The effects of subcutaneous injections of synthetic ACTH during 14 subsequent days has been studied in the rat. ACTH caused a loss in body weight which was related to a negative water balance. Blood pressure rose rapidly and reached values higher than 180 mm Hg in all rats after 10 days of ACTH administration. During this period, urinary excretion of corticosterone and 18-hydroxy-deoxycorticosterone (18-OH-DOC) was increased more than ten times, while aldosterone excretion was increased only during the first two days. After withdrawal of ACTH, excretion of steroids normalized, or in some cases was even suppressed and water balance and body weight gain returned to normal values. However, blood pressure remained slightly higher than in controls after ten days. The effects of ACTH on water balance and blood pressure resemble those of corticosterone in the rat. The rapidly induced and sustained changes in blood pressure by ACTH administration suggest that this may be an useful model of experimental hypertension.

Comments made by nutritionists enabled the construction of an instrument that is able to answer questions related to food consumption in schools and at home.

Objective To evaluate the validity of the web-based version of the Previous Day Food Questionnaire Online for schoolchildren from the 2nd to 5th grades of elementary school. Methods Participants were 312 schoolchildren aged 7 to 12 years of a public school from the city of Florianópolis, Santa Catarina, Brazil. Validity was assessed by sensitivity, specificity, as well as by agreement rates (match, omission, and intrusion rates) of food items reported by children on the Previous Day Food Questionnaire Online, using direct observation of foods/beverages eaten during school meals (mid-morning snack or afternoon snack) on the previous day as the reference. Multivariate multinomial logistic regression analysis was used to evaluate the influence of participants’ characteristics on omission and intrusion rates. Results The results showed adequate sensitivity (67.7%) and specificity (95.2%). There were low omission and intrusion rates of 22.8% and 29.5%, respectively when all food items were analyzed. Pizza/hamburger showed the highest omission rate, whereas milk and milk products showed the highest intrusion rate. The participants who attended school in the afternoon shift presented a higher probability of intrusion compared to their peers who attended school in the morning. Conclusion The Previous Day Food Questionnaire Online possessed satisfactory validity for the assessment of food intake at the group level in schoolchildren from the 2nd to 5th grades of public school.

Item response theory (IRT) is a psychometric method that provides probabilistic model-based measurements. Its use is relatively recent in the assessment of food consumption, especially through dietary assessment tools. This study aims (1) to develop a food-based diet quality scale for Brazilian schoolchildren using IRT, and (2) to apply the scale to a representative sample of schoolchildren from a Southern Brazilian city. The scale was developed with daily consumption frequency of foods from 835 students who completed the Food Intake and Physical Activity of Schoolchildren questionnaire. Questionnaire foods were grouped into 10 items according to their nutritional similarities and were evaluated by full-information factor analysis that indicated a dominant factor explaining 28% of the variance. Psychometric item analysis was performed using Samejima’s model. The scale covered all levels of diet quality, from “very poor” (scores < 95) to “very good” (scores ≥ 130). Children who had higher diet quality scores consumed beans, meat, fish, eggs, fruits, vegetables, dairy products, and water more frequently, while reducing the consumption of ultraprocessed sugary foods, ultraprocessed savoury snacks and sausages, and sugary drinks. Of 6323 children, an average of less than 10% consumed the highest diet quality scores (good or very good diet quality) and about 60% of children consumed low diet quality scores. The scale can be applied to other schoolchildren with the same measure precision.

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