IntroductionEating fruits and vegetables is associated with lowered risk for many chronic diseases. However, most Americans, especially members of low-income and minority populations, do not eat adequate amounts. Fresh to You is a public–private partnership program that brings discount fresh produce markets into low-income neighborhoods. We conducted a mixed-methods evaluation of Fresh to You to assess the effect of the program on children’s consumption of fruits and vegetables.MethodsA local produce distributor brought the Fresh to You markets to 6 community organizations serving low-income families in Rhode Island. The markets, held weekly for 5 months at each site, sold fresh produce at below-retail prices. Parents (N = 480) of children aged 3 to 13 years were recruited at the markets to participate in a 5-month cohort study. The primary outcome was change in children’s fruit and vegetable intake, measured by a validated screener. We also conducted postintervention focus groups at each site with parents and qualitative interviews with site contacts to collect feedback about Fresh to You.ResultsFrom baseline to 5 months, there was a significant increase in children’s daily fruit and vegetable consumption of 0.48 cups (t = 4.16, P < .001). Data from follow-up parent surveys, focus groups, and site contact interviews provided positive feedback about Fresh to You and recommendations for improvement.ConclusionFresh to You was effective at increasing consumption of fruits and vegetables among racially and ethnically diverse low-income children aged 3 to 13 years whose parents shopped at the markets. The intervention could serve as a model program for replication in other cities. Refinements and a more rigorous evaluation are needed.
The behavior of single chloride channels in sarcoplasmic reticulum of rabbit and trout skeletal muscle was examined by fusing isolated vesicle fractions into planar lipid bilayers. The channel exhibited a full open state with a unit conductance of 65 pS (in 100 mM Cl-) and several subconductance states with reversal potentials which were dependent on the chloride gradient across the bilayer. Open probability was 0.6-0.95 for membrane potentials ranging from -60 to +60 mV. The kinetic behaviour could be described by assuming one time constant for the fully conducting channel, and at least two time constants for the non-conducting channel. In the presence of methane sulfonate, sulfate and phosphate anions, a decrease in the unit current amplitude but not open time argued in favor of a competition between these anions and Cl- at the transport site of the channel. Chloride channel activity was not affected by variations of Ca2+ concentration in both chambers or by the presence of Mg2+. Similarly, neither millimolar ATP nor the presence of the drugs taurine (up to 10 mM), lidocaine (2-40 microM) or the calmodulin antagonist W7 (5-150 microM), modified channel behavior. Finally, pH variations between 6.8 to 8 were without effect.
Feeding of elemental tellurium to weanling rats blocks synthesis of cholesterol (a major component of myelin), and causes demyelination of the sciatic nerve. Expression of mRNA for myelin-specific genes in Schwann cells is downregulated. We now demonstrate specificity for Schwann cell injury in that expression of mRNAs for neurofilament subunits and for class I1 P-tubulin (parameters sensitive to axonal injury) is unaltered in neurons of the dorsal root ganglia. An unexpected result was that in telluriumtreated rats there was marked upregulation of expression of mRNAs coding for the light and medium neurofilament subunits ("neuron-specific" proteins) as well as that for class I1 P-tubulin (the major neuronal P-tubulin isotype) in Schwann cells. Expression of these "neuronal" mRNA species was also detected in distal stumps of transected nerves at times when Schwann cells were undergoing dedifferentiation. 0 1992 Wiley-Liss, Inc.
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