A thematic cluster analysis of parents' online discussions about fussy eating

Food fussiness is associated with non‐responsive parent feeding practices, such as persuasive and instrumental feeding. Although most children described as ‘fussy eaters’ are likely exhibiting developmentally typical behaviours, up to half of the parents of children 2–5 years old express concerns. Concern for fussy eating may mediate the use of non‐responsive feeding practices and so must be addressed in parent feeding interventions. Therefore, it is critical to better understand parents'' concerns and how they may relate to feeding practices. This study aimed to explore how parents'' feeding practices and the social cognitive factors that may drive them clustered based on parents'' concern for fussy eating. Data were collected from parent discussions of fussy eating on a Reddit forum (80,366 posts). Latent Dirichlet allocation was used to identify discussions of fussy eating. Relevant posts (1542) made by users who identified as a parent of a fussy eater (n = 630) underwent qualitative coding and thematic analysis. Five clusters of parents were identified, ranging in size from 53 to 189 users. These were primarily characterised by parents'' degree of concern and feeding practices: (1) High concern, nonresponsive; (2) Concerned, nonresponsive; (3) Low concern, responsive; (4) Low concern, mixed strategies; (5) Low concern, indulgent. Parents who used responsive practices tended to be less concerned for fussy eating, have greater trust in their child''s ability to self‐regulate hunger, have longer‐term feeding goals, and exhibit greater ability for personal self‐regulation. Future research should further examine how these constructs may be leveraged in parent feeding interventions.     

Innovations in osteomyelitis research: A review of animal models

Infection of bone tissue, or osteomyelitis, has become a growing concern in modern healthcare due in no small part to a rise in antibiotic resistance among bacteria, notably Staphylococcus aureus. The current standard of care involves aggressive, prolonged antibiotic therapy combined with surgical debridement of infected tissues. While this treatment may be sufficient for resolving a portion of cases, recurrences of the infection and associated risks including toxicity with long‐term antibiotic usage have been reported. Therefore, there exists a need to produce safer, more efficacious options of treatment for osteomyelitis. In order to test treatment regimens, animal models that closely mimic the clinical condition and allow for accurate evaluation of therapeutics are necessary. Establishing a model that replicates features of osteomyelitis in humans continues to be a challenge to scientists, as there are many variables involved, including choosing an appropriate species and method to establish infection. This review addresses the refinement of animal models of osteomyelitis to reflect the clinical disease and test prospective therapeutics. The aim of this review is to explore studies regarding the use of animals for osteomyelitis therapeutics research and encourage further development of such animal models for the translation of results from the animal experiment to human medicine.     

Mediators of longitudinal associations between television viewing and eating behaviours in adolescents

Background  

Television viewing has been associated with poor eating behaviours in adolescents. Changing unhealthy eating behaviours is most likely to be achieved by identifying and targeting factors shown to mediate the association between these behaviours. However, little is known about the mediators of the associations between television viewing and eating behaviours. The aim of this study was to examine mediators of the longitudinal associations between television viewing (TV) and eating behaviours among Australian adolescents.     

Adverse clinical phenotype in inflammatory bowel disease: A cross sectional study identifying factors potentially amenable to change

Background and Aim: A significant proportion with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) exhibit an adverse clinical phenotype reflected in endpoints like surgery and hospitalizations. We sought to identify clinico‐demographic factors associated with these adverse consequences that may be amenable to change. Methods: Over 6 months IBD patients visiting a metropolitan center were prospectively identified and given a comprehensive survey addressing patient knowledge, mental health and satisfaction with medical care along with other clinical data. Logistic regression analyses assessed for associations between clinico‐demographic variables and adverse clinical endpoints (previous surgery [ever] and/or recent inpatient admission over a 16 month observation period). Results: Of 256 IBD patients, 162 responded (response rate 63%); 95 (59%) had Crohn's disease (CD), 63 (40%) ulcerative colitis (UC), four indeterminate colitis; 53% were female. Factors associated with a greater likelihood of hospitalization included moderate/severe disease activity, psychological co‐morbidity, numbers of medications and outpatient visits (odds ratio [OR] 7.09 [2.83–17.76], 4.13 [1.25–13.61], 1.26 [1.03–1.54], 1.17 [1.00–1.37] respectively; all P < 0.05). Post‐surgical patients were more likely to have CD, more currently active disease and longer disease duration (OR 8.55 [2.43–29.4], 3.52 [1.26, 9.87], 1.14 [1.08, 1.21] respectively; all P < 0.02), yet were less likely to have previously seen a gastroenterologist, OR 0.25 [0.08–0.76] (P = 0.01). Conclusions: ‘At risk’ patients (those previously operated, with ongoing disease activity, dissatisfaction and/or psychological comorbidities) may benefit from early identification and more intensive management. Specialist gastroenterology care appears to be under‐utilized in operated patients yet may reduce future IBD morbidity.     

Mutation and Methylation Analysis of the Chromodomain-Helicase-DNA Binding 5 Gene in Ovarian Cancer

Chromodomain, helicase, DNA binding 5 (CHD5) is a member of a subclass of the chromatin remodeling Swi/Snf proteins and has recently been proposed as a tumor suppressor in a diverse range of human cancers. We analyzed all 41 coding exons of CHD5 for somatic mutations in 123 primary ovarian cancers as well as 60 primary breast cancers using high-resolution melt analysis. We also examined methylation of the CHD5 promoter in 48 ovarian cancer samples by methylation-specific single-stranded conformation polymorphism and bisulfite sequencing. In contrast to previous studies, no mutations were identified in the breast cancers, but somatic heterozygous missense mutations were identified in 3 of 123 ovarian cancers. We identified promoter methylation in 3 of 45 samples with normal CHD5 and in 2 of 3 samples with CHD5 mutation, suggesting these tumors may have biallelic inactivation of CHD5. Hemizygous copy number loss at CHD5 occurred in 6 of 85 samples as assessed by single nucleotide polymorphism array. Tumors with CHD5 mutation or methylation were more likely to have mutation of KRAS or BRAF (P = .04). The aggregate frequency of CHD5 haploinsufficiency or inactivation is 16.2% in ovarian cancer. Thus, CHD5 may play a role as a tumor suppressor gene in ovarian cancer; however, it is likely that there is another target of the frequent copy number neutral loss of heterozygosity observed at 1p36.     

A large-scale survey of eating disorder symptomatology among female adolescents in the People's Republic of China

OBJECTIVES: This study was designed to document comprehensively the prevalence of the signs, symptoms, and associated features of anorexia nervosa and bulimia nervosa among schoolgirls in the People's Republic of China. METHODS: Female participants were recruited from both junior and senior high schools with varying levels of academic performance in six cities (Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Zunyi, Xin Xiang, and Yinchuan) that are representative of different geographical regions in China (North East, Central East, South East, South West, North West, and North). In each school, girls were recruited across all grades, in order to cover ages 12-19 years. The final sample comprised 1,246 participants whose mean age was 15.76 years. The questionnaire, developed specifically for the purpose of this research, assessed the diagnostic criteria and associated features of anorexia nervosa and bulimia nervosa outlined in the 4th ed. of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION: Our results have shown a surprisingly high level of weight-related concerns among schoolgirls across mainland China. There would seem to be few cases of anorexia or bulimia, although some girls satisfy criteria for partial diagnoses. Our findings highlight the difficulty of identifying girls who are underweight, at least by applying the standard Western procedure for categorizing body mass index.     

Peloruside A,a novel antimitotic agent with paclitaxel-like microtubule- stabilizing activity

Peloruside A is a novel secondary metabolite isolated from a New Zealand marine sponge, Mycale hentscheli, that has potent paclitaxel-like microtubule-stabilizing activity and is cytotoxic at nanomolar concentrations. Its 16-membered macrolide ring is similar to that of epothilone, a drug currently under clinical investigation as an anticancer agent. Like paclitaxel, peloruside A arrests cells in the G(2)-M phase of the cell cycle and induces apoptosis. The relatively simple structure of peloruside makes it suitable for the design and synthesis of analogues with improved tumor targeting and reduced tumor cross-resistance.