Objective: Many people suffer from fibromyalgia (FM) without an effective treatment. They do not have a good quality of life and cannot maintain normal daily activity. Among the different hypotheses for its ethiopathophysiology, oxidative stress is one of the possibilities. Non-scientific information addressed to patients regarding the benefits of nutrition is widely available, and they are used to trying non-evidenced strategies. The aim of this paper is to find out what we know right now from scientific studies regarding fibromyalgia disease and nutritional status, diets and food supplements. Design: A systematic search has been performed on Medline with a wide range of terms about these nutritional issues. Setting: the search has been made during 2009, for articles published between 1998 and 2008. Subjects: people suffering from FM. Results: Vegetarian diets could have some beneficial effects probably due to the increase in antioxidant intake. There is a high prevalence of obesity and overweight in patients, and weight control seems to be an effective tool to improve the symptoms. Some nutritional deficiencies have been described, it is not clear whether they are directly related to this disease or not. About the usefulness of some food supplements we found very little data, and it seems that more studies are needed to prove which ones could be of help. Conclusions: Dietary advice is necessary to these patients to improve their diets and maintain normal weight. It would be interesting to investigate more in the field of nutrition and FM to reveal any possible relationships.
Fibromyalgia (FM) is a common disease that results in poor quality of life, causing widespread musculoskeletal pain and stiffness, fatigue, sleep disorders, and cognitive impairment among other symptoms. The lack of an effective treatment makes necessary a multidimensional management. FM patients usually seek, from different sources, information about possible benefits from foods, nutrients, or diets. Our objective was to investigate the dietary awareness, food allergies and/or intolerances (FAIs), and nutritional supplement (NS) consumption of FM patients. A questionnaire was prepared with six questions regarding dietary habits, FAIs, and NS use. The questionnaire was filled out by patients recruited in local fibromyalgia associations. One hundred and one women were suffering from FM, diagnosed for more than 6 months, mean age of 53.88 ± 7.78 years; 30% of them changed their diet because of their disease, trying to improve it, and most of them were also using some NS; 7% of women in this group had FAIs, a figure slightly higher than the FAI prevalence in the general population (2-5%) and positively associated with consumption of supplements. Among NS users, some differences were observed; past NS users currently consume a wider range of products, more than new NS users. Magnesium was one of the supplements most recommended specifically for FM. Seventy-four percentage of these patients used NS following advice from health professionals. Once patients are diagnosed, they change their dietary habits and nutritional supplement intake, seeking nutritional strategies to improve their symptoms. Health professionals' advice plays a relevant role.
Genome is structurally and functionally influenced by ecological factors during adaptive processes. Several natural factors can cause this, and here we present the effects of different growth conditions on the genome size. Genome size assessments were carried out by flow cytometry for a set of 19 taxa considering for each three plant conditions: i) wild plants growing in their natural habitats used as control group; ii) potted plants, and, iii) bonsai plants. Our results show a large variation in the genome size of bonsai and potted plants in respect of their wild representatives. The most important conclusion is that 1Cx values measured in potted plants can be up to 8.48% inferior and in bonsai plants up to 26.83% higher than the values assessed for the respective wild individuals.In the case of Juniperus thurifera, this divergence largely exceeded the genome size variation previously estimated along the natural geographical range of the species. Such deviation from expected values could be interpreted as a genuine genome size variation or either resulting from biochemical or/and DNA compactness changes triggered by growth conditions. In any case, the present results evidence plant response to humaninduced environmental changes, thus making the current approach potentially interesting for the prediction of climate change influence on plants and for applied aspects.
Overweight is a health problem characterised as a higher than normal body weight due to an abnormal increase in body fat. Body weight adequacy is categorised using body mass index (BMI), however other parameters as fat mass (FM), waist circumference or waist to hip ratio, are relevant. Ideally, body composition should be calculated initially to evaluate changes during a dietary intervention for weight loss. Hunger experience is another parameter to take into account in order to succeed. The aim was to investigate and describe the characteristics of women seeking weight loss solutions. We organised an open program for people with body excess who wanted to lose weight. 252 women participated and answered to a dietary interview. Anthropometric measures of weight, height, body mass index, body fat, waist and hip circumference were taken. The mean age was of 36.84±7.29 years, and most of them, about 90%, have followed dietary programs for weight loss throughout their lives. They all wanted to lose weight in a range of 3 to 20 kilograms with a mean value of 11.49±6.01 kilograms. 123 women had a hunger profile of satiating behaviour and 129 a snacking one. The mean BMI was within overweight values, and mean fat mass was within obesity values. Waist and hip circumference were higher than normal in most of the participants and excess body weight perception and attitude were different. There is a need to tackle overweight and obesity individually, taking into account personal consciousness and expectancy, anthropometric measures and hunger experience.
Several studies have recently raised a common concern in the field of management, which is the overspending in marketing activities. In this paper, we propose and empirically test that overspending in marketing investments is an unfortunate outcome of information overload, in a sense that managers who confront too many risk informants in their decision environment tend to overinvest in marketing activities due to the overemphasis on the environmental risk. In a longitudinal experiment, where we manipulated the amount of information through marketing analytics, we demonstrate that firms employing simple marketing analytics are less prone to increase their marketing expenditures due to the fear of losing customers, and have a lower expectancy that their competitors will increase their brand-level advertising and promotional expenditures, compared to firms using a combination of simple and complex marketing analytics. Moreover, we demonstrate that firms employing simple marketing analytics keep their overall marketing spending at a lower level, and spend less in brand-level marketing, especially in promotional activities, compared to when using a combination of simple and complex marketing analytics.
Several studies have raised a common concern in the field of management, the lack of innovation. However, they either attribute this phenomenon to the inefficiency of marketing analytics, or to managerial despair in evaluating innovation projects. In this article, the authors propose and empirically test cognitive effort spent on marketing analytics which can lead to the lack of innovativeness, due to the negative impact of high cognitive effort on the managers' mood. In a longitudinal experiment, where manipulating the complexity of the decision context through marketing analytics, the authors demonstrate that managers employing simple marketing analytics expect their competitors to launch more products, compared to managers using complex marketing analytics. They also demonstrate that firms employing simple marketing analytics behave venturesome by embarking upon innovative activities. At the same time, firms using complex marketing analytics take more deliberative actions by innovating less and amplifying short-term gains with high priced products.
Several studies have recently raised a common concern in the field of management, which is the overspending in marketing activities. In this paper, we propose and empirically test that overspending in marketing investments is an unfortunate outcome of information overload, in a sense that managers who confront too many risk informants in their decision environment tend to overinvest in marketing activities due to the overemphasis on the environmental risk. In a longitudinal experiment, where we manipulated the amount of information through marketing analytics, we demonstrate that firms employing simple marketing analytics are less prone to increase their marketing expenditures due to the fear of losing customers, and have a lower expectancy that their competitors will increase their brand-level advertising and promotional expenditures, compared to firms using a combination of simple and complex marketing analytics. Moreover, we demonstrate that firms employing simple marketing analytics keep their overall marketing spending at a lower level, and spend less in brand-level marketing, especially in promotional activities, compared to when using a combination of simple and complex marketing analytics.
Overweight is an increasing health problem characterised as a higher than normal body weight due to an abnormal increase in body fat. Body weight adequacy is categorized by using body mass index (BMI), however other parameters such as fat mass (FM), waist circumference (Wci) or waist to hip ratio, are relevant. Ideally, body composition should be calculated initially to evaluate changes during a dietary intervention of weight loss. Hunger experience is another parameter to take into account. The aim of this study was to assess the improvement of weight and body composition through the use of food supplements to control hunger, with and without a hypocaloric diet prescription. 252 women who wanted to lose weight were recruited in the program and splitted into two groups and were monitored for 8 weeks. Anthropometric measures (weight, height, body mass index, fat mass, waist and hip circumference) were taken. The mean age was of 36.84±7.29 and most of them were within overweight or obesity values for BMI, FM, Wci and hip circumference. After 8 weeks, both groups got significant results, achieving not only weight loss but also reduction in body mass index, fat mass, and waist and hip circumferences. However, as expected, improvements were better in FS+diet than in FS group. There is a need to tackle overweight and obesity individually, taking into account the personal characteristics of the patient. Food supplements may be useful to manage hunger and professional individualised assessment is critical to succeed.
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