scholarly journals The relationship between melatonin and sleep quality and its weight loss benefits

2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Alexandre Carli Pinto ◽  
Danilo Everton Cunha Cavalcante ◽  
Etianne Andrade Araújo ◽  
Francione Moreira Cabral ◽  
Jhonatas Mota Santos ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Weight Loss ◽  
Weight Control ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Body ◽  
Sleep Cycle ◽  
Pharmaceutical Companies ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Published Research ◽  
Night Period

Melatonin is an endogenous substance easily found in the body. It is conceptualized as a hormone, derived from serotonin, synthesized by the pineal gland during the night period. As a hormone, melatonin has several functions, such as immunomodulation, antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, and antitumor, however its most compliant function is the control of the circadian rhythm, in addition to regularizing seasonality. Sleep is one of the primordial needs of the human being, after a period of physical and mental activities, it has a fundamental role to relax and re-establish the organism for a new cycle of activities. Thus, melatonin acts as a metabolism regulator influencing the quality of life, and its effectiveness in inducing sleep has led pharmaceutical companies to launch its synthetic version, widely sold as a supplement in some countries such as the United States and Europe. To analyze the importance of melatonin in the regulation of sleep, as well as to characterize its functions in the body that contribute to weight control. The work methodology consisted of a literature review, carried out through previously published research studies. Based on the literary subsidies that supported this research, it is concluded that the benefits achieved with the use of melatonin encompass the alignment of the sleep cycle and contribute to weight control, which may influence weight loss, as well as in other areas of the body.

scholarly journals Direct to Consumer Pharmaceutical Advertising – Helpful or Harmful?

2021 ◽  
Vol 15 ◽  
pp. 1-6
Author(s):  
Sharifah saffinas Syed soffian ◽  
Siti maisara Amir ◽  
Faiz Daud
Keyword(s):  
The United States ◽  
Pharmaceutical Companies ◽  
Pharmaceutical Advertising ◽  
Drug Marketing ◽  
Direct To Consumer ◽  
Direct To Consumer Advertising ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Traditional Manner ◽  
Substantial Degree

While direct-to-consumer advertising (DTCA) has been legalized in the United States and New Zealand, the prescribed drug marketing has long reached other places in the world including the Asian regions. Behind the successful profit-making pharmaceutical companies, concerns about public health impacts to the patient and physician counterpart have grown. Evidences illustrated that DTCA increases the volume of prescribing amount through patient demand and that the traditional manner of drug prescribing action has changed. However, the quality of health care trade in the relationship between physician and patient often overlooked and compromised. The systematic review analysed eight studies from five identified search engines using PRISMA guidelines. This review findings demonstrate DTCA implication in term of the health literacy, economic impact and relationship between physician and patient. Physician expressed substantial degree of dissatisfying behaviour when challenged with unnecessary need to prescribe drugs demand by patient. The prominent involvement of policymakers in regulating the guideline and controlling delivery of information in any advertisement related to drugs is direly important.

scholarly journals Last Place of Care and End-of-Life Quality of Life in the United States: Evidence From a National Representative Data Set

2020 ◽  
Vol 4 (Supplement_1) ◽  
pp. 17-17
Author(s):  
Yifan Lou ◽  
Nan Jiang ◽  
Katherine Ornstein
Keyword(s):  
Quality Of Life ◽  
Older Adults ◽  
End Of Life ◽  
End Of Life Care ◽  
The United States ◽  
Life Care ◽  
Person Centered Care ◽  
Centered Care ◽  
The Relationship

Abstract Background: Quality of life (QoL) during last stage of life has raised expanded interests as an important aspect of person-centered care. Last place of care (LPC), refer to the last place decedents received their formal end-of-life care (EOLC), has been identified as a key indicator of older adults’ end-of-life QoL, but the relationship was understudied. This study explores the association between LPC and end-of-life QoL among American older adults. Methods: Data used seven waves of Last Month of Life data with a total sample of 3068 Medicare decedents in NHATS. Outcome is end-of-life QoL assessed by eleven measures on four domains: pain and symptoms management (SP), quality of healthcare encounter (HE), person-centered care (PC), and overall quality of care (QC). LPC was categorized into home, hospital, nursing home, and residential hospice. Multivariate logistic regression analyses were used to examine the relationship with covariates. Results: LPC varied by most demographic characteristics, except immigration status and education. Older adults whose LPC is hospital, compared to those who had home-care, were less likely to have great experiences on HE, PC, and QC. People dying at nursing homes are more likely to receive care meeting their dyspnea and spiritual needs. Residential hospice is negatively related to respected care, clear coordination, and keeping family informed, but are more likely to provide PS and spiritual care. Discussion: Home-based end-of-life care has certain advantages but still has room to improve on SP and religious concerns. Hospitals should keep reforming their service delivery structure to improve patients’ QoL.

COGNITIVE HABITS LINKED TO RESILIENCE: SURPRISING COMMONALITIES ACROSS THE UNITED STATES

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-14
Keyword(s):  
Quality Of Life ◽  
United States ◽  
Socioeconomic Status ◽  
Regional Differences ◽  
The United States ◽  
Postal Code ◽  
Improvement Plan ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
The Way

Abstract Background: Research has documented many geographic inequities in health. Research has also documented that the way one thinks about health and quality of life (QOL) affects one’s experience of health, treatment, and one’s ability to cope with health problems. Purpose: We examined United-States (US) regional differences in QOL appraisal (i.e., the way one thinks about health and QOL), and whether resilience-appraisal relationships varied by region. Methods: Secondary analysis of 3,955 chronic-disease patients and caregivers assessed QOL appraisal via the QOL Appraisal Profile-v2 and resilience via the Centers for Disease Control Healthy Days Core Module. Covariates included individual-level and aggregate-level socioeconomic status (SES) characteristics. Zone improvement plan (ZIP) code was linked to publicly available indicators of income inequality, poverty, wealth, population density, and rurality. Multivariate and hierarchical residual modeling tested study hypotheses that there are regional differences in QOL appraisal and in the relationship between resilience and appraisal. Results: After sociodemographic adjustment, QOL appraisal patterns and the appraisal-resilience connection were virtually the same across regions. For resilience, sociodemographic variables explained 26 % of the variance; appraisal processes, an additional 17 %; and region and its interaction terms, just an additional 0.1 %. Conclusion: The study findings underscore a geographic universality across the contiguous US in how people think about QOL, and in the relationship between appraisal and resilience. Despite the recent prominence of divisive rhetoric suggesting vast regional differences in values, priorities, and experiences, our findings support the commonality of ways of thinking and responding to life challenges. These findings support the wide applicability of cognitive-based interventions to boost resilience. Keywords: appraisal; resilience; cognitive; quality of life; societal; geographic Abbreviations: MANOVA = Multivariate Analysis of Variance; PCA = principal components analysis; QOL = quality of life; SES = socioeconomic status; US = United States; ZIP = Zone Improvement Plan (postal code)

Japanese interpretations of “pain” and the use of psychomimes

2014 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 216-238 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yuko Asano-Cavanagh
Keyword(s):  
The Body ◽  
Pharmaceutical Companies ◽  
Metaphorical Meaning ◽  
Naturally Occurring ◽  
Japanese English

This paper examines six Japanese psychomimes — zuki-zuki, kiri-kiri, shiku-shiku, chiku-chiku, hiri-hiri, and gan-gan — that express subtle differences in states or sensations regarding “pain”. It is generally recognized, however, that many languages lack words with the same meanings as these Japanese psychomimes and that their meanings are difficult to capture precisely. The definitions in Japanese-English dictionaries, for example, are not sufficient to explain the exact meanings and there is also the problem that each Japanese expression can correspond to several English verbs. This study applies the framework of the Natural Semantic Metalanguage approach to explicate the meaning of the six Japanese psychomimes. It makes reference to a corpus of naturally-occurring examples compiled from publicly available sources from physicians, patients, hospitals, and pharmaceutical companies. The analysis indicates that each psychomime conveys a vivid metaphorical meaning. The quality of the pain is suggested by reference to an imagined scenario of something moving inside a part of the body or touching part of the body. This imagined ‘something’ can be understood as something ‘sharp’ or as something similar to ‘fire’ or to ‘metal’. The use of psychomimes is an effective and efficient way for expressing and understanding “pain” in Japanese.

scholarly journals Navigating the market of welfare services: The choice of upper secondary school in Sweden

2014 ◽  
Vol 5 ◽  
Author(s):  
Torbjörn Hjort ◽  
Alexandru Panican
Keyword(s):  
The Body ◽  
Social Rights ◽  
Actual Process ◽  
Social Citizenship ◽  
Ethnic Segregation ◽  
Freedom Of Choice ◽  
Welfare Services ◽  
Upper Secondary ◽  
The Relationship

Due to increased market orientation and deregulation, welfare services in Sweden have taken on the form of market-based services. The body of research on deregulation and privatization is quite substantial regarding the implications of this kind of development. However, studies of the actual process of how choices are made are less common. This article discusses the implications of greater freedom of choice for Swedish citizens in diverse socioeconomic situations, focusing on factors that limit opportunities for choice. Deregulation and the increasing number of alternatives affect the relationship between the citizen and the welfare state in several ways. The Swedish school system is used here as an example of an empirical field. The analytical focus of the article consists of two different kinds of restrictions on choice: structure-based and agency-based. One conclusion is that both affluent and underprivileged citizens have limited choices. Another conclusion is that social citizenship, when freedom of choice is stimulated, can reproduce and even increase social and ethnic segregation. An additional potential consequence is that, when we consider social rights in their tangible form, the development of greater freedom of choice is focused increasingly on the consumer’s range of choices and less on the quality of the service offered.

“I’m Not Really 100% a Woman If I Can’t Have a Kid”: Infertility and the Intersection of Gender, Identity, and the Body

2019 ◽  
Vol 33 (4) ◽  
pp. 629-651 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ann V. Bell
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Gender Identity ◽  
Sense Of Self ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Body ◽  
Social Constraints ◽  
The Subject ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Do So

Despite establishing the gendered construction of infertility, most research on the subject has not examined how individuals with such reproductive difficulty negotiate their own sense of gender. I explore this gap through 58 interviews with women who are medically infertile and involuntarily childless. In studying how women achieve their gender, I reveal the importance of the body to such construction. For the participants, there is not just a motherhood mandate in the United States, but a fertility mandate—women are not just supposed to mother, they are supposed to procreate. Given this understanding, participants maintain their gender by denying their infertile status. They do so through reliance on essentialist notions, using their bodies as a means of constructing a gendered sense of self. Using the tenets of transgender theory, this study not only informs our understanding of infertility, but also our broader understanding of the relationship between gender, identity, and the body, exposing how individuals negotiate their gender through physical as well as institutional and social constraints.

Is Sprawl Affordable for Americans?

2015 ◽  
Vol 2500 (1) ◽  
pp. 75-79 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shima Hamidi ◽  
Reid Ewing
Keyword(s):  
Multilevel Modeling ◽  
Urban Sprawl ◽  
Household Income ◽  
The United States ◽  
Housing Affordability ◽  
Transportation Costs ◽  
Housing Costs ◽  
Household Costs ◽  
The Relationship

Housing affordability has been one of the most persistent national concerns in the United States, mainly because housing costs are the biggest item in most household budgets. Urban sprawl has been proved by previous studies to be a driver of housing affordability. Previous studies, however, were structurally flawed because they considered only costs directly related to housing and ignored the transportation costs associated with a remote location. This study sought to determine whether, after transportation costs were taken into account, urban sprawl was still affordable for Americans. Multilevel modeling and the recently released location affordability indexes (LAIs) and metropolitan compactness indexes tested the relationship between sprawl and housing affordability. By controlling for covariates, this study found that in compact areas, the portion of household income spent on housing was greater but the portion of income spent on transportation was lower. Each 10% increase in a compactness score was associated with a 1.1% increase in housing costs and a 3.5% decrease in transportation costs relative to income. The combined cost of housing and transportation declined as the compactness score rose. As metropolitan compactness increased, transportation costs decreased faster than housing costs increased, creating a net decline in household costs. This is a novel finding, conditioned only on the quality of the data on which the LAI is based.

scholarly journals Dietary and herbal supplements for weight loss: assessing the quality of patient information online

2021 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Jeremy Y. Ng ◽  
Saad Ahmed ◽  
Catherine Jiayi Zhang
Keyword(s):  
Weight Loss ◽  
Health Information ◽  
Healthcare Providers ◽  
The United States ◽  
Consumer Health Information ◽  
Consumer Health ◽  
High Quality ◽  
The Mean ◽  
The Impact

Abstract Background Given the high prevalence of dietary and herbal supplement (DHS) use in tandem with the growing ease of internet access, patients commonly search online for consumer health information about these products. One common reason for DHSs use includes weight loss. Healthcare providers need to be aware of the quality of online information about DHSs for weight loss so they can adequately counsel their patients and provide them with guidance surrounding the identification of high-quality information resources. This study aimed to assess the quality of online DHSs consumer health information for weight loss that a “typical” patient might access online. Methods Six search terms were used to generate the first 20 websites on the Google search engine in four countries: Australia, Canada, the United Kingdom, and the United States (n = 480 websites). After applying exclusion criteria, eligible websites were quality assessed using the DISCERN instrument. This tool is comprised of 16 questions, each evaluated on a 5-point scale. The averages and standard deviations for each DISCERN instrument item, in addition to overall summed scores between 15 and 75 were calculated. Results Across 87 eligible websites, the mean summed score was 44.80 (SD = 11.53), while the mean overall DISCERN score of each website was 2.72 (SD = 0.99). In general, websites detailed and achieved their specified aims and described treatment benefits. However, most websites failed to describe the impact of treatment on overall quality of life and the impact of a no treatment option. The highest-scoring websites were largely government or health portal websites, while the lowest-scoring websites were largely commercial in nature. Conclusion High variability in DISCERN instrument scores was found across all websites assessed. Healthcare providers should be aware of the fact that their patients may be accessing misinformation online surrounding the use of DHSs for weight loss. Therefore, it is important for healthcare providers to ensure that they are providing their patients with guidance on how to identify high-quality resources online, in order that safe, effective, and evidence-based decisions are made surrounding the use of DHSs for weight loss.

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