Women's attitudes towards a pre-conception healthy lifestyle programme.

Nearly half of US women begin pregnancy overweight or obese and more than half of overweight or obese pregnant women experience excessive gestational weight gain. Recent lifestyle intervention programmes have helped women avoid excessive weight gain during pregnancy, but helping women lose weight before pregnancy may be a more effective way to improve pregnancy outcomes. This study assessed women's attitudes towards pre-conception diet and weight management interventions. An anonymous survey was conducted in patients waiting in a health maintenance organization's obstetrics and primary care waiting rooms. It focused on attitudes towards participating in a pre-conception, lifestyle change programme. Eighty percent of the 126 women surveyed were pregnant or considering pregnancy within 5 years. Of the 126 respondents, 60 (48%) were overweight or obese. Of these, 96% rated healthy diet and healthy weight before pregnancy as very important or important and 77% favoured a healthy lifestyle programme (diet, weight management and physical activity) before becoming pregnant. Likewise, overweight or obese women reported being likely or highly likely to participate in specific intervention programme aspects such as keeping phone appointments (77%), using a programme website (70%) and keeping food and exercise records (63%). Survey results show that women in this population believe that adopting a healthy lifestyle and losing weight are important before pregnancy and that they are enthusiastic about programmes that will help them achieve those goals in preparation for pregnancy.

Influence of menopause on mood: a systematic review of cohort studies.

OBJECTIVE: This systematic evidence review evaluates the independent influence of the menopausal transition on mood including depression, anxiety, and other psychological symptoms. METHODS: Community-based, prospective cohort studies of mid-life women transitioning through menopause that assessed at least one mood symptom on two or more occasions were identified by searches of MEDLINE (1966-2007) and PsycINFO (1974-2007) databases. Articles were selected based on predetermined inclusion and exclusion criteria. Each study was quality-rated by three authors; poor quality studies were excluded. RESULTS: Nine studies met inclusion criteria. They varied broadly in design, outcome measures, statistical methodology, and in consideration of and adjustment for important confounders. Five found no association between the menopausal transition and depression, negative mood, major depressive disorder, other psychological symptoms, and general mental health. Three found that women entering or completing the menopausal transition were more likely than premenopausal women to be depressed. One found that well-being increased from the early to late menopausal transition. CONCLUSION: There is no demonstrated pattern of an adverse independent influence of the menopausal transition on mood symptoms in mid-life women. However, the available studies are too methodologically diverse to be definitive.

P300 in young and elderly subjects: auditory frequency and intensity effects.

Auditory event-related potentials (ERPs) were assessed in young and elderly subjects when stimulus intensity (40 vs. 60 dB SL) and standard/target tone frequency (250/500 Hz and 1000/2000 Hz) were manipulated to study the effects of these variables on the P3(00) and N1, P2 and N2 components. Auditory thresholds for each stimulus type were obtained, and the stimulus intensity was adjusted to effect perceptually equal intensities across conditions for each subject. Younger subjects demonstrated larger P3 amplitudes and shorter latencies than elderly subjects. The low frequency stimuli produced larger P3 amplitude and shorter latencies than the high frequency stimuli. Low intensity stimuli yielded somewhat smaller P3 amplitudes and longer peak latencies than high intensity stimulus tones. Although additional stimulus intensity and frequency effects were obtained for the N1, P2 and N2 components, these generally differed relatively little with subject age. The findings suggest that auditory stimulus parameters contribute to P3 measures, which are different for young compared to elderly subjects.