Assessment of the performance of the body mass index in diagnosing obesity in community-dwelling older adults in Latin American and Caribbean countries.

Background: The body mass index (BMI) ≥30 kg/m is the universally accepted cut-off point for defining obesity; however, its accuracy in classifying obesity in older adults is poorly understood.

Objectives: To assess the performance of the BMI cut-off point ≥30 kg/m in classifying obesity in older adults, using the fat mass index (FMI) and fat mass percentage (FM%) as reference criteria; and to establish region- and sex-specific BMI-based cut-off points to classify obesity in older adults.

Methods: The present study is a secondary analysis derived from a cross-sectional project that included a sample of 1463 older adults from ten Latin American and Caribbean countries.

Protein deficiency during Trichinella spiralis infection impairs lung immunity against newborn larvae.

The goal of this study was to analyse the effects of a protein-deficient (PD) diet on antibody-dependent cell-mediated cytotoxicity (ADCC) in vitro against newborn larvae (NBL) of Trichinella spiralis in the lungs of infected rats. Two groups of weaning Wistar rats received a PD diet (6.5% casein) and other two received a control diet (C, 20% casein).

["We felt we had an important role"].

At the Libourne Hospital Center, the Institute for Nursing Training was mobilized during the first wave of COVID-19 to welcome the children of caregivers who could not be cared for. A new experience which was made possible thanks to the help of several nursing students. Interview with two of them, Manon Leymarie (in her third year at that time and now a graduate) and Louise Ruault (in her first year in 2019-2020).

["There was an adventure in this challenge"].

Dominique Pellarin is a documentalist at the Institute of Nursing Training at the Libourne Hospital Centre. Catherine Billard is an early childhood educator and was seconded from the hospital's paediatrics department at the height of the first wave of the epidemic. Both supervised a reception system for the children of caregivers set up within the establishment during the confinement period.

[New virus, new disease... and new challenges].

Since the emergence of the new coronavirus in China at the end of 2019 and its spread across five continents, our lives have changed. Confinement, state of health emergency, barrier gestures, physical distancing, etc., an arsenal of unprecedented measures has been put in place in France to break the chains of transmission of the virus and prevent the subsequent disease, COVID-19.

Oil quality in sea-level quinoa as determined by cultivar-specific responses to temperature and radiation conditions.

Background: There is renewed interest in quinoa as a potential source of vegetable oils; however, there is no information about how environmental conditions affect its fatty acid composition, a critical indicator of its oil quality. The fatty acid concentrations of four cultivars adapted to temperate environments were compared at three sowing dates to evaluate the effect of environmental conditions during the seed-filling period on the variation in oil quality.

Results: The interaction between cultivar and sowing date was the main source of variation explaining the changes in the lipid content and fatty acid concentrations in quinoa.

Protein malnutrition impairs the immune control of Trichinella spiralis infection.

Objectives: We aimed to analyze the effect of a protein-deficient diet on mucosal and systemic immunity during a Trichinella spiralis infection.

Methods: Two groups of weaning Wistar rats received a protein-deficient diet (6.5% casein) and the other two groups received a control diet (20% casein).

["Since his stroke, Théo has become a child like any other"].

Théo is a 7-year-old boy who was diagnosed as having had an ischemic stroke a few hours after birth. Today, despite some sequelae, Théo is doing well. He continues however to be followed medically.

[The midwife-child health nurse collaboration, a link between the maternity unit and neonatology].

Collaborative work forms part of the well-treatment and improvement of quality of care approach. It is also of benefit to the medical and paramedical teams. Within the parent-child unit of Libourne hospital, the midwife and child health nurse collaborate throughout the pregnancy, and especially during the post-partum period.

[Nuclear techniques in nutrition: assessment of body fat and intake of human milk in breast-fed infants].

The application of nuclear techniques in the area of nutrition is safe because they use stable isotopes. The deuterium dilution method is used in body composition and human milk intake analysis. It is a reference method for body fat and validates inexpensive tools because of its accuracy, simplicity of application in individuals and population and the background of its usefulness in adults and children as an evaluation tool in clinical and health programs.

Nutrition disorder and immunologic parameters: study of the intestinal villi in growing rats.

Objective: The aim of the present work was to study how a diet in which cereals were the only protein source would affect B and T lymphocytes and a cell population positive for thymus-expressed chemokine (TECK) in the intestinal villi of growing rats.

Methods: Wistar rats were fed a 6.5% precooked maize protein diet for 18-20 d (M group).

[Comparative study between two different sources of n-3 poliunsaturated fatty acids and it effect on thymus and lipid profile in rats].

In the present paper we analyzed the effect caused by different recovery diets enriched with n-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFA n-3) on thymus and serum lipid pattern. Severe depleted weanling Wistar rats (D) were divided in three groups that received during 10 days a 20% casein diet supplemented with EPA+DHA (group Cas), a 20% protein milk diet prepared using a commercial reduced-fat product enriched with linolenic and linoleic acids (group L) and a 20% casein diet as control group C. Cas and L gave each other 24 mg/day of PUFA n-3 being the ratio n-6/n-3 8.

Risk factors for cardiovascular disease in patients with anorexia nervosa.

Background: hypercholesterolemia, hypercortisolemia and low levels of essential fatty acids, oestrogens and antioxidant vitamins are more prevalent in patients with anorexia nervosa (AN) than in the general population.

Objective: This study aims (1) to compare cardiovascular risk parameters in-patients with AN and controls, and (2) to compare the parameters in-patients on admission and at four month follow up.

Methods: Blood samples and anthropometry were taken from patients with AN on admission (N=30) and matched controls (N=30).

Total salivary IgA, serum C3c and IgA in obese school children.

Studies of the immunologic function in adult obese humans and experimental models indicate that excess adiposity is associated with impairments in host defense mechanisms. The aim of this work was to analyze the secretory and humoral immune system in obese children (n = 105, 55 boys, 50 girls ), between 6 and 13 years of age. Samples of non-stimulated saliva and whole blood were collected from fasting patients.

Omega3 polyunsaturated fatty acids and maize flour diets.

Objectives: Nutrition disorders caused by a 6.5% maize protein diet (M), unbalanced in its indispensable amino acid pattern, provokes an arrest on cellular proliferation and maturation in the thymus of growing rats. We investigated the effect of diet supplementation with different amounts of omega3 polyunsaturated fatty acid (M = 0 mg/d, M1 = 12 mg/d, M2 = 24 mg/d, respectively) on thymus, plasma lipid concentrations, and hepatic tissue.

Nutrition disorders and immunologic parameters: study of the thymus in growing rats.

Objectives: We studied the effect of a low-quality dietary protein on cellular proliferation and maturation in the thymus of growing rats over time.

Methods: After weaning Wistar rats were fed a diet containing 6.5 g/100 g of corn flour for 6, 10, 18, and 45 d (M groups).