Overlap and divergence of neural circuits mediating distinct behavioral responses to sugar.

How do neural circuits coordinate multiple behavioral responses to a single sensory cue? Here, we investigate how sweet taste drives appetitive behaviors in Drosophila, including feeding, locomotor suppression, spatial preference, and associative learning. We find that neural circuits mediating different innate responses to sugar are partially overlapping and diverge at the second and third layers. Connectomic analyses reveal distinct subcircuits that mediate different behaviors.

Elder women's perceptions around optimal perinatal health: a constructivist grounded-theory study with an Indigenous community in southern Ontario.

Background: Women play important roles in translating health knowledge, particularly around pregnancy and birth, in Indigenous societies. We investigated elder Indigenous women's perceptions around optimal perinatal health.

Methods: Using a methodological framework that integrated a constructivist grounded-theory approach with an Indigenous epistemology, we conducted and analyzed in-depth interviews and focus groups with women from the Six Nations community in southern Ontario who self-identified as grandmothers.

A family-based intervention to promote healthy lifestyles in an aboriginal community in Canada.

Context: Obesity is a major public health problem in North America, particularly in Aboriginal people.

Objective: To determine if a household-based lifestyle intervention is effective at reducing energy intake and increasing physical activity among Aboriginal families after 6 months.

Design, Participants, And Intervention: Randomized, open trial of 57 Aboriginal households recruited between May 2004 and April 2005 from the Six Nations Reserve in Ohsweken, Canada.

Interrelation of saturated fat, trans fat, alcohol intake, and subclinical atherosclerosis.

Background: Intake of saturated fat, trans fat, and alcohol alter cardiovascular disease risk, but their effect on subclinical atherosclerosis remains understudied.

Objective: The objective was to examine and quantify the interrelation of saturated fat, trans fat, alcohol intake, and mean carotid artery intimal medial thickness (IMT).

Design: We conducted a population-based, cross-sectional study among 620 persons of Aboriginal, South Asian, Chinese, or European origin aged 35-75 y, who had lived in Canada for >or=5 y.

Defining obesity cut points in a multiethnic population.

Background: Body mass index (BMI) is widely used to assess risk for cardiovascular disease and type 2 diabetes. Cut points for the classification of obesity (BMI >30 kg/m2) have been developed and validated among people of European descent. It is unknown whether these cut points are appropriate for non-European populations.

Carbohydrate intake and HDL in a multiethnic population.

Background: Ethnic differences in serum lipids are not explained by genetics, central adiposity, lifestyle, or diet, possibly because dietary carbohydrate has not been considered.

Objective: The aim was to evaluate the relation between carbohydrate intake and HDL and triacylglycerol concentrations in a multiethnic population.

Design: We conducted a population-based cross-sectional study of 619 Canadians of Aboriginal, South Asian, Chinese, and European origin with no previously diagnosed medical conditions.

Social disadvantage and cardiovascular disease: development of an index and analysis of age, sex, and ethnicity effects.

Background: Social disadvantage is defined by adverse socio-economic characteristics and is distributed unequally by age, sex, and ethnicity. We studied the relationship between social disadvantage, cardiovascular risk factors, and cardiovascular disease (CVD) among men and women from diverse ethno-racial backgrounds.

Methods: A total of 1227 men and women of South Asian, Chinese, Aboriginal, and European ancestry were randomly selected from four communities in Canada to undergo a health assessment.

Protein intake is inversely associated with abdominal obesity in a multi-ethnic population.

Abdominal obesity is related to significant morbidity and mortality and differs by ethnicity; however, the relation between diet and abdominal obesity has not been extensively studied. The aim of this study was to evaluate the dietary and lifestyle determinants of abdominal obesity in a multi-ethnic population. We conducted a cross-sectional study among 617 Canadians of Aboriginal, South Asian, Chinese, and European origins, with diet evaluated using validated, culture specific, interviewer-administered FFQs, and abdominal obesity measured as waist-hip ratio (WHR).

C-reactive protein as a screening test for cardiovascular risk in a multiethnic population.

Background: Small increases in the inflammatory marker C-reactive protein (CRP) are predictive of vascular events among asymptomatic individuals. There are few data supporting the use of CRP as a risk marker among nonwhite individuals.

Methods And Results: 1250 adults of South Asian, Chinese, European, and Aboriginal ancestry were randomly sampled from 4 communities in Canada.

Relationship of metabolic syndrome and fibrinolytic dysfunction to cardiovascular disease.

Background: The clustering of impaired glucose metabolism, elevated triglycerides, low HDL cholesterol, and abdominal obesity is known as the metabolic syndrome. Individuals with this syndrome suffer an excess of cardiovascular disease (CVD) for reasons that are unclear.

Methods And Results: We randomly sampled 1276 adults of South Asian, Chinese, European, and Native Indian ancestry from 4 communities in Canada.