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Biomedical subjects

S Cueto

Publications and source records attributed to S Cueto.

7 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed2001

Breakfast and performance.

Evidence suggests that the effect of fasting on performance is not uniform, but it is dependent on the basal nutritional status of the subject. Breakfast consumption has a short-term effect in improving selected learning skills, especially work memory. School breakfast programmes have a positive effect on the nutritional status of children, on school attendance and probably on dropout rates. The effect of breakfast consumption on school performance depends on the interaction between the programme, student characteristics (malnutrition) and school organisation. Unless the school setting guarantees a minimum quality standard, the benefits of breakfast consumption will not be evident in performance in complex areas like language or maths.

Child↗
PubMed1998

Fasting and cognition in well- and undernourished schoolchildren: a review of three experimental studies.

This paper reviews three experiments on the effects of an overnight and morning fast on attention and memory processes among 9-11-y-old children. Two of the experiments focused on middle-class, well-nourished boys and girls in the United States: the third involved boys from low-income families with and without nutritional risk in Huaraz, Peru. All experiments used the same crossover design and followed similar experimental procedures to control the subjects' intakes and motor activity during the study period. The children were admitted to a research center on two different evenings, approximately 7 d apart. After arrival the children ate dinner, played table games or watched television, and went to bed. They were awakened at 0730 and, by design, were either served breakfast (approximately 2301 kJ) or not. At 1100 they took psychologic tests that assessed recall from working memory and competence in discriminating visual stimuli. At 1200 the children were discharged. The consequences of the overnight and morning fast, particularly among the children who were nutritionally at risk, included slower stimulus discrimination, increased errors, and slower memory recall. We propose that these alterations result from a state of metabolic stress in which homeostatic mechanisms work to maintain circulating glucose concentrations.

Blood Glucose↗
PubMed1998

When science and politics listen to each other: good prospects from a new school breakfast program in Peru.

This article provides an overview of a school breakfast program implemented in 1993 in the Peruvian Andes. The program, designed by the Instituto de Investigación Nutricional in Lima and supported by the government of Peru, constitutes a clear departure from previous school feeding programs, which were heavily politicized and poorly documented. From the program's inception, nutritionists, managers, and social scientists have collaborated to produce a sound nutritional design, efficient distribution mechanisms, and effective evaluation methods. During the program's first year, controlled evaluations conducted in several Andean regions documented improved dietary intake and a significant decline in the prevalence of anemia. An educational evaluation also found improved verbal skills, higher school attendance, and lower dropout rates among recipients of the school breakfast. The results have prompted the Peruvian government to continue supporting the program, thus setting a new standard for the effective management of social expenditure in the context of economic adjustment.

Anemia↗
PubMed1996

Synthesis and pharmacology of alkanediguanidinium compounds that block the neuronal nicotinic acetylcholine receptor.

Taking as models the polyamine toxin fraction FTX from the funnel-web spider venom, and the guanidinium moiety of guanethidine, a series of azaalkane-1, omega-diguanidinium salts were obtained. Some of them blocked ion fluxes through the neuronal nicotinic receptors for acetylcholine (nAChR). The blockade was exerted at submicromolar concentrations, suggesting a highly selective interaction with the nAChR. In fact, the active compounds on the nAChR ion channel did not recognize the voltage-dependent Na+ or Ca2+ channels of bovine adrenal chromaffin cells. Therefore, these compounds may be useful tools to clarify the functions of nAChR receptors in the central and peripheral nervous systems.

Animals↗
PubMed1994

Drug abuse prevention curricula in public and private schools in Indiana.

Recent research on drug education has focused on public schools. This study compares public school drug education programs with such efforts in private schools in one midwestern state. All schools in the state were asked to respond to a survey on curricula and training. This study reports on the types of prevention curricula used and at what grades, as well as the number of schools with trained staff. For almost every grade a higher percentage of public schools was found to be implementing drug education programs than private schools. This was manifested in public schools developing their own programs and/or purchasing commercially available drug curricula. Although an equal number of private and public schools have trained staff, less than half of all schools report a trained staff at each grade level. Directions for future research based on these results are suggested.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1993

Effects of the putative polyamine antagonists diethylenetriamine and 1,10-diaminodecane on N-methyl-D-aspartic acid-stimulated [3H]norepinephrine release from rat hippocampal slices.

N-Methyl-D-aspartic acid (NMDA, 500 microM) stimulated the net release of [3H]norepinephrine from rat hippocampal slices. The putative polyamine inverse agonist 1,10-diaminodecane (DA10) dose-dependently inhibited NMDA-stimulated release with a calculated IC50 value of 33 microM. The putative polyamine competitive antagonist diethylenetriamine (DET) partially inhibited (maximum effect 40%) NMDA-stimulated release at 1 mM which was the highest concentration tested. DET (1 mM) but not DA10 also partially inhibited potassium-stimulated release of norepinephrine from hippocampal slices. Neither DET or DA10 significantly altered the nonstimulated basal efflux of neurotransmitter. The inhibition of NMDA-stimulated release produced by 100 microM DA10 or 1 mM DET was not attenuated by addition of the polyamines spermine or spermidine up to 1 mM. In addition, the IC50 value for DA10-induced inhibition of NMDA-stimulated neurotransmitter release was not altered by the addition of DET (100-1000 microM). The combination of the glycine antagonist 7-chlorokynurenic acid (3 microM) and DA10 (100 microM) inhibited NMDA-stimulated release by approximately 70%. The addition of the glycine agonist D-serine (3-100 microM) partially attenuated the inhibition produced by these two compounds. No further enhancement was observed when D-serine was added in the presence of spermine or spermidine. Finally, the NMDA open channel blocker (+)-5-methyl-10,11- dihydro-5H-dibenzo[1,d]cyclo-hepten-5,10-imine maleate dose-dependently inhibited NMDA-stimulated release with an IC50 value of 25 nM. The inhibitory potency of (+)-5-methyl-10,11- dihydro-5H-dibenzo[1,d]cyclo-hepten-5,10-imine maleate was not significantly altered by the presence of either DET (100 microM) or DA10 (30 or 100 microM).(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)

Animals↗