Publications by authors named "Christopher DesJardins"

Objective: Conduct a preliminary randomized trial that compared a 6-week type 2 diabetes (T2D) prevention programme to an educational video control for adults with pre-diabetes.

Methods: Adults (N = 62) with pre-diabetes were randomized to the group-delivered Project Health T2D or an educational video control, completing measures at pre-test, post-test and 3-month follow-up.

Results: Participants randomized to the intervention versus control condition showed significantly greater reductions in body fat (d = 0.

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  • Young women with type 1 diabetes are at increased risk for eating disorders, prompting a study of a new prevention program called the Diabetes Body Project.
  • In a randomized trial, women aged 14-35 were divided into groups for the program or an educational control, with evaluations done shortly after.
  • Results showed the Diabetes Body Project led to significant improvements in eating disorder symptoms, diabetes distress, quality of life, and other related issues compared to the control group, suggesting it could be widely implemented.
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Low-abundance members of microbial communities are difficult to study in their native habitats, including Escherichia coli, a minor but common inhabitant of the gastrointestinal tract, and key opportunistic pathogen of the urinary tract. While multi-omic analyses have detailed interactions between uropathogenic Escherichia coli (UPEC) and the bladder mediating urinary tract infection (UTI), little is known about UPEC in its pre-infection reservoir, the gastrointestinal tract, partly due to its low relative abundance (<1%). To sensitively explore the genomes and transcriptomes of diverse gut E.

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Early life stress (ELS) is linked to an elevated risk of poor health and early mortality, with emerging evidence pointing to the pivotal role of the immune system in long-term health outcomes. While recent research has focused on the impact of ELS on inflammation, this study examined the impact of ELS on immune function, including CMV seropositivity, inflammatory cytokines, and lymphocyte cell subsets in an adolescent cohort. This study used data from the Early Life Stress and Cardiometabolic Health in Adolescence Study (N = 191, aged 12 to 21 years, N = 95 exposed to ELS).

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Low-abundance members of microbial communities are difficult to study in their native habitats. This includes , a minor, but common inhabitant of the gastrointestinal tract and opportunistic pathogen, including of the urinary tract, where it is the primary pathogen. While multi-omic analyses have detailed critical interactions between uropathogenic (UPEC) and the bladder that mediate UTI outcome, comparatively little is known about UPEC in its pre-infection reservoir, partly due to its low abundance there (<1% relative abundance).

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Objective: Evaluate whether the Body Project prevention program adapted for young women with type 1 diabetes (Diabetes Body Project) reduces eating disorder (ED) risk factors and symptoms.

Methods: Young women (aged 15-30) at high-risk for EDs due to having type 1 diabetes and body image concerns (N = 55) were randomized to virtually delivered Diabetes Body Project groups or an educational control condition, completing measures at pretest, posttest, and 3-month follow-up.

Results: Diabetes Body Project versus the control participants showed significantly greater reductions in thin-ideal internalization, body dissatisfaction, diabetes distress, diabetes eating pathology, and ED symptoms by posttest, and greater reductions in diabetes eating pathology and ED symptoms, and greater improvements in quality of life by 3-month follow-up, which were medium to large effects (d's ranged from -0.

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Background: To advance knowledge regarding the etiology of eating disorders, we characterized the sequencing of eating disorder symptom emergence for adolescent girls who subsequently developed anorexia nervosa (AN), bulimia nervosa (BN), binge eating disorder (BED), and purging disorder (PD) for community-recruited adolescents and tested whether prodromal symptoms increased risk for future onset of each eating disorder.

Methods: Data collected from adolescent girls ( = 496; age = 13.02, s.

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  • A study tested the effectiveness of an obesity and eating disorder prevention program by comparing single-sex and mixed-sex groups, incorporating food response inhibition and attention training versus sham training with non-food images.
  • Findings showed that participants in both group types with the active training had significant reductions in body fat over two years, with single-sex groups showing faster and more lasting results.
  • The program didn’t significantly affect the onset of overweight/obesity or eating disorder symptoms, but both conditions saw a reduction in symptoms, suggesting that the combined intervention may be useful for broader implementation.
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Objective: Evaluate whether the prevention program reduces eating disorder risk factors and symptoms when implemented via synchronous video telepsychiatry, which could markedly increase the reach of this intervention and test whether a pay-it-forward donation model could support sustained implementation of this intervention.

Method: Young women at high risk for eating disorders because of body image concerns ( = 75; age range 16-27) were randomized to groups delivered virtually by peer educators or a waitlist control condition; participants who completed the for free because of past donations were encouraged to donate money so that this intervention could be provided for free to others.

Results: Participants randomized to virtually delivered groups showed significantly or marginally greater pretest-to-posttest reductions in pursuit of the thin ideal, body dissatisfaction, dieting, negative affect, and eating disorder symptoms than controls.

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Objective: test whether (1) young women who subsequently show onset of anorexia nervosa (AN) exhibit persistently lower average premorbid BMI than those who subsequently show onset of bulimia nervosa (BN), binge eating disorder (BED), purging disorder (PD), or no eating disorder; (2) a proximal spike in other risk factors occurs immediately before AN emergence; and (3) psychological and behavioral factors differentiate youth who show persistently low BMI from those who do not.

Method: Data from a sample ( = 1952) of young women at high-risk for eating disorders followed for 3 years and a socioethno-racially representative sample ( = 496) of adolescent girls followed for 8 years were used to address these aims.

Results: Participants who developed AN exhibited significantly lower average measured premorbid BMI over repeated assessments than those who showed onset of other or no eating disorders.

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Recurrent urinary tract infections (rUTIs) are a major health burden worldwide, with history of infection being a significant risk factor. While the gut is a known reservoir for uropathogenic bacteria, the role of the microbiota in rUTI remains unclear. We conducted a year-long study of women with (n = 15) and without (n = 16) history of rUTI, from whom we collected urine, blood and monthly faecal samples for metagenomic and transcriptomic interrogation.

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The objective of this study was to characterize the temporal sequencing of symptom emergence for anorexia nervosa (AN), bulimia nervosa (BN), binge eating disorder (BED), and purging disorder (PD), as well as to test whether prodromal symptoms increase risk for future onset of each type of eating disorder and compare the predictive effects to those of established risk factors. Data from four prevention trials that targeted high-risk young women with body image concerns (N = 1,952; Mage = 19.7, SD = 5.

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Background: Urinary tract infections (UTIs) affect 15 million women each year in the United States, with > 20% experiencing frequent recurrent UTIs. A recent placebo-controlled clinical trial found a 39% reduction in UTI symptoms among recurrent UTI sufferers who consumed a daily cranberry beverage for 24 weeks. Using metagenomic sequencing of stool from a subset of these trial participants, we assessed the impact of cranberry consumption on the gut microbiota, a reservoir for UTI-causing pathogens such as Escherichia coli, which causes > 80% of UTIs.

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  • Weight/length (W/L) indices are ineffective for measuring body fat in preterm infants who are appropriate for gestational age (AGA) at birth, and it's unclear if this improves as they grow.
  • A study of 260 preterm infants found that W/L indices poorly correlate with measures of fat mass and body fat percentage, with high rates of misclassification.
  • Results suggest that W/L indices are less accurate in preterm infants at term-equivalent age, highlighting the need for further research on infants with different growth patterns.
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Background: To advance early identification efforts, we must detect and characterize neurodevelopmental sequelae of risk among population-based samples early in development. However, variability across the typical-to-atypical continuum and heterogeneity within and across early emerging psychiatric/neurodevelopmental disorders represent fundamental challenges to overcome. Identifying multidimensionally determined profiles of risk, agnostic to DSM categories, via data-driven computational approaches represents an avenue to improve early identification of risk.

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  • There is a need for simpler ways to measure general adversity exposure in children, as existing methods often focus on specific risk factors.
  • This study introduces the Child Life Challenges Scale (CLCS), a brief tool for parents to rate their children's cumulative life challenges, tested on a sample of parents and kids living in emergency housing.
  • Results indicate that the CLCS is a valid measure of children's lifetime adversity, correlating well with other reported life stressors while maintaining low burden for parents.
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Background: Recurrent Clostridioides difficile infection (rCDI) is associated with loss of microbial diversity and microbe-derived secondary bile acids, which inhibit C. difficile germination and growth. SER-109, an investigational microbiome drug of donor-derived, purified spores, reduced recurrence in a dose-ranging, phase (P) 1 study in subjects with multiple rCDIs.

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is an opportunistic fungal pathogen that at its peak epidemic levels caused an estimated million cases of cryptococcal meningitis per year worldwide. This species can grow in diverse environmental (trees, soil and bird excreta) and host niches (intracellular microenvironments of phagocytes and free-living in host tissues). The genetic basic for adaptation to these different conditions is not well characterized, as most experimental work has relied on a single reference strain of .

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This study provided the first test of whether sexual orientation (categorized as heterosexual vs. sexual minority) is associated with baseline eating disorder risk factors and symptoms, moderated the intervention effects of variants of the dissonance-based Body Project, or moderated the relation of baseline risk factors to future change in eating disorder symptoms. A total of 680 women with body image concerns were randomized to clinician-or peer-led Body Project groups, the eBody Project, or educational video control and completed assessment of eating disorder risk factors and symptoms at pretest, posttest, and at six-, 12-, 24-, and 36-month follow-up.

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Tuberculosis (TB) is a global infectious threat that is intensified by an increasing incidence of highly drug-resistant disease. Whole-genome sequencing (WGS) studies of Mycobacterium tuberculosis, the causative agent of TB, have greatly increased our understanding of this pathogen. Since the first M.

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Mobile applications (apps) for learning technical scientific content are becoming increasingly popular in educational settings. Neuroscience is often considered complex and challenging for most students to understand conceptually. iNeuron is a recently developed iOS app that teaches basic neuroscience in the context of a series of scaffolded challenges to create neural circuits and increase understanding of nervous system structure and function.

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Background: While the international spread of multidrug-resistant (MDR) strains is an acknowledged public health threat, a broad and more comprehensive examination of the global spread of MDR-tuberculosis (TB) using whole-genome sequencing has not yet been performed.

Methods: In a global dataset of 5310 . whole-genome sequences isolated from five continents, we performed a phylogenetic analysis to identify and characterise clades of MDR-TB with respect to geographic dispersion.

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Few trials have investigated factors that moderate the effects of eating disorder and obesity prevention programs, which may inform inclusion criteria and intervention refinements. We examined factors hypothesized to moderate the effects of the Healthy Weight eating disorder/obesity prevention program that promotes gradual healthy changes, and Project Health that adds cognitive dissonance activities. College students at risk for both outcomes because of weight concerns (N = 364, 72% female) were randomized to these interventions or an educational video condition, completing pretest, posttest, and 6, 12, and 24-month follow-up assessments.

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In the current study, we compared emotion regulation abilities between post-institutionalized (PI; N = 124) and never-institutionalized non-adopted (NA; N = 172) children and adolescents (7-15 years). We assessed cortisol reactivity and coded emotion regulation during the speech portion of Trier Social Stress Test (TSST-M). Parents reported on their children's social, academic, and behavioral adjustment.

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Immune genes are under intense, pathogen-induced pressure, which causes these genes to diversify over evolutionary time and become species-specific. Through a forward genetic screen we recently described a C. elegans-specific gene called pals-22 to be a repressor of "Intracellular Pathogen Response" or IPR genes.

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