Introduction: Many studies have been published, but none have pooled the useful evidence available in the literature to produce guidelines and health policies promoting healthy eating styles to prevent breast cancer (BC). The present study aimed to summarize the evidence produced to date, taking a judicious, critical approach to the quality of the studies analyzed. Methods: An umbrella review method was adopted, which is a systematic review of second-level studies, meta-analyses and literature reviews. Results: In all, 48 studies were considered: 32 meta-analyses, 4 pooled analyses, 5 systematic reviews, and 7 qualitative reviews. A higher intake of total meat, or red or processed meats, or foods with a high glycemic index, or eggs would seem to be associated with a higher risk of BC. Some foods, such as vegetables, would seem instead to have an inverse association with BC risk. One meta-analysis revealed an inverse association between citrus fruit and mushroom consumption and BC. Some nutrients, such as calcium, folate, vitamin D, lignans and carotenoids, also seem to be inversely associated with BC risk. The evidence is still conflicting as concerns exposure to other dietary elements (e.g., polyunsaturated fatty acids, dairy foods). Conclusion: Nutrition is one of the most modifiable aspects of people’s lifestyles and dietary choices can affect health and the risk of cancer. Overall, adhering to a healthy eating style may be associated with a significant reduction in the risk of BC.

Objectives: To collect and summarise all current data from observational studies, generating evidence of the association between health literacy (HL) and the dietary intake of sugar, salt and fat, to analyse intervention studies on the promotion of an appropriate dietary intake of the above-mentioned nutrients and to ascertain whether HL moderates the efficacy of such intervention.Design: A systematic literature search of analytical observational studies on the association between HL and dietary intake of sugar, salt and fat was performed in Medline and Scopus databases. Intervention studies on the promotion of healthy nutrition that concerned the intake of sugar, salt and fat were also assessed.Results: Of the eight observational studies included in this review, five investigated dietary intake of sugar, one focused on salt, one assessed sugar and salt and one analysed the fat intake. The results of the five studies assessing sugar were mixed: three found an association between low levels of HL and a high sugar intake, one found this association only for boys and two found no evidence of any association. The two studies assessing salt and the one assessing fat found no evidence of any association with HL. One intervention study on the sugar intake concluded that HL was not a significant moderator of the intervention’s effectiveness.Conclusion: No evidence of any association between HL and salt and fat intake emerged, while for sugar, the results are mixed. More work is needed to better understand the moderating effects of HL on the outcomes of health promotion interventions.

Objectives The aim of this study was to elucidate the pathway of associations linking gambling, alcohol intake, smoking habit, cannabis consumption between each other and with demographic and socioeconomic variables. Setting and participants A survey was conducted in 2017 on a representative sample of 15 602 Italian 14-year-olds to 17-year-olds attending 201 secondary schools. Outcome measures Structural Equation Models analysis was used to assess the pathway between gambling, alcohol intake, smoking, cannabis consumption, demographics and socioeconomic factors. Results Irrespective of socioeconomic or demographic variables, gambling is positively associated with alcohol and cannabis consumption, while cannabis consumption is predicted by smoking and by alcohol intake, smoking is predicted by alcohol intake. Adolescents with a higher weekly income are more at risk of gambling, drinking alcohol and smoking, while the degree of economic dissatisfaction was positively associated with alcohol intake, cannabis consumption and smoking. Maternal employment appeared to be positively associated with adolescents’ smoking, alcohol intake and cannabis consumption. Conclusions This is one of the first studies to shed light on the pathways of associations connecting various health-risk behaviours among adolescents with demographic and socioeconomic factors.

Background: Social capital refers to the valuable resources that individuals can access through their social networks, which are often established within family ties, professional affiliations, community organizations, and neighborhoods. Evidence suggests that there is a positive association between social capital and well-being, health status, and sociability. Research has found a positive association between digital technology use and social capital, though limited attention has been paid to older adults. This systematic review aims to evaluate the association between digital technology use and social capital among older adults. Methods: Five scientific electronic databases were searched for eligible studies in October 2024. The search strategies were developed by combining the keywords of the three main axes of the research (“older adults,” “digital technology,” and “social capital”) and respective synonyms using Boolean operators. The review protocol was developed in advance and registered in PROSPERO (CRD42024614622). Results: The research strategy returned a total of 1229 citations from electronic databases, 20 of which met the exclusion and inclusion criteria. All the included studies had a cross-sectional design, and the samples of the included studies ranged from 118 to 9642 individuals. All the included studies found a positive association between digital technology and social capital among older adults. Conclusions: Digital technology can offer opportunities to maintain or increase social capital, that typically tends to reduce with age. Since social capital positively impacts health and well-being, the importance of enabling older adults to use digital technologies must be considered when designing and implementing health behavior intervention programs.

Background: Coverage rates of routinely recommended vaccines in older adults still fall below the targets established by international and national advisory committees. As a result, related diseases still have a high incidence, morbidity, and mortality. Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) could provide useful tools to improve immunization rates by bringing information directly to the target user at a relatively low cost. The present research aims to systematically review recent literature on interventions applying ICT to improve the uptake of influenza, pneumococcal, COVID-19 and herpes zoster immunization rates among older adults. Methods: Studies published in English between 1 January 2000 and 10 November 2022 were identified by searching electronic medical databases (PubMed, Scopus) and were independently reviewed by two different authors. A total of 22 studies were included in this review. Findings: Interventions applied the following ICT tools: phone calls, text messages, messages sent via personal electronic medical records, automated phone calls, remote patient monitoring in a home telehealth program and emails. In terms of the vaccines promoted, 11 studies prompted the influenza vaccine, four prompted the influenza and pneumococcal vaccines, three the pneumococcal vaccine, two the herpes zoster vaccine, one the COVID-19 vaccine and one both the pneumococcal and herpes zoster vaccines. Overall, more than half of the studies (n = 12) found some level of effectiveness of these ICT strategies in increasing vaccination rates among older adults, while five studies were partially effective (for specific vaccines or population subgroups), and five reported no significant effect. Conclusions: Prevention programs using ICT tools could be effective in promoting immunizations among older adults.

Sleep disorders increase with age and are known risk factors for several mental and physical diseases. They also significantly contribute to a lower quality of life. Nonpharmaceutical approaches, such as cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia, sleep hygiene advice, relaxation exercises, and physical activity programs, can be delivered directly to patients via mHealth technologies, thereby increasing the accessibility of such interventions and reducing health care-related costs. This scoping review aims to evaluate the effectiveness of mHealth interventions for improving sleep quality among older adults. Published studies in the last 10 years (2013–2023) were identified by searching electronic medical databases (PubMed, PsycINFO, CINAHL, and Scopus) in July 2023 and were independently reviewed by two different authors. The analysis of the data was performed in 2023. The research retrieved 693 records; after duplicates were removed, 524 articles were screened based on their title and abstract, and 28 of them were assessed in full text. A total of 23 studies were excluded because they did not meet the inclusion criteria in terms of population age (60 years or over) or type of intervention (mHealth-based) or because they addressed secondary insomnia. A total of five studies were included in this review, and all of them reported improvements in subjective sleep quality after the application of the mHealth interventions. Two studies also conducted objective assessments of sleep outcomes using actigraphy, reporting improvements only in some of the variables considered. Despite the limited number of available studies, these results are promising and encourage further research.