Association between eating alone and cardiovascular diseases in elderly women: a cross-sectional study of KNHANES 2016 data.

OBJECTIVE: To investigate differences in health behaviors, nutritional status, and the likelihood of having cardiovascular diseases and its risk factors according to the presence of an eating companion in older women. METHODS: Using 2016 Korean National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey VII-1 data, 590 menopausal women aged ≥65 years were analyzed in this cross-sectional study. Participants who ate more than two meals a day alone were assigned to an eating-alone (EA) group and those who ate more than two meals a day with others were assigned to an eating-with-others (EO) group. Complex-samples general linear analysis, t tests, and logistic regression were used for the analysis of the data. RESULTS: Awareness of nutrition labels (P = 0.012), using of nutrition labels (P = 0.014), and impact of nutrition labels (P = 0.016) were lower in the EA group than in the EO group. The intake of energy, carbohydrates, dietary fiber, sodium, and potassium was lower in the EA group than in the EO group (P < 0.05). The likelihood of having angina was 2.58 times higher in the EA group than in the EO group (95% CI, 1.20-5.55). CONCLUSIONS: Older women who ate alone had poorer nutritional knowledge and intake. In addition, eating alone in older women was strongly associated with the prevalence of angina. Thus, it is necessary to consider nutrition education and cardiovascular disease screening for older women who mainly eat alone.

Advance care planning for older adults in community-based settings: An umbrella review.

BACKGROUND: Advance care planning (ACP) is critical to ensure better quality end of life care, and older adults are often a target of ACP. However, ACP interventions and their outcomes are neither standardised nor conclusive. OBJECTIVES: To synthesise existing ACP systematic reviews and identify the types and outcomes of ACP interventions for older adults in community-based settings. METHODS: An umbrella review of systematic reviews. The Joanna Briggs Institute Reviewer's Manual was followed. Relevant systematic reviews were searched by utilising bibliographic databases, grey literature sources, and manual searches between April and July, 2019. Nine systematic reviews met the inclusion criteria. Critical appraisal on the selected reviews was conducted. Data were independently extracted using a data extraction tool by two researchers and synthesised based on consensus. RESULTS: The systematic reviews suggest the critical features of ACP interventions for older adults in community-based settings including clinicians' face-to-face communication with patients and their family members, comprehensive and individualized decisional aids, a proper intensity of ACP interventions, and professional training. When categorising ACP outcomes according to Sudore et al.'s (Journal of Pain and Symptom Management, 55, 2018, 245) framework, action outcomes (e.g., documentation, discussion) were frequently measured with positive outcomes. Quality of care outcomes such as congruence with care preference and healthcare outcomes such as health status were not reported sufficiently. CONCLUSIONS: The reviews suggested essential features of ACP interventions, which were often omitted in ACP interventions for older adults. Although the outcomes were generally positive, it is inconclusive as to whether ACP interventions eventually improved quality of end of life care or health status of older adults in community-based settings. IMPLICATIONS FOR PRACTICE: For ACP interventions to be effective and comparable in their outcomes, we recommend adopting the key intervention components identified in this study. As the effects of ACP interventions are inconclusive, further investigations are warranted.

Analysis of Channel Area Fluctuation Effects of Gate-All-Around Tunnel Field-Effect Transistor.

In this manuscript, channel area fluctuation (CAF) effects on turn-on voltage (Von) and subthreshold swing (SS) in gate-all-around (GAA) nanowire (NW) tunnel field-effect transistor (TFET) with multi-bridge-channel (MBC) have been investigated for the first time. These variations occur because oblique etching slope makes various elliptical-shaped channels in MBC-TFET. Since TFET is promising candidates to succeed metal-oxide-semiconductor FETs (MOSFET), these variation effects have been compared to MOSFET. Furthermore, Ge homojunction TFET, one of the solutions to increase on-state current in TFET and improve SS also has been simulated using technology computer-aided design (TCAD) simulation. The results would be worth reference for future study about GAA NW TFETs.

Preventive Intra Oral Treatment of Sea Cucumber Ameliorate OVA-Induced Allergic Airway Inflammation.

Sea cucumber extracts have potent biological effects, including anti-viral, anti-cancer, antibacterial, anti-oxidant, and anti-inflammation effects. To understand their anti-asthma effects, we induced allergic airway inflammation in mice after 7 oral administrations of the extract. The hyper-responsiveness value in mice with ovalbumin (OVA)-alum-induced asthma after oral injection of sea cucumber extracts was significantly lower than that in the OVA-alum-induced asthma group. In addition, the number of eosinophils in the lungs of asthma-induced mice pre-treated with sea cucumber extract was significantly decreased compared to that of PBS pre-treated mice. Additionally, CD4[Formula: see text]CD25[Formula: see text]Foxp3[Formula: see text]T (regulatory T; Treg) cells significantly increased in mesenteric lymph nodes after 7 administrations of the extract. These results suggest that sea cucumber extract can ameliorate allergic airway inflammation via Treg cell activation and recruitment to the lung.