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Women of reproductive age are a critical part of the population because their dietary habits and nutritional status impact the nutritional trajectory of future generations. Various studies have assessed the diet quality among women of reproductive age, but few studies have compared the diet quality of these women across the different life stages. To compare the diet quality among pregnant women, women living with children and women living without children in the United States of America (USA) using the Healthy Eating Index (HEI). This cross-sectional study was a secondary data analysis of the National Health and Nutrition Survey (NHANES), 2011–2016. Study participants comprised a total of 7120 women, ages 20–44 years in one of three life stage categories, pregnant women, women living in households with and without children less than 18 years. The HEI 2015 was used to assess the overall diet quality score as well as 13 dietary component scores-whole fruit, total fruit, greens and beans, whole grains, total vegetables, total protein foods, fatty acids, seafood and plant proteins, dairy, saturated fat, sodium, refined grains, and added sugars. The differences in HEI scores by life stage was assessed using linear regression models, adjusting for marital status, age, race and ethnicity, poverty index ratio, and educational status. The mean overall HEI score of participants was 52.0 out of 100 points. The overall HEI scores of pregnant women was significantly higher than women living with and without children respectively (β = 4.6 ± 1.42, p = 0.002; β = 3.7 ± 1.34, p = 0.009). Also, pregnant women had significantly higher scores for whole fruit (β = 0.99 ± 0.18, p < 0.001; β = 0.98 ± 0.17, p < 0.001), dairy (β = 0.63 ± 0.27, p = 0.02; β = 0.68 ± 0.29, p = 0.02) and whole grains (β = 1.05 ± 0.40, p = 0.01; β = 0.97 ± 0.39, p = 0.02) than women living with and without children respectively. On the other hand, women living without children had significantly higher scores for total vegetables (β = 0.18 ± 2.04, p = 0.002), refined grains (β = 0.22 ± 0.10, p = 0.03) and added sugars (β = 0.35 ± 0.16, p = 0.04) than women living with children. Pregnant women had the highest diet quality while women living in households with children had the lowest diet quality among the studied population. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Attempts to determine interspecific differences in patterns of protein variation in edible frog species have been relatively few. Therefore, this study determined the genetic variation in populations of Hoplobatrachus occipitalis and Xenopus muelleri in two locations [University of Ibadan (UI) and Igbo Oloyin area (IO)] in Ibadan, Nigeria, using five allozyme loci. Eighty (80) edible frogs comprising twenty (20) live samples each of H. occipitalis and X. muelleri species from IO and UI were collected. 1ml of blood was drawn per sample via cardiac venipuncture. Plasma fractions were obtained and subjected to Cellulose Acetate Electrophoresis to determine the genetic variations at Haemoglobin (HB), Carbonic anhydrase (CA), Transferrin (TF), Albumin (AL) and Esterase (EST) loci. Test for Hardy-Weinberg Equilibrium (HWE; α0.05), Heterozygosity [observed (Ho) and expected (He)] and Genetic differentiation (FST) were estimated. Significant deviations from HWE were observed at several loci in all the populations. Ho was higher (than He) for both populations of H. occipitalis but lower for both populations of X. muelleri. FST was 0.0559 and 0.0264 for the populations of H. occipitalis and X. muelleri, respectively. There is an indication of evolutionary forces in operation in the IO populations of H. occipitalis and X. muelleri. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]