Alguacil Merino, Luis Fernando

Background: The outcomes of bariatric surgery are very irregular and mostly unpredictable. The search for variables of predictive value is encouraged to help preventing therapeutic failures. Objective: We aimed to confirm the hypothesis that preexisting eating behaviors could predict neuroendocrine and metabolic outcomes of gastric bypass surgery in morbidly obese subjects. Methods: Twenty-one morbidly obese patients from the Bariatric Surgery Program of our hospital were selected according to the specific inclusion and exclusion criteria for this study. The subjects filled out a validated questionnaire to quantify the "loss-of-control" (LC) dimension of food craving and provided serum samples at the onset of the study and 1 year after gastric bypass surgery. Hematological, metabolic, and hormonal variables were studied by conventional clinical tests and enzyme immunoassays and checked for correlations with LC both before and after surgery. Results: Those patients that had exhibited worse eating control at the beginning of the study experienced a better metabolic response 1 year after surgery in terms of reduction of serum insulin, HOMA1-IR, HOMA2-IR, and vitamin D1; all these variables were inversely correlated with presurgical LC. Serum brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) levels showed the same tendency; in fact, BDNF significantly decreased only in those patients with worse eating control. Conclusions: Problematic eating behaviors may predict a better response of insulin resistance and a specific reduction of serum BDNF in morbidly obese patients after gastric bypass surgery.

High-fat diets (HFDs) can lead to pathological changes in the brain underlying several behavioral disturbances (e.g., reward deficiency). To further increase our knowledge of these associations, we studied the sucrose reward and the brain expression of clusterin, a protein that is overexpressed after several kind of brain damaging conditions. C57BL/6J male mice were differentially fed on an HFD or standard chow for 41 days and underwent 11 sucrose place conditioning sessions followed by 4 extinction sessions to monitor the effects of HFD on sucrose reward by means of free choice tests. We quantified clusterin expression by immunochemistry in the nucleus accumbens, dorsal striatum and cingulate cortex. HFD tended to provoke a transient potentiation in the acquisition of sucrose-conditioned place preference, but this effect was followed by a much more consistent reduction in sucrose preference, which spontaneously disappeared after 31 days of an HFD with no need for extinction learning. The HFD mice showed higher clusterin expression in the nucleus accumbens but not in the other brain areas studied. The results confirm that HFDs strongly influence the rewarding properties of palatable foods and suggest a direct connection with neurotoxic alterations in the brain reward system tagged by clusterin overexpression.

Background: Bariatric surgery is one of the most effective long-term options for treating class III obesity or class II obesity with medical co-morbidities; however, a significant number of patients do not achieve the expected weight loss. New studies are needed to find the predictive value of different variables on surgery outcomes. Objectives: Our aim was to study a number of physical, medical, and psychopathological variables as potential risk factors for poor outcomes in patients with class II-IV obesity scheduled for sleeve gastrectomy. Setting: Sagrat Cor University Hospital in Barcelona, Spain. Methods: This prospective longitudinal study enrolled a sample consisting of 441 patients from whom a descriptive analysis was obtained. For 235 of them, we performed a comparative analysis between the patients with differing responses to sleeve gastrectomy after 1 year of follow-up. The remaining patients had differing follow-up data or were lost to follow-up. To collect the data, a semi-structured interview was conducted, and various tests were administered to assess the patients' psychopathology (Hamilton Rating Scale for Depression, Hamilton Anxiety Rating Scale) and functionality (Global Assessment of Functioning Scale). Results: The results show the prognostic relationship between certain presurgery variables and the good or poor outcomes of the bariatric surgery, based on the patients' weight loss. Advanced age, high body mass index, diabetes, and respiratory problems were significant predictors of a poor response to surgery. Contrarywise, a history of adjustment disorder predicted a better response. Conclusions: The results allow us to conclude that, beyond well-established physical and medical conditions, a psychopathological study of patients prior to bariatric surgery including adjustment disorders could be predictive of therapeutic response and could help to personalize the follow-up.

Objective: The aim of this study was to explore the influence of an enrolled degree course on health and eating habits in a population of Spanish university students (17-26 y of age). Methods: A cross-sectional observational study was carried out with 648 students. Volunteers were stratified into biomedical (medicine and nursing, 48%) and non-biomedical students (other fields of study, 52%). Data were collected using previously self-reported questionnaires focused on anthropometric and sociodemographic profile, lifestyle practices, body image perception, health consciousness, eating habits, physical activity, and food addiction. Mann-Whitney U tests and Pearson's χ2 tests were applied to identify associations between the two groups. Results: Self-reported body mass index was higher for the non-biomedical group (22.1 ± 3.1 versus 23 ± 5 kg/m2; P < 0.05), which also reported less regularity in taking meals (91 versus 95%; P < 0.05), eating fewer colored vegetables and fruits (65 versus 77%; P < 0.001) and a higher alcohol intake (27 versus 20%; P < 0.001). In contrast, the proportion of students that showed more interest in the diet-health duality (92 versus 85%; P < 0.001) and a desire to adopt healthier habits (80 versus 78%; P < 0.05) was larger in the biomedical group. Dietary habits, obtained by means of a food frequency questionnaire, suggested that biomedical students make healthier food choices. Additionally, the group of biomedical students took more walks per week (5.8 ± 1.8 versus 5.5 ± 1.9; P < 0.05). Conclusions: Healthier lifestyle factors cluster into the biomedical group in various components of the study, except food addiction where no differences were observed. The data presented here suggest the necessity to develop health promotion strategies targeting university students.

Background: The outcomes of bariatric surgery are very irregular and mostly unpredictable. The search for variables of predictive value is encouraged to help preventing therapeutic failures. Objective: We aimed to confirm the hypothesis that preexisting eating behaviors could predict neuroendocrine and metabolic outcomes of gastric bypass surgery in morbidly obese subjects. Methods: Twenty-one morbidly obese patients from the Bariatric Surgery Program of our hospital were selected according to the specific inclusion and exclusion criteria for this study. The subjects filled out a validated questionnaire to quantify the "loss-of-control" (LC) dimension of food craving and provided serum samples at the onset of the study and 1 year after gastric bypass surgery. Hematological, metabolic, and hormonal variables were studied by conventional clinical tests and enzyme immunoassays and checked for correlations with LC both before and after surgery. Results: Those patients that had exhibited worse eating control at the beginning of the study experienced a better metabolic response 1 year after surgery in terms of reduction of serum insulin, HOMA1-IR, HOMA2-IR, and vitamin D1; all these variables were inversely correlated with presurgical LC. Serum brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) levels showed the same tendency; in fact, BDNF significantly decreased only in those patients with worse eating control. Conclusions: Problematic eating behaviors may predict a better response of insulin resistance and a specific reduction of serum BDNF in morbidly obese patients after gastric bypass surgery.

Background: Preclinical work revealed significant interactions between ligands of the histamine H3 receptor and different drugs of abuse. In the case of psychostimulants, the results reported are somewhat controversial and human data are still scarce, despite the fact that an inverse agonist of the H3 receptor (pitolisant) has reached the market after approval for the treatment of narcolepsy. Aims: We have studied associations between histamine H3 receptor gene variants and cocaine use disorder to increase the knowledge of the possible involvement of histamine H3 receptor in drug abuse. Methods: Seven single nucleotide polymorphisms of the histamine H3 receptor gene were genotyped by using a multiplexing assay in 248 samples of subjects with cocaine use disorder and 500 randomized samples of subjects representative of the Spanish population. Results: The study of the epidemiological information associated to the samples revealed that subjects with cocaine use disorder broadly abused alcohol, tobacco and cannabinoids. Two single nucleotide polymorphisms (rs3787430 and rs74627870) were found significantly associated with the occurrence of addiction and one more (rs13042865) was specifically related to the severity of cocaine dependence within drug abusers. Conclusions: The associations found in this study further extend the hypothesis that histamine H3 receptor function could be relevant in drug abuse in general and cocaine addiction in particular.

Background: Background: Perinatal malnutrition seems to provoke important neurochemical alterations in the brain that lead to higher vulnerability to develop neuropsychiatric disorders in the adulthood. Objectives: We have examined the persistence and reversibility of the changes induced by perinatal undernourishment on the expression of fumarate hydratase in the rat nucleus accumbens, bearing in mind that this expression has been previously linked with addictive disorders. Clusterin, a multifunctional protein known to be neuroprotective and possibly related to addiction in humans, was studied in parallel. Methods: Female Wistar rats underwent a severe restriction of food during gestation and lactation. Upon weaning, a subgroup of undernourished animals was switched to normal chow and another one continued under food restriction. Control rats and their mothers were fed on chow along the experiment. Fumarate hydratase and clusterin were quantified by western blot after five months of postnatal life in the three experimental groups. Results: Food restriction along the whole experimental period provoked a marked upregulation of both clusterin and fumarate hydratase in the mitochondrial fraction of the nucleus accumbens. In the case of clusterin, this upregulation was also observed in the cytosolic fraction of the nucleus accumbens. When undernourishment was limited to gestation and lactation the two proteins appeared downregulated with respect to controls. Conclusion: The results are consistent with the idea that perinatal malnutrition provokes marked changes in brain neurochemistry that are not fully corrected by the rehabilitation of normal feeding and could be linked to behavioural disturbances in the adulthood, that is, increased vulnerability to addiction.

Antecedentes. En un contexto marcado por el modelo de aprendizaje colaborativo y constructivista y la rápida evolución de las tecnologías de la información y las comunicaciones, los equipos de gobierno de las universidades deben apoyar decididamente las iniciativas del profesorado en materia de innovación docente y promover acciones de impulso complementarias. Método. Uno de los objetivos de nuestro Vicerrectorado de Profesorado e Investigación es promover la innovación docente mediante el apoyo a la elaboración de un programa formativo adecuado para el profesorado; la convocatoria de premios de innovación docente; el apoyo a la celebración anual de congresos interfacultativos y la programación de talleres internos impartidos por los propios profesores. Resultados. Tras una participación creciente en todos los ámbitos a lo largo de los últimos años, durante el curso 2019-2020 nuestros profesores (alrededor de 1000) cursaron 7958 horas de formación y presentaron 21 proyectos a la convocatoria de premios de innovación docente y 103 comunicaciones al Congreso CEU de Innovación Educativa y Docente. Además, participaron en un número muy elevado de actividades adicionales de transformación digital, una situación extraordinaria impuesta por la pandemia. Conclusiones. Los resultados obtenidos avalan la pertinencia de las iniciativas emprendidas y recomiendan su mantenimiento en el futuro.