Dietary intake and occupational status among female youths of Thai Nguyen, Vietnam

Adolescence is a sensitive transition time that affects rights, roles, and responsibilities in food choice, yet limited evidence exists on dietary intakes during this critical period. This study assessed the food consumption pattern and the adequacy of energy, macronutrient, and micronutrient intakes among female youth belonging to three occupational groups in Vietnam. Dietary intakes were measured for 1001 participants aged 16-22 years using INDDEX24's 24-h recall method. Multivariate regression analyses were conducted to examine differences in diet outcomes among the three occupational groups. Dietary diversity was similar across groups but workers, compared to high school and college students, consumed less baked/grain-based sweets and fast foods, and more soft drinks, other sweets, and processed meat. Two-thirds of the sample showed energy intake lower than the estimated energy requirement, while a substantial percentage had insufficient or excessive intake of carbohydrate and fat. The mean probability of adequacy of nutrient intakes was low (0.33) and not different across all three occupational groups except for folate, which favored workers. Our study provides novel evidence supporting the development and implementation of interventions to achieve national targets, with emphasis on female youths who undergo special transitions in education, occupation, and lifestyle.

Relative validity of a mobile AI-technology-assisted dietary assessment in adolescent females in Vietnam

BACKGROUND

There is a gap in data on dietary intake of adolescents in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). Traditional methods for dietary assessment are resource intensive and lack accuracy with regard to portion-size estimation. Technology-assisted dietary assessment tools have been proposed but few have been validated for feasibility of use in LMICs.

OBJECTIVES

We assessed the relative validity of FRANI (Food Recognition Assistance and Nudging Insights), a mobile artificial intelligence (AI) application for dietary assessment in adolescent females (n = 36) aged 12-18 y in Vietnam, against a weighed records (WR) standard and compared FRANI performance with a multi-pass 24-h recall (24HR).

METHODS

Dietary intake was assessed using 3 methods: FRANI, WR, and 24HRs undertaken on 3 nonconsecutive days. Equivalence of nutrient intakes was tested using mixed-effects models adjusting for repeated measures, using 10%, 15%, and 20% bounds. The concordance correlation coefficient (CCC) was used to assess the agreement between methods. Sources of errors were identified for memory and portion-size estimation bias.

RESULTS

Equivalence between the FRANI app and WR was determined at the 10% bound for energy, protein, and fat and 4 nutrients (iron, riboflavin, vitamin B-6, and zinc), and at 15% and 20% bounds for carbohydrate, calcium, vitamin C, thiamin, niacin, and folate. Similar results were observed for differences between 24HRs and WR with a 20% equivalent bound for all nutrients except for vitamin A. The CCCs between FRANI and WR (0.60, 0.81) were slightly lower between 24HRs and WR (0.70, 0.89) for energy and most nutrients. Memory error (food omissions or intrusions) was ∼21%, with no clear pattern apparent on portion-size estimation bias for foods.

CONCLUSIONS

AI-assisted dietary assessment and 24HRs accurately estimate nutrient intake in adolescent females when compared with WR. Errors could be reduced with further improvements in AI-assisted food recognition and portion estimation.

Double burden of malnutrition in ethnic minority school-aged children living in mountainous areas of Vietnam and its association with nutritional behavior

BACKGROUND/OBJECTIVES

Although children of ethnic minority groups are experiencing a transition from a predominance of undernutrition to overnutrition, there is little evidence of a dual-malnutrition burden. Therefore, this study examined the double burden of malnutrition among school-aged ethnic minority children living in mountainous areas and its association with their diets.

SUBJECTS/METHODS

A cross-sectional study was conducted from September 2019 to March 2020 in 3 mountainous areas of Northern Vietnam among 1,556 ethnic minority school-aged children. The prevalence of under-nutrition (stunting and thinness) and over-nutrition (overweight and obesity) were measured using the WHO 2006 child growth standards (height-for-age and BMI-for-age Z-score). Nutritional practices were evaluated by the frequency of food consumption based on a 4-level scale.

RESULTS

The percentage of children with stunting and thinness were 14.0% and 5.4%, respectively, while the figure for overweight/obesity was 9.4%. The factors positively associated with stunting were living in a family with more than 2 children or being Muong/other ethnicities compared to the Tay ethnicity. Children who consumed fish/shrimps/crabs or milk weekly/daily were less likely to be undernourished compared to those who never consumed these foods. By contrast, children who never consumed foods rich in vitamin A precursors and vitamin A and fruit or consumed daily snacks/junk food were more likely to be overweight/obese.

CONCLUSIONS

Undernutrition remains a common issue among school-aged children and adolescents of ethnic minority groups, while over-nutrition exists simultaneously. Public health nutrition programs promoting adequate diets and positive lifestyle changes related to nutrition are essential to tackle the double burden of malnutrition among ethnic minority children.

Review on the effects of potential prebiotics on controlling intestinal enteropathogens Salmonella and Escherichia coli in pig production

Salmonella enterica serotypes (Salmonella sp.) are the second cause of bacterial foodborne zoonoses in humans after campylobacteriosis. Pork is the third most important cause for outbreak-associated salmonellosis, and colibacillosis is the most important disease in piglets and swine. Attachment to host cells, translocation of effector proteins into host cells, invasion and replication in tissues are the vital virulence steps of these pathogens that help them to thrive in the intestinal environment and invade tissues. Feed contamination is an important source for Salmonella infection in pig production. Many on-farm feeding strategies intervene to avoid the introduction of pathogens onto the farm by contaminated feeds or to reduce infection pressure when pathogens are present. Among the latter, prebiotics could be effective at protecting against these enteric bacterial pathogens. Nowadays, a wide range of molecules can potentially serve as prebiotics. Here, we summarize the prevalence of Salmonella sp. and Escherichia coli in pigs, understanding of the mechanisms by which pathogens can cause disease, the feed related to pathogen contamination in pigs and detail the mechanisms on which prebiotics are likely to act in order to fulfil their protective action against these pathogens in pig production. Many different mechanisms involve the inhibition of Salmonella and E. coli by prebiotics such as coating the host surface, modulation of intestinal ecology, downregulating the expression of adhesin factors or virulence genes, reinforcing the host immune system.

Adding mucins to an in vitro batch fermentation model of the large intestine induces changes in microbial population isolated from porcine feces depending on the substrate

Adding mucus to in vitro fermentation models of the large intestine shows that some genera, namely lactobacilli, are dependent on host-microbiota interactions and that they rely on mucosal layers to increase their activity. This study investigated whether this dependence on mucus is substrate dependent and to what extent other genera are impacted by the presence of mucus. Inulin and cellulose were fermented in vitro by a fecal inoculum from pig in the presence or not of mucin beads in order to compare fermentation patterns and bacterial communities. Mucins increased final gas production with inulin and shifted short-chain fatty acid molar ratios (P < 0.001). Quantitative real-time PCR analyses revealed that Lactobacillus spp. and Bifidobacterium spp. decreased with mucins, but Bacteroides spp. increased when inulin was fermented. A more in-depth community analysis indicated that the mucins increased Proteobacteria (0.55 vs 0.25%, P = 0.013), Verrucomicrobia (5.25 vs 0.03%, P = 0.032), Ruminococcaceae, Bacteroidaceae and Akkermansia spp. Proteobacteria (5.67 vs 0.55%, P < 0.001) and Lachnospiraceae (33 vs 10.4%) were promoted in the mucus compared with the broth, while Ruminococcaceae decreased. The introduction of mucins affected many microbial genera and fermentation patterns, but from PCA results, the impact of mucus was independent of the fermentation substrate.

Reduced turn-around time for Mycobacterium tuberculosis drug susceptibility testing with a proportional agar microplate assay

Multidrug-resistant tuberculosis is a major issue worldwide; however, accessibility to drug susceptibility testing (DST) is still limited in developing countries, owing to high costs and complexity. We developed a proportion method on 12-well microplates for DST. The assay reduced the time to results to <12 days and <10 days when bacterial growth was checked with the naked eye or a microscope, respectively. Comparison with the Canetti-Grosset method showed that the results of the two assays almost overlapped (kappa index 0.98 (95% CI 0.91-1.00) for isoniazid, rifampicin, streptomycin; and kappa index 0.92 (95% CI 0.85-0.99) for ethambutol). The sequencing of genes involved in drug resistance showed similar level of phenotype-genotype agreement between techniques. Finally, measurement of the MICs of rifampicin and ethambutol suggests that the currently used critical ethambutol concentration should be revised, and that the current molecular drug susceptibility tests for rifampicin need to be re-evaluated, as in vitro rifampicin-sensitive isolates could harbour drug resistance-associated mutation(s).

Dystrophin nonsense mutations can generate alternative rescue transcripts in lymphocytes

Secondary alterations in splicing have been reported to produce semi-functional mRNA from several nonsense mutations in the dystrophin gene. Disruptions of exonic splicing enhancers by single nucleotide changes are thought to underlie such alterations. The precise frequencies of such nonsense mutation-dependent splicing alterations, however, remain unknown. Here we analyzed the splicing patterns of dystrophin mRNA in lymphocytes from 38 patients with dystrophinopathies due to nonsense mutations in the dystrophin gene. In seven of the cases (18%), we observed partial skipping of the nonsense-encoding exon. Two of the seven cases, however, exhibited complex activation of a nonsense mutation-created splice site, which resulted in the generation of novel transcripts. Examination of cis-regulatory splicing elements through calculation of splicing probability scores and identification of potential splicing enhancer or silencer sequences failed to disclose a single cause for exon skipping. Remarkably, individual differences in splicing patterns were observed for cells from patients with identical nonsense mutations (C.5899C>T). Although five cases produced semi-functional dystrophin mRNAs, only one of these exhibited a mild clinical course. These results provide important insights about targets for exon skipping induced by candidate antisense oligonucleotides and for ribosomal read-through of nonsense mutations.