This abstract concludes, "During their decade-long relationship with their patients, family physicians are expected to identify the higher weight gain of their patients, especially among younger generation and intervene, if necessary." Perhaps these decades-long relationships occur in the European countries studied, but it is my understanding that few patients (especially in the US) have this kind of stable relationship for so many years.
Also, although the authors do find a statistically significant relationship between certain weight gain patterns for certain groups, the effect size is only OR = 1.044 with a 95 % CI of 1.01–1.07; not particularly compelling.
Several somewhat counter-intuitive findings from this NHANES study: caffeine does not increase the odds of hypertension, but some of its metabolites reduce the odds. Also, neither insulin resistance nor abdominal obesity were moderators of these relationships. Interesting to see a study of a US population in a European journal.
Very nice, open access article providing reasonable evidence that yoga can reduce high blood pressure. However, it could have been improved by following (or stating that they followed) the PRISMA guidelines, and by reporting the time intervals used to record BP (e.g. right after practice, mean readings over the course of a day or week, something else?).
I love this: in addition to an abstract, the publishers require authors to prepare a "Simple Summary," explained as follows: "Simple Summary: It is vitally important that scientists are able to describe their work simply and concisely to the public, especially in an open-access on-line journal. The simple summary consists of no more than 200 words in one paragraph and contains a clear statement of the problem addressed, the aims and objectives, pertinent results, conclusions from the study and how they will be valuable to society. This should be written for a lay audience, i.e., no technical terms without explanations. No references are cited and no abbreviations. Submissions without a simple summary will be returned directly. Example could be found at http://www.mdpi.com/2076-2615/6/6/40/htm."
This is an excellent summary of recent (as of 2012) evidence linking sustained weight loss with impressive drops in blood pressure, but it is also an example of a robust critique via editorial concurrently with the published study.
This abstract could have greatly benefitted from a solid proofreading. What is "the dock check-up?" Surely the journal editors could have questioned this phrase: ". . . In male ON group, there was much percentage of those who carried out physical activity . . ."
This research is extremely helpful, and the observation that "Ninety three percent (95% CI: 86–97%) of dogs . . . were recovered . . ." has been getting me through the past two days.
This study suggests an interesting phenomenon: supernatural beliefs have been associated with fatalism, but these authors observe that "Those who endorse genetic factors as the most important cause had more pessimistic outcome beliefs about health behavior changes . . ." Causal assumptions about genetic contributions to disease might be assumed to be held by more educated people, while supernatural beliefs might be found more among less educated folks, yet they both converge on an attitude that health behavior changes are less likely to impact outcomes..
Funding