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Ultra-processed food (UPF) consumption during gestation may lead to increased oxidative stress (OS) and could affect pregnancy outcomes. This study aims to evaluate the association of UPF consumption during pregnancy with circulating levels of OS markers. Diet was assessed (average of three assessments) in 119 pregnant women enrolled in the OBESO perinatal cohort (Mexico), obtaining quantitative data and the percentage of energy that UPFs (NOVA) contributed to the total diet. Sociodemographic, clinical (pregestational body-mass index and gestational weight gain) and lifestyle data were collected. Maternal circulating levels of OS markers (malondialdehyde (MDA), protein carbonylation (PC), and total antioxidant capacity (TAC)) were determined at the third trimester of pregnancy. Adjusted linear regression models were performed to analyze the association between UPFs and OS markers. UPFs represented 27.99% of the total energy intake. Women with a lower UPF consumption (<75 percentile°) presented a higher intake of fiber, ω-3, ω-6, and a lower ω-6/3 ratio. Linear regression models showed that UPFs were inversely associated with TAC and MDA. Fiber intake was associated with PC. UPF intake during pregnancy may result in an increase in oxidative stress. When providing nutrition care, limiting or avoiding UPFs may be an intervention strategy that could promote a better antioxidant capacity in the body. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The identification of brain dynamical changes under different cognitive conditions with noninvasive techniques such as electroencephalography (EEG) is relevant for the understanding of their underlying neural mechanisms. The comprehension of these mechanisms has applications in the early diagnosis of neurological disorders and asynchronous brain computer interfaces. In both cases, there are no reported features that could describe intersubject and intra subject dynamics behavior accurately enough to be applied on a daily basis. The present work proposes the use of three nonlinear features (recurrence rate, determinism, and recurrence times) extracted from recurrence quantification analysis (RQA) to describe central and parietal EEG power series complexity in continuous alternating episodes of mental calculation and rest state. Our results demonstrate a consistent mean directional change of determinism, recurrence rate, and recurrence times between conditions. Increasing values of determinism and recurrence rate were present from the rest state to mental calculation, whereas recurrence times showed the opposite pattern. The analyzed features in the present study showed statistically significant changes between rest and mental calculation states in both individual and population analysis. In general, our study described mental calculation EEG power series as less complex systems in comparison to the rest state. Moreover, ANOVA showed stability of RQA features along time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]