Reducing the Decline in Physical Activity during Pregnancy: A Systematic Review of Behaviour Change Interventions

Purpose

Physical activity (PA) typically declines throughout pregnancy. Low levels of PA are associated with excessive weight gain and subsequently increase risk of pre-eclampsia, gestational diabetes mellitus, hypertension disorders, delivery by caesarean section and stillbirth. Systematic reviews on PA during pregnancy have not explored the efficacy of behaviour change techniques or related theory in altering PA behaviour. This systematic review evaluated the content of PA interventions to reduce the decline of PA in pregnant women with a specific emphasis on the behaviour change techniques employed to elicit this change.

Search and Review Methodology

Literature searches were conducted in eight databases. Strict inclusion and exclusion criteria were employed. Two reviewers independently evaluated each intervention using the behaviour change techniques (BCT) taxonomy to identify the specific behaviour change techniques employed. Two reviewers independently assessed the risk of bias using the guidelines from the Cochrane Collaboration. Overall quality was determined using the GRADE approach.

Findings

A total of 1140 potentially eligible papers were identified from which 14 studies were selected for inclusion. Interventions included counselling (n = 6), structured exercise (n = 6) and education (n = 2). Common behaviour change techniques employed in these studies were goal setting and planning, feedback, repetition and substitution, shaping knowledge and comparison of behaviours. Regular face-to-face meetings were also commonly employed. PA change over time in intervention groups ranged from increases of 28% to decreases of 25%. In 8 out of 10 studies, which provided adequate data, participants in the intervention group were more physically active post intervention than controls.

Conclusions and Implications

Physical activity interventions incorporating behaviour change techniques help reduce the decline in PA throughout pregnancy. Range of behaviour change techniques can be implemented to reduce this decline including goals and planning, shaping knowledge and comparison of outcomes. A lack of high quality interventions hampers conclusions of intervention effectiveness.     

Personal and Household Hygiene,Environmental Contamination,and Health in Undergraduate Residence Halls in New York City, 2011

Background

While several studies have documented the importance of hand washing in the university setting, the added role of environmental hygiene remains poorly understood. The purpose of this study was to characterize the personal and environmental hygiene habits of college students, define the determinants of hygiene in this population, and assess the relationship between reported hygiene behaviors, environmental contamination, and health status.

Methods

501 undergraduate students completed a previously validated survey assessing baseline demographics, hygiene habits, determinants of hygiene, and health status. Sixty survey respondents had microbiological samples taken from eight standardized surfaces in their dormitory environment. Bacterial contamination was assessed using standard quantitative bacterial culture techniques. Additional culturing for coagulase-positive Staphylococcus and coliforms was performed using selective agar.

Results

While the vast majority of study participants (n = 461, 92%) believed that hand washing was important for infection prevention, there was a large amount of variation in reported personal hygiene practices. More women than men reported consistent hand washing before preparing food (p = .002) and after using the toilet (p = .001). Environmental hygiene showed similar variability although 73.3% (n = 367) of subjects reported dormitory cleaning at least once per month. Contamination of certain surfaces was common, with at least one third of all bookshelves, desks, refrigerator handles, toilet handles, and bathroom door handles positive for >10 CFU of bacteria per 4 cm² area. Coagulase-positive Staphylococcus was detected in three participants'' rooms (5%) and coliforms were present in six students'' rooms (10%). Surface contamination with any bacteria did not vary by frequency of cleaning or frequency of illness (p>.05).

Conclusions

Our results suggest that surface contamination, while prevalent, is unrelated to reported hygiene or health in the university setting. Further research into environmental reservoirs of infectious diseases may delineate whether surface decontamination is an effective target of hygiene interventions in this population.     

Enigmatic occurrence of Permian plant roots in Lower Silurian rocks,Guizhou Province,China

Pinnatiramosus qianensis Geng, 1986, is a plant with a complex, extensive pinnate branching system and pitted tracheids, collected from marine Lower Silurian (Llandovery; c. 430 Ma) rocks in Guizhou Province, China. It challenges long‐held theories on the origin and early evolution of vascular plants in the Silurian and Devonian. However, there is a hypothesis that the fossils were not syngenetic with the entombing rock, but were the rooting systems of much younger plants, probably of Permian age. New sections and collections of P. qianensis have been subjected to detailed analyses, which indicate that P. qianensis belongs to an early Permian (c. 285 Ma) rooting system growing down into lower Silurian rocks.     

Contributions to the diversity in cryptogamic covers in the mid‐Palaeozoic: Nematothallus revisited

Compression fossils from the Silurian and Devonian of southern Britain, composed of cuticles and tubes, were described by W. H. Lang as the genus Nematothallus and placed, with Prototaxites, in Nematophytales, related neither to algae nor tracheophytes. Dispersed cuticles of Nematothallus and perforated forms assigned to Cosmochlaina were frequently recovered in macerates, their affinities being unresolved. New collections from a Lochkovian locality in the Welsh Borderland permitted the reconstruction of the stratified thalli of these nematophytes; they comprise a superficial cortex (which produced the cuticles) overlying a palisade zone composed of septate, parallel tubes, presumed to be hyphae, and a basal zone comprising wefts of randomly interwoven hyphae. Excellent three dimensional preservation allows the erection of a new species of Nematothallus, N. williamii. A similar anatomy is seen in a new group of fossils with either circular incisions in the cortex or complete separation of thickened cortical cells, presumably comprising a developmental sequence. By their stratified organization the nematophytes differ from extant and extinct algae and bryophytes and the enigmatic Spongiophyton. A complex anatomy and septate tubes suggest affinity with lichenized fungi. Limited data support a fungal rather than embryophyte chemistry, but a photobiont is missing. Nematophytes, globally widespread in cryptogamic covers from mid‐Ordovician times, added to the biodiversity in early terrestrial ecosystems and enhanced chemical weathering. © 2013 The Linnean Society of London, Botanical Journal of the Linnean Society, 2013, 173 , 505–534.     

Types and development pathways of lateral line scales in some teleost species

Voronina, E.P. and Hughes, D.R. 2011. Types and development pathways of lateral line scales in some teleost species. —Acta Zoologica (Stockholm) 00 : 1–13. A comparative study of lateral line scales (lls) in nine teleost species was undertaken to trace their ontogenetic structural changes. Three universal characters were used to describe and classify definitive and developing lls. The four main structural types in teleosts are represented. In adult fish, lls are the same structural type in all parts of lateral line in any one specimen, but number of tubules and their orientation may vary. In juvenile fish, except for one species, the structural type of every lls changes with growth, and this process progresses along the lateral line in the direction of development typical for the species. Definitive structural type of the lls is not determined by common scale type and size, presence or absence of nerve foramen on lls, scale overlapping or time of initiation of scales and trunk canal. Development pathways are proposed in which terminal states correspond to the final development of the most complex lls type in Cyprinus carpio, Carassius carassius, Oncorhynchus mykiss, Diplodus annularis and Mullus barbatus. The intermediate states of these pathways correspond to other types of lls as examples of pedomorphosis in Perca fluviatilis, Sander lucioperca, Symphysodon aequifasciatus and Hippoglossoides platessoides.     

Bacterial epibionts and endolichenic actinobacteria and fungi in the Lower Devonian lichen Chlorolichenomycites salopensis

The charcoalified fragment of the dorsiventrally organized, internally stratified presumed green algal lichen Chlorolichenomycites salopensis from the Lower Devonian Lochkovian strata in the Welsh Borderland carries bacterial colonies on the upper surface, i.e. the cortex, and actinobacterial filaments in the medulla underneath the photobiont layer. Moreover relatively thin hyphae of presumed endolichenic fungi were found. As in extant lichens, which are best regarded as consortia with an unknown number of participants, this internally stratified, fossil thallus fragment of a presumed green algal lichen harbours a diverse microbial community.     

Cancer incidence and mortality in people aged less than 75 years: Changes in Australia over the period 1987–2007

BackgroundAustralia has one of the highest rates of cancer incidence worldwide and, despite improving survival, cancer continues to be a major public health problem. Our aim was to provide simple summary measures of changes in cancer mortality and incidence in Australia so that progress and areas for improvement in cancer control can be identified.MethodsWe used national data on cancer deaths and newly registered cancer cases and compared expected and observed numbers of deaths and cases diagnosed in 2007. The expected numbers were obtained by applying 1987 age–sex specific rates (average of 1986–1988) directly to the 2007 population. The observed numbers of deaths and incident cases were calculated for 2007 (average of 2006–2008). We limited the analyses to people aged less than 75 years.ResultsThere was a 28% fall in cancer mortality (7827 fewer deaths in 2007 vs. 1987) and a 21% increase in new cancer diagnoses (13,012 more diagnosed cases in 2007). The greatest reductions in deaths were for cancers of the lung in males (?2259), bowel (?1797), breast (?773) and stomach (?577). Other notable falls were for cancers of the prostate (?295), cervix (?242) and non-Hodgkin lymphoma (?240). Only small or no changes occurred in mortality for cancers of the lung (female only), pancreas, brain and related, oesophagus and thyroid, with an increase in liver cancer (267). Cancer types that showed the greatest increase in incident cases were cancers of the prostate (10,245), breast (2736), other cancers (1353), melanoma (1138) and thyroid (1107), while falls were seen for cancers of the lung (?1705), bladder (?1110) and unknown primary (?904).ConclusionsThe reduction in mortality indicates that prevention strategies, improvements in cancer treatment, and screening programmes have made significant contributions to cancer control in Australia since 1987. The rise in incidence is partly due to diagnoses being brought forward by technological improvements and increased coverage of screening and early diagnostic testing.     

A framework for estimating the sensitivity of eDNA surveys

Imperfect sensitivity, or imperfect detection, is a feature of all survey methods that needs to be accounted for when interpreting survey results. Detection of environmental DNA (eDNA) is increasingly being used to infer species distributions, yet the sensitivity of the technique has not been fully evaluated. Sensitivity, or the probability of detecting target DNA given it is present at a site, will depend on both the survey method and the concentration and dispersion of target DNA molecules at a site. We present a model to estimate target DNA concentration and dispersion at survey sites and to estimate the sensitivity of an eDNA survey method. We fitted this model to data from a species‐specific eDNA survey for Oriental weatherloach, Misgurnus anguillicaudatus, at three sites sampled in both autumn and spring. The concentration of target DNA molecules was similar at all three sites in autumn but much higher at two sites in spring. Our analysis showed the survey method had ≥95% sensitivity at sites where target DNA concentrations were ≥11 molecules per litre. We show how these data can be used to compare sampling schemes that differ in the number of field samples collected per site and number of PCR replicates per sample to achieve ≥95% sensitivity at a given target DNA concentration. These models allow researchers to quantify the sensitivity of eDNA survey methods to optimize the probability of detecting target species, and to compare DNA concentrations spatially and temporarily.     

Serum ferritin as a candidate diagnostic biomarker of polycystic ovarian syndrome: a meta-analysis

Objective: In this study, we investigated about the potential of serum ferritin as a complementary diagnostic biomarker of polycystic ovarian syndrome (PCOS) by performing a meta-analysis of existing literature.

Materials and methods: Eleven studies written in English were retrieved up to 30 June 2018. Data were extracted from the selected studies by two of the authors and was subjected to statistical analysis. Levels of serum ferritin were compared between women with PCOS and controls using the standardized mean difference (SMD) and 95% confidence interval (CI). Subgroup analysis was also performed and stratified by ethnicity (Asians versus Caucasians).

Results: Overall post-outlier outcomes indicated that elevated serum ferritin is strongly associated with PCOS (SMD: 0.52; 95% CI: 0.40–0.64; P^A?=?10^?5). Subgroup analysis by ethnicity showed no significant difference between Asian and Caucasian population. Post-outlier receiving operations characteristics curve were plotted and showed that values for serum ferritin showed good potential in discriminating patients with and without PCOS (AUC?=?0.827, p?=?0.006).

Conclusion: Our findings suggest that high serum ferritin level is significantly associated with PCOS and its potential as a biomarker is evident in its high diagnostic accuracy. However, additional studies are needed to confirm our claims.