Trajectories of Food Choice Motives and Weight Status of Malaysian Youths during the COVID-19 Pandemic

Stay-at-home orders have abruptly altered food purchasing behaviour, dietary habits, and food choice motives. Therefore, this study aims to investigate the trajectory of food choice motives and their associations with the weight status of Malaysian youths in the time of COVID-19. Socio-demographic information and anthropometric measurements were self-reported by the respondents, while the food choice motives were assessed using a validated 38-item food choice questionnaire (FCQ). Of the 1013 Malaysian youths, 48.6% gained weight due to the confinement, with an average weight gain of 3.90 ± 2.92 kg. On the other hand, 47.0% to 73.0% of the youths changed their food choice motives in the time of COVID-19. Of the 10 motives, convenience (48.5%) had the largest percentage increase, followed by weight control (47.0%) and health (45.3%). Moreover, the mean scores of health (t = −3.324, p = 0.001), convenience (t = −5.869, p < 0.001), weight control (t = −7.532, p < 0.001), natural content (t = −5.957, p < 0.001), ethical concern (t = −4.419, p < 0.001) and price (t = −3.737, p < 0.001) were significantly higher during the pandemic compared to pre-pandemic. Findings from the multinomial regression model revealed that youths highly concerned for weight control were more likely to be in the weight loss category (Adjusted odds ratio (AOR) = 1.633, Confidence Interval (CI) = 1.230–2.168, p = 0.001). Conversely, those who gained weight due to the pandemic confinement highly valued natural content in foods (AOR = 0.653, CI = 0.481–0.886, p = 0.006) when making their food choices in this unprecedented pandemic. In conclusion, Malaysian youths made healthier food choices to mitigate the risk of COVID-19 infection.

Fever and hypothermia represent two populations of sepsis patients and are associated with outside temperature

Background Fever and hypothermia have been observed in septic patients. Their influence on prognosis is subject to ongoing debates. Methods We did a secondary analysis of a large clinical dataset from a quality improvement trial. A binary logistic regression model was calculated to assess the association of the thermal response with outcome and a multinomial regression model to assess factors associated with fever or hypothermia. Results With 6542 analyzable cases we observed a bimodal temperature response characterized by fever or hypothermia, normothermia was rare. Hypothermia and high fever were both associated with higher lactate values. Hypothermia was associated with higher mortality, but this association was reduced after adjustment for other risk factors. Age, community-acquired sepsis, lower BMI and lower outside temperatures were associated with hypothermia while bacteremia and higher procalcitonin values were associated with high fever. Conclusions Septic patients show either a hypothermic or a fever response. Whether hypothermia is a maladaptive response, as indicated by the higher mortality in hypothermic patients, or an adaptive response in patients with limited metabolic reserves under colder environmental conditions, remains an open question. Trial registration The original trial whose dataset was analyzed was registered at ClinicalTrials.gov (NCT01187134) on August 23, 2010, the first patient was included on July 1, 2011.

Socio-Demographics, Gambling Participation, Gambling Settings, and Addictive Behaviors Associated with Gambling Modes: A Population-Based Study

Online and land-based gambling differ in terms of participation and harms. Multimode gambling has also been distinguished as a separate mode. The current study uses the Finnish Gambling 2019 population study sample of 18–74-year-old past-year gamblers (N = 3,077) to evaluate how these gambling modes differ in terms of socio-demographics, gambling participation, gambling settings, and addictive behaviors. We used land-based gambling as the reference group in a multinomial regression model. Male gender (OR 1.48), age between 18 and 54 (OR 1.88), and high income (OR 1.87) were associated with online gambling. The odds of online gambling were higher among those who gambled at least monthly (OR 1.34) and among those with the highest gambling spending (OR 3.62). Younger age (OR 2.31), high income (OR 1.51), gambling at least four game types (OR 2.96), spending the most money on gambling (OR 4.56), and gambling in at least three gambling settings were associated with multimode gambling. Socio-demographics and gambling participation were indicators of gambling modes. Online gambling was more intensive while multimode gambling was more frequent and versatile than land-based gambling. However, this was not reflected as increased addictive behaviors, probably due to the harmful nature of Finnish land-based gambling.

Deservingness and Punishment in Juvenile Justice: Do Black Youth Grow Up “Faster” in the Eyes of the Court?

The present study investigated whether race moderates the effect of age on juvenile court dispositions in ways that illuminate a subtler form of racial disparities than has been previously identified. Drawing on prior theory and research, we hypothesize that at young ages, virtually all youth are perceived as children and met with treatment-oriented responses. As youth grow older, however, we anticipate that Black defendants will be perceived as more culpable and more deserving of punishment than similarly-aged White defendants and that disposition patterns will reflect that differential perception. Using data from the Florida Department of Juvenile Justice ( N = 124,075), the present study examines a five-category disposition using a multinomial regression model with interactions between age and race variables. We found mixed support for the hypotheses. On the one hand, compared to similarly-aged White defendants, Black defendants became significantly less likely to be diverted—the most treatment-oriented disposition—and significantly more likely to be transferred—the most punitive disposition—as age increased. On the other hand, race did not moderate age effects for dismissal, probation, or commitment. There is thus some evidence that age may be racialized for some dispositions, but not others. Implications for research and policy are discussed.

Statistical assessment of the Russian population’s health

The article presents the results of modeling self-assessment of individuals' health depending on a number of economic and social factors. The information base of the research is the data of the Comprehensive Survey of Living Conditions of the Population in the Russian Federation for 2018 by Rosstat. A multinomial regression model was used as a toolkit. It was found that subjective assessment of health is significantly influenced by gender, age, marriage status, employment, work in an area of specialization similar to that obtained, nervous tension, harmful factors, and other inconveniences in the workplace, hazardous nature of work, dissatisfaction with wages and job reliability, inability to live an active life, health problems, smoking and alcohol consumption. The results can be used both to adjust social policies and by individuals themselves to improve their health assessments.

Modal verbs of strong obligation in Scottish Standard English

This article investigates differences between Scottish Standard English (SSE) and Southern British Standard English (SBSE) in the semantic domain of strong obligation. Focusing on the modal verbs must, have to, need to and (have) got to, we use new corpus material from nineteen written and spoken genres in the Scottish component of the International Corpus of English (ICE-SCO) and corresponding texts from ICE-GB. Data are analysed using a mixed-effect multinomial regression model to predict the choice of verb. Language-internal factors include mode of production (written/spoken), grammatical subject (first/second/third person) and source of obligation (objective/subjective). Our results show that, as previous research suggests, SSE is much more likely to employ need to for the expression of strong obligation, and less likely to employ must and (have) got to. This general pattern remains essentially unaffected by language-internal factors. To account for our findings, we draw on the sociologically motivated process of democratisation and the language-internal process of grammaticalisation.

Serum Concentration of the Phytohormone Abscisic Acid Is Associated With Immune-Regulatory Mediators and Is a Potential Biomarker of Disease Severity in Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease

COPD and asthma are two distinct but sometimes overlapping diseases exhibiting varying degrees and types of inflammation on different stages of the disease. Although several biomarkers are defined to estimate the inflammatory endotype and stages in these diseases, there is still a need for new markers and potential therapeutic targets. We investigated the levels of a phytohormone, abscisic acid (ABA) and its receptor, LANCL2, in COPD patients and asthmatics. In addition, PPAR-γ that is activated by ABA in a ligand-binding domain-independent manner was also included in the study. In this study, we correlated ABA with COPD-propagating factors to define the possible role of ABA, in terms of immune regulation, inflammation, and disease stages. We collected blood from 101 COPD patients, 52 asthmatics, and 57 controls. Bronchoscopy was performed on five COPD patients and 29 controls. We employed (i) liquid chromatography–tandem mass spectrometry and HPLC to determine the ABA and indoleamine 2,3-dioxygenase levels, respectively; (ii) real-time PCR to quantify the gene expression of LANCL2 and PPAR-γ; (iii) Flow cytometry to quantify adipocytokines; and (iv) immunoturbidimetry and ELISA to measure CRP and cytokines, respectively. Finally, a multinomial regression model was used to predict the probability of using ABA as a biomarker. Blood ABA levels were significantly reduced in COPD patients and asthmatics compared to age- and gender-matched normal controls. However, PPAR-γ was elevated in COPD patients. Intriguingly, ABA was positively correlated with immune-regulatory factors and was negatively correlated with inflammatory markers, in COPD. Of note, ABA was increased in advanced COPD stages. We thereby conclude that ABA might be involved in regulation of COPD pathogenesis and might be regarded as a potential biomarker for COPD stages.

Association of the Irregular 3-Dimensional Shape of White Matter Hyperintensities with Cognitive Function

<b><i>Introduction:</i></b> The irregular shapes of white matter hyperintensities (WMHs) are associated with poor cognitive function, diabetes, or lacunes. However, the association between the WMH shape and dementia remains understudied. We investigated the association between the calculated shape index of WMH and the diagnosis of dementia and cognitive function. <b><i>Methods:</i></b> The inverse sphericity index (ISI_WMH) and volume of WMHs (VOL_WMH) were compared among 82 participants with normal cognition, 82 with Alzheimer’s dementia (AD), and 82 with subcortical vascular dementia (SVD). We examined the associations of ISI_WMH and VOL_WMH with the modified Hachinski Ischemic Score (mHIS), diagnosis of AD and SVD, and cognitive test scores, using linear, multinomial, or hierarchical linear regression models. <b><i>Results:</i></b> The mHIS was associated with both ISI_WMH (β = 0.326, <i>p</i> &#x3c; 0.001) and VOL_WMH (β = 0.299, <i>p</i> &#x3c; 0.001). Both ISI_WMH and VOL_WMH were associated with the SVD diagnosis (odds ratio [OR] = 2.685, <i>p</i> = 0.002, ISI_WMH; OR = 2.597, <i>p</i> = 0.005, VOL_WMH), but not with AD. The SVD diagnosis was better explained when the multinomial regression model included both ISI_WMH and VOL_WMH instead of VOL_WMH alone (χ² = 20.768, df = 2, <i>p</i> &#x3c; 0.001). The Trail Making Test-D (TMT-D) scores of the SVD patients were associated with both ISI_WMH (β = 0.308) and VOL_WMH (β = 0.293). <b><i>Conclusion:</i></b> An irregular WMH shape may be associated with the high cerebrovascular component of cognitive impairment and the diagnosis and low cognitive flexibility of SVD, which may improve the prediction of SVD diagnosis when used in combination with WMH volume.

Consensus molecular subtypes and RAS status as biomarker of treatment intensity with fluoropyrimidine, bevacizumab, and irinotecan in metastatic colorectal cancer (XELAVIRI, AIO KRK 0110).

3552 Background: Prognostic biomarkers beside RAS/BRAF status are necessary to identify metastatic colorectal cancer (mCRC) patients who benefit from combined (COMB) versus sequential (SEQ) treatment with fluoropyrimidine, bevacizumab and irinotecan (randomized phase III XELAVIRI trial). Methods: mRNA was extracted from formalin-fixed paraffin embedded (FFPE) tumor tissue of 337 patients, gene expression was measured by the Nanostring PanCancer Progression Panel. Consensus molecular subtypes (CMS) classification was re-derived using a multinomial regression model. Data of Guinney et al. (Nat. Med. 2015. 21:1350-6) and FIRE-3 served as training and validation set. RAS/BRAF MUT were assessed by pyrosequencing. Median overall (OS) and progression free survival (PFS), hazard ratios (HR) and 95% confidence interval (CI) were estimated by Kaplan-Meier method and univariate Cox regression. Results: The multinomial regression model employed in the present analysis correctly predicted CMS labels in 98.3 % of the original Guinney- and 100.0 % of FIRE-3 population. In XELAVIRI, CMS subgroups were predicted as follows: CMS1: n = 62 (18.4 %); CMS2: n = 174 (51.6 %); CMS3: n = 9 (2.7 %); CMS4: n = 92 (27.3 %). A general prognostic impact of CMS was not observed when all patients were analysed. In RAS/BRAF WT mCRC patients, substantial benefit of COMB versus SEQ treatment was shown for OS and PFS in CMS2 and CMS4, but not in CMS1. Conversely, OS was significantly longer for COMB treatment in patients with RAS MUT and CMS1 mCRC, while SEQ treatment was not inferior in RAS MUT and CMS2 or CMS4 subgroups (see TABLE). Additional data for overall response rates, early tumor shrinkage and sidedness might be presented at the meeting. Conclusions: This retrospective analysis of XELAVIRI suggests that CMS may serve as biomarker that predicts response to initially combined versus less intensive sequential chemotherapy in patients with RAS/BRAF WT mCRC.[Table: see text]

3-D health trajectories and related childhood predictors among older adults in China

This study aimed to identify the multi-trajectories of 3-D health of older adults in China and to explore whether the childhood predictors are associated with 3-D health trajectory. Data came from five waves of the China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study (CHARLS, 2011 to 2018). A multi-trajectory modeling approach was carried out to jointly estimate the trajectories of 3-D health. A multinomial regression model was used to investigate the relationships between childhood predictors and the joint trajectories. We identified three typical joint 3-D health trajectories. Female, childhood health, maternal and paternal educations, childhood friendships, family and neighborhood predictors could all affect 3-D health trajectories of older adults directly or indirectly through adult variables. The 3-D health trajectories showed increasing trends, thus the government should perform more interventions toward the childhood predictors for better health of older adults.