Objectives: To document general practitioners’ (GPs) attitudes and practices regarding the prevention and management of overweight and obesity.
Research Methods and Procedures: A cross‐sectional survey of a randomly selected sample of 1500 Australian GPs was conducted, of which 752 questionnaires were returned. The measures included views on weight management, definitions of success, views regarding the usefulness of drugs, approaches to and strategies recommended for weight management, and problems and frustrations in managing overweight and obesity.
Results: GPs view weight management as important and feel they have an important role to play. Although they consider themselves to be well prepared to treat overweight patients, they believe that they have limited efficacy in weight management and find it professionally unrewarding. GPs view the assessment of a patient's dietary and physical activity habits and the provision of dietary and physical activity advice as very important. The approaches least likely to be considered important and/or least likely to be practiced were those that would support the patient in achieving and maintaining lifestyle change.
Discussion: There remains considerable opportunity to improve the practice of GPs in their management of overweight and obesity. Although education is fundamental, it is important to acknowledge the constraints of the GPs’ existing working environment.
Solvent relaxation nuclear magnetic resonance has been widely used to study the interactions of polymers and surfactants with nanoparticles, an important area of research for use in a range of industrial formulations, especially with regards to competition effects between components. The ability of the solvent relaxation technique to distinguish between solvent molecules at the surface and those in the bulk solution has been used to obtain valuable information on the interfacial interactions and structure.We focus on systems containing combinations of polymer, surfactant and colloidal particles and illustrate how solvent relaxation measurements have addressed problems of stabilisation, flocculation and depletion in both academically and industrially relevant systems.
The competition between poly(vinylpyrrolidone) and poly(ethylene oxide) for adsorption at the silica surface was studied by solvent relaxation nuclear magnetic resonance and small-angle neutron scattering. The additive nature of the NMR relaxation rate enhancement was used to observe changes in the train layer when the two polymers were in direct competition for an increasing weight percentage of silica. PVP is shown to displace preadsorbed PEO from the particle surface, and this was observed for a range of PVP molecular weights. SANS measurements were found to give detailed information on the adsorption of the polymers in the separate systems; however, only qualitative information on the adsorption of the polymers could be obtained from the mixed samples. At a total polymer concentration of 0.4% w/v with 1.1% w/v silica, the SANS data were consistent with PVP adsorbing at the surface and dPEO remaining in solution, in agreement with the NMR data.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.