Introduction of an electrochemical point-of-care assay for quantitative determination of paracetamol in finger-prick capillary whole blood samples.

AIMS: Measuring venous plasma paracetamol concentrations is time- and resource-consuming. We aimed to validate a novel electrochemical point-of-care (POC) assay for rapid paracetamol concentration determinations. METHODS: Twelve healthy volunteers received 1 g oral paracetamol, and its concentrations were analysed 10 times over 12 h for capillary whole blood (POC), venous plasma (high-performance liquid chromatography tandem mass spectrometry (HPLC-MS/MS)), and dried capillary blood (HPLC-MS/MS). RESULTS: At concentrations >30 µM, POC showed upward biases of 20% (95% limits of agreement [LOA] -22 to 62) and 7% (95% LOA -23 to 38) compared with venous plasma and capillary blood HPLC-MS/MS, respectively. There were no significant differences between mean concentrations for the paracetamol elimination phase. CONCLUSIONS: Upward biases in POC compared with venous plasma HPLC-MS/MS were likely due to higher paracetamol concentrations in capillary blood than in venous plasma and to faulty individual sensors. The novel POC method is a promising tool for paracetamol concentration analysis.

The diet of adolescents can be improved by school intervention.

OBJECTIVE: To decrease the intake of sucrose, increase the intake of fibre and the consumption of fruit and vegetables among secondary-school pupils. DESIGN: Intervention study among eighth grade pupils during one school year. Data were collected by questionnaires and from a subgroup of pupils by 48 h dietary recall at baseline in spring 2007 and after the intervention in 2008. SETTING: Twelve secondary schools were randomly allocated to intervention (IS) and control schools (CS) within three cities. Intervention included nutrition education and improvement of the food environment focusing particularly on the quality of snacks at school. SUBJECTS: A total of 659 pupils completed the questionnaires and the dietary recall was obtained from 287 pupils both at baseline and follow-up. RESULTS: The frequency of consumption of rye bread increased (P = 0.03) and that of sweets decreased (P = 0.006) among girls in the IS. The intake of sucrose fell among IS pupils, from 12.8 % to 10.5 % of the total energy intake (P = 0.01). Intake of fruit (g/MJ) remained the same in IS, whereas it decreased in CS (P = 0.04). CONCLUSIONS: Sugar intake can be lowered by improving the quality of snacks, but it is more difficult to increase fibre intake and fruit and vegetable consumption unless the content of school lunches can be modified. It is the responsibility of the adults working in schools to create a healthy environment and to make healthy choices easy for pupils.