce normal-sized adults (although at 94 hr the imaginal discs of giant lack much of the folding pattern of mature discs). Radioimmunological determination of ecdysteroid titers in giant and normal individuals indicates that the peak of ecdysteroid activity associated with puparium formation is lower in giant and occurs 4 days later than normal. These results indicate that giant is an ecdysteroid-deficient mutant with major effects on metamorphosis. Unlike previously reported ecdysteroid-deficient mutants, however, giant larvae eventually develop into adults and may be induced to undergo complete metamorphosis at the same time as wild type by feeding 20-hydroxyecdysone.