Diabetes prevention program in a Mediterranean environment: individual or group therapy? An effectiveness evaluation.

Introduction: Diabetes as a multifactorial disorder requires prevention measures based upon the modification of several risk factors simultaneously; otherwise, there is insufficient potential for prevention. Following the success of the American Diabetes Prevention Program (DPP), we implemented an intervention program in a large Israeli healthcare organization with an emphasize on Mediterranean Diet (MedDiet) and physical activity. The objective was to evaluate the effectiveness of two types of intervention, individual and group therapies, in reducing risk factors and in preventing or delaying the development of type 2 diabetes.

Dietary evaluation and attenuation of relative risk: multiple comparisons between blood and urinary biomarkers, food frequency, and 24-hour recall questionnaires: the DEARR study.

Estimates of diet-disease relative risks (RRs) suffer from inaccuracies introduced by dietary measurement errors. Using the "method of triads," by which the validity coefficient (VC) of the dietary assessment method and "true" long-term intake could be estimated from 3 pairwise correlations between the FFQ, the reference method, and the biomarker, the authors evaluated the performance of a newly developed FFQ. Over a period of 13 mo (September 2000 to September 2001), 161 participants completed 3 FFQs and six 24-h recalls (24HRs), and supplied 2 blood samples and three 24-h urine collections.

Adaptation of international nutrition databases and data-entry system tools to a specific population.

Objective: To develop a nutritional dietary intake database based on available reliable international nutritional databases adapted to the local needs of a specific population.

Design: The Negev Nutritional Study (NNS) is a survey of a random sample of the Negev population regarding their dietary intake using 24-hour dietary recalls. A nutritional database for the Israeli population was developed based on adaptation and modification of the US Department of Agriculture's database.

Stimulation of fructose 1,6-bisphosphate production in melanoma cells by alpha-melanocyte-stimulating hormone-- 31P/13C-NMR and 32P-labeling studies.

In a 31P-NMR spectroscopic study of cultured M2R mouse melanoma cells, we previously demonstrated the acute stimulation of three peaks in the phosphomonoester region of the spectrum by [Ahx4, DPhe7]alpha-melanotropin (concomitant with an increase in cellular adenosine 3',5'-phosphate (cAMP) and a decrease in ATP [Degani, H., DeJordy, J. O.

Simultaneous extraction of cellular lipids and water-soluble metabolites: evaluation by NMR spectroscopy.

A method for simultaneous extraction of lipids and water-soluble metabolites from a single cell sample was developed and optimized for NMR spectroscopy. Intermediary metabolites in cultured M2R mouse melanoma cells and changes therein in response to challenge with melanotropin were studied by 31P and 13C NMR. Cells were extracted with methanol, chloroform, and water (1:1:1, v/v/v).