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Cardiovascular Disease (CVD) is the leading cause of death in the world today! More specifically, ischemic heart disease, also known as coronary artery disease, tops the world’s most deadly disease and is responsible for nearly 9 million deaths every year (World Health Organization, n.d.). This paper describes a Parental Approach to Cardiovascular Health Promotion and Prevention in children. The risk factors for CVD have been well established in adults and emerging evidence underline the importance of experiences and exposures on the consequent development of CVD. The aim of this project is to highlight the importance of early intervention in childhood by promoting cardiovascular health education and prevention in children. CVD is cause by a culmination of genetic and lifestyle factors and the many risk factors associated with cardiovascular disease is divided into two categories: those which are changeable or modifiable and those that are unchangeable or non-modifiable. The earlier that parents address the modifiable risk factors, the better the child’s outcome of preventing heart disease in adulthood. Therefore, alternative means of a healthy dietary approach such as the 5-2-1-0 program in addition to exercising is extremely crucial. This paper will discuss the different preventative strategies and ways to mitigate symptoms of CVD. Therefore, I have developed a 4-step outline for cardiovascular health education and prevention strategies which parents can use when raising their children.
ContributorsCherian, Feba (Author) / Day, Kimberly (Thesis director) / Wang, Wei (Committee member) / College of Health Solutions (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2020-05
Description
A major challenge with tissue samples used for biopsies is the inability to monitor their molecular quality before diagnostic testing. When tissue is resected from a patient, the cells are removed from their blood supply and normal temperature-controlled environment, which causes significant biological stress. As a result, the molecular composition and integrity undergo significant change. Currently, there is no method to track the effects of these artefactual stresses on the sample tissue to determine any deviations from the actual patient physiology. Without a way to track these changes, pathologists have to blindly trust that the tissue samples they are given are of high quality and fit for molecular analysis; physicians use the analysis to make diagnoses and treatment plans based on the assumption that the samples are valid. A possible way to track the quality of the tissue is by measuring volatile organic compounds (VOCs) released from the samples. VOCs are carbon-based chemicals with high vapor pressure at room temperature. There are over 1,800 known VOCs within humans and a number of these exist in every tissue sample. They are individualized and often indicative of a person’s metabolic condition. For this reason, VOCs are often used for diagnostic purposes. Their usefulness in diagnostics, reflectiveness of a person’s metabolic state, and accessibility lends them to being beneficial for tracking degradation. We hypothesize that there is a relationship between the change in concentration of the volatile organic compounds of a sample, and the molecular quality of a sample. This relationship is what would indicate the accuracy of the tissue quality used for a biopsy in relation to the tissue within the body.
ContributorsSharma, Nandini (Co-author) / Fragoso, Claudia (Co-author) / Grenier, Tyler (Co-author) / Hanson, Abigail (Co-author) / Compton, Carolyn (Thesis director) / Tao, Nongjian (Committee member) / Moakley, George (Committee member) / Harrington Bioengineering Program (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2020-05
Description
The experiments conducted in this report supported previous evidence (Bethany et al., 2019) that a newly identified predatory bacterium causes a higher rate of mortality in the biological soil crust cyanobacterium M. vaginatus when in hot soils than in cold soils. I predicted that the extracellular propagules of this predatory bacterium were inactivated at seasonally low temperatures, rendering them non-viable when introduced to M. vaginatus at room temperature. However, I found that the predatory bacterium became only transiently inactive at low temperatures, recovering its pathogenicity when later exposed to warmer temperatures. By contrast, inactivation of infectivity was complete by exposure in both liquid and dry conditions for five days at 40 °C. I also expected that its infectivity towards M. vaginatus was temperature dependent. Indeed, infection was hampered and did not cause high mortality when predator and prey were incubated at or below 10 °C, which could have been due to slowed metabolisms of M. vaginatus or to an inability of the predatory bacterium to attack in cold conditions. Above 10 °C, when M. vaginatus grew faster, time to full death of predator/prey incubations correlated with the rate of growth of healthy cultures.
The experiments in this study observed a correlation between the growth rate of uninfected cultures and the decay rate of infected cultures, meaning that temperatures that cultures that displayed a higher growth rate for uninfected M. vaginatus would die faster when infected with the predatory bacterium. Infected cultures that were incubated at temperatures 4 and 10 °C did not display death and this could have been due to lower activity of M. vaginatus at lower temperatures or the inability for the predatory bacterium to attack at lower temperatures.
The experiments in this study observed a correlation between the growth rate of uninfected cultures and the decay rate of infected cultures, meaning that temperatures that cultures that displayed a higher growth rate for uninfected M. vaginatus would die faster when infected with the predatory bacterium. Infected cultures that were incubated at temperatures 4 and 10 °C did not display death and this could have been due to lower activity of M. vaginatus at lower temperatures or the inability for the predatory bacterium to attack at lower temperatures.
ContributorsAhamed, Anisa Nour (Author) / Garcia-Pichel, Ferran (Thesis director) / Giraldo Silva, Ana Maria (Committee member) / Bethany Rakes, Julie (Committee member) / School of Molecular Sciences (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2020-05
Description
This review examines existing research on relationships between two established disciplines, nutrition and immunology, with a specific focus on the complement system in vertebrate organisms and how its functioning is affected by nutritional status. The available studies assessed the effects of certain vitamins, lipids, carbohydrates, proteins, and overall body condition, measured as body mass index (BMI), on the three complement activation pathways (classical, lectin, and alternative) and their components (C1q, C1s, C3, C4, C5, C6, C8, C9, and C3 proactivator) in blood plasma. Across studies, an increased abundance and/or activity of complement components in plasma was observed in rodents and humans after intake of vitamin A, vitamin C, lipids, and proteins. Higher relative activity was also observed in bats with high body mass index (BMI), a measure of general body condition. Overall, results indicate that nutritional status has a pronounced effect on the complement system in species studied. However, only few studies have investigated effects of nutrition on complement in non-model organisms, such as wildlife, indicating major gaps in knowledge related to taxa that more likely experience nutrient limitations, e.g. through seasonal variation in resources, droughts, etc. as compared with model organisms used under laboratory settings. Understanding potential relationships between nutrition and immunity in a broader suite of species is crucial, nonetheless, due to the number of emerging wildlife diseases that are spreading at an alarming rate. Therefore, I critiqued the available evidence to help predict how wildlife hosts will resist or tolerate diseases, such as white-nose syndrome, sylvatic plague, and avian influenza, based on the nutritional status of an individual host. I also considered methodological approaches and assessed their potential for use in wildlife. The studies in this review used different methods to measure complement protein activity, such as hemolytic and functional assays. Future studies can also take advantage of newer high-throughput methods, such as proteomics combined with functional assays. This can lead to a more comprehensive understanding of the efficacy of complement proteins to neutralize invading pathogens under different host nutritional states. My investigation into relationships between nutrition and complement will also inform similar investigations to uncover effects of nutrition on other aspects of immunity, such as antimicrobial peptides. Overall, my assessment concludes that complement is a good candidate for investigating the role of nutrition on immunity in wildlife because it is sensitive to changes in some nutritional components, particularly vitamins, lipids, and proteins.
ContributorsMaatough, Yasmeen (Author) / Moore, Marianne (Thesis director) / Wang, Wei (Committee member) / School of Life Sciences (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2020-05