Critical health infrastructure for refugee resettlement in rural Australia: case study of four rural towns.

Objective: To explore the reported impact of regional resettlement of refugees on rural health services, and identify critical health infrastructure for refugee resettlement.

Design: Comparative case study, using interviews and situational analysis.

Setting: Four rural communities in New South Wales, which had been the focus of regional resettlement of refugees since 1999.

Worldwide timing of growth faltering: implications for nutritional interventions.

Objective: It is widely assumed that growth faltering starts at around 3 months of age, but there has been no systematic assessment of its timing using representative national datasets from a variety of countries.

Methodology: The World Health Organization Global Database on Child Growth and Malnutrition includes the results of 39 nationally representative datasets from recent surveys in developing countries. Based on these data, mean z scores of weight for age, length/height for age, and weight for length/height were compared with the National Center for Health Statistics and Cambridge growth references, for children younger than 60 months.

Issues in the assessment of nutritional status using anthropometry.

Four issues in the use and interpretation of anthropometry are discussed at the level of the population and of the individual. The first issue is the index or indices of choice: weight-for-height versus height-for-age versus weight-for-age. The selection of an index or indices depends upon many factors, and no one index is completely adequate in all situations.

The response of whole-body protein turnover to feeding in obese subjects given a protein-free, low-energy diet for three weeks.

Rates of whole-body protein turnover were measured by constant infusion of [1 14C]leucine in four obese subjects receiving a normal diet (approximately 2000 kcal and 70 g protein ) and again after 3 weeks on a low-energy, protein-free diet (500 kcal of glucose syrup). During the first 12 h of infusion subjects were given equal, hourly portions of the appropriate diet, and for the next 12 h they fasted. With the normal diet fasting was accompanied by a fall in rates of protein synthesis and leucine oxidation and a rise in protein breakdown, but these changes were abolished by the protein-free diet.

The response of protein and energy metabolism to food intake in lean and obese man.

Ten obese and five lean subjects were given continuous intravenous infusions of [1-14C]leucine for 24-h periods to measure rates of protein turnover in the whole body. Food was given as equal hourly meals during the first 12 h (day) and subjects were fasted for the remaining 12 h (night). In both lean and obese subjects rates of body protein synthesis and leucine oxidation were higher during the feeding phase, but body protein breakdown was higher during fasting.

Regulation of leucine metabolism in man: a stable isotope study.

Leucine catabolism is regulated by either of the first two degradative steps: (reversible) transamination to the keto acid or subsequent decarboxylation. A method is described to measure rates of leucine transamination, reamination, and keto acid oxidation. The method is applied directly to humans by infusing the nonradioactive tracer, L-[15N,1-13C]leucine.

Diurnal pattern of protein and energy metabolism in man.

Rates of synthesis and breakdown of body protein and oxidation of leucine were measured in six obese subjects by constant intravenous infusion of (1 14C)leucine for 24-hr periods. During the night, when no food was given, the rate of whole body protein synthesis was 67% of the rate observed furing the day, when food was given hourly. By contrast the rate of body protein breakdown remained constant over the full 24 hr.

Influence of low-energy diets on whole-body protein turnover in obese subjects.

Rates of whole-body protein synthesis and breakdown in obese subjects have been measured by three methods: constant intravenous infusion of [1-14C]leucine, repeated oral doses of [15N]glycine, and a single oral dose of [15N]glycine. The three techniques gave similar rates of synthesis and breakdown when the subjects received a normal diet containing 8.0 MJ and 70 g protein.