Adolescent inpatients with anorexia nervosa can roughly predict their own weight trajectories after discharge.

Most adolescents with anorexia nervosa (AN) gain a substantial amount of weight during inpatient treatment, but many relapse after discharge. Therefore, there is a need to identify variables that predict weight changes after treatment. The current study tested whether such a variable may be patients' own predictions about their future weight. Data of 120 female adolescent inpatients with AN were available at discharge and one-year follow-up. Patients' own predictions about their future weight trajectories predicted their actual weight change after discharge: those who indicated that they would gain weight, gained weight, those who indicated that they would lose weight, lost weight, and those who indicated to maintain their weight, had no weight change on average. Similarly, expected weight change in kilograms correlated positively with actual weight change after discharge. Thus, patients who expect that they will lose weight again should receive intensified aftercare that fosters motivation to change.

Inpatient treatment of anorexia nervosa in adolescents: A 1-year follow-up study.

OBJECTIVE: Inpatient treatment effectively increases body weight and decreases eating disorder symptoms in adolescents with anorexia nervosa (AN). However, there is a high risk of relapse within the first year after discharge, which calls for investigating long-term treatment success and its moderators. METHOD: Female adolescent inpatients with AN (N = 142) were assessed, of which 85% participated at 1-year follow-up. Dependent variables were body mass index percentiles, eating disorder symptoms, depressive symptoms, compulsive exercise and life satisfaction. RESULTS: On average, body weight increased and eating disorder symptoms and depressive symptoms decreased from admission to discharge and remained stable at follow-up. Compulsive exercise decreased and life satisfaction increased from admission to discharge and even improved further at follow-up. Age, duration of illness, previous inpatient treatments, length of stay and readmission after discharge moderated changes in several outcome variables. CONCLUSIONS: This study confirms the high effectiveness of inpatient treatment for adolescents with AN and demonstrates that treatment effects remain stable or even improve further within the first year after discharge. However, subgroups of patients (e.g., those with an older age, longer duration of illness, and previous inpatient treatments) require special attention during inpatient treatment and aftercare to prevent relapse.

Live fluorescent RNA-based detection of pluripotency gene expression in embryonic and induced pluripotent stem cells of different species.

The generation of induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells has successfully been achieved in many species. However, the identification of truly reprogrammed iPS cells still remains laborious and the detection of pluripotency markers requires fixation of cells in most cases. Here, we report an approach with nanoparticles carrying Cy3-labeled sense oligonucleotide reporter strands coupled to gold-particles. These molecules are directly added to cultured cells without any manipulation and gene expression is evaluated microscopically after overnight incubation. To simultaneously detect gene expression in different species, probe sequences were chosen according to interspecies homology. With a common target-specific probe we could successfully demonstrate expression of the GAPDH house-keeping gene in somatic cells and expression of the pluripotency markers NANOG and GDF3 in embryonic stem cells and iPS cells of murine, human, and porcine origin. The population of target gene positive cells could be purified by fluorescence-activated cell sorting. After lentiviral transduction of murine tail-tip fibroblasts Nanog-specific probes identified truly reprogrammed murine iPS cells in situ during development based on their Cy3-fluorescence. The intensity of Nanog-specific fluorescence correlated positively with an increased capacity of individual clones to differentiate into cells of all three germ layers. Our approach offers a universal tool to detect intracellular gene expression directly in live cells of any desired origin without the need for manipulation, thus allowing conservation of the genetic background of the target cell. Furthermore, it represents an easy, scalable method for efficient screening of pluripotency which is highly desirable during high-throughput cell reprogramming and after genomic editing of pluripotent stem cells.