Menu design and selection for multicenter controlled feeding studies: process used in the Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension trial. DASH Collaborative Research Group.

Outpatient feeding studies are being used increasingly more often than inpatient studies because they are less expensive to conduct and less disruptive to participants' daily lives. Frequently, however, they are more difficult to implement. Studies involving multiple feeding centers add an additional layer of cooperation, coordination, and standardization to the already complex task of developing and delivering research diets. This was true for the 4-year Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension (DASH) trial, one of the first multicenter outpatient controlled feeding studies. This 4-center, randomized clinical trial was designed to compare the effects of 3 dietary patterns on blood pressure. After a year of development, 3 sets of 7-day cycle menus that met the study nutrient criteria and that were appropriate for varying food production routines and staffing patterns at the 4 clinical centers were adopted. The major development tasks were: defining methodologies to guide menu design and food production; selecting a nutrient database and calculating nutrient content of menus; evaluating and selecting the menus; and adjusting the menus for final use. The purpose of this article is to describe the steps and considerations in the design and selection of menus for the DASH trial, a process applicable to all well-controlled feeding studies.

The differential effects of alcohol consumption and dependence on adverse alcohol-related consequences: implications for the workforce.

Previous literature has supported the hypothesis that high rates of alcohol consumption are associated with adverse social consequences and that dependence on alcohol has an effect on that relationship. The purpose of this paper is to further specify the alcohol consumption-adverse consequences linkage by developing and estimating a latent variable model that incorporates the mediating effects of loss of control over alcohol consumption. This model is applied to measures for three alcohol-related constructs--consumption, loss of control and adverse consequences--incorporated in the 1991 National Household Survey on Drug Abuse, for members of the primary workforce in the US. The research suggests that workplace decision makers attempting to minimize the adverse workplace consequences of alcohol abuse should implement procedures that assess and respond to alcohol dependency rather than relying exclusively on detection of and intervention with alcohol consumption per se.

Factors that influence the use and perceptions of employee assistance programs at six worksites.

Employee assistance programs (EAPs) have gained significant importance in contemporary worksites. This article uses data from 6 case studies to examine several research questions regarding the relationship between worker demographic (e.g., gender, job tenure, and marital status), substance use, and workplace policies and the actual and potential use of the company EAP. Unlike in most of the existing literature, the authors did not find that gender, marital status, or job dissatisfaction are statistically related to actual or potential EAP use at most worksites. However, job tenure and some substance use behaviors were related to actual EAP use in a positive and statistically significant way. Another important finding, underlying the credible integration of EAPs into worksite culture, is the positive and robust relationship between employee trust and confidence in the EAP and actual use. The results of our study both reinforce some long-established principles in the EAP field and encourage further consideration of other beliefs.

What are people really eating? The relation between energy intake derived from estimated diet records and intake determined to maintain body weight.

Two hundred sixty-six free-living human volunteers, 21-64 y old, were trained by dietitians to record daily their food intake for at least 7 d. Subsequently, they were fed diets of conventional foods adjusted in amounts to maintain their body weight for greater than or equal to 45 d. Comparing their estimated energy intake with the intake determined to maintain weight yielded mean differences of 2365 and 1792 kJ (565 and 428 kcal) in men and women, respectively, representing an underreporting of 18%. Twenty-two individuals (8%) overestimated and 29 (11%) were accurate to within 419 kJ (100 kcal) of their maintenance requirement. The remaining 215 individuals (81%) reported their habitual intake at 2930 +/- 1586 kJ (700 +/- 379 kcal) below that subsequently determined as their maintenance requirement. These findings suggest caution in the interpretation of food-consumption data.

HPLC assay for 2-(3-aminopropylamino)ethanethiol (WR-1065) in plasma.

A high pressure liquid chromatography (HPLC) plasma assay for WR-1065 is described which is both precise (coefficient of variation less than 5%) and accurate (% average deviation less than or equal to 6.1) throughout the concentration range from 1 to 500 micrograms/mL of plasma. The analyte is separated by HPLC and detected with a thiol specific electrochemical transducer cell. The detector response is linear over the ranges 1 to 10 micrograms/mL (R2 = 0.995), 10 to 100 micrograms/mL (R2 = 0.995), and 100 to 500 micrograms/mL (R2 = 0.974). The absolute retention times for WR-1065 and WR-1729 are 9 and 12 minutes, respectively. The assay uses 100 microL of plasma and requires a total chromatography cycle time of 40 minutes. The method has been found suitable for the determination of WR-1065 in plasma from a beagle dog after i.v. administration of S-2-(3-aminopropylamino)ethyl phosphorothioate (WR-2721).