Publications by authors named "Joanna Guan"

Article Synopsis
  • This study examines how the Wim Hof Method (WHM) compares to slow breathing in managing stress and depressive symptoms in women with high stress levels.
  • 84 midlife women were randomly assigned to either the WHM group, which involved specific breathing techniques and cold exposure, or a control group practicing slow-paced breathing and warm showers over three weeks during the COVID-19 pandemic.
  • Both groups reported significant reductions in depressive and anxiety symptoms immediately after the intervention and at a 3-month follow-up, but participants in the WHM group had lower retention rates, suggesting differences in perceived credibility and expected benefits of the interventions.
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Depression is a major cause of disability and mortality for young people worldwide and is typically first diagnosed during adolescence. In this work, we present a machine learning framework to predict adolescent depression occurring between ages 12 and 18 years using environmental, biological, and lifestyle features of the child, mother, and partner from the child's prenatal period to age 10 years using data from 8467 participants enrolled in the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children (ALSPAC). We trained and compared several cross-sectional and longitudinal machine learning techniques and found the resulting models predicted adolescent depression with recall (0.

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Mindfulness meditation may improve well-being at work; however, effects on food cravings and metabolic health are not well known. We tested effects of digital meditation, alone or in combination with a healthy eating program, on perceived stress, cravings, and adiposity. We randomized 161 participants with overweight and moderate stress to digital meditation ('MED,' n = 38), digital meditation + healthy eating ('MED+HE,' n = 40), active control ('HE,' n = 41), or waitlist control ('WL,' n = 42) for 8 weeks.

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Background: Although maternal stressor exposure has been associated with shorter telomere length (TL) in offspring, this literature is based largely on White samples. Furthermore, timing of maternal stressors has rarely been examined. Here, we examined how maternal stressors occurring during adolescence, pregnancy, and across the lifespan related to child TL in Black and White mothers.

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B7 family members and their receptors play a central role in the regulation of T-cell responses through T-cell co-stimulation and co-inhibition pathways that constitute attractive targets for the development of immunotherapeutic drugs. In this study, we report that VSIG-3/IGSF11 is a ligand of B7 family member VISTA/PD-1H and inhibits human T-cell functions through a novel VSIG-3/VISTA pathway. An extensive functional ELISA binding screening assay reveals that VSIG-3 binds to the new B7 family member VISTA but does not interact with other known members of the B7 family.

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