No abstract

Background Technology—in particular, access to the Internet from a mobile device—has forever changed the way we relate to others and how we behave in our daily life settings. In recent years, studies have been carried out to analyze the effectiveness of different actions via mobile phone in the field of health: telephone calls, short message service (SMS), telemedicine, and, more recently, the use of push notifications. We have continued to explore ways to increase user interaction with mobile apps, one of the pending subjects in the area of mHealth. By analyzing the data produced by subjects during a clinical trial, we were able to extract behavior patterns and, according to them, design effective protocols in weight loss programs. Objective A clinical trial was proposed to (1) evaluate the efficacy of push notifications in an intervention aimed at improving the body composition of adult women who are overweight or obese, through a dietary procedure, and (2) analyze the evolution of body composition based on push notifications and prescribed physical activity (PA). Methods A two-arm randomized controlled trial was carried out. A sample size of 117 adult obese women attended a face-to-face, 30-minute consultation once a week for 6 months. All patients were supplied with an app designed for this study and a pedometer. The control group did not have access to functionalities related to the self-monitoring of weight at home, gamification, or prescription of PA. The intervention group members were assigned objectives to achieve a degree of compliance with diet and PA through exclusive access to specific functionalities of the app and push notifications. The same diet was prescribed for all patients. Three possible PA scenarios were studied for both the control and intervention groups: light physical activity (LPA), moderate physical activity (MPA), and intense physical activity (IPA). For the analysis of three or more means, the analysis of variance (ANOVA) of repeated means was performed to evaluate the effects of the intervention at baseline and at 3 and 6 months. Results Receiving notifications during the intervention increased body fat loss (mean -12.9% [SD 6.7] in the intervention group vs mean -7.0% [SD 5.7] in the control group; P<.001) and helped to maintain muscle mass (mean -0.8% [SD 4.5] in the intervention group vs mean -3.2% [SD 2.8] in the control group; P<.018). These variations between groups led to a nonsignificant difference in weight loss (mean -7.9 kg [SD 3.9] in the intervention group vs mean -7.1 kg [SD 3.4] in the control group; P>.05). Conclusions Push notifications have proven effective in the proposed weight loss program, leading women who received them to achieve greater loss of fat mass and a maintenance or increase of muscle mass, specifically among those who followed a program of IPA. Future interventions should include a longer evaluation period; the impact of different message contents, as well as message delivery times and frequency, should also be researched. Trial Registration ClinicalTrials.gov NCT03911583; https://www.clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT03911583

No abstract

Food industry is increasingly concerned in developing and applying rapid and nondestructive methods to offer safer and high quality foods to consumers. During the last years, Fourier transform near-infrared (FT-NIR) has been widely used to determine food quality based on spectrum. Likewise, FT-NIR has been proposed as an innovative and promising nondestructive rapid method capable to detect and identify microorganisms in foods; however, little progress has been made to date in this field. This study is a new attempt to apply FT-NIR technology to identify and quantify bacteria species in water-based systems in order to simulate water-based food matrices. For that, three different lactic acid bacteria-Lactobacillus plantarum, Leuconostoc mesenteroides, and Lactobacillus sakei-associated with spoilage in ready-to-eat meat, were analyzed by reflectance-transmitance FT-NIR in the spectral range 1,100-2,500 nm. Principal component analysis (PCA), and partial least squares (PLS) were applied to obtain prediction models. PCA and PLS showed a clear discrimination between the tested bacteria species whereas PLS method could succesfully quantify the concentration levels (3-9 log cfu/mL) and also distinguish between spoilage (7-9 log cfu/mL) and nonspoilage concentration levels (3-6 log cfu/mL). Results suggest that FT-NIR could be used efficiently to detect and quantify microorgasnisms in water-based food matrices. However, this study is an initial approach and therefore, it will be necessary to further research in order to really carry out its application to more complex food matrices and other microorganisms (i.e., food-borne pathogens).

No abstract

There are several factors that affected calcium bioavailability, such as physiological and dietary factors. These dietary factors help to achieve an appropiate status of calcium for a correct bone mineralization. In this pathway, recently some compounds present in milk that seem improve calcium absorption such as lactose and certain caseinophosphopeptides formed during digestion of caseins have been studied. On the other hand, the possible inhibitatory effect of fiber has been also studied, without conclusive results between in vitro and in vivo studies and the role of phytic acid on impairs calcium bioavailability could be prevented by using fructo-oligosaccharides, which cannot be digested in the small intestine and arrive practically intact to the colon, where are fermented. Finally, calcium fortification must be executed by suitable compounds with high bioavailability, better technological properties, and a correct calcium:phosphorus ratio. For that reason, the objective of the present article is to review the influence of all these conditional factors on calcium bioavailability.

BackgroundThere is evidence showing the effectiveness of a hypocaloric diet and the increase in physical activity on weight loss. However, the combined role of these factors, not only on weight loss but also body composition, remains unclear. The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of a hypocaloric diet on the body composition of obese adult women throughout different degrees of physical activity during a weight loss program.MethodsOne hundred and seventeen healthy female volunteers were randomly assigned to one of the experimental groups: a control group with a low-level prescription of physical activity (1–4 METs), moderate physical activity group that performed 10.000 steps walking (5–8 METs) and intense physical activity group that trained exercises by at least 70% of VO2max three times a week (> 8 METs). All subjects followed a hypocaloric diet designed with a reduction of 500 kcal/day. Nutritional counseling was provided throughout the study period to help ensure dietary adherence.ResultsWe found no differences in body weight compared to moderate and intense physical activity (ßstand. = − 0.138 vs. ßstand. = − 0.139). Body fat was lower in women following an intense activity (ßstand. = − 0.436) than those with moderate exercise (ßstand. = − 0.231). The high-intense activity also increased muscle mass at the end of the intervention, standing out above the moderate activity (ßstand. = 0.182 vs. ßstand. = 0.008).ConclusionsThese findings indicate that a hypocaloric diet, without prescription of physical activity, is adequate to lose weight in the short term (12 weeks), but physical activity is vital to modify the body composition in women with obesity. Body fat was lower when women practiced a moderate exercise compared to hypocaloric diet only, but an intense physical activity was the most effective protocol to obtain a reduction of body fat and maintain muscle mass.Trial registrationThe study protocol complied with the Declaration of Helsinki for medical studies, it was approved by the bioethical committee of Córdoba University, in the Department of Health at the Regional Government of Andalusia (Act n°284, ref.4156) and retrospectively registered in clinicaltrials.gov (NCT03833791). Registered 2 January 2019.

No abstract