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Objectives: To compare the course of generic and specific health-related quality of life (HRQOL) of individuals with stroke, and its physical, mental, and social domains, at three, six, and 12 months after hospital discharge, considering the levels of stroke severity. Methods: This is a longitudinal study, in stroke individuals, assessed during hospital admission by the National Institutes of Health Stroke Scale (NIHSS), and divided into mild (NIHSS ≤3) or moderate/severe (NIHSS ≥4) disease. At three, six, and 12 months after hospital discharge, the individuals were assessed for generic (Short Form Health Survey–36: total score and physical and mental domains) and specific (Stroke Specific Quality of Life Scale: total score and social domain) HRQOL. A 2 × 2 repeated measures analysis of variance (ANOVA) with post-hoc was applied. Results: 146, 122, and 103 individuals were assessed at three, six and 12 months, respectively HRQOL courses showed different behaviors according to stroke severity (3.37≤F ≤ 4.62; 0.010≤p ≤.036). Individuals with mild stroke showed significant changes in the physical domain, with a reduction between three and six months, and an increase between six and 12. Moderate/severe individuals showed a significant increase in all HRQOL variables between three and six months, and a maintenance of values for almost all variables, except for physical domain, which improved significantly between three and six months, and got significantly worse between six and 12. Conclusions: HRQOL during the first year after stroke showed distinct trajectories, being stroke severity an important factor in identifying stroke subjects at risk of HRQOL decline. Clinical Implications: These results demonstrate the importance of considering not only the phase of the stroke, the severity, and the general and specific HRQOL, but also the physical, social, and mainly the mental domain, which has long been neglected, when assessing this population. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Background: There is current interest in the elaboration of early intervention programs for obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). To this end, it is important to investigate the speed of progression from subthreshold symptoms to diagnosable OCD. In this study, we have retrospectively investigated the speed of progression towards full-blown OCD and sociodemographic and clinical factors associated with a faster transition.Methods: Patients enrolled in the Brazilian Research Consortium on Obsessive-Compulsive Spectrum Disorders (N = 954) were interviewed with a comprehensive assessment battery that included the interval (in years) between the onset of subthreshold OCD symptoms and the onset of full-blown OCD.Results: It took a median of 7 years (interquartile range: 2-13 years) for subthreshold symptoms to convert to diagnosable OCD. Faster OCD onset was associated with lower age at the time of assessment, male gender, being in new romantic states as precipitants for compulsions, greater severity of sexual/religious symptoms and lower severity of hoarding and YBOCS compulsions severity scores, greater rates of generalized anxiety disorder and agoraphobia without panic disorder, and negative family history for OCD.Limitations: The retrospective design of this study allowed for susceptibility to memory bias about age at onset of OCD symptoms. We were unable to capture progressions taking less than 12 months.Conclusions: We could identify a specific phenotype that was more likely to escalate rapidly to clinical levels within this large clinical sample. This phenomenon may be particularly relevant in the context of selecting individuals for early intervention initiatives in situations when resources are scarce. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Most of the epilepsy longitudinal studies have analyzed children. However, in endemic regions, such as Brazil, neurocysticercosis accounts for many adult-onset epilepsy cases. So, the main objective of this study was to identify the clinical predictors associated with drug-resistant adult-onset epilepsy in Brazil during a long-term follow-up. We followed 302 individuals with adult-onset epilepsy for 9.8 years in our University Hospital. Structured questionnaires about drug-resistant epilepsy were applied. The presence of drug-resistant epilepsy was the primary outcome. We used multilevel linear modeling in our data analysis. Overall 47 (15.6%) individuals presented drug-resistant epilepsy and the etiology was structural in 70.2% of them, while infectious etiology was present in 8.5% of this group. Infectious etiology occurred in 25.9% (n = 66) of the patients from the nondrug-resistant group. Those with developmental delay were two times more likely to present seizures. Structural epilepsy etiology was associated with an increased chance of relapsing. Poor school performance and abnormal electroencephalogram were also associated with an increased chance of seizures. The course of epilepsy was favorable in the majority of our patients, and drug-resistant epilepsy rates were similar to those found in other studies, although we evaluated older individuals with higher levels of infectious etiology. Also, we found that neurocysticercosis was associated with well-controlled epilepsy, while structural epilepsy was directly related to the occurrence of seizures. We also hypothesized that the smaller size of lesions found in neurocysticercosis could contribute to better treatment response. • Neurocysticercosis was associated with well-controlled epilepsy in our study. • Structural etiology was associated with drug-resistant epilepsy. • Developmental delay, Poor school performance, and abnormal EEG were also associated with an increased chance of seizures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of chronic beetroot juice (BRJ) supplementation on 10-km running performance in recreational runners. In a double-blind, placebo-controlled, crossover-designed study, 14 male recreational runners (age, 27.8 ± 3.4 years) performed three 10-km running tests, at baseline and under the conditions of BRJ supplementation and placebo (PLA). Supplementation was administered for 3 days, and on the days of the assessments, the ingestion occurred 2 h before the test and consisted of a dose of 420 mL of BRJ in natura (8.4 mmol inorganic nitrate (NO 3 - )·day -1 ) or PLA with depleted NO 3 - (0.01 mmol NO 3 - ·day -1 ). The mean velocity (MV) was calculated, and the following variables were determined: maximal heart rate, maximal rating of perceived exertion , blood glucose concentration (analyzed before and after the test), and lactate peak. There was no main effect between conditions regarding 10-km running time performance (BRJ: 50.1 ± 5.3 min; PLA: 51.0 ± 5.1 min; P = 0.391) and total MV (BRJ: 12.1 ± 1.3 km·h -1 ; PLA: 11.9 ± 1.2 km·h -1 ; P = 0.321) or in the other analyzed variables. The time to complete the first half of the test (5 km) was statistically lower in the BRJ group than in the PLA group (P = 0.027). In conclusion, chronic supplementation with BRJ increased MV in the first half of the test and improved the final test times of 10 of the 14 runners, although we did not find a statistically significant difference in the performance of the 10-km run.