Purpose: Cardiovascular disease (CVD) is the leading cause of morbidity and mortality, affecting over 523 million people globally. Atherosclerotic diseases, particularly ischemic heart disease (IHD) and stroke, are the primary mediators of CVD burden and trends, with half of CVD deaths attributed to IHD, and another quarter to ischemic stroke. The aim of this review was to provide an overview of world-wide trends in the burden of atherosclerotic CVD.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Participation in outdoor play has been extensively documented as beneficial for the health, well-being, and development of children. Canadian early childhood education centers (ECECs) are important settings in young children's lives and provide opportunities to participate in outdoor play. However, there are barriers to the provision of outdoor play opportunities at ECECs, such as adverse weather conditions, poorly designed outdoor spaces, outdoor time policies, and early childhood educator comfort levels.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFTransformations of forested areas to agricultural and urban uses are known to degrade freshwater ecosystems, in part, because of increased surface runoff and soil erosion. Changes in climate are expected to exacerbate these impacts, particularly through increases and intensification of precipitation events during various times of the year. While decreases in greenhouse gas emissions are ultimately necessary to minimize changes in climate, best management practices (BMPs), such as reforestation, can serve as watershed climate adaptation strategies to mitigate the impacts of changes in air temperature and precipitation.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFInt J Environ Res Public Health
October 2019
Outdoor play has been associated with children's and adolescents' healthy development and physical activity. Attributes of the neighbourhood built environment can influence play behaviours. This systematic review examined the relationship between attributes of the neighbourhood built environment and the time children and adolescents (0-18 years) spend in self-directed outdoor play.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThis study reports on the reliability and validity for two measures developed for screening of symptoms in child sexual abuse (CSA)-the Trauma Symptom Checklist for Children-Screening Form (TSCC-SF) and the Trauma Symptom Checklist for Young Children-Screening Form (TSCYC-SF). The sample of 200 children and caregivers received outpatient treatment. Internal consistencies ranged from an of 0.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe aim of this article is to propose guidelines and recommendations in problematic areas in pathologic reporting of endometrial carcinoma (EC) regarding special techniques and ancillary studies. An organizing committee designed a comprehensive survey with different questions related to pathologic features, diagnosis, and prognosis of EC that was sent to all members of the International Society of Gynecological Pathologists. The special techniques/ancillary studies group received 4 different questions to be addressed.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFEur J Obstet Gynecol Reprod Biol
December 2016
The reduction of child obesity continues to be a challenge worldwide. Research indicates that playing outdoors, particularly in natural play spaces, boosts children's physical activity, potentially decreasing childhood obesity. We present evidence that natural play spaces also provide for more diverse forms of play for children of varying ages and competencies.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFA diverse, cross-sectorial group of partners, stakeholders and researchers, collaborated to develop an evidence-informed Position Statement on active outdoor play for children aged 3-12 years. The Position Statement was created in response to practitioner, academic, legal, insurance and public debate, dialogue and disagreement on the relative benefits and harms of active (including risky) outdoor play. The Position Statement development process was informed by two systematic reviews, a critical appraisal of the current literature and existing position statements, engagement of research experts (N=9) and cross-sectorial individuals/organizations (N=17), and an extensive stakeholder consultation process (N=1908).
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe objective of this systematic review was to examine the relationship between outdoor time and: (1) physical activity, (2) cardiorespiratory fitness, (3) musculoskeletal fitness, (4) sedentary behaviour; or (5) motor skill development in children aged 3-12 years. We identified 28 relevant studies that were assessed for quality using the GRADE framework. The systematic review revealed overall positive effects of outdoor time on physical activity, sedentary behaviour, and cardiorespiratory fitness, although causality could not be assumed due to a lack of RCTs.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFInt J Environ Res Public Health
June 2015
Risky outdoor play has been associated with promoting children's health and development, but also with injury and death. Risky outdoor play has diminished over time, concurrent with increasing concerns regarding child safety and emphasis on injury prevention. We sought to conduct a systematic review to examine the relationship between risky outdoor play and health in children, in order to inform the debate regarding its benefits and harms.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFTo reflect on the role of risk-taking and risky play in child development and consider recommendations for the injury prevention field, a symposium was held prior to the November 2013 Canadian Injury Prevention and Safety Promotion Conference. Delegates heard from Canadian and international researchers, practitioners and play safety experts on child development, play space design and playground safety, provision of recreation, and legal and societal perceptions of risk and hazard. The presenters provided multidisciplinary evidence and perspectives indicating the potential negative effect on children's development of approaches to injury prevention that prioritise safety and limit children's opportunities for risky play.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAtomic force microscopy (AFM) and modulated Raman spectroscopy (MRS) were used to discriminate between living normal human urothelial cells (SV-HUC-1) and bladder tumour cells (MGH-U1) with high specificity and sensitivity. MGH-U1 cells were 1.5-fold smaller, 1.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFData from Continuous Glucose Monitoring (CGM) systems may help improve overall daily glycemia; however, the accuracy of CGM during exercise remains questionable. The objective of this single group experimental study was to compare CGM-estimated values to venous plasma glucose (VPG) and capillary plasma glucose (CPG) during steady-state exercise. Twelve recreationally active females without diabetes (aged 21.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIn the field of biomedical optics, Raman spectroscopy is a powerful tool for probing the chemical composition of biological samples. In particular, fiber Raman probes play a crucial role for in vivo and ex vivo tissue analysis. However, the high-fluorescence background typically contributed by the auto fluorescence from both a tissue sample and the fiber-probe interferes strongly with the relatively weak Raman signal.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFObjective: To determine the effects of two water-soluble dietary fibers, ultrahigh-viscosity hydroxypropylmethylcellulose (UHV-HPMC, nonfermentable) and psyllium fiber (fermentable), on postprandial glucose and second meal effects.
Methods: In a single-blind crossover design, 12 healthy adult subjects were given standardized, premeasured breakfast and lunch meals with either 4 g of the fiber supplements or a placebo. Blood glucose was measured with a continuous blood glucose monitoring system (DexCom Seven Plus, San Diego, CA).
Background: A number of indexes measuring self-reported generic health-related quality-of-life (HRQoL) using preference-weighted scoring are used widely in population surveys and clinical studies in the United States.
Objective: To obtain age-by-gender norms for older adults on 6 generic HRQoL indexes in a cross-sectional US population survey and compare age-related trends in HRQoL.
Methods: The EuroQol EQ-5D, Health Utilities Index Mark 2, Health Utilities Index Mark 3, SF-36v2 (used to compute SF-6D), Quality of Well-being Scale self-administered form, and Health and Activities Limitations index were administered via telephone interview to each respondent in a national survey sample of 3844 noninstitutionalized adults age 35-89.