Background: Regulating gestational weight gain (GWG) in pregnant women with overweight or obesity is difficult, particularly because of the narrow range of recommended GWG for optimal health outcomes. Given that many pregnant women show excessive GWG and considering the lack of a "gold standard" intervention to manage GWG, there is a timely need for effective and efficient approaches to regulate GWG. We have enhanced the Healthy Mom Zone (HMZ) 2.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAdvancing age is associated with vascular dysfunction and hypertension, both of which increase cardiovascular event risk. Heat therapy has emerged as a novel intervention to improve cardiovascular health in various populations. Therefore, we tested the hypothesis that home-based lower body heat therapy would reduce blood pressure and improve endothelium-dependent vasodilation in older adults.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFLower executive functioning is associated with more reactive, coercive general parenting practices. Parents who experience poverty, a chronic stressor, may have compromised executive functioning that impacts parenting practices, but less is known about the impact on parent feeding practices. This study examined associations between maternal executive functioning and feeding practices among families living in low-income contexts.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Despite pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) demonstrated effectiveness, black cisgender women continue to be at an elevated risk for HIV acquisition and uptake of daily oral PrEP is low in this population in the USA. As advancements in PrEP delivery options continue, it is important to understand women's acceptability of these additional options, specifically black cisgender women, in order to inform uptake and adherence among this population at increased need of HIV prevention options.
Setting: A cross-sectional survey among black cisgender women ages 13-45 (inclusive) attending women's health clinics in Chicago, Illinois, USA, prior to the approval of cabotegravir long-acting injectable.
Purpose: Compression neuropathy is a common problem that results in impaired axonal conduction, and with time, numbness, tingling and weakness from muscle atrophy. Supercharge reverse end-to-side (SETS) nerve transfers have emerged as a novel approach to augment function in chronic nerve compression syndromes with minimal donor site morbidity. This review answers the question, "What are the indications, surgical techniques, and nuances of SETS nerve transfers for ulnar, axillary, radial, and femoral compression neuropathies?".
View Article and Find Full Text PDFCachexia is a systemic wasting syndrome prevalent in patients with cancer that significantly affects quality of life, health care costs, and therapeutic outcomes. Despite its clinical importance, cachexia is rarely formally diagnosed. This deficiency presents a challenge for effective patient management and care, health care resource allocation, and the advancement of therapeutic approaches.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Surgical innovation has provided new options for the management of complex peripheral nerve injuries, generating renewed interest in this field. Historic literature may be misinterpreted or misquoted, or create dogma, which is perpetuated in teaching, research publications, and clinical practice. The management of peripheral nerve injuries is based on complex decision-making, with potential lifelong ramifications for patients incorrectly receiving an expectant or surgical management plan.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Intimate partner violence (IPV) is a global public health crisis. Often repetitive and occurring over prolonged periods of time, IPV puts survivors at high risk of brain injury (BI). Mental health concerns are highly prevalent both among individuals who have experienced IPV and those who have experienced BI, yet the interrelatedness and complexity of these three challenges when experienced together is poorly understood.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThis article reviews inflammatory versus anti-inflammatory foods, autoimmune and inflammatory disorders, the benefits of specific anti-inflammatory diets, and strategies for nurses to partner with individuals, while considering culture and food preferences, to promote healthy eating habits and prevent diseases.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Intimate partner violence (IPV) is a global public health crisis, with physical violence leaving IPV survivors at high risk of brain injury (BI). Both BI and IPV have significant physical, psychological, cognitive, and social impacts, including a high risk of mental health concerns, yet there is limited exploration of IPV survivors' experiences with BI and mental health. This study aimed to explore the BI- and mental health-related needs and experiences of IPV survivors from the perspectives of survivors and service providers with the objective of developing knowledge translation materials to raise awareness and support survivors and service providers in addressing these concerns.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Pregnancies conceived within 18 months of a prior delivery (termed short inter-pregnancy interval [IPI]) place mothers and infants at high risk for poor health outcomes. Despite this, nearly one third of U.S.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFElectrical stimulation is emerging as a perioperative strategy to improve peripheral nerve regeneration and enhance functional recovery. Despite decades of research, new insights into the complex multifaceted mechanisms of electrical stimulation continue to emerge, providing greater understanding of the neurophysiology of nerve regeneration. In this study, we summarize what is known about how electrical stimulation modulates the molecular cascades and cellular responses innate to nerve injury and repair, and the consequential effects on axonal growth and plasticity.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFMature red blood cells (RBCs) lack mitochondria and thus exclusively rely on glycolysis to generate adenosine triphosphate (ATP) during aging in vivo or storage in blood banks. Here, we leveraged 13,029 volunteers from the Recipient Epidemiology and Donor Evaluation Study to identify associations between end-of-storage levels of glycolytic metabolites and donor age, sex, and ancestry-specific genetic polymorphisms in regions encoding phosphofructokinase 1, platelet (detected in mature RBCs); hexokinase 1 (HK1); and ADP-ribosyl cyclase 1 and 2 (CD38/BST1). Gene-metabolite associations were validated in fresh and stored RBCs from 525 Diversity Outbred mice and via multi-omics characterization of 1,929 samples from 643 human RBC units during storage.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Claw deformity is a devastating consequence of low ulnar nerve palsy, resulting in loss of finger function. Traditionally, the Brand transfer is a favored intervention but requires lengthy grafts and bulky tenorrhaphies, risking adhesions in the lumbrical canal. We present a modified Brand tendon transfer, which extends the extensor carpi radialis brevis (ECRB) into 4 tails for individual grafting into the lateral band, decreasing adhesion risk and graft length need.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: The question of what brings someone to homelessness and keeps them there has many varied and complex answers. The authors believe the answers lie within the persons experiencing homelessness (PEH).
Methods: This is an interpretive approach study based on convenience sampling of the San Antonio, TX, unsheltered population, utilizing semi-structured interviews from January 2022 through November 2022.
Rapid weight gain during infancy and obesity during early childhood may lead to adverse health outcomes during later childhood and into adulthood, especially in families experiencing economic hardship. Families experiencing economic hardship may also experience food insecurity, which can impact child development and responsive feeding, an important target for obesity prevention in early life. The Family Stress Model suggests that stress, particularly economic hardship, can negatively impact parents' mental health, parenting, and quality of family relationships.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFContext: Insurance coverage for abortion in states where care remains legal can alleviate financial burdens for patients and increase access. Recent policy changes in Illinois required Medicaid and some private insurance plans to cover abortion care. This study explores policy implementation from the perspectives of patients using their insurance to obtain early abortion care.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPlast Reconstr Surg Glob Open
April 2024
Peripheral nerve injuries (PNIs) are common and devastating. The current standard of care relies on the slow and inefficient process of nerve regeneration after surgical intervention. Electrical stimulation (ES) has been shown to both experimentally and clinically result in improved regeneration and functional recovery after PNI for motor and sensory neurons; however, its effects on sympathetic regeneration have never been studied.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Precision oncology, using comprehensive biomarker testing (cBT) to inform individual cancer diagnosis, prognosis and treatment, includes increasingly complex technology and clinical data sets. People impacted by cancer (patients and caregivers) and healthcare professionals (HCPs) face distinct challenges in navigating the cBT and personalized treatment landscape. This review summarizes evidence regarding cBT-related communication between people impacted by cancer and HCPs and identifies important avenues for future research in precision oncology.
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