A Community-Level Initiative to Prevent Obesity: Results From Kaiser Permanente's Healthy Eating Active Living Zones Initiative in California.

INTRODUCTION: A growing number of health systems are leading health promotion efforts in their wider communities. What impact are these efforts having on health behaviors and ultimately health status? This paper presents evaluation results from the place-based Kaiser Permanente Healthy Eating Active Living Zones obesity prevention initiative, implemented in 2011-2015 in 12 low-income communities in Kaiser Permanente's Northern and Southern California Regions. METHODS: The Healthy Eating Active Living Zones design targeted places and people through policy, environmental, and programmatic strategies. Each Healthy Eating Active Living Zone is a small, low-income community of 10,000 to 20,000 residents with high obesity rates and other health disparities. Community coalitions planned and implemented strategies in each community. A population-dose approach and pre and post surveys were used to assess impact of policy, program, and environmental change strategies; the analysis was conducted in 2016. Population dose is the product of reach (number of people affected by a strategy divided by target population size) and strength (the effect size or relative change in behavior for each person exposed to the strategy). RESULTS: More than 230 community change strategies were implemented over 3 years, encompassing policy, environmental, and programmatic changes as well as efforts to build community capacity to sustain strategies and make changes in the future. Positive population-level results were seen for higher-dose strategies, particularly those targeting youth physical activity. Higher-dose strategies were more likely to be found in communities with the longest duration of investment. CONCLUSIONS: These results demonstrate that strong (high-dose), community-based obesity prevention strategies can lead to improved health behaviors, particularly among youth in school settings. SUPPLEMENT INFORMATION: This article is part of a supplement entitled Building Thriving Communities Through Comprehensive Community Health Initiatives, which is sponsored by Kaiser Permanente, Community Health.

Intracranial hemorrhage in patient treated with rivaroxaban.

Rivaroxaban is an oral factor Xa inhibitor used for stroke prevention in atrial fibrillation. There are currently no evidence-based guidelines for the treatment of hemorrhagic side effects of factor Xa inhibitors. We report a case of a thalamic hemorrhage in an 84 year-old right-handed female on rivaroxaban for treatment of atrial fibrillation. The patient had fallen down steps and became unresponsive. She was found to have diffuse scattered acute subarachnoid hemorrhage as well as intraventricular hemorrhage. Neurosurgical intervention was not required in this case, but controversy over decision making to pursue pro-coagulant therapy in the setting of worsening hemorrhage requiring emergent surgery is discussed.

Stereotypic Movements in Case of Sporadic Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease: Possible Role of Anti-NMDA Receptor Antibodies.

Sporadic Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (sCJD) and anti-NMDA receptor antibody encephalitis (NMDAE) can both produce a rapidly progressive dementia with resulting state of catatonia or akinetic mutism. Both are associated with movement disorders. In published case series, myoclonus appears to be the most frequent movement disorder in sCJD, while stereotypic, synchronized, one-cycle-per-second movements such as arm or leg elevation, jaw opening, grimacing, head turning, and eye deviation are seen in NMDAE. We report a case of a 59-year-old woman with rapidly worsening cognitive disturbance leading to a nearly catatonic state interrupted by stereotypic movements. sCJD was diagnosed via periodic sharp wave complexes on EEG as well as cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) 14-3-3 and tau protein elevation. Characteristic movement disorder of NMDAE was present in absence of ovarian mass or CSF pleiocytosis. Given prior case reports of presence of anti-NMDA receptor antibodies in sCJD, we propose that the movement disorder in this case was caused by anti-NMDA receptor antibodies whose formation was secondary to neuronal damage from prion disease. It is important to consider sCJD even in cases that have some clinical features suggestive of NMDAE.

Transplantation of cardiac progenitor cell sheet onto infarcted heart promotes cardiogenesis and improves function.

AIMS: Cell-based therapy for myocardial infarction (MI) holds great promise; however, the ideal cell type and delivery system have not been established. Obstacles in the field are the massive cell death after direct injection and the small percentage of surviving cells differentiating into cardiomyocytes. To overcome these challenges we designed a novel study to deliver cardiac progenitor cells as a cell sheet. METHODS AND RESULTS: Cell sheets composed of rat or human cardiac progenitor cells (cardiospheres), and cardiac stromal cells were transplanted onto the infarcted myocardium after coronary artery ligation in rats. Three weeks later, transplanted cells survived, proliferated, and differentiated into cardiomyocytes (14.6 +/- 4.7%). Cell sheet transplantation suppressed cardiac wall thinning and increased capillary density (194 +/- 20 vs. 97 +/- 24 per mm(2), P < 0.05) compared with the untreated MI. Cell migration from the sheet was observed along the necrotic trails within the infarcted area. The migrated cells were located in the vicinity of stromal-derived factor (SDF-1) released from the injured myocardium, and about 20% of these cells expressed CXCR4, suggesting that the SDF-1/CXCR4 axis plays, at least, a role in cell migration. Transplantation of cell sheets resulted in a preservation of cardiac contractile function after MI, as was shown by a greater ejection fraction and lower left ventricular end diastolic pressure compared with untreated MI. CONCLUSION: The scaffold-free cardiosphere-derived cell sheet approach seeks to efficiently deliver cells and increase cell survival. These transplanted cells effectively rescue myocardium function after infarction by promoting not only neovascularization but also inducing a significant level of cardiomyogenesis.