Change in Nutrient Intakes, Number of Servings, and Contributions of Total Fat from Food Groups in 4- to 10-Year-Old Children Enrolled in a Nutrition Education Study

Objective To determine change in nutrient intakes, number of servings, and contributions of total fat from food groups in children who lowered their dietary fat intake.Design A research and demonstration study designed to lower plasma low-density lipoprotein cholesterol level. There were four study groups: two intervention and two control groups. All children had hypercholesterolemia except for those in one control group. Three 24-hour dietary recalls were collected on randomly assigned days over a 2-week period at baseline and 3 months after the intervention.Subjects Three hundred three 4- to 10-year old children from suburbs north of Philadelphia, Pa.Interventions One intervention involved a home-based, parent-child autotutorial program (PCAT group) with audiotaped stories and print materials for the children and their families; the other intervention involved one face-to-face counseling session with a registered dietitian (counseling group).Outcome measures Change in mean nutrient intakes compared with the Recommended Dietary Allowance (RDA); change in number of servings and mean grams of total fat contributed from 10 different food groups.Statistical analyses performed Analyses of variance and χ² analyses.Results Children in every study group had mean intakes of all nutrients (except vitamin D) greater than 67% of the RDA 3 months after the baseline measurement. Several food groups (ie, meats, dairy products, fats/oils, and desserts) provided less total fat to the diets of children who reduced their dietary lipid intake after 3 months (ie, PCAT and counseling groups). These children also reduced the mean number of servings selected from these food groups. Within these same food groups, some children consumed fewer servings of higher fat foods and more servings of lower fat foods.Applications/conclusions Children who lowered their dietary fat intake after intervention reported both quantitative and qualitative changes in food choices from several food groups. These choices did not significantly reduce their nutrient intakes. J Am Diet Assoc. 1996; 96:865-873.     

Clinical Profile of Apparently Healthy Neonates With In Utero Drug Exposure

OBJECTIVE: To identify the characteristics of neonates exposed to drugs in utero but admitted to the normal newborn nursery because of apparent good health. DESIGN: Retrospective evaluation with chart review of toxicology screening tests sent from a normal newborn nursery. SETTING: Newborn service in an urban hospital. PARTICIPANTS: Fifty newborns with positive drug screening results. MAIN OUTCOMES: Frequency of positive results and assessment of demographic features and neonates' clinical features. RESULTS: 43 (86%) of the apparently healthy newborns tested positive for cocaine. The results of simultaneous or proximate drug testing of mothers and their newborns were discordant in 11 (22%) cases. CONCLUSIONS: Neonates with in utero drug exposure often are born with few or no signs of abnormality and are admitted to the normal newborn nursery.     

Breast-feeding, gastrointestinal and lower respiratory illness in the first two years

ABSTRACT. The relationships between breast-feeding practices and the rates of gastro-intestinal and lower respiratory illness during the first two years of life were examined for a birth cohort of New Zealand infants. During the first four months, there were significant tendencies for rates of gastro-intestinal illness to decrease with increasing duration of breast feeding. These trends remained significant when the effects of a number of social and familial factors were taken into account. There was no association between duration of breast-feeding and rates of gastro-intestinal illness beyond four months. Prolonged breast-feeding was associated with significantly lower rates of lower respiratory illness during both the first and second years. However, when the effects of social and familial factors were taken into account the apparent associations between duration of breast-feeding and rates of lower respiratory illness became non-significant. The implications of these findings are discussed.     

A mathematical model of insulin secretion

Diabetes mellitus is a chronic state of excessive blood glucoselevels (hyperglycaemia), which may result from many environmentaland genetic factors, often acting jointly. The major regulatorof glucose concentration in the blood is insulin. It is knownthat about 50% of the insulin is taken up by the liver on passingthrough it after secretion from the pancreas. The precise valueof this fractional uptake is not known, so the prehepatic insulinsecretion rates cannot be readily estimated from the plasmainsulin concentration levels. By utilizing the equimolar secretionof insulin and connecting peptide (C-peptide) from the pancreas,a noninvasive method has been formulated. This was based ona compartmental model which involved the pancreas, liver, andplasma. The resulting differential equation yielded a gammavariate solution which could be readily linearized. The modelwas then tested on 56 normal (51 nonobese and 5 obese) subjects,and three groups of subjects with diabetes who could be labelledas mild, moderate, and severe (based on the fasting plasma glucoseconcentration) with 83, 88, and 64 subjects respectively. Wehave focused on the human patient environment of the clinicianto produce a distinct model which gave a consistent patternwithin all four groups with good fits between observed and theoreticalvalues of the plasma insulin levels. The consequent rates forinsulin secretion were consistent across the groups and wereclinically meaningful.