Prevalence and factors associated with gynoid lipodystrophy in Brazilian adolescent girls: a cross-sectional study.

BACKGROUND: Gynoid lipodystrophy (GLD), or female cellulitis, is a chronic multifactorial disorder characterized by the irregular appearance of the skin surface on the thighs and gluteal regions, which affects 80-90% of women after puberty. No curative treatments are available, and there is a paucity of epidemiological studies related to its prevalence, quality of life impact, and risk factors. We aimed to identify the prevalence and factors associated with the development of GLD in Brazilian adolescent girls. METHODS: A cross-sectional study examined adolescent girls from São Paulo, Brazil. The explored factors were grouped: familial history, gynecological and hormonal characteristics, exercise practice, nutrition and diet, anthropometric measures, body mass index, and body composition, according to GLD severity assessed through multivariate hierarchic statistics. RESULTS: In total, 184 girls, aged from 12 to 18 years, were included in the study. The overall prevalence of GLD was 77.7% (CI 95% 71.7-82.1%); moderate and severe categories of GLD occurred in 56.5% (CI 95% 48.9-62.5%) of the sample. An impact on the quality of life was identified in 39.7% of the girls. GLD was independently associated with higher body mass index, early menarche, higher carbohydrate intake, lower water consumption, menstrual irregularity, familial report of GLD, and less exercise practice. CONCLUSION: Gynoid lipodystrophy is a multifactorial disorder; its onset in adolescent girls is associated with familial occurrence, body composition, diet habits, exercise, and hormonal factors. These results support further interventions for GLD prevention and treatment.

Improving propionic acid production from a hemicellulosic hydrolysate of sorghum bagasse by means of cell immobilization and sequential batch operation.

Propionic acid (PA) is an important organic compound with extensive application in different industrial sectors and is currently produced by petrochemical processes. The production of PA by large-scale fermentation processes presents a bottleneck, particularly due to low volumetric productivity. In this context, the present work aimed to produce PA by a biochemical route from a hemicellulosic hydrolysate of sorghum bagasse using the strain Propionibacterium acidipropionici CIP 53164. Conditions were optimized to increase volumetric productivity and process efficiency. Initially, in simple batch fermentation, a final concentration of PA of 17.5 g⋅L-1 was obtained. Next, fed batch operation with free cells was adopted to minimize substrate inhibition. Although a higher concentration of PA was achieved (38.0 g⋅L-1 ), the response variables (YP/S = 0.409 g⋅g-1 and QP = 0.198 g⋅L-1 ⋅H-1 ) were close to those of the simple batch experiment. Finally, the fermentability of the hemicellulosic hydrolysate was investigated in a sequential batch with immobilized cells. The PA concentration achieved a maximum of 35.3 g⋅L-1 in the third cycle; moreover, the volumetric productivity was almost sixfold higher (1.17 g⋅L-1 ⋅H-1 ) in sequential batch than in simple batch fermentation. The results are highly promising, providing preliminary data for studies on scaling up the production of this organic acid.

Comparison of mono-rhamnolipids and di-rhamnolipids on microbial enhanced oil recovery (MEOR) applications.

Rhamnolipids (RMLs) have more effectiveness for specific uses according to their homologue proportions. Thus, the novelty of this work was to compare mono-RMLs and di-RMLs physicochemical properties on microbial enhanced oil recovery (MEOR) applications. For this, RML produced by three strains of Pseudomonas aeruginosa containing different homologues proportion were used: a mainly mono-RMLs producer (mono-RMLs); a mainly di-RMLs producer (di-RMLs), and the other one that produces relatively balanced amounts of mono-RML and di-RML homologues (mono/di-RML). For mono-RML, the most abundant molecules were Rha-C10 C10 (m/z 503.3), for di-RML were RhaRha-C10 C10 (m/z 649.4) and for Mono/di-RML were Rha-C10 C10 (m/z 503.3) and RhaRha-C10 C10 (m/z 649.4). All RMLs types presented robustness under high temperature and variation of salinity and pH, and high ability for oil displacement, foam stability, wettability reversal and were classified as safe for environment according to the European Union Directive No. 67/548/EEC. For all these properties, it was observed a highlight for mono-RML. Mono-RML presented the lowest surface tension (26.40 mN/m), interfacial tension (1.14 mN/m), and critical micellar concentration (CMC 27.04 mg/L), the highest emulsification index (EI24 100%) and the best wettability reversal (100% with 25 ppm). In addition, mono-RML showed the best acute toxicity value (454 mg/L), making its application potential even more attractive. Based on the results, it was concluded that all RMLs homologues studied have potential for MEOR applications. However, results showed that mono-RML stood out and have the best mechanism of oil incorporation in micelles due their most effective surface-active physicochemical features.