The relationship between height and fruit/vegetable intakes in adults: A nationwide cross-sectional study.

Background: Worldwide, fruit and vegetable intake is below recommendations. There is increasing evidence to suggest an association between height and diet. Aim: to analyse the associations of fruit and vegetable intake with attained height in Portuguese adults. Methods: A representative sample of 17 480 Portuguese adults (56.7% women) participated in this cross-sectional study. The survey comprised sociodemographic characteristics and self-reported height and weight. We performed regression models to assess the associations between height and fruit and vegetable consumption. Results: Compared with no intakes, those men with higher fruit and vegetables intake had 0.54 cm (95% CI 0.04; 1.04) greater height. Also, women with higher intakes of vegetables, fruit and vegetables combined were directly associated with a greater height of 0.29 cm (95% CI 0.03; 0.56 in vegetables) and 0.51 cm (95% CI 0.09; 0.93 in fruit and vegetables combined). Conclusion: Greater consumption of fruit and vegetables was directly associated with higher height in adults. From a health promotion perspective, intervention programmes aiming at improving fruit and vegetable intake should be highlighted so that full height potential is achieved.

Body Mass Index Categories and Attained Height in Portuguese Adults.

OBJECTIVE: To analyze the associations between height and BMI categories in a Portuguese representative sample. METHODS: This is a cross-sectional study with a representative sample of 32,644 Portuguese adults (52.4% females). Sociodemographic and lifestyle characteristics were obtained along with self-reported height and weight. We performed generalized linear models to assess the differences in attained height across BMI categories; analyses were adjusted for age, gender, education, family income per month, proxy reporting information, dietary patterns, and smoking. RESULTS: BMI categories included underweight and normal weight (46.4%), overweight (37.6%), obese class I and II (15.2%), and obese class III (0.8%). Adults with normal weight had a significantly higher height (females +7 cm and males +5 cm) when compared to obese class III. As BMI categories increased, height decreased. In females and males, after adjusting for confounders, estimates of attained height decreased when compared to the unadjusted model (ß = -0.049, 95% CI = -0.050; -0.049 and ß = -0.030, 95% CI = -0.031; -0.029, respectively), although they remained still significant. CONCLUSION: Our results suggest a significant difference in attained height between BMI categories. Future intervention programs aiming at preventing overweight and obesity should monitor sociodemographic, health and environmental conditions that affect attained height potential.

Health Promotion Intervention to Improve Diet Quality in Children.

OBJECTIVE: This study aims to evaluate the impact of an intervention program, taught by trained teachers, on foods and nutrients components of the Diet Quality Index-International among children in Grades 1 to 4. METHOD: A total of 464 children (239 female, 6-12 years) from seven elementary Portuguese schools participated in this randomized trial. Three schools were allocated to the intervention, and four to the control group. The intervention program was based on the health promotion model and social cognitive theory. Teachers previously trained by researchers in nutrition, healthy eating, and healthy cooking implemented the intervention in the classroom from November 2008 to March 2009. Sociodemographic, anthropometric, physical activity, and dietary assessments were performed before (2007/2008) and at the end of the intervention (2009). Dietary intake was gathered by a 24-hour dietary recall and the components of Diet Quality Index-International were defined. RESULTS: Children from the intervention schools reported a significantly higher adequacy in vegetable consumption (p = .018) and a significantly higher moderation in sodium consumption (p = .032) compared with the controllers. CONCLUSION: Our study provides further support for the success of intervention programs that aim to enhance children's dietary intake. Implementing similar interventions can be promising to support vegetable consumption and moderate sodium intake.

Association between energy density and diet cost in children.

HIGHLIGHTS: The average of the energy-adjusted diet cost in 6-12 years-old children was 2.17€/1000Kcal (SD + 0.49).Energy-density diets (EDs - Kcal/g) were calculated by three distinct methods: (1) with food and all beverages (ED1), (2) with food and caloric beverages (ED2), and (3) only with food (ED3).The distributions of the three EDs were statistically different, being higher the ED3 - calculated excluding all beverages (1.15Kcal (SD + 0.28) vs. ED2: 1.10Kcal/g; SD + 0.24 vs. ED1: 0.99Kcal/g; SD + 0.22).Lower energy-density diets (EDs) were associated with higher diet cost in a sample of school children from a Mediterranean country, regardless the differences between the EDs calculated by three distinct methods. BACKGROUND: Lower energy density diets tend to cost more, but data using different ways to calculate the dietary energy density, is scarce. OBJECTIVES: To estimate the dietary energy density, and to assess how it is associated with the diet cost in children. METHODS: Data were obtained from a community-based survey from public elementary schools in Portugal. Dietary intake of 464 children (6-12 years) was assessed by a 24 h recall in 2007/2008. Dietary energy density (kcal/g) was calculated as following: (1) with food and all beverages (ED1), (2) with food and caloric beverages (ED2), and (3) only with food (ED3). Energy-adjusted diet cost (€/1000 kcal) was calculated based on the collection of food prices from a national leader supermarket. Anthropometric measures were taken and socio-demographic data were obtained from parents. Logistic regression was used to estimate the association between diet cost and energy density. RESULTS: For boys, the energy-adjusted diet cost of the highest third of energy density was lower, between 81% in the ED3 (p for trend <0.001) and 87% in the ED1 (p for trend <0.001), compared to the lowest third. Girls showed similar, but weaker associations. CONCLUSIONS: Higher dietary energy density was associated with lower dietary cost among children.

Spherical blurred shape model for 3-D object and pose recognition: quantitative analysis and HCI applications in smart environments.

The use of depth maps is of increasing interest after the advent of cheap multisensor devices based on structured light, such as Kinect. In this context, there is a strong need of powerful 3-D shape descriptors able to generate rich object representations. Although several 3-D descriptors have been already proposed in the literature, the research of discriminative and computationally efficient descriptors is still an open issue. In this paper, we propose a novel point cloud descriptor called spherical blurred shape model (SBSM) that successfully encodes the structure density and local variabilities of an object based on shape voxel distances and a neighborhood propagation strategy. The proposed SBSM is proven to be rotation and scale invariant, robust to noise and occlusions, highly discriminative for multiple categories of complex objects like the human hand, and computationally efficient since the SBSM complexity is linear to the number of object voxels. Experimental evaluation in public depth multiclass object data, 3-D facial expressions data, and a novel hand poses data sets show significant performance improvements in relation to state-of-the-art approaches. Moreover, the effectiveness of the proposal is also proved for object spotting in 3-D scenes and for real-time automatic hand pose recognition in human computer interaction scenarios.

Impact of an intervention through teachers to prevent consumption of low nutrition, energy-dense foods and beverages: a randomized trial.

OBJECTIVE: To examine the effects of an intervention program held by teachers previously trained in nutrition, on the consumption of low nutrient, energy-dense (LNED) foods, of children attending elementary schools. METHOD: 464 children (239 female, 6 to 12 years) from seven elementary Portuguese schools participated in this randomized trial. Three schools were allocated to the intervention, and four to the control group. The intervention program was based on the Health Promotion Model and social cognitive theory. Teachers previously trained by researchers in nutrition and healthy eating implemented the intervention in the classroom from November 2008 to March 2009. Sociodemographic, anthropometric, physical activity, and dietary assessments were performed before (2007/2008) and at the end of the intervention (2009). Dietary intake was gathered by a 24-hour dietary recall and two groups of LNED foods were defined, namely SSBs and solid LNED foods. RESULTS: Children from intervention group reported a reduction whereas the control group reported an increase in solid LNED foods consumption. The odds of increasing solid LNED foods consumption was 0.48, 95%CI (0.24, 0.95) in the intervention schools. CONCLUSION: Our study provides further support for the success of intervention programs aimed at limiting the consumption of solid LNED foods in children.

The impact of an intervention taught by trained teachers on childhood overweight.

The purpose of this study was to assess the effects of a six-months' nutrition program, delivered and taught by classroom teachers with in-service nutrition training, on the prevention of overweight and obesity among children in grades 1 to 4. In this randomized trial, four hundred and sixty four children from seven elementary schools were allocated to a nutrition educational program delivered by their own teachers. Intervened teachers had 12 sessions of three hours each with the researchers throughout six months, according to the topics nutrition and healthy eating, the importance of drinking water and healthy cooking activities. After each session, teachers were encouraged to develop activities in class focused on the learned topics. Sociodemographic, anthropometric, dietary, and physical activity assessments were performed at baseline and at the end of the intervention. In the intervention group the increase in Body Mass Index (BMI) z-score was significantly lower than in the control group (p = 0.009); fewer proportion of children became overweight in the intervened group compared with the control (5.6% vs. 18.4%; p = 0.037). Our study provides further support to decrease the overweight epidemic, involving classroom teachers in a training program and making them dedicated interventionists.

The impact of an intervention taught by trained teachers on childhood fruit and vegetable intake: a randomized trial.

Our study aimed to assess the impact of a six-months nutrition program, taught by trained teachers, on fruit and vegetable consumption among children in grades 1 to 4. Four hundred and sixty-four children (239 female), 6 to 12 years old, from seven elementary schools were assigned to this randomized trial. Teachers were trained by researchers over six months, according to the following topics: nutrition, healthy eating, and strategies to increase physical activity. After each session, teachers were encouraged to develop activities in the classroom on the topics learned. Children's sociodemographic, anthropometric, dietary, and physical activity data were assessed at baseline and at the end of the intervention. The effect sizes ranged between small (Cohen's d = 0.12 on "other vegetables") to medium (0.56 on "fruit and vegetable"), and intervened children reported a significantly higher consumption of vegetables and fruit. Interventions involving trained teachers offer promise to increase consumption of fruit and vegetable in children.

Valores espirometricos normales para la ciudad de Buenos Aires / Normograms of spirometric values for the city of Buenos Aires

Debido a la diferencia existente entre las distintas tablas de valores teóricos espirométricos de la literatura, decidimos realizar la de la Ciudad de Buenos Aires y Gran Buenos Aires. Se realizó espirometría forzada, siguiendo las recomendaciones de la American Thoracic Society, a 237 personas (105 de sexo femenino y 132 de sexo masculino) de entre 18 y 86 años, y entre 144 y 194 centímetros de altura. Se les midió Capacidad Vital Forzada (FVC), Volumen Espiratorio Forzado en el primer segundo (FEV1), y Flujo Espiratorio Forzado entre el 25 y el 75 por ciento de la FVC(FEF25-75) en espirómetros previamente calibrados mediante el Simulador de Espirometría por Descompresión Explosiva. Se realizó Regresión Múltiple de los valores obtenidos de Función Pulmonar (FP) con la edad y la altura para cada sexo. Considerando la FP de distribución normal, se determinó el Límite Inferior Normal (LIN) calculando el intervalo de confianza a una cola con un nivel de confianza del 95 por ciento, y se consideró como LIN un porcentaje variable para cada parámetro, a cada edad, y a cada altura, eliminando así el concepto de valor porcentual fijo, utilizado ampliamente en nuestro medio.

Valores espirometricos normales para la ciudad de Buenos Aires / Normograms of spirometric values for the city of Buenos Aires

Debido a la diferencia existente entre las distintas tablas de valores teóricos espirométricos de la literatura, decidimos realizar la de la Ciudad de Buenos Aires y Gran Buenos Aires. Se realizó espirometría forzada, siguiendo las recomendaciones de la American Thoracic Society, a 237 personas (105 de sexo femenino y 132 de sexo masculino) de entre 18 y 86 años, y entre 144 y 194 centímetros de altura. Se les midió Capacidad Vital Forzada (FVC), Volumen Espiratorio Forzado en el primer segundo (FEV1), y Flujo Espiratorio Forzado entre el 25 y el 75 por ciento de la FVC(FEF25-75) en espirómetros previamente calibrados mediante el Simulador de Espirometría por Descompresión Explosiva. Se realizó Regresión Múltiple de los valores obtenidos de Función Pulmonar (FP) con la edad y la altura para cada sexo. Considerando la FP de distribución normal, se determinó el Límite Inferior Normal (LIN) calculando el intervalo de confianza a una cola con un nivel de confianza del 95 por ciento, y se consideró como LIN un porcentaje variable para cada parámetro, a cada edad, y a cada altura, eliminando así el concepto de valor porcentual fijo, utilizado ampliamente en nuestro medio. (AU)

Molecular analysis of yellow fever virus 17DD vaccine strain

The Oswaldo Cruz Foundation produces most of the yellow fever (YF) vaccine prepared world wide. As part of a broader approach to determine the genetic variability in YF l7D seeds and vaccines and its relevance to viral attenuation the 17DD virus was purifed directly from chick embryo homogenates which is the source of virus used for vaccination of millions of people in Brazil and other countries for half a century. Neutralization and hemagglutination tests showed that the purified virus is similar to the original stock. Furthermore, radioimmune precipitation of 35S-methionine-labeled viral proteins using mouse hyperimmune ascitic fluid revealed identical patterns for the purified 17DD virus and the YF l7D-204 strain except for the 17DD E protein which migrated slower on SDS-PAGE. This difference is likely to be due to N-linked glycosylation. Finally, comparison by northern blot nybridization of virion RNAs of purified 17DD with two other strains of YF virus only fenome-sized molecules for all three viruses. These observations suggest that vaccine phenotype is primarily associated with the accumulation of mutations

Encefalite pelo vírus Rocio / Rocio virus encephalitis

São descritos os achados obtidos pela Seção de Vírus Transmitidos por Artrópodes durante os estudos sobre a epidemia de encefalite ocasionada por um arbovírus, o Rocio, do grupo Flavivírus, novo para a ciência e que significou a emergência de nova doença humana para a região Sul do Brasil, compreendendo os municípios de Peruíbe, Itanhaém, Mongaguá e outros do Vale do Ribeira, no Estado de São Paulo, em 1975. Descreve as características da área endêrnica, os métodos virológicos utilizados, a caracterização do agente etiológico, seus aspectos epidemiológicos e observações a respeito dos ciclos enzoótico e epizoótico do vírus (AU).

Relaciones antigénicas entre virus del complejo de Tacaiuma del serogrupo Anopheles A (Bunyaviridae) / Antigenic relationships among Tacaiuma complex viruses of the Anopheles A serogroup (Bunyaviridae)

Durante investigaciones de campo realizadas en Estados Unidos de América y Brasil, se aislaron dos virus del grupo Anopheles A. Sus características pueden tener implicaciones importantes para el conocimiento de la familia Bunyaviridae, a la que pertenecen estos virus (AU)

Relaciones antigenicas entre virus del complejo Tacaiuma del serogrupo Anopheles A (Bunyaviridae). / Antigenic relations between Tacaiuma complex viruses of the Anopheles A serogroup (Bunyaviridae)

En investigaciones de campo realizadas en forma independiente sobre la ecologia de los arbovirus en Arizona, EUA, y Sao Paulo Brasil, se aislaron dos virus del grupo Anopheles A. El virus aislado en Arizona (743-366), obtenido de mosquitos Anopheles freeborni, para el que se propone el nombre de virus Virgin River y el virus aislado en Sao Paulo (H-32580, obtenido de un ser humano) estaban vinculados serologicamente con el complejo Tacaiuma (TCM). Asimismo, se determino que los virus 743-366 y H-32580 son variantes de un subtipo del TCM (SPAr 2317). Sin embargo, es posible distinguir uno del otro. Se describen las circunstancias en que se hicieron estas observaciones y se resalta su significado en la epidemiologia, la genetica y la nomenclatura de la familia virica Bunyaviridae.

Durante pesquisas de campo não relacionadas sobre a ecologia dos arbovírus no Arizona, Estados Unidos, e em São Paulo, no Brasil, isolaram-se dois vírus dos Anopheles, grupo A. 0 vírus isolado no Arizona (743-366 tirado de mosquitos Anopheles freebornz) para o qual se propóe dar o nome de vírus Virgin River e o vírus isolado em São Paulo (H-32580 tirado de um ser humano), estavam serologicamente relacionados no âmbito do complex Tacaiuma (TCM). Determinou-se também que o 743-366 e o H- 32580 são variantes de um subtipo (SPAr2317) do TCM. Contudo, o 743-366 e o H-32580 diferenciam-se um do outro. Este artigo descreve as circunstancias em que se fueram essas observações e a sua significacão epidemiológica, terminológica e genética em relacão com a família dos Bunyaviridae.

Relaciones antigénicas entre virus del complejo de Tacaiuma del serogrupo Anopheles A (Bunyaviridae) / Antigenic relationships among Tacaiuma complex viruses of the Anopheles A serogroup (Bunyaviridae)

Durante investigaciones de campo realizadas en Estados Unidos de América y Brasil, se aislaron dos virus del grupo Anopheles A. Sus características pueden tener implicaciones importantes para el conocimiento de la familia Bunyaviridae, a la que pertenecen estos virus (AU)