Parous women perform less moderate to vigorous physical activity than their nulliparous peers: a population-based study in Denmark.

OBJECTIVES: The World Health Organization (WHO) highlights parous women as a key population for monitoring trends of physical activity (PA). We aimed to estimate the proportion of Danish women non-adhering to WHO PA guidelines in parous women compared with nulliparous women and to describe leisure-time PA intensity in each of these groups. STUDY DESIGN: Cross-sectional study. METHODS: This population-based study builds on a sample of 27,668 women aged 16-40 years from the Danish National Health Survey 2021. These data were linked with childbirth data from the Danish National Birth Registry. The primary outcome was self-reported weekly hours of moderate to vigorous leisure-time PA (MVPA) dichotomized into: (i) adhering to WHO guidelines for MVPA or (ii) not adhering to WHO guidelines for MVPA. Binomial regression analysis was used to calculate prevalence proportions (PP) and prevalence proportion ratios (PPR). RESULTS: Of the 27,668 women, a total of 20,022 were included; 9338 (46.6%) parous women and 10,684 (53.4%) nulliparous women. The PP of women non-adhering to WHO PA guidelines was 63.8% (95% CI 62.9-64.8) for parous and 51.3% (95% CI 50.4-52.3) for nulliparous women, corresponding to a PPR of 1.24 (95% CI 1.21; 1.27). CONCLUSIONS: The proportion of parous women who did not adhere to WHO PA guidelines for MVPA was 24% higher than that of nulliparous women. This highlights parous women as a subgroup of the adult population at increased risk of non-adherence to WHO PA guidelines. These findings call for future research to inform new strategies aiming to promote PA in parous women.

Intra-individual variability in day-to-day and month-to-month measurements of physical activity and sedentary behaviour at work and in leisure-time among Danish adults.

BACKGROUND: Accelerometers can obtain precise measurements of movements during the day. However, the individual activity pattern varies from day-to-day and there is limited evidence on measurement days needed to obtain sufficient reliability. The aim of this study was to examine variability in accelerometer derived data on sedentary behaviour and physical activity at work and in leisure-time during week days among Danish office employees. METHODS: We included control participants (n = 135) from the Take a Stand! Intervention; a cluster randomized controlled trial conducted in 19 offices. Sitting time and physical activity were measured using an ActiGraph GT3X+ fixed on the thigh and data were processed using Acti4 software. Variability was examined for sitting time, standing time, steps and time spent in moderate-to-vigorous physical activity (MVPA) per day by multilevel mixed linear regression modelling. RESULTS: Results of this study showed that the number of days needed to obtain a reliability of 80% when measuring sitting time was 4.7 days for work and 5.5 days for leisure time. For physical activity at work, 4.0 days and 4.2 days were required to measure steps and MVPA, respectively. During leisure time, more monitoring time was needed to reliably estimate physical activity (6.8 days for steps and 5.8 days for MVPA). CONCLUSIONS: The number of measurement days needed to reliably estimate activity patterns was greater for leisure time than for work time. The domain specific variability is of great importance to researchers and health promotion workers planning to use objective measures of sedentary behaviour and physical activity. TRIAL REGISTRATION: Clinical trials NCT01996176 .

Multiple linked quantitative trait loci within the Tmevd2/Eae3 interval control the severity of experimental allergic encephalomyelitis in DBA/2J mice.

Theiler's murine encephalomyelitis virus-induced demyelination (TMEVD) and experimental allergic encephalomyelitis (EAE) are the principal animal models of multiple sclerosis (MS). Previously, we provided evidence that Tmevd2 and Eae3 may represent either a shared susceptibility locus or members of a gene complex controlling susceptibility to central nervous system inflammatory demyelinating disease. To explore the genetic relationship between Tmevd2 and Eae3, we generated a D2.C-Tmevd2 interval-specific congenic (ISC) line and three overlapping interval-specific recombinant congenic (ISRC) lines in which the Tmevd2-resistant allele from BALB/cByJ was introgressed onto the TMEVD-susceptible DBA/2J background. These mice, all H2(d), were studied for susceptibility to EAE elicited by immunization with proteolipid protein peptide 180-199. Compared with DBA/2J mice, D2.C-Tmevd2 mice developed a significantly less severe clinical disease course and EAE pathology in the spinal cord, confirming the existence of Eae3 and its linkage to Tmevd2 in this strain combination. Compared with DBA/2J and D2.C-Tmevd2, all three ISRC lines exhibited clinical disease courses of intermediate severity. Neither differences in ex vivo antigen-specific cytokine nor proliferative responses uniquely cosegregated with differences in disease severity. These results indicate that multiple quantitative trait loci (QTLs) within the Tmevd2/Eae3 interval influence EAE severity, one of which includes a homology region for a QTL found in MS by admixture mapping.

Porcine ecto-nucleotide pyrophosphatase/phosphodiesterase 1 (NPP1/CD203a): cloning, transcription, expression, mapping, and identification of an NPP1/CD203a epitope for swine workshop cluster 9 (SWC9) monoclonal antibodies.

Swine workshop cluster 9 (SWC9) antibody identifying a porcine epitope on macrophages and thymocytes was used to precipitate and characterize the molecule from biotinylated macrophages and to obtain peptide sequence by mass spectrometry. The protein was identified as ecto-nucleotide pyrophosphatase/phosphodiesterase 1 (NPP1/CD203a). The porcine NPP1/CD203a encoding gene was mapped to chromosome 1 using a radiation hybrid panel, and transcription was investigated by RT-PCR analysis of several tissues. The cDNA was cloned and introduced into COS7 cells resulting in expression of functionally active enzyme and verification of the specificity of an SWC9 reacting monoclonal antibody. The antibody was used for immunohistochemical examination of various porcine tissues. Most prominent expression of NPP1/CD203a was found in lung macrophages and liver sinusoids.

Autoradiographic imaging and quantification of the high-affinity GHB binding sites in rodent brain using 3H-HOCPCA.

GHB (γ-hydroxybutyric acid) is a compound endogenous to mammalian brain with high structural resemblance to GABA. GHB possesses nanomolar-micromolar affinity for a unique population of binding sites, but the exact nature of these remains elusive. In this study we utilized the highly selective GHB analogue, 3-hydroxycyclopent-1-enecarboxylic acid (HOCPCA) as a tritiated version (3H-HOCPCA) to radioactively label the specific GHB high-affinity binding site and gain further insight into the density, distribution and developmental profile of this protein. We show that, in low nanomolar concentrations, 3H-HOCPCA displays excellent signal-to-noise ratios using rodent brain autoradiography, which makes it a valuable ligand for anatomical quantification of native GHB binding site levels. Our data confirmed that 3H-HOCPCA labels only the high-affinity specific GHB binding site, found in high density in cortical and hippocampal regions. The experiments revealed markedly stronger binding at pH 6.0 (Kd 73.8 nM) compared to pH 7.4 (Kd 2312 nM), as previously reported for other GHB radioligands but similar Bmax values. Using 3H-HOCPCA we analyzed the GHB binding protein profile during mouse brain development. Due to the high sensitivity of this radioligand, we were able to detect low levels of specific binding already at E15 in mouse brain, which increased progressively until adulthood. Collectively, we show that 3H-HOCPCA is a highly sensitive radioligand, offering advantages over the commonly used radioligand 3H-NCS-382, and thus a very suitable in vitro tool for qualitative and quantitative autoradiography of the GHB high-affinity site.

An evaluation of the impact of a continuing education course in diabetes.

This article represents the results of an evaluation of a continuing education program for dietitians. The evaluation was built into the program at its inception and involved an assessment of participant satisfaction, short-term knowledge gain and a follow-up assessment of self-reported behavior change. The results of this evaluation indicate that the course did, indeed, impact on both knowledge and behavior. In addition, however, the evaluation also uncovered some problems in planning which minimized the potential impact of this course. These results suggest that there should be increased attention to rigorous educational needs assessment and both process and impact program evaluations in order to determine approaches to education that could make more effective use of the resources available for continuing education in health care.