The effect of two different health messages on physical activity levels and health in sedentary overweight,middle-aged women

Background  

Most public health guidelines recommend that adults need to participate in 30 minutes of moderate intensity physical activity on most days of the week to maintain good health. Achieving the recommended 30 minutes of exercise a day can be difficult in middle aged, overweight women. This 12 week study evaluated whether a 10,000 steps per day message was more effective than a 30 minutes a day message in increasing physical activity in low active, overweight women.     

Trends in socioeconomic and nutritional status of children younger than 6 years in India

The main aims of this study are to find out the trends in the (a) prevalence of undernutrition and severe anemia and (b) degree of association of undernutrition and severe anemia in children younger than 6 years in India with some socioeconomic variables. Using the Reproductive and Child Health Survey data, z score of weight for age and hemoglobin status were analyzed to understand the state and agewise variation and their association with the sociodemographic variables through logistic regression. The prevalence of malnutrition according to both the criteria was first seen to increase, attain a maximum value at some age between 12 and 48 months, and then decrease. Statewise distribution showed a close link between the stage of development and the prevalence of malnutrition-prevalence rate being less for developed states. The rates were also less for the Northeastern states of India. The regression analysis clearly points out that children with illiterate mothers, of lower age groups, or from low standard of living households are more prone to become malnourished. The economic growth alone is not sufficient for substantially reducing malnutrition. It is necessary to improve the rate of literacy, especially of women, to reduce the prevalence of malnutrition and anemia among children. It is not only economic development but also overall human development that is needed in India.     

No more paper tiger: Promise and peril as HIPAA goes HITECH

The HITECH Act, passed in 2009 by the federal government, deepens the concerns for patient privacy faced by healthcare organizations subject to HIPAA. This article examines the law and demonstrates that healthcare entities are facing greater duties to safeguard patients' protected health information, as well as severe civil and criminal penalties should they fail to do so. In recognition of this heightened liability, healthcare entities must reassess their methods for handling patient data and take action in key areas to ensure that risk is contained.     

Amphipols stabilize the Chlamydia major outer membrane protein and enhance its protective ability as a vaccine

The native major outer membrane protein (nMOMP) from Chlamydia was purified in its trimeric form using the zwitterionic detergent Z3-14. In aliquots from this preparation, Z3-14 was exchanged for amphipol (APol) A8-35. CD analysis showed that trapping with A8-35 improved the thermostability of nMOMP without affecting its secondary structure. Recombinant MOMP (rMOMP) was also formulated with Z3-14 or A8-35. Four groups of mice were vaccinated with nMOMP/Z3-14, nMOMP/A8-35, rMOMP/Z3-14 or rMOMP/A8-35 using CpG and Montanide as adjuvants. A positive control group was inoculated intranasally with live Chlamydia and a negative control group with culture medium. Mice were challenged intranasally with live Chlamydia and protection was assessed based on changes in body weight, the weight of the lungs and the number of chlamydial inclusion forming units recovered from the lungs 10 days after the challenge. Overall, vaccines formulated with nMOMP elicited better protection than those using rMOMP. Furthermore, the protection afforded by nMOMP/A8-35 was more robust than that achieved with nMOMP/Z3-14. In contrast, no differences in protection were observed between rMOMP/Z3-14 and rMOMP/A8-35 preparations. These findings suggest that the higher protection conferred by nMOMP/A8-35 complexes most likely results from a better preservation of the native structure of MOMP and/or from a more efficient presentation of the antigen to the immune system, rather than from an adjuvant effect of the amphipol. Thus, amphipols can be used in vaccine formulations to stabilize a membrane-protein component and enhance its immunogenicity.