Regression calibration in nutritional epidemiology: example of fat density and total energy in relationship to postmenopausal breast cancer.

Regression calibration using biomarkers provides an attractive approach to strengthening nutritional epidemiology. We consider this approach to assessing the relationship of fat and total energy consumption with postmenopausal breast cancer. In analyses that included fat density data, biomarker-calibrated total energy was positively associated with postmenopausal breast cancer incidence in cohorts of the US Women's Health Initiative from 1994-2010.

Reduction of venous thromboembolism (VTE) in hospitalized patients: aligning continuing education with interprofessional team-based quality improvement in an academic medical center.

Problem: Despite clear prophylactic guidelines and national quality emphasis, a minority of hospitalized patients receive appropriate prophylaxis for venous thromboembolism (VTE). Data from the University of Kansas Hospital (KUH) revealed an unacceptably high incidence of VTE.

Approach: The authors aligned continuing education with quality improvement through formation of an interprofessional, multidisciplinary team to develop strategic educational and system operational plans to decrease VTE incidence.

The role of dietary proteins among persons with diabetes.

Examining the role of dietary protein and establishing intake guidelines among individuals with diabetes is complex. The 2013 American Diabetes Association (ADA) standards of care recommend an individualized approach to decision making with regard to protein intake and dietary macronutrient composition. Needs may vary based on cardiometabolic risk factors and renal function.

Occupational therapy admissions: professionalization and personality.

Purpose: Specific characteristics of occupational therapy students were examined before and after matriculating through a master's of occupational therapy educational program to see if any characteristics changed during the didactic portion of the program and to see how specific characteristics could be determined using noncognitive variables in occupational therapy education admissions.

Methods: This study used a quantitative pre- and post-test design, incorporating volunteer students to take the CPI 260® personality test. All participants signed consent forms prior to the first administration of the CPI 260®.

Baylisascaris procyonis infection in white-footed mice: predicting patterns of infection from landscape habitat attributes.

There is a growing body of evidence that habitat fragmentation resulting from anthropogenic land use can alter the transmission dynamics of infectious disease. Baylisascaris procyonis , a parasitic roundworm with the ability to cause fatal central nervous system disease in many mammals, including humans, is a zoonotic threat, and research suggests that parasite recruitment rates by intermediate hosts are highly variable among forest patches in fragmented landscapes. During 2008, we sampled 353 white-footed mice ( Peromyscus leucopus ) from 22 forest patches distributed throughout a fragmented agricultural ecosystem to determine the influence of landscape-level habitat attributes on infection rates of B.

Effects of culling on mesopredator population dynamics.

Anthropogenic changes in land use and the extirpation of apex predators have facilitated explosive growth of mesopredator populations. Consequently, many species have been subjected to extensive control throughout portions of their range due to their integral role as generalist predators and reservoirs of zoonotic disease. Yet, few studies have monitored the effects of landscape composition or configuration on the demographic or behavioral response of mesopredators to population manipulation.

Changes in physical activity and body composition in postmenopausal women over time.

Purpose: Higher physical activity (PA) has been associated with greater attenuation of body fat gain and preservation of lean mass across the lifespan. These analyses aimed to determine relationships of change in PA to changes in fat and lean body mass in a longitudinal prospective study of postmenopausal women.

Methods: Among 11,491 women enrolled at three Women's Health Initiative clinical centers who were selected to undergo dual-energy x-ray absorptiometry, 8352 had baseline body composition measurements, with at least one repeated measure at years 1, 3, and 6.

Comparison of pollution levels on the Mississippi Gulf Coast during the 2010 Gulf BP oil spill to ecological and health-based standards.

To evaluate the possible impact that the BP Deepwater Horizon Gulf oil spill might have had on pollution levels in the State of Mississippi, the Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality (MDEQ), and the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) analyzed surface water and ambient air quality pollutant data taken from MDEQ and EPA monitoring sites on the Mississippi Gulf Coast. The data were compared with acute, chronic, and human health air and water quality standards to determine whether the pollutant levels occurring during the oil spill could cause ecological and/or human health effects. The water quality data indicated levels of nickel, vanadium, volatile organic compounds (VOCs), and semivolatile organic compounds analyzed remained below acute and chronic levels for both aquatic life and human health.

Insulin-like growth factor axis and risk of type 2 diabetes in women.

IGF-I shares structural homology and in vitro metabolic activity with insulin. Laboratory models suggest that IGF-I and its binding proteins IGFBP-1 and IGFBP-2 have potentially beneficial effects on diabetes risk, whereas IGFBP-3 may have adverse effects. We therefore conducted a prospective nested case-control investigation of incident diabetes (n = 742 case subjects matched 1:1 to control subjects) and its associations with IGF-axis protein levels in the Nurses' Health Study, a cohort of middle-aged women.

Toward a positive aging phenotype for older women: observations from the women's health initiative.

Background: To develop a positive aging phenotype, we undertook analyses to describe multiple dimensions of positive aging and their relationships to one another in women 65 years of age and older and evaluate the performance of individual indicators and composite factors of this phenotype as predictors of time to death, years of healthy living, and years of independent living.

Methods: Data from Women's Health Initiative clinical trial and observational study participants ages 65 years and older at baseline, including follow-up observations up to 8 years later, were analyzed using descriptive statistics and principal components analysis to identify the factor structure of a positive aging phenotype. The factors were used to predict time to death, years of healthy living (without hospitalization or diagnosis of a serious health condition), and years of independent living (without nursing home admission or use of special services).

Osteoarthritis and rheumatoid arthritis: conservative therapeutic management.

Hand therapists need to understand the basic science behind the therapy they carry out and the current evidence to make the best treatment decisions. The purpose of this article was to review current conservative therapeutic management of patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) or osteoarthritis (OA) of the hand. Treatment interventions such as orthotics, exercise, joint protection, modalities, and adaptive equipment are discussed from a basic science and evidence-based practice perspective.

Alcohol consumption and the risk of breast cancer.

Epidemiologic studies addressing the association of alcohol consumption with breast cancer consistently suggest a modest association and a dose-response relationship. The epidemiologic evidence does not point to a single mechanism to explain the association, and several mechanisms have been proposed. Alcohol consumption is shown to increase levels of endogenous estrogens, known risk factors for breast cancer.

Pre-diagnosis body mass index and survival after breast cancer in the After Breast Cancer Pooling Project.

Obese and underweight women who develop breast cancer may have poorer survival compared with normal-weight women. However, the optimal weight for best prognosis is still under study. We conducted a prospective investigation of pre-diagnosis body mass index (BMI) and mortality among 14,948 breast cancer patients in the After Breast Cancer Pooling Project.

Information chaos in primary care: implications for physician performance and patient safety.

Purpose: The purpose of this article is to explore the concept of information chaos as it applies to the issues of patient safety and physician workload in primary care and to propose a research agenda.

Methods: We use a human factors engineering perspective to discuss the concept of information chaos in primary care and explore implications for its impact on physician performance and patient safety.

Results: Information chaos is comprised of various combinations of information overload, information underload, information scatter, information conflict, and erroneous information.

Biomarker-calibrated dietary energy and protein intake associations with diabetes risk among postmenopausal women from the Women's Health Initiative.

Background: Self-report of dietary energy and protein intakes has been shown to be systematically and differentially underreported.

Objective: We assessed and compared the association of diabetes among postmenopausal women with biomarker-calibrated and uncalibrated dietary energy and protein intakes from food-frequency questionnaires (FFQs).

Design: The analyses were performed for 74,155 participants of various race-ethnicities from the Women's Health Initiative.

Meeting the physical activity guidelines and survival after breast cancer: findings from the after breast cancer pooling project.

The 2008 Physical Activity (PA) Guidelines recommend engaging in at least 2.5 h (10 MET-hours/week) of moderate intensity PA per week (defined as 4 METs) to reduce risk of morbidity and mortality. This analysis was conducted to investigate whether this recommendation can be extended to breast cancer survivors.

Development of a primary care physician task list to evaluate clinic visit workflow.

Background: Interventions designed to improve the delivery of primary care, including Patient-Centered Medical Homes and electronic health records, require an understanding of clinical workflow to be successfully implemented. However, there is a lack of tools to describe and study primary care physician workflow. We developed a comprehensive list of primary care physician tasks that occur during a face-to-face patient visit.

The Effects of Feeding on Hematological and Plasma Biochemical Profiles in Green (Chelonia mydas) and Kemp's Ridley (Lepidochelys kempii) Sea Turtles.

In mammals, lipemic blood from sampling too soon after an animal feeds can have substantial effects on biochemical values. Plasma biochemical values in reptiles may be affected by species, age, season, and nutritional state. However, fasting status is not routinely considered when sampling reptile blood.

Oral contraceptive use and bone density change in adolescent and young adult women: a prospective study of age, hormone dose, and discontinuation.

Context: Oral contraceptive (OC) use is common, but bone changes associated with use of contemporary OC remain unclear.

Objective: The objective of the study was to compare bone mineral density (BMD) change in adolescent and young adult OC users and discontinuers of two estrogen doses, relative to nonusers.

Design And Setting: This was a prospective cohort study, Group Health Cooperative.

Losses of surface runoff, total solids, and nitrogen during bermudagrass establishment on levee embankments.

Nutrient and sediment runoff from newly constructed levee embankments pose a threat to water quality during soft armor vegetation establishment. Research was initiated in 2008 and 2009 to evaluate the effect of bermudagrass ( L.) coverage and N source on nutrient and sediment runoff from levee embankments during establishment.

Higher biomarker-calibrated protein intake is not associated with impaired renal function in postmenopausal women.

With aging, renal function tends to decline, as evidenced by reduced glomerular filtration rate. High-protein intake may further stress the kidneys by causing sustained hyperfiltration. To investigate whether dietary protein is associated with impaired renal function, we used data from 2 nested case-control studies within the Women's Health Initiative Observational Study (n = 2419).

Path finding methods accounting for stoichiometry in metabolic networks.

Graph-based methods have been widely used for the analysis of biological networks. Their application to metabolic networks has been much discussed, in particular noting that an important weakness in such methods is that reaction stoichiometry is neglected. In this study, we show that reaction stoichiometry can be incorporated into path-finding approaches via mixed-integer linear programming.

Reversed clinical phenotype due to a microduplication of Sotos syndrome region detected by array CGH: microcephaly, developmental delay and delayed bone age.

Haploinsufficiency of the NSD1 gene due to 5q35 microdeletions or intragenic mutations is the major cause of Sotos syndrome characterized by generalized overgrowth, large hands and feet with advanced bone age, craniofacial dysmorphic features, learning disability, and possible susceptibility to tumors. Here, we report on a 14-month-old boy with a reverse phenotype of Sotos syndrome due to the reciprocal duplication of the 5q35.3 region, including the NSD1 gene, detected by array CGH.

A method for providing high-volume interprofessional simulation encounters in physical and occupational therapy education programs.

With an increasing emphasis on interprofessional education within the allied health professions, simulation has potential for being a useful teaching modality for providing collaborative learning experiences for occupational and physical therapist students. However, there are many challenges associated with conducting simulations with large numbers of students. We describe the design, planning, cost, and support staff time required for conducting an interprofessional simulation of the intensive care setting, including a methodology for maximizing resources and student opportunities for participation for 64 physical and occupational therapy students over a 4-hour time period.