1,721,116 research outputs found

    Methodological approach to the assessment of the obesogenic environment in children and adolescents: A review of the literature

    No full text
    Childhood and adolescent obesity has been defined as a planetary epidemic by WHO "globesity". The obesogenic environment, defined as a life environment promoting a high-energy intake and a sedentary lifestyle, significantly contributes to the genesis and the diffusion of the globesity. In the last decades, several authors and working groups tried to develop methodological instruments in order to guarantee a reliable analysis of an obesogenic environment. Their efforts have led to the production of a relatively large number of questionnaires with different characteristics. The general aim of these questionnaires is to identify the factors that significantly contribute to the creation of an obesogenic environment around children and adolescents. As a result of this work, a number of studies were carried out using such questionnaires. Aim of this review is to evaluate ad hoc questionnaires useful to identify and analyze obesogenic environment

    Should vitamin D status be assessed in patients with congestive heart failure?

    No full text
    For decades the vitamin D biological system has been considered almost exclusively as the master integrator of calcium-phosphate homeostasis and bone metabolism. More recently, the discovery that many human tissues and cells, which do not directly participate in mineral ion homeostasis, express the vitamin D receptor (VDR) and are able to convert the circulating pro-hormone 25-hydroxyvitamin D in its active form, 1,25-dihydroxyvitamin D, has provided new insights into the biological function of this peculiar endocrine system. Several reports have highlighted a variety of human diseases possibly related to vitamin D insufficiency or deficiency (respectively defined as 25-hydroxyvitamin D serum levels lower than 30 or lower than 20 ng/ml). In particular, experimental and observational studies, including those published in this journal issue, support the concept that vitamin D deficiency is involved in the pathogenesis of congestive heart failure, a disabling condition affecting over 15 million of patients worldwide. Considering that circulating levels of 25-hydroxyvitamin D represent the accepted clinical indicator of individual vitamin D status, the measurement of this pro-hormone can be regarded as an appropriate and cost-effective screening tool in patients with chronic heart failure

    Methodological approach to the assessment of the obesogenic environment in children and adolescents: A review of the literature

    No full text
    Childhood and adolescent obesity has been defined as a planetary epidemic by WHO "globesity". The obesogenic environment, defined as a life environment promoting a high-energy intake and a sedentary lifestyle, significantly contributes to the genesis and the diffusion of the globesity. In the last decades, several authors and working groups tried to develop methodological instruments in order to guarantee a reliable analysis of an obesogenic environment. Their efforts have led to the production of a relatively large number of questionnaires with different characteristics. The general aim of these questionnaires is to identify the factors that significantly contribute to the creation of an obesogenic environment around children and adolescents. As a result of this work, a number of studies were carried out using such questionnaires. Aim of this review is to evaluate ad hoc questionnaires useful to identify and analyze obesogenic environment

    Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis

    Full text link
    The present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
    corecore