Corrigendum: See & Eat! Using E-books to Promote Vegetable Eating Among Preschoolers: Findings From an Italian Sample.

[This corrects the article DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2021.712416.].

See & Eat! Using E-books to Promote Vegetable Eating Among Preschoolers: Findings From an Italian Sample.

Different strategies have been developed to help parents with introducing new or disliked vegetables. Nonetheless, many parents of preschoolers struggle against children's refusal to eat vegetables. In this study, we aimed to evaluate the effectiveness of e-books in promoting positive attitudes toward vegetables through repeated visual exposures. A total of 61 families with preschoolers joined the See & Eat study and received an e-book about one of two vegetables chosen from a list of 24. Parents provided ratings of children's willingness to taste, intake, and liking of the chosen vegetables before and after reading the e-book; parents also evaluated their children's food fussiness and their agreement with respect to three mealtime goals of the family. Using a 2 (vegetable: target or non-target) × 2 (time: pre-test or post-test) within-subjects analysis, results from 53 families revealed a significant increase in children's willingness to taste, intake, and liking at post-test of both target and non-target vegetables. Following a two-week parent-child e-book reading intervention, children's food fussiness and parents' endorsement of positive mealtime goals slightly but significantly increased. Results suggest that e-books are effective in encouraging healthy eating among preschoolers and that the positive effect of e-book reading can generalize to other vegetables.

Skull osteology of Vipera walser (Squamata, Viperidae): Description, variability, ontogeny, and diagnostic characters in comparison to other Italian vipers.

Vipera walser is the most recently recognized European viper. This rare species is endemic to a small area in the Piedmont Alps of Italy, but its closest relatives are found among the Caucasian viper species. In order to provide a starting point for a phylogenetic and biogeographic investigation based on osteology, and including fossils remains, we analyzed four specimens of V. walser and compared them with specimens of the four other Italian viper species. Based on these specimens, we improved the diagnosis of V. walser and provided a first evaluation of intraspecific variability and ontogenetic variation. The skull of V. walser is subject to significant variation, most likely related to ontogeny in some cases (i.e., development of the parietal crest, development of the basioccipital process, shape of the posterior margin of the parabasisphenoid, shape of the quadrate). Based on the studied material, it is possible to distinguish V. walser from the other Italian vipers by the shape of the occipital crest of the supraoccipital, which is posteriorly directed, whereas it is laterally directed in the other species. The osteological diagnosibility provides further support for the validity of V. walser as a distinct species from Vipera berus.

Role of Compositum Zeolite® in management of inflammatory bowel disease: a pilot study.

BACKGROUND: Zeolites are crystalline mineral aluminosilicate compounds with microporous structures of tetrahedrons and huge porosity. In the gut, these silicates act as adsorbents, ion-exchangers, catalysts, detergents or antidiarrheic agents. In addition to its well-known antioxidant effect, a new potential advantage of Zeolite could be the microbiome modulation. In this scenery, we aimed to investigate the effect of this compound on inflammation among inflammatory bowel disease patients, assessing both clinical activity and inflammatory markers. METHODS: This was an open one branch pilot study involving 20 IBD patients, both affected with Crohn's disease and ulcerative colitis affering to San Giovanni Antica Sede Hospital, Città della Salute e della Scienza in Turin. Each patient was given Compositum Zeolite® 6 g/die for 56 days; follow-up time was 60 days from the end of Zeolite therapy. Primary outcomes of the study were to evaluate the improvement of the quality of life (Partial Mayo score or Harvey Bradshaw Index) and the compliance to therapy, while secondary outcome was the reduction of calprotectin value. RESULTS: Of the twenty patients enrolled, 4 did not attend the scheduled check-up visit and 2 reported non-adherence to the therapy with Compositum Zeolite® so these 6 patients were considered as drop out and their data were not included in statistical analysis. So, compliance rate was 70%, that is similar to general adherence to therapy in our setting. Regarding Ulcerative Colitis patients, at the moment of enrolment mean Mayo Partial Score (MPS) was 3.09 (CI: 1.76-4.41) while after 8 weeks of Compositum Zeolite® supplementation the mean MPS was 2.72 (CI: 1.45-4.00) (P=0.57) and after 60 days of follow-up mean MPS was 1.9 (CI: 0.85-2.97) (P=0.24). As Crohn's disease patients are concerned, HBI Score at enrolment was 5.3 (CI: 3.38-7.29) while mean score after 8 week of therapy was 4 (CI: 2.85-5.15) (P=0.042) and after 60 days of follow-up mean score was 3.1 (CI: 1.48-4.87) (P=0.18). Mean calprotectin value at enrolment was 925.64 (CI: 451.83-1399.45). while after 2 months of Compositum Zeolite® addon therapy was 952.72 (CI: 492.73-1412.73); P value 0.93. After 2 months of follow-up mean value was 724.45 (CI: 240.15-1208.73) P value 0.3. CONCLUSIONS: Compositum Zeolite® has a compliance rate similar to the other prescribed therapies and is a good addon therapy to improve activity indexes, mainly in Crohn's disease. It also seems to improve inflammatory indexes, even if maybe dose or time of therapy were insufficient to reach a full negativization of these parameters.

Natural zeolites chabazite/phillipsite/analcime increase blood levels of antioxidant enzymes.

Imbalance between reactive oxygen species generation and antioxidant capacity induces a condition known as oxidative stress which is implicated in numerous pathological processes. In this study we evaluated whether natural zeolites chabazite/phillipsite/analcime may affect the levels of different antioxidant enzymes (gluthatione peroxidase, superoxide dismutase, gluthatione reductase), total antioxidant status and oxidative stress in 25 clinically healthy men, both non-smokers and smokers. Measurements were performed on whole blood or on plasma samples before (T0) and after 4-weeks zeolites intake (T1). At T1, gluthatione peroxidase, superoxide dismutase and gluthatione reductase increased compared to T0 levels, both considering all subjects as joint and after subdivision in non-smokers and smokers. Differently, a reduction in total antioxidant status was observed at T1. Anyway, total antioxidant status resulted higher than the reference values in both groups at each time point. A decrease in lipid peroxidation, a major indicator of oxidative stress assessed by monitoring thiobarbituric acid reactive substances, was also observed in all subjects at T1. Our results suggested that chabazite/phillipsite/analcime may help to counteract oxidative stress in apparently healthy subjects exposed to different oxidative stress risk factors, such as smoking, thus representing a particular kind of food with potential antioxidant properties.