A systematic review of social determinants of healthy lifestyle among Iranian women

Relationship between Lifestyle and Frailty among Iranian Community-Dwelling Older Adults: Pilot Study

Background

Aging affects physical, mental, and social functions, which can lead to an increase in frailty. Old adults with frailty syndrome are prone to disabilities and hospitalization. Lifestyle is a context-based factor that has the potential to prevent frailty.

Objectives

This study aimed to assess the relationship between lifestyle and frailty among Iranian community-dwelling older adults.

Design Setting

This is a descriptive-analytical cross-sectional study. The participants were 513 older adults over 60 years by the convenience sampling method from the retirement center.

Measurements

Data were collected using Tilberg's frailty index, the Iranian elderly lifestyle questionnaire, and the Mini-Cog test. Data were analyzed with SPSS v.26 software by chi-square and logistic regression tests.

Results

The age of the participants was 66.43 ± 4.69 years. The male-to-female sex ratio was 1.5 (39.2% women). The lifestyle of 96 (19.3%) old adults was unfavorable. 18.7 percent of older adults had Frailty syndrome. The logistic regression test showed that moderate and favorable lifestyle (OR= 0.06; 95% CI: 0.02-0.16), age over 75 years (OR= 5.25; 95% CI: 2.35-11.69), retired employment status (OR= 0.13; 95% CI: 0.29-0.05) are factors that have a significant relationship with frailty (P< 0.05).

Conclusion

The findings showed that lifestyle can predict frailty. Therefore, it seems that an optimal lifestyle can prevent the frailty of older adults.

Chronic consumption of a hypercaloric diet increases neuroinflammation and brain senescence, promoting cognitive decline in middle-aged female Wistar rats

Being overweight and obesity are world health problems, with a higher prevalence in women, defined as abnormal or excessive fat accumulation that increases the risk of chronic diseases. Excess energy leads to adipose expansion, generating hypertrophic adipocytes that produce various pro-inflammatory molecules. These molecules cause chronic low-intensity inflammation, affecting the organism's functioning and the central nervous system (CNS), inducing neuroinflammation. The neuroinflammatory response during obesity occurs in different structures of the CNS involved in memory and learning, such as the cortex and the hippocampus. Here we analyzed how obesity-related peripheral inflammation can affect CNS physiology, generating neuroinflammation and promoting cellular senescence establishment. Since some studies have shown an increase in senescent cells during aging, obesity, and neurodegenerative diseases, we proposed that cellular senescence participation may contribute to the cognitive decline in an obesity model of middle-aged female Wistar rats. The inflammatory state of 6 and 13 months-old female Wistar rats fed with a hypercaloric diet was measured in serum and CNS (cortex and hippocampus). Memory was evaluated using the novel object recognition (NOR) test; the presence of senescent markers was also determined. Our data suggest that the systemic inflammation generated by obesity induces a neuroinflammatory state in regions involved in learning and memory, with an increase in senescent markers, thus proposing senescence as a potential participant in the negative consequences of obesity in cognition.

Interventions to improve social support among postpartum mothers: A systematic review

Background: Poor and insufficient social support to the mother in the post-partum period impairs the effective functioning of her new role as a mother, and it is an important risk factor for the maternal depression and stress after childbirth. Thus, interventions to improve social support to mothers in their postpartum period are required. The present review aimed to investigate the effectiveness of the existing interventions aimed at improving social support among postpartum women.

Methods: In this systematic review, PubMed, Scopus, Science Direct, Cochrane Library, Web of Science, EMBASE, Google Scholar, IranDoc, IranMedex, MagIran and SID were searched until January 2022. Full-text articles on the social support outcome, published in English or Persian, which used the design of randomized controlled trials (RCTs) or comparison groups and involved postpartum or pregnant women as participants were included. The quality of the studies was assessed based on the seven criteria offered by Cochrane guidelines.

Results: Our review included 10 studies involving 3328 women. According to our results, the following interventions were successful in increasing social support compared to the controlled conditions: counseling with men in the prenatal period, interventions based on interpersonal psychotherapy (IPT), advanced practice nurse (APN), internet support, and home visiting in the postpartum period.

Conclusion: These interventions could be provided to mothers during their prenatal or postpartum care. However, which one of these interventions is the most effective in improving social support among postpartum mothers was not identified in the present study.

Postoperative Lifestyle of Patients with Liver Cancer: An Exploratory Study in a Single Center in Taiwan

Various treatments are available for patients with liver cancer; however, complications after treatment affect their quality of life (QOL). To improve the QOL of patients with liver cancer, this study investigated the postoperative lifestyle of sixty patients at the Liouying District Hospital, Taiwan. A self-reported structured questionnaire and a modified Chinese version of the Health Enhancement Lifestyle Profile (HELP-C) were used to collect the demographic data and to assess patients’ overall postoperative lifestyle, respectively. Significant differences were observed between the overall postoperative lifestyle and the demographic variables of age, ethnicity, education level, marital status, chronic diseases, and postoperative complications (p < 0.05). Significant differences (p < 0.05) were observed in the HELP-C domains of diet, leisure, and activities of daily living (ADL) between the sexes. The scores for diet (9.66 ± 4.21) and leisure (4.33 ± 2.03) in women were significantly lower (p < 0.05) than those in men (13.13 ± 4.98 and 6.17 ± 2.37, respectively), indicating that women with liver cancer should be more concerned about diet and leisure after surgery. However, the score for ADL was significantly higher (p < 0.05) in women (17.90 ± 5.15) than in men (13.48 ± 2.56), indicating that men should focus on improving ADL. This research provides reference clinical data on the postoperative lifestyle of patients with liver cancer to improve their QOL.

A systematic review of social determinants of healthy lifestyle among Iranian women

Aim

This review aimed to determine the social determinants of healthy lifestyle among Iranian women.

Design

A systematic review and meta‐analysis.

Method

A comprehensive electronic search was carried out with no time limit until 6 September 2019. Newcastle–Ottawa Quality Assessment Scale (adapted for evaluating cross‐sectional survey/studies) was used to evaluate the quality of the articles. The metap code was used in SATATA16 to combine the p‐values using Edgington's additive method.

Results

Twelve studies entered the systematic review. The meta‐analysis results showed that social determinants of healthy lifestyle among Iranian women included income, job, education, spouse's education and occupation, housing and social support.

Conclusions

Given the relationship between modifiable factors and women's lifestyles, it seems that it is necessary to set policies to improve the status of factors related to women's lifestyle including reducing poverty, promoting education and providing social support to eliminate.