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Background Published studies during the Coronavirus-19 (COVID-19) pandemic have focused on eating and exercise behaviors and failed to portray a comprehensive understanding of the factors associated with weight change in a setting of a behavioral change framework. This study explores factors associated with weight change during the COVID-19 pandemic among Lebanese residents using the Social Cognitive Theory (SCT) framework, integrating behavioral, environmental, and cognitive factors. Materials & Methods This study uses a cross-sectional design using an anonymous online survey. Participants were recruited from a tertiary hospital patient portal and social media posts. The survey included four domains: demographics, cognitive, behavioral, psychological, and environmental factors. Multiple validated self-reported instruments were included Generalized Anxiety Disorder-2 items (GAD-2), Patient Health Questionnaire-2 (PHQ-2), General Self Efficacy Scale (GSES), Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test-Concise (AUDIT-C), and the dietary pattern evaluation tool. Results A sample of 335 complete responses was obtained. Mean age was 39.0 ± 13.4 years old. Participants were mostly females (n = 224, 66.9%), employed (n = 191, 57.4%), nonsmokers (n = 227, 70.5%), reporting depression (n = 224, 80.3%) and anxiety (n = 242, 84.3%). Mean weight change was −7.0 ± 6.0 kg in the decrease weight group and 6.4 ± 5.0 kg in the increase group. When compared to stable weight, the multinomial logistic model factors that were found to correlate significantly to weight gain were: overeating/binge eating (p-value = 0.001) and unbalanced food pattern (p-value = 0.012). Baseline BMI (p-value = 0.003), anxiety (p-value = 0.020) and smoking (p-value = 0.004) were significant factors of weight loss as compared to stable weight. Conclusions COVID-19-related weight change is multifactorial and is associated with specific behavior and individual characteristics. Hence, addressing people’s behaviors and relationship to food is vital to control weight change during this continuing and future pandemic or natural occurrence.

Conclusion: The current results add to the growing body of evidence of endocannabinoid alterations in schizophrenia. The strong elevation of plasma anandamide levels in schizophrenia patients assessed in the psychiatric emergency setting suggests that anandamide and OEA area potential biomarkers of the psychological turmoil associated with this context.

Self-disturbances constitute a hallmark of psychosis, but it remains unclear whether these alterations are present in at-risk populations, and therefore their role in the development of psychosis has yet to be confirmed. The present study addressed this question by measuring neural correlates of self-other processing in youth belonging to three developmental trajectories of psychotic experiences. Eighty-six youths were recruited from a longitudinal cohort of over 3800 adolescents based on their trajectories of Psychotic-Like Experiences from 12 to 16 years of age. Participants underwent neuroimaging at 17 years of age (mean). A functional neuroimaging task evaluating self- and other-related trait judgments was used to measure whole-brain activation and connectivity. Youth who showed an increasing trajectory displayed hypoactivation of the dorsomedial prefrontal cortex and hypoconnectivity with the cerebellum. By contrast, youth who showed a decreasing trajectory displayed decreased activation of the superior temporal gyrus, the inferior frontal gyrus, and the middle occipital gyrus. These findings suggest that the increasing trajectory is associated with alterations that might erode distinctions between self and other, influencing the emergence of symptoms such as hallucinations. The decreasing trajectory, in comparison, was associated with hypoactivations in areas influencing attention and basic information processing more generally. These alterations might affect the trajectories’ susceptibilities to positive vs. negative symptoms, respectively.

Objectives Increasing evidence implicates cannabis consumption as a key risk factor in the development of psychosis, but the mechanisms underpinning this relationship remain understudied. This study proposes to determine whether sleep disruption acts as a mediator of the cannabis-to-psychosis relationship. Study design This longitudinal study assessed measures of cannabis use frequency, sleep quality, and psychotic-like experiences were collected using self-reported questionnaires. Data were collected from September 2012 to September 2018. Data were collected from a general population sample of adolescents who entered the seventh grade in 31 schools in the Greater Montreal area. The study uses data collected on an annual basis from 3801 high school students from grades 7 to 11. The aforementioned measures were measured using the Detection of Alcohol and Drug Problems in Adolescents questionnaire, a sleep quality Likert scale, and measures the Adolescent Psychotic-Like Symptom Screener. Study results Results show a reciprocal one-year cross-lagged effect of cannabis use and sleep (β=-0.076, 95%CI=-0.037/-0.018, p=0.000), of sleep on cannabis use (β=-0.016, 95%CI=-0.025/-0.006, p=0.007), of sleep on psychotic-like experiences (PLEs) (β=-0.077, 95%CI=-0.014/-0.051, p=0.000), and of psychotic-like experiences on sleep (β=-0.027, 95%CI=-0.037/-0.018, p=0.000). We additionally found a two years indirect lagged-effect of cannabis use on psychotic-like experiences (β=0.068, 95%CI=0.024/0.113, p=0.011) mediated by one year sleep (β=0.006, 95%CI=0.003/0.009, p=0.001). Conclusions Our results suggest sleep disruptions simultaneously aggravate, and are aggravated by, cannabis addiction and psychotic-like experiences. The longitudinal sleep mediated effect of cannabis use on PLEs encourages further research into the role of sleep as a potential therapeutic target in the prevention of cannabis-related psychosis.

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Introduction:Obesity is a risk factor for many health conditions and complications but may be regarded as a prognostic factor in other conditions. This has been described as the "obesity paradox." The debate whether this paradox exists across all health conditions is a hot topic of research, which is why this review aims at systematically analyzing reviews on the obesity paradox to explore where it holds true and help guide further research and clinical implications.Methods: PubMed was searched using the key term "obesity paradox" with a systematic review and meta-analysis filter with no restriction on the date.Results: A total of 40 reviews were included. Most of the reviews included observational cohort studies focusing on various health conditions such as cancer, atrial fibrillation, stroke, heart failure, acute coronary events, dialysis, chronic diseases, surgery, etc. The obesity paradox appeared to exist in all reviewed health conditions except for solid tumors, where there was no obesity paradox regarding mortality or treatment toxicities. The obesity paradox relationship, however, was not homogeneous across the health systems, and the relationships were described as linear, U-shaped, or J-shaped (the latter two being the most common). Conclusions:The relationship between obesity and health outcomes is not straightforward as obesity is sometimes a risk factor for worse outcomes and other times associated with improved mortality. Hence, there is a need for randomized controlled trials to validate why and in which diseases the obesity paradox exists and understand its pathophysiology. Meanwhile, patients with obesity remain a challenge in the clinical context and need special attention to address their obesity and control their risk factors.