Backgrounds: An intercultural society facilitates equitable and respectful interrelations. Knowing and understanding each other's sociocultural and linguitic contexts is a prerequisite for an intercultural society. This study explores the concepts of health and illness among healers of indigenous ethnicities in Southern Ecuador. Methods: A qualitative observational study with eleven focus groups was conducted in three locations in Southern Ecuador; a total of 110 participants the Shuar, Kichwa and Mestizo ethnic groups were included. A phenomenological and hermeneutic analysis was conducted. Results: Fourteen main subtopics around of two predefined themes, i.e., "Health" and "Illness" were identified: 1) four bodies, 2) religiosity, 3) health as a good diet, 4) health as god's blessing or a gift, 5) health as balance/ harmony, 6) health as community and social welfare, 7) health as potentiality or a skill, 8) health as peacefulness, 9) heath as individual will, 10) illness as an imbalance, 11) illness as bad energy, 12) illness as a bad diet, 13) illness as suffering or worry, and 14) illness from God, Nature and People illness. By analysing all the topics' and subtopics' narratives, a health and illness definition was developed. The principal evidence for this new framework is the presence of interculturality as a horizontal axis in health. The indigenous perspective of health and illness focus on a balance between 4 bodies: the physical, spiritual, social and mental bodies. Additionally, "good health" is obtained through of the good diet and balanced/harmony. Conclusion: Indigenous healers in Southern Ecuador have views on health and illness that differ from the Western biomedical model of care. These different views must be recognized and valued in order to build an intercultural (health) system that empowers both ancestral and modern medical knowledge and healing.

A long-term complication of obesity is the development of type 2 diabetes (T2D). Patients with T2D have been described as having epigenetic modifications. Epigenetics is the post-transcriptional modification of DNA or associated factors containing genetic information. These environmentally-influenced modifications, maintained during cell division, cause stable changes in gene expression. Epigenetic modifications of T2D are DNA methylation, acetylation, ubiquitylation, SUMOylation, and phosphorylation at the lysine residue at the amino terminus of histones, affecting DNA, histones, and non-coding RNA. DNA methylation has been shown in pancreatic islets, adipose tissue, skeletal muscle, and the liver. Furthermore, epigenetic changes have been observed in chronic complications of T2D, such as diabetic nephropathy, diabetic retinopathy, and diabetic neuropathy. Recently, a new drug has been developed which acts on bromodomains and extraterminal (BET) domain proteins, which operate like epigenetic readers and communicate with chromatin to make DNA accessible for transcription by inhibiting them. This drug (apabetalone) is being studied to prevent major adverse cardiovascular events in people with T2D, low HDL cholesterol, chronic kidney failure, and recent coronary events. This review aims to describe the relationship between obesity, long-term complications such as T2D, and epigenetic modifications and their possible treatments.

Clinical notes provide a comprehensive and overall impression of the patient's health. However, the automatic extraction of information within these notes is challenging due to their narrative style. In this context, our goal was to identify clusters of patients based on fourteen comorbidities related to obesity, automatically extracted with the cTAKES tool from the i2b2 Obesity Challenge data. Furthermore, results were compared with clusters obtained from experts' annotated data. The sparse K-means algorithms were used in both experiment at two levels: at the first level, three clusters were found, and at the second, new clusters were found by applying the same algorithm to each of the clusters from the former level. The results show that three types of clusters could be identified based on the number of comorbidities and the percentage of patients suffering from them. Diabetes, hypercholesterolemia, atherosclerotic cardiovascular diseases, congestive heart failure, obstructive sleep apnea, and depression were the diseases with the highest weights contributing to the cluster distribution. Keywords Obesity . Clinical notes . cTAKES . Cluster analysisThis article is part of the Topical Collection on Transactional Processing Systems

Background The new paradigm of intercultural policies focuses on rethinking the common public culture. In Ecuador, the “Buen Vivir” plan seeks to incorporate the ancestral medical knowledge, experience and beliefs of traditional healers into the formal health services. This study explores views on the formal health system from the perspective of the healers belonging to the Kichwa and Shuar ethnicities in the South of Ecuador. Methods A qualitative study with a phenomenological approach was performed. Focus groups were conducted in three locations in Southern Ecuador. Shuar, Kichwa and Mestizo ethnic groups were included in the research. Results Eleven focus groups with a total of 110 participants belonging to the Shuar, Kichwa and Mestizo ethnic groups participated in the study. Six themes were created through analysis: 1) conflicts with health professionals, 2) acceptance of traditional healers, 3) respect, 4) work as a team, 5) environment and patient care, and 6) salary and recognition. Conclusion This study indicated the perceived barriers compromising respectful collaboration between health staff and traditional healers from an indigenous perspective. Power inequalities and a historically unidirectional relationship and, in addition, differences in health beliefs, seem to create misunderstandings regarding each other’s approach when faced with health and disease. However, insight in these barriers can create opportunities towards collaboration, which will have a positive effect on patient confidence in one or both systems and support continuity between traditional healers and the formal health system.

Background: Cervical cancer continues to be a major health problem in developing countries. Educational programs, as well as Pap and HPV screening and vaccination, are important tools to reduce the morbidity and mortality rates associated with this disease. The objective of this study is to explore the diverse knowledge and perceptions about cervical cancer and the different diagnostic tests for HPV of populations living in the rural parish “El Valle”. Method: A qualitative study was conducted through eight focus groups, which included 46 participants from mixed ethnic groups. A phenomenological analysis was performed. Results: Four topics and seven sub-topics were identified. By analyzing all the narratives, it was possible to identify that the perception of cervical cancer was focused on its severity, secondary to its infectious process and screening periodicity. However, despite the diverse knowledge, indigenous people do not relate it to the human papilloma virus; in addition, there is also certain resistance to undergo the Pap smear test, for reasons such as inaccessibility and its sampling process. Conclusions: It is necessary to develop educational programs for the prevention of cervical cancer and to implement diagnostic alternatives to reach populations with precarious accessibility, as well as women who refuse to undergo the Pap smear test.