Alicia Aguilar

• Doctora en CC Biològiques
• Universitat Oberta de Catalunya

Main results of the first survey on healthy behaviors in 10 universities in Catalonia fromt he Catalan Health Pormoting Universities Network.

Since 2020, the progress towards the achievement of Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 2– Zero Hunger has faced a sudden stall due to an ongoing “polycrisis”. While some countries are on track, a great effort is still globally necessary to achieve the SDG2 targets. Here we provide a brief background about SDG2, including its synergies and trade-off...

Adolescence is a key period for consolidating heathy lifestyles and proper eating habits that can last into adulthood. To analyze the diet quality of Spanish adolescents and its association with socioeconomic factors and health behaviors by gender, a cross-sectional study was conducted using data from the DESKcohort project, consisting of a biannua...

In recent years in Western Europe, studies on entomophagy have drawn the attention of many researchers interested in identifying parameters that could improve the acceptability of insect consumption in order to introduce insects as a sustainable source of protein into the future diet. Analysing the factors involved in consumer acceptability in the...

This systematic review aimed to examine the health outcomes and environmental impact of edible insect consumption. Following PRISMA-P guidelines, PubMed, Medline ProQuest, and Cochrane Library databases were searched until February 2021. Twenty-five articles met inclusion criteria: twelve animal and six human studies (randomized, non-randomized, an...

Vivimos en una época en la que la gran explosión demográfica, la globalización, la pobreza rural y la urbanización han cambiado el modo de producción y consumo de alimentos. Así mismo, en los últimos tiempos, tanto en los países desarrollados como en los que se encuentran en vías de desarrollo el incremento de las grandes extensiones de monoproducc...

Breakfast has a critical role in energy balance and dietary regulation. Consequently, it is considered an important component of a healthy diet, especially in adolescence, when there are great opportunities to consolidate habits and establish future patterns of healthiness in adulthood. Socioeconomic position (SEP) causes inequalities that are refl...

Adolescence is a critical period in the consolidation of healthy lifestyles that can last into adulthood. To analyze changes in food consumption and eating behaviors in high-school adolescents during the first confinement, a cross-sectional study was conducted at the end of confinement in Spain. Changes in the frequency or quantity of consumption o...

Physical exercise is known to have a dose-dependent effect on the immune system and can result in an inflammatory process in athletes that is proportional to the intensity and duration of exertion. This inflammatory process can be measured by cell markers such as dendritic cells (DCs), which, in humans, consist of the myeloid DC (mDCs) and plasmacy...

Obesity is a disease that straddles medico-nutritional, psychological, and socio-cultural boundaries. There is a clear relationship between lifestyle and obesity, and today the Mediterranean diet in the Mediterranean area may represent an interesting corrective asset. However, we should not be under any misapprehension about the model’s capacity fo...

Two aspects that characterize the Mediterranean diet (MD) are "what" and "how" we eat. Conviviality relates to "how" we eat and to the pleasure of sharing meals with significant people. The most studied concept is "family meals", which includes conviviality, which involves "enjoying" family meals. Given the lack of research on convivial family meal...

Unhealthy diet and physical inactivity-major risk factors for the main non-communicable diseases-can be addressed by mobile health applications. Using an evidence-based systematic review design, we analysed studies on mobile applications to foster physical activity to determine whether they met the objective of increasing adults' physical activity....

The purpose of the paper is to gain an understanding of the perceptions and needs of caregivers looking after the elderly or those with multiple disabilities with regard to the use of technology in the course of their work, in order to design the associated training.

The Mediterranean Diet (MedDiet) has been promoted as a means of preventing and treating cardiodiabesity. The aim of this study was to answer a number of key clinical questions (CQs) about the role of the MedDiet in cardiodiabesity in order to provide a framework for the development of clinical practice guidelines. A systematic review was conducted...

This book takes a transdisciplinary approach and considers multisectoral actions, integrating health, agriculture, environment, economy, and socio-cultural issues, to comprehensively explore the topic of sustainable diets. Consideration is given to the multi-dimensional nature of diets and food systems, and the book explores the challenging issues...

To analyze the relationship between the level of knowledge about food, the degree of adherence to the Mediterranean Diet (MeDi) and nutritional status; an intervention study was performed with pre- and post-intervention evaluation after three educational sessions, designed according to the learning preferences of health science university students....

Introducción: el cáncer colorrectal (CCR) es el segundo cáncer más frecuente en el mundo occidental, de tal manera que se diagnostican cerca de 1 millón de casos nuevos por año. La tasa de supervivencia de pacientes con CCR varía ampliamente, aun entre pacientes con el mismo tumor histológico. Esto posiblemente es debido al impacto de los factores...

INTRODUCTION Colorectal cancer (CRC) is the second most common cancer in the Western world. About one million of new CRC cases are diagnosed per year. The survival rate of patients with CRC changes widely, even among patients with the same tumor histology. This is possibly due to the impact of environmental factors on tumor development. The diet is...

Introducción: a pesar de la relevancia nutricional del desayuno para el desarrollo y su asociación a un mejor aprendizaje y rendimiento escolar, numerosos estudios ponen en evidencia que en muchos casos se omite o se hace mal. Objetivo: determinar la calidad del desayuno de estudiantes de entre 10 y 16 años con intención de determinar en qué moment...

En un periodo de crisis socioeconómica como el que vive actualmente Europa, y en especial los países del sur, el poder adquisitivo de la población y el acceso a los alimentos pueden verse fuertemente alterados. Dicha crisis, sin embargo, no afecta únicamente a losaspectos materiales de la alimentación y al consumo, sino que, por el contrario, impli...

Objective: To design and validate a questionnaire to assess the level of knowledge regarding eating disorders in college students. Design: Observational, prospective, and longitudinal study, with the design of the questionnaire based on a conceptual review and validation by a cognitive pre-test and pilot test-retest, with analysis of the psychom...

Introducción: Ante el creciente aumento y la relevancia que han adquirido las aplicaciones para teléfonos móviles (App) en el ámbito de la salud, el objetivo de este trabajo es conocer la visión de los profesionales que se dedican al tratamiento de la obesidad sobre las necesidades y carencias actuales con las que se encuentran, su predisposición a...

Introducción: A pesar de ser considerados eventos infrecuentes en comparación a otros estados patológicos relacionados con la alimentación, en los últimos años y en diferentes países, se constata un incremento de las tasas de incidencia y prevalencia de los Trastornos del Comportamiento Alimentario; la mayoría de estudios que analizan los factores...

The university population is considered a particularly vulnerable group from the nutritional point of view as it begins to take responsibility for their food and going through a critical period in the consolidation of habits and food-related behaviors. Previous studies highlight the loss of healthy dietary patterns and the need to develop education...

Hábitos alimentarios y conductas relacionadas con la salud en una población universitaria Resumen Introducción: La población universitaria se considera un colectivo especialmente vulnerable desde el punto de vista nutricional ya que comienza a responsabilizarse de su alimentación y atraviesa un período crítico en la con-solidación de hábitos y cond...

In a period of social and economic crisis like the current one in Europe, and especially in the southern countries, the purchasing power of the population and their access to food can be strongly altered. This crisis, however, is not confined only to the material aspects of food and consumption, but on the other hand, it also implies a broader soci...

Introduction: Studies on food services are increasing actually in Spain. However, there still is very little information on how this service is organized in prisons, and even less about how it is perceived by its residents. Objectives: To analyze the food service and menu in the Modelo Prison in Barcelona, and confront it with the perception of pri...

In view of the major limitations regarding access to, compliance with, and the cost and long-term effectiveness of traditional weight-loss treatments, interventions via mobile phones are being considered as an alternative in order to cut financial costs, reduce visit times and improve compliance. The aim of this paper is to assess the effectiveness...

The consumption of ostrich meat was introduced into Europe in a relatively short time. Considered even today as an exotic meat, its inclusion in the usual sources of animal protein in our context has been repeatedly assessed, because it converge some of the benefits of poultry and red meat. Although information on their nutritional value is still l...

Abstract Introduction: Studies on food services are increasing actually in Spain. However, there still is very little information on how this service is organized in prisons, and even less about how it is perceived by its residents. Objectives: To analyze the food service and menu in the Modelo Prison in Barcelona, and confront it with the percepti...

Obesity is a disease that straddles medical-nutritional, psychological and socio-cultural The relationship between lifestyles and obesity is becoming more evident, but not always the public health policies are focused in this light. The aim of this paper is to present an overview of obesity from an open perspective, paying greater attention to the...

Obesity combined with breast cancer is a public health problem, given the high incidence and prevalence of both diseases. The aim of this review is to determine the current status of research on the relationship between the body weight of breast cancer patients and their prognosis. Overweight and obesity at the time of diagnosis are associated with...

The consumption of ostrich meat was introduced into Europe in a relatively short time. Considered even today as an exotic meat, its inclusion in the usual sources of animal protein in our context has been repeatedly assessed, because it converge some of the most interesting nutritional characteristics of poultry and red meat. Over ten years later,...

This article analyses the possibility of integrating new learning practices into health-related postgraduate programmes to enable students to acquire specific competencies in their field of study while improving other cross-disciplinary competencies related to the use of elements inherent to the information and knowledge society. To that end, a dec...

The consumption of ostrich meat was introduced into Europe in a relatively short time. Considered even today as an exotic meat, its inclusion in the usual sources of animal protein in our context has been repeatedly assessed, because it converge some of the most interesting nutritional characteristics of poultry and red meat. Over ten years later,...

Bacteriophage PM4, PM5 and PM6 were isolated on different mesophilic Aeromonas strains. These bacteriophage use the flagellum as their primary bacterial receptor since purified flagella from these strains are able to inactivate these bacteriophages, independently, and the phage-resistant mutants are aflagellate and nonmotile. Furthermore, we showed...

We cloned and sequenced the structural gene for Aeromonas hydrophila porin II from strain AH-3 (serogroup O:34). The genetic position of this gene, like that of ompF inEscherichia coli, is adjacent to aspC and transcribed in the same direction. However, upstream of the porin II gene no similarities with E. coli were found. We obtained defined inser...

Two different representative recombinant clones encoding Aeromonas hydrophila lipases were found upon screening on tributyrin (phospholipase A1) and egg yolk agar (lecithinase-phospholipase C) plates of a cosmid-based genomic library of Aeromonas hydrophila AH-3 (serogroup O34) introduced into Escherichia coli DH5alpha. Subcloning, nucleotide seque...

The Escherichia coli DH5alpha strain as well as other K12-derived strains are unable to produce O-specific lipopolysaccharide and are thus rough and serum-sensitive. One representative recombinant clone (COS-SR1) containing Aeromonas hydrophila (serogroup O:34) chromosomal DNA conferred serum resistance to E. coli K12 strains. Genetic, biochemical,...

We have demonstrated by using an in vitro approach that interruption of the OmpK36 porin gene by insertion sequences (ISs) is a common type of mutation that causes loss of porin expression and increased resistance to cefoxitin in Klebsiella pneumoniae. This mechanism also operates in vivo: of 13 porin-deficient cefoxitin-resistant clinical isolates...

The Serratia marcescens N28b wbbL gene has been shown to complement the rfb-50 mutation of Escherichia coli K-12 derivatives, and a wbbL mutant has been shown to be impaired in O4-antigen biosynthesis (X. Rubirés, F. Saigí, N. Piqué, N. Climent, S. Merino, S. Albertí, J. M. Tomás, and M. Regué, J. Bacteriol. 179:7581–7586, 1997). We analyzed a reco...

The mechanism of killing of Aeromonas hydrophila serum-sensitive strains in nonimmune serum by the complement classical pathway has been studied. The bacterial cell surface component that binds C1q more efficiently was identified as a major outer membrane protein of 39 kDa, presumably the porin II described by D. Jeanteur, N. Gletsu, F. Pattus, and...

This paper presents three kinds of balanced fractional 3m factorial designs of resolution IV such that (A) all the main effects and the linear by linear and the linear by quadratic components of the two-factor interactions are estimable, (B) all the main effects and the linear by linear ones of the two-factor interactions are estimable, and (C) all...

Growth of mesophilic Aeromonas sp. strains from serogroups O:13, O:33 and O:44 at different temperatures and osmolarity resulted in changes in the lipopolysaccharide (LPS) and virulence of the strains tested, as we had previously reported for strains from serogroup O:34. The effect of osmolarity could be observed when the cells grew at 37 degrees C...

The ability of Aeromonas hydrophila serogroup O:34 strains grown under different conditions (capsulated and non-capsulated) to adhere to and invade two fish cell lines was compared. The level of adherence was slightly higher when the strains were grown under conditions promoting capsule formation than when the same strains were grown under conditio...

We obtained mutants devoid of the O1-antigen, the capsular polysaccharide (K antigen) or both from Klebsiella pneumoniae clinical isolates (urinary infection). These mutants were grown in urine, and their ability to fimbriate and to adhere were studied. Mutants lacking the O1-antigen, independently of the other surface molecules (capsule and fimbri...

We compared the ability of Aeromonas hydrophila wild-type strains of serogroup O:34, non-motile Tn5 aflagellar mutants and the same mutants harboring a recombinant cosmid DNA from a library of A. hydrophila AH-3 (O:34, wild-type) that allows these mutants to make flagella and to be motile, to adhere and invade two fish cell lines. We found that mot...

We obtained mutants devoid of the O1-antigen, the capsular polysaccharide (K antigen) or both fromKlebsiella pneumoniaeclinical isolates (urinary infection). These mutants were grown in urine, and their ability to fimbriate and to adhere were studied. Mutants lacking the O1-antigen, independently of the other surface molecules (capsule and fimbriae...

The complement resistance of Aeromonas salmonicida strains grown under conditions promoting capsule formation was investigated using well characterized strains and their isogenic mutants. Complement resistance was previously studied using the same strains growing under non-capsulating conditions. The serum resistant strains were found to activate c...

Growth of Aeromonas hydrophila serotype O:34 strains at 37 degrees C at low and high osmolarity resulted in changes in the lipopolysaccharide (LPS) and virulence of the strains tested. We previously described the effect of growth temperature on LPS and virulence of these strains (S. Merino et al., Infect. Immun. 60:4343-4349, 1992). The effect of o...

The complement activation by and resistance to complement-mediated killing of Aeromonas sp. strains from serogroup O:11 were investigated by using different wild-type strains (with an S-layer characteristic of this serogroup) and their isogenic mutants characterized for their surface components (S-layer and lipopolysaccharide [LPS]). All of the Aer...

Abstract The ability of several Aeromonas salmonicida strains grown under different conditions (capsulated and non-capsulated) to adhere to and invade two fish cell lines was compared. The level of adherence was slightly higher when the strains were grown under conditions promoting capsule formation than when the same strains were grown under condi...

We compared the ability of different Aeromonas hydrophila strains from serogroup O:34 grown at different temperatures to adhere to Hep-2 cells. We found a high level of adhesion when the strains were grown at 20 degrees C but not when they were grown at 37 degrees C. We previously described that these strains were able to form the O-antigen lipopol...

Abstract We compared the ability of different Aeromonas hydrophila strains from serogroup O:34 grown at different temperatures to adhere to Hep-2 cells. We found a high level of adhesion when the strains were grown at 20 °C but not when they were grown at 37 °C. We previously described that these strains were able to form the O-antigen lipopolysacc...