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Introduction: Genetic variants that control dopamine have been associated with obesity in children through loss of control of satiety and impulses, the manifestation of addictive eating behaviors, and specific personality traits. The variants include FTO-rs9939609 and the MAO-A 30 pb u-VNTR low-transcription alleles (LTA). Objective: To evaluate the genetic association of FTO-rs9939609 and the MAO-A LTA, along with personality traits and eating behavior with obesity in Mayan children from Mexico. Methods: We cross-sectionally evaluated 186 children (70 with obesity and 116 with normal weight) 6-12 years old from Yucatan, Mexico. Nutritional status was defined with body mass index (BMI) percentiles. Personality traits were evaluated with the Conners and TMCQ tests; eating behavior was evaluated with the CEBQ test. Genotyping with real-time PCR and TaqMan probes was used for FTO-rs9939609, whereas PCR amplification was used for MAO-A u-VNTR. Results: High-intensity pleasure (p = 0.013) and moderate appetite (p = 0.032) differed according to nutritional status. Heterozygous FTO-rs9939609 T/A children showed higher mean scores of low-intensity pleasure (p = 0.002) and moderate appetite (p = 0.027) than homozygous T/T. Hemizygous boys having MAO-A LTA showed significantly higher mean scores of anxiety (p = 0.001) and impulsivity (p = 0.008). In multivariate models, only LTA alleles of MAO-A explained obesity in boys (OR = 4.44; 95% CI = 1.18-16.63). Conclusion: In the present study, MAO-A u-VNTR alleles were associated with obesity in multivariate models only in boys. These alleles might also have a role in personality traits such as anxiety and impulsivity, which secondly contribute to developing obesity in Mayan boys.

RESUMO

Elder population is becoming proportionally a larger segment of the total population and among their health problems, diabetes mellitus (DM) is one of their main causes of death and disability. In DM, self-management is the basis for a better control, which is why public policy makers and healthcare providers should have available analytic tools that allow them to discriminate among the best self-care interventions in diabetes for older patients. Even though there are several meta-analyses already that offer this kind of review, this article proposes the use of Mechner's behavioral contingencies language to compare different approaches. Three interventions were described with this notation and even though there were some limitations for this analysis due to the fact that some results were not comparable or not available in the original papers, this formal symbolic language demonstrated to be useful for making analytical comparisons visually accessible, providing a better understanding of the contingencies that are at play in the situation and giving the advantage of cutting across all natural languages.

Actualmente existe un incremento en la proporción de adultos mayores (AM) en la población en general. Dentro de los problemas de salud de este grupo, la diabetes mellitus (DM) es uno de los padecimientos que causa mayor muerte e incapacidad. En la DM el auto-manejo es la base para un mejor control, por lo cual los tomadores de decisiones en política pública y los proveedores de servicios de salud, deben contar con herramientas de análisis que les permitan discriminar entre las mejores intervenciones que mejoren el auto-cuidado del paciente diabético mayor. A pesar de que ya existen a la fecha varios meta-análisis que hacen este tipo de revisiones, este artículo propone el uso del lenguaje de análisis contingencial de la conducta desarrollado por Mechner para comparar diferentes aproximaciones. Tres intervenciones fueron descritas usando esta notación y a pesar de existir ciertas limitaciones para el análisis debido a que algunos componentes de los estudios no eran comparables o no estaban disponibles para su consulta en los documentos originales, éste lenguaje gráfico fue útil para hacer visualmente accesible el análisis comparativo entre estudios, proveyendo un mejor entendimiento de las contingencias en juego dentro de la situación, con la ventaja de traspasar la barrera del idioma.