The global and regional costs of healthy and sustainable dietary patterns: a modelling study.

Background: Adoption of healthy and sustainable diets could be essential for safe-guarding the Earth's natural resources and reducing diet-related mortality, but their adoption could be hampered if such diets proved to be more expensive and unaffordable for some populations. Therefore, we aimed to estimate the costs of healthy and sustainable diets around the world.

Methods: In this modelling study, we used regionally comparable food prices from the International Comparison Program for 150 countries.

Air quality-related health damages of food.

Agriculture is a major contributor to air pollution, the largest environmental risk factor for mortality in the United States and worldwide. It is largely unknown, however, how individual foods or entire diets affect human health via poor air quality. We show how food production negatively impacts human health by increasing atmospheric fine particulate matter (PM), and we identify ways to reduce these negative impacts of agriculture.

Global food system emissions could preclude achieving the 1.5° and 2°C climate change targets.

The Paris Agreement's goal of limiting the increase in global temperature to 1.5° or 2°C above preindustrial levels requires rapid reductions in greenhouse gas emissions. Although reducing emissions from fossil fuels is essential for meeting this goal, other sources of emissions may also preclude its attainment.

The healthiness and sustainability of national and global food based dietary guidelines: modelling study.

Objective: To analyse the health and environmental implications of adopting national food based dietary guidelines (FBDGs) at a national level and compared with global health and environmental targets.

Design: Modelling study.

Setting: 85 countries.

Multiple health and environmental impacts of foods.

Food choices are shifting globally in ways that are negatively affecting both human health and the environment. Here we consider how consuming an additional serving per day of each of 15 foods is associated with 5 health outcomes in adults and 5 aspects of agriculturally driven environmental degradation. We find that while there is substantial variation in the health outcomes of different foods, foods associated with a larger reduction in disease risk for one health outcome are often associated with larger reductions in disease risk for other health outcomes.

A Cost-Effective Technique for Spinal Instrumentation in the Treatment of Adolescent Idiopathic Scoliosis.

Surgical treatment for adolescent idiopathic scoliosis (AIS) has evolved over the past decades to the point where instrumented arthrodesis with all pedicle screw and rod constructs is commonplace. Although these constructs provide superb correction and fixation, their financial burden is substantial. Here, we present a more cost-effective technique using a combination of pedicle screws (serving as the construct base), a sagittal precontoured unit rod, and sublaminar wires to provide segmental correction for the surgical treatment of AIS.

Muscle strength and flexibility characteristics of people displaying excessive medial knee displacement.

Objective: To determine differences in strength and range of motion (ROM) between participants who exhibit medial knee displacement (MKD) during a squat that is corrected by a heel lift and those who do not.

Design: Case control.

Setting: Sports medicine research laboratory.

Active Galpha(q) subunits and M3 acetylcholine receptors promote distinct modes of association of RGS2 with the plasma membrane.

RGS proteins accelerate the GTPase activity of heterotrimeric G proteins at the plasma membrane. Association of RGS proteins with the plasma membrane can be mediated by interactions with other membrane proteins and by direct interactions with the lipid bilayer. Here we use fluorescence recovery after photobleaching (FRAP) to characterize interactions between RGS2 and M3 acetylcholine receptors (M3Rs), Galpha subunits and the lipid bilayer.

Endogenous regulator of G-protein signaling proteins regulate the kinetics of Galphaq/11-mediated modulation of ion channels in central nervous system neurons.

Slow synaptic potentials are generated when metabotropic G-protein-coupled receptors activate heterotrimeric G-proteins, which in turn modulate ion channels. Many neurons generate excitatory postsynaptic potentials mediated by G-proteins of the Galphaq/11 family, which in turn activate phospholipase C-beta. Accessory GTPase-activating proteins (GAPs) are thought to be required to accelerate GTP hydrolysis and rapidly turn off G-proteins, but the involvement of GAPs in neuronal Galphaq/11 signaling has not been examined.

Endogenous RGS proteins regulate presynaptic and postsynaptic function: functional expression of RGS-insensitive Galpha subunits in central nervous system neurons.

Regulators of G-protein signaling (RGS)-insensitive (RGSi) G-protein alpha subunits can be used to indirectly determine the function of endogenous RGS proteins in native cells. This article describes the application of RGSi Galpha subunits to the study of endogenous RGS function in central nervous system (CNS) neurons. Presynaptic inhibition of neurotransmitter release was reconstituted in primary neurons using RGSi Galpha(i/o) subunits, whereas postsynaptic regulation of potassium channels was reconstituted using RGSi chimeras of Galpha(q) and Galpha(i).

Dopamine receptor agonists differ in their actions on cardiac ion channels.

Four dopamine receptor agonists used for the treatment of Parkinson's disease (apomorphine, pergolide, ropinirole and sumanirole) were evaluated for the ability to block human ether-a-go-go related gene (hERG) K(+) channels and to modify the duration of canine Purkinje fiber action potentials. Apomorphine, pergolide and ropinirole blocked the hERG-mediated currents with IC(50) values of 2.4, 0.

Catastrophic desert formation in Daisyworld.

Feedback between life and its environment is ubiquitous but the strength of coupling and its global implications remain hotly debated. Abrupt changes in the abundance of life for small changes in forcing provide one indicator of regulation, for example, when vegetation-climate feedback collapses in the formation of a desert. Here we use a two-dimensional "Daisyworld" model with curvature to show that catastrophic collapse of life under gradual forcing provides a testable indicator of environmental feedback.

Factors affecting levels of physical activity in adults.

A large proportion of adults in Western cultures are physically inactive, despite several decades of warnings about the potentially negative health consequences of a sedentary lifestyle. Efforts to promote physical activity have focused on identifying its determinants and designing interventions that might effectively promote regular physical activity. The multitude of factors that induce adults to initiate and maintain programmes of physical activity have been divided into those that are invariable (age, gender, race, ethnicity) and those that are presumed to be modifiable (behavioural and personality characteristics, environmental circumstances and community settings).