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(1) Background: The Mediterranean-DASH intervention for neurodegenerative delay (MIND) diet and forest bathing (FB) are first-line therapies for controlling hypertension. This study aimed to investigate the combined effects of a MIND diet and FB and MIND diet alone among older Chinese patients with hypertension. (2) Methods: Seventy-two participants aged >50 with stages 1 or 2 hypertension were randomly assigned to the MIND group (n = 23), MIND-FB group (n = 25), or control group (n = 24). Systolic blood pressure (SBP) (primary outcome), point-of-care tests for blood lipid panel and glucose (Glu), anxiety levels, mood states, body mass index (BMI), waist-to-hip ratio (WHR), and body fat percentage (BFP) were measured. (3) Results: After a four-week intervention, the change in SBP revealed no significant differences between the intervention groups, and SBP tended to decrease in the MIND and MIND-FB groups. Total cholesterol, and low-density lipoprotein (LDL-C) were significantly decreased (p < 0.01), Triglycerides (TG) and Glu levels were significantly lower (p < 0.05) in the MIND-FB and MIND groups, and the mean differences for anxiety level and negative mood states were significantly lower (p < 0.00) in MIND-FB group. (4) Conclusions: The results provide preliminary evidence that the MIND diet and FB are good for promoting cardiac and mental health well-being in the Chinese population.

Establishing healthy eating habits is considered to be a sustainable strategy for health maintenance, and mobile applications (apps) are expected to be highly effective among the young-aged population for healthy eating promotion. The purpose of this study was to investigate the effectiveness of a dietary monitoring app on younger adults&rsquo, nutrition knowledge and their dietary habits. A controlled-experimental study was performed with one experimental group having a three-hour nutrition seminar and 12 weeks of dietary monitoring with the app, and one control group receiving a three-hour nutrition seminar. Behavioral feedback delivered by the app was evaluated in facilitating the transfer of nutritional knowledge to nutrition behavior. A total of 305 younger adults aged from 19 to 31 were recruited. Baseline and post-intervention nutrition knowledge and dietary behavior were collected. All mean scores of post-GNKQ-R increased from baseline for both the control and the experimental groups. The mean differences of sugar intake, dietary fiber intake, and vitamin C intake for the experimental group were significantly more than those for the control group (all p &lt, 0.001). In addition, the experimental group increased fruit and vegetable consumption significantly more than the control group (all p &lt, 0.001). For those younger adults with a relatively large body size, they were more likely to increase fruit consumption with the application of dietary monitoring.

Introduction: Children with autistic spectrum disorders (ASD) commonly exhibit aberrant tactile, taste, and smell sensitivity to foods. Food transformation that alters the appearance, texture, and ...

The study aimed to investigate Chinese adults' nutrition label literacy in Hong Kong. It employed a web-based survey with structured questions. A total of 368 Chinese adults aged 18-59 participated in the survey and their nutrition label literacy was measured by the Newest Vital Sign (NVS). About two-thirds (68%) of the participants had limited nutrition literacy skills. Although they were able to identify correctly the calorie and sugar content of food products, 44% and 48% of them had difficulty in determining the consumption of calories and serving food sizes respectively. Another finding from the survey was that those with lower education level and of older age had significantly lower mean nutrition label literacy scores, which indicated that they were at higher risk for food insecurity. The findings showed that the nutrition label literacy level of Hong Kong's general public is quite low. This study can provide insights for nurses and healthcare professionals on how to educate people with lower education level and/or of advanced age to use nutrition labels more effectively and to further nutrition label literacy study and research, particularly in Hong Kong.

Additional file 1: Figure S1. Schematic representation of the strategy for the quantification of TILs in H&E stained images. Figure S2. Expression levels of immune-related genes in the three luminal immune subtypes and non-luminal (HER2-enriched and basal-like) tumors in HKBC. Figure S3. MCP-counter scores and CIBERSORT relative fractions of a subset of immune cell subpopulations in the three luminal immune subtypes and non-luminal (HER2-enriched and basal-like, separately) tumors in HKBC. Figure S4. MCP-counter scores of eight immune cell subpopulations in the three luminal immune subtypes and non-luminal (HER2-enriched and basal-like) tumors with the adjustment of tumor purity in HKBC. Figure S5. Replication of luminal immune subtypes in TCGA and KBC datasets: a) MCP-counter scores for eight immune cell subpopulations; b) Relative fractions of immune cell subpopulations by CIBERSORT (cell populations with extremely low fractions were not shown); c) High-TIL tumors showed upregulation of genes in immune activation and regulation activities than tumors in the other two luminal immune subtypes; d) High-ISG tumors expressed higher levels of ISG genes than tumors in the other two luminal immune subtypes. Figure S6. Genomic features associated with luminal immune subtypes in HKBC (HER2-enriched and basal-like, separately): a) ESR1/ESR2 ratios; b) number of mutations. Figure S7. Replication of genomic features associated with luminal immune subtypes in TCGA and KBC datasets: a) ESR1/ESR2 ratios; b) age at diagnosis; c) 10-year overall survival. Figure S8. Expression of APOBEC3B in normal and tumor tissue in relation to the polymorphic germline APOBEC3B deletion represented by rs12628403-C allele in HKBC. Figure S9. MCP-counter scores of eight immune cell subpopulations in adjacent normal breast tissue in the three luminal immune subgroups and non-luminal (HER2-enriched and basal-like) patients of HKBC.

Objective This study's objective was to investigate whether use of an electronic dietary recording system improves nutrition knowledge, eating attitudes and habitual physical activity levels compared to use of a food diary and no self-monitoring. Methods Sixty adults aged 20–60 with a body mass index ≥ 25 were recruited and randomly assigned to one of three groups: a group using an electronic system (EG), a group using a food diary (FD) and a control group using nothing (CG) to record food intake. All participants took part in three 60–90 nutrition seminars and completed three questionnaires on general nutrition knowledge, habitual physical activity levels and eating attitudes at the beginning and end of the 12-week study. The pre- and post-test scores for each questionnaire were analysed using a paired sample t-test. Results Significant improvements in the domain of ‘dietary recommendations’ were found in the EG (p = 0.009) and FD groups (p = 0.046). Great improvements were found in ‘sources of nutrients’, ‘choosing everyday foods’ and ‘diet–disease relationships’ in EG and FD groups. EG group showed greater improvement in the work index and sport index. Conclusion An electronic dietary recording system may improve eating and exercise behaviour in a self-monitoring process.

Gliomas are the most common tumor in the central nervous system. High-grade glioblastomas are characterized by their high invasiveness and resistance to radiotherapy, leading to high recurrence rate and short median survival despite radical surgical resection. Characterizations of gliomas at molecular level have revealed aberrations of various growth factor receptors, receptor tyrosine kinases, and tumor suppressor genes that lead to deregulation of multiple signaling pathways, thereby contributing to abnormal proliferation, invasion, and resistance to apoptosis in cancer cells. Recently, accumulating evidence points to the emerging role of axon guidance molecules in glioma progression. Notably, many signaling events harnessed by guidance molecules to regulate cell migration and axon navigation during development are also found to be involved in the modulation of deregulated pathways in gliomas. This paper focused on the signalings triggered by the guidance molecule semaphorins and their receptors plexins and neuropilins, and how their crosstalk with oncogenic pathways in gliomas might modulate cancer progression. The emerging role of semaphorins and plexins as tumor suppressors or oncogenes is also discussed.

Introduction To evaluate the effectiveness of teledietetics in weight loss for 24 weeks and the cost-effectiveness of weight loss between face-to-face and teledietetics services. Methods The study was conducted at a community health center and a community dietetics clinic. The study was a quasiexperimental design. Fifty adults aged 20–50 with a BMI ≥23 participated in the study. The face-to-face (FD) group received 12 dietary counselling sessions and recorded their diet in a log book. The teledietetics (TD) group attended three group nutrition seminars and recorded their diet on a Web-based platform. Changes in variables were compared using an independent t-test. Direct and indirect costs were applied to compute cost-effectiveness ratios. Results At week 6, the FD group showed greater reductions in all variables than did the TD group. At week 12, the effects reversed. At week 24, the accumulated reductions in weight and fat in the TD group were significantly higher than those in the FD group (all at p Discussion A dietetic service delivered as a teledietetics model is more cost-effective than the face-to-face dietetics model in weight reduction.

In Hong Kong, neonatal Bacillus Calmette-Guerin (BCG) vaccination is practiced with 99% coverage. This study was to compare the performance of T-Spot.TB and tuberculin skin test (TST) in predicting tuberculosis (TB) among household contacts.From 1 March 2006 to 31 July 2010, 1049 asymptomatic household contacts of smear-positive patients were simultaneously tested with T-Spot.TB and TST, and then followed for up to 5 years for development of TB. Attending clinicians and subjects were blinded to the results of T-Spot.TB.T-Spot.TB gave a significantly higher positive rate (32.7% vs 22.1%) and better association with exposure time than TST at the 15 mm cut-off. Agreement between T-Spot.TB and TST using cut-offs of 5, 10 and 15 mm were relatively poor (kappa 0.25-0.41) irrespective of presence or absence of BCG scar. Only T-Spot.TB positivity was negatively associated with BCG scar. Both T-Spot.TB (incidence rate ratio between test-positive and test-negative subjects, IRR: 8.2) and TST (IRR: 4.1, 6.1 and 2.8, using cut-offs of 5 mm, 10 mm and 15 mm, respectively) helped to predict TB. Using a TST cut-off of 15 mm, 56% of future TB cases and 62.5% of bacteriologically confirmed cases were missed. Lowering the TST cut-off to 10 mm or 5 mm could achieve sensitivity comparable with that of T-Spot.TB, but at the expense of lower specificities, with more positive tests (thus requiring treatment) per case of TB predicted.T-Spot.TB outperformed TST in predicting TB among household contacts in a high-income area with widespread BCG vaccination coverage.

Background: Weight reduction without behavioral modification is not sustainable. However, with a technology application such as teledietetics, the recording process could be a cognitive cue for individuals to change their eating behavior. This study tested obese participants to determine whether teledietetics shows better results in weight reduction. Study Design and Methods: We conducted a double-blinded randomized controlled trial. The participants in the food diary (FD) and electronic diary (ED) groups recorded their dietary intakes in logbooks and on an electronic diary system, respectively. The participants in the control group (CG) did nothing. Subjects were adults 20–60 years of age with a body mass index (BMI) of ≥25 kg/m2. The ED and FD groups were the intervention groups and were compared with the CG group. The participants' body weights, BMIs, fat percentages, waist-to-hip ratios (WHRs), and mean arterial pressures (MAPs) were measured before the study, at Week 6, and at Week 12. Demographic data were collected using self-administered questionnaires. A chi-squared test and descriptive statistics were used to describe the demographic and biomeasurement data. Repeated-measures analysis of variance was used to evaluate the effectiveness of the three groups over time. Results: Significant decreases in body weight (F1.705,86.950=20.508, p

The phonological deficit hypothesis in developmental dyslexia wasexamined with readers in Chinese, a nonalphabetic script. Fifty-sixChinese children with dyslexia (23 of whom had reading and writingdifficulties and 33 had reading problems only) were compared withaverage readers of the same age (CA controls) and average readers of thesame reading-level (RL controls) in phonological awareness andphonological memory skills. The results showed that the Chinese dyslexicchildren with both reading and writing difficulties performedsignificantly worse than their CA controls and RL controls in nearly allthe phonological tasks, whereas those with reading problems only,performed significantly less well than their CA controls, but similarlywith their RL controls. These findings suggest that Chinese childrenwith dyslexia have deficits in processing phonological information liketheir alphabetic counterparts.

Background and objective: Two sets of local reference values are available for spirometry in Hong Kong, but it is uncertain how well they work in the assessment of occupational lung diseases. This study examined their relative performance in the compensational assessment of silicosis. Methods: Local reference values published in 1982 and 2006 were compared in two different populations comprising normal construction/quarry workers and silicosis patients. Only men aged 20–74 years were included. Results: The FVC results of 93 normal workers were significantly higher than those predicted by either the 1982 or the 2006 reference values. Compared with the 1982 reference values, the mean FEV1% or FVC% was age-dependent and 5.2% higher in the normal workers. Smoking decreased the forced expiratory ratio, but did not show a major effect on FEV1 or FVC among asymptomatic subjects. Despite their derivation largely from never-smokers, the 2006 reference values better predicted FEV1 and FVC among all smoking categories. Among the 357 silicosis patients, the 1982 reference values also gave 8.8% higher FEV1% and 7.4% higher FVC%. These spirometric values differed by more than 10% in patients aged 60 years or more. Despite the presence of disease, the mean FVC% was still significantly above 100%. Conclusions: Both the 1982 and 2006 local reference values underestimated the FVC of normal construction and quarry workers, reflecting possible occupational selection factors. The 2006 reference values outperformed the 1982 ones, especially among older subjects. Careful calibration with similar occupational groups in the same laboratory is highly desirable in the choice of spirometric reference values for compensation assessment. Smoking does not appear to affect this choice.

Additional file 2: Table S1. The distribution of clinical characteristics and key breast cancer risk factors in the Hong Kong breast cancer study (HKBC). Table S2. 130 immune-related genes used for the classification of luminal tumors. Table S3. The three luminal immune subtypes in relation to the luminal A/B classification in the Hong Kong breast cancer study (HKBC). Table S4. P values for comparisons of tumor MCP-counter abundance scores by immune subtype in the Hong Kong breast cancer study (HKBC). Table S5. P values for comparisons of tumor CIBERSORT fraction scores by immune subtype in the Hong Kong breast cancer study (HKBC). Table S6. The distribution of clinical characteristics and key breast cancer risk factors by luminal immune subtypes in the Hong Kong breast cancer study (HKBC). Table S7. P values for comparisons of the MCP-counter abundance scores between paired tumor and normal tissue (N = 80) by immune subtype in the Hong Kong breast cancer study (HKBC).

Additional file 2: Table S1. The distribution of clinical characteristics and key breast cancer risk factors in the Hong Kong breast cancer study (HKBC). Table S2. 130 immune-related genes used for the classification of luminal tumors. Table S3. The three luminal immune subtypes in relation to the luminal A/B classification in the Hong Kong breast cancer study (HKBC). Table S4. P values for comparisons of tumor MCP-counter abundance scores by immune subtype in the Hong Kong breast cancer study (HKBC). Table S5. P values for comparisons of tumor CIBERSORT fraction scores by immune subtype in the Hong Kong breast cancer study (HKBC). Table S6. The distribution of clinical characteristics and key breast cancer risk factors by luminal immune subtypes in the Hong Kong breast cancer study (HKBC). Table S7. P values for comparisons of the MCP-counter abundance scores between paired tumor and normal tissue (N = 80) by immune subtype in the Hong Kong breast cancer study (HKBC).