These redefined criteria for serotonin toxicity should be more sensitive to serotonin toxicity and less likely to yield false positives.

Background: Dietary intake during childhood and adolescence is of increasing interest due to its influence on adult health, particularly obesity, cardiovascular disease and diabetes. There is a need to develop and validate dietary assessment methods suitable for large epidemiologic studies of children and adolescents. Limited large scale dietary studies of youth have been undertaken in Australia, due partly to the lack of a suitable dietary intake tool. A self-administered, semi-quantitative food-frequency questionnaire (FFQ), the 'Australian Child and Adolescent Eating Survey' (ACAES), was developed for youth aged 9-16 years. This study evaluated reproducibility and comparative validity of the ACAES FFQ using assisted food records (FRs) as the reference method.

This review highlights four research gaps in the literature, a lack of: large representative samples; in-depth understanding of user experiences and risk perceptions; research comparing consumption patterns across cultures and over time; and work exploring the nature of the therapeutic encounter with complementary practitioners in this area of women's health care.

High-quality evidence about low-risk pregnancies indicates that place of birth had no statistically significant impact on infant mortality. The lower odds of maternal morbidity and obstetric intervention support the expansion of birth centre and home birth options for women with low-risk pregnancies.

Athletes regularly participating in up to 40 min of acute high-intensity exercise may require higher intakes of exogenous antioxidants to defend against increased oxidative stress during exercise, which can be met through an adequate intake of high-antioxidant foods. Thus, there seems no valid reason to recommend antioxidant supplements to athletes participating in acute high-intensity exercise events up to 40 min in duration, except in those known to be consuming a low-antioxidant diet for prolonged periods.

Most pregnant women are utilising CAM products and/or services as part of their maternity care and obstetricians, general practitioners and midwives need to enquire with women in their care about possible CAM use to help promote safe, effective coordinated maternity care.

Objectives: To compare the characteristics of complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) users and non‐users among Australian women. Design: Cross‐sectional postal questionnaire conducted during 1996, forming the baseline survey of the Australian Longitudinal Study on Women's Health. Participants: Women aged 18–23 years (n = 14 779), 45–50 years (n = 14 099) and 70–75 years (n = 12 939), randomly selected from the Health Insurance Commission database, with over‐sampling of women from rural and remote areas of Australia. Main outcome measures: Consultation with an alternative health practitioner in the 12 months before the survey. Results: Women in the mid‐age cohort were more likely to have consulted an alternative health practitioner in the previous year (28%) than women in the younger cohort (19%) or older cohort (15%). In all age groups, CAM users were more likely than CAM non‐users to reside in non‐urban areas, to report poorer health, have more symptoms and illness, and be higher users of conventional health services. Conclusions: Women in non‐urban Australia are more likely to use CAM but do so in in parallel with conventional health services.

BackgroundLimited information is available regarding the profile and clinical practice characteristics of the osteopathy workforce in Australia. This paper reports such information by analysing data from a nationally-representative sample of Australian osteopaths.MethodsData was obtained from a workforce survey of Australian osteopathy, investigating the characteristics of the practitioner, their practice, clinical management features and perceptions regarding research. The survey questionnaire was distributed to all registered osteopaths across Australia in 2016 as part of the Osteopathy Research and Innovation Network (ORION) project.ResultsA total of 992 Australian osteopaths participated in this study representing a response rate of 49.1%. The average age of the participants was 38.0 years with 58.1% being female and the majority holding a Bachelor or higher degree qualification related to the osteopathy professional. Approximately 80.0% of the osteopaths were practicing in an urban area, with most osteopaths working in multi-practitioner locations, having referral relationships with a range of health care practitioners, managing patients a number of musculoskeletal disorders, and providing multi-model treatment options.ConclusionsA total of 3.9 million patients were estimated to consult with osteopaths every year and an average of approximate 3.0 million hours were spent delivering osteopathy services per year. Further research is required to provide rich, in-depth examination regarding a range of osteopathy workforce issues which will help ensure safe, effective patient care to all receiving and providing treatments as part of the broader Australian health system.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (10.1186/s12913-018-3158-y) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.