Peer Review History
| Original SubmissionJanuary 27, 2023 |
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PONE-D-23-02201Nutrition and Health in Arab Adolescents (NaHAR): Study Protocol for the Determination of Ethnic-Specific Body Fat and Anthropometric Cut-offs to Identify Metabolic SyndromePLOS ONE Dear Dr. Nasreddine, Thank you for submitting your manuscript to PLOS ONE. After careful consideration, we feel that it has merit but does not fully meet PLOS ONE’s publication criteria as it currently stands. Therefore, we invite you to submit a revised version of the manuscript that addresses the points raised during the review process. Please submit your revised manuscript by Jul 17 2023 11:59PM. If you will need more time than this to complete your revisions, please reply to this message or contact the journal office at plosone@plos.org. When you're ready to submit your revision, log on to https://www.editorialmanager.com/pone/ and select the 'Submissions Needing Revision' folder to locate your manuscript file. Please include the following items when submitting your revised manuscript:
If you would like to make changes to your financial disclosure, please include your updated statement in your cover letter. Guidelines for resubmitting your figure files are available below the reviewer comments at the end of this letter. If applicable, we recommend that you deposit your laboratory protocols in protocols.io to enhance the reproducibility of your results. Protocols.io assigns your protocol its own identifier (DOI) so that it can be cited independently in the future. For instructions see: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/submission-guidelines#loc-laboratory-protocols. Additionally, PLOS ONE offers an option for publishing peer-reviewed Lab Protocol articles, which describe protocols hosted on protocols.io. Read more information on sharing protocols at https://plos.org/protocols?utm_medium=editorial-email&utm_source=authorletters&utm_campaign=protocols. We look forward to receiving your revised manuscript. Kind regards, Inge Roggen, M.D., Ph.D. Academic Editor PLOS ONE Journal Requirements: When submitting your revision, we need you to address these additional requirements. 1. Please ensure that your manuscript meets PLOS ONE's style requirements, including those for file naming. The PLOS ONE style templates can be found at https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/file?id=wjVg/PLOSOne_formatting_sample_main_body.pdf and 2. We noticed you have some minor occurrence of overlapping text with the following previous publication(s), which needs to be addressed: https://www.liebertpub.com/doi/10.1089/met.2019.0033 In your revision ensure you cite all your sources (including your own works), and quote or rephrase any duplicated text outside the methods section. Further consideration is dependent on these concerns being addressed. 3. We note that the grant information you provided in the ‘Funding Information’ and ‘Financial Disclosure’ sections do not match. When you resubmit, please ensure that you provide the correct grant numbers for the awards you received for your study in the ‘Funding Information’ section. 4. Thank you for stating the following financial disclosure: “The study is funded by International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), and supported through collaboration among ARASIA State Parties under the framework of the IAEA technical cooperation project RAS6094, ‘Applying Nuclear Techniques for the Determination of Body Fat and Anthropometric Cutoffs (ARASIA)’. (ARASIA is a Cooperative Agreement for Arab States in Asia for Research, Development and Training related to Nuclear Science and Technology). There are no grants awarded to individual researchers in the respective countries. Instead, each of the countries receive the supplies and deuterium from the IAEA but there are no grants per se.” Please state what role the funders took in the study. If the funders had no role, please state: "The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript." If this statement is not correct you must amend it as needed. Please include this amended Role of Funder statement in your cover letter; we will change the online submission form on your behalf. 5. Please review your reference list to ensure that it is complete and correct. If you have cited papers that have been retracted, please include the rationale for doing so in the manuscript text, or remove these references and replace them with relevant current references. Any changes to the reference list should be mentioned in the rebuttal letter that accompanies your revised manuscript. If you need to cite a retracted article, indicate the article’s retracted status in the References list and also include a citation and full reference for the retraction notice. [Note: HTML markup is below. Please do not edit.] Reviewers' comments: Reviewer's Responses to Questions Comments to the Author 1. Does the manuscript provide a valid rationale for the proposed study, with clearly identified and justified research questions? The research question outlined is expected to address a valid academic problem or topic and contribute to the base of knowledge in the field. Reviewer #1: Yes Reviewer #2: Yes ********** 2. Is the protocol technically sound and planned in a manner that will lead to a meaningful outcome and allow testing the stated hypotheses? The manuscript should describe the methods in sufficient detail to prevent undisclosed flexibility in the experimental procedure or analysis pipeline, including sufficient outcome-neutral conditions (e.g. necessary controls, absence of floor or ceiling effects) to test the proposed hypotheses and a statistical power analysis where applicable. As there may be aspects of the methodology and analysis which can only be refined once the work is undertaken, authors should outline potential assumptions and explicitly describe what aspects of the proposed analyses, if any, are exploratory. Reviewer #1: Yes Reviewer #2: Partly ********** 3. Is the methodology feasible and described in sufficient detail to allow the work to be replicable? Descriptions of methods and materials in the protocol should be reported in sufficient detail for another researcher to reproduce all experiments and analyses. The protocol should describe the appropriate controls, sample size calculations, and replication needed to ensure that the data are robust and reproducible. Reviewer #1: Yes Reviewer #2: Yes ********** 4. Have the authors described where all data underlying the findings will be made available when the study is complete? The PLOS Data policy requires authors to make all data underlying the findings described in their manuscript fully available without restriction, with rare exception, at the time of publication. The data should be provided as part of the manuscript or its supporting information, or deposited to a public repository. For example, in addition to summary statistics, the data points behind means, medians and variance measures should be available. If there are restrictions on publicly sharing data—e.g. participant privacy or use of data from a third party—those must be specified. Reviewer #1: No Reviewer #2: No ********** 5. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English? PLOS ONE does not copyedit accepted manuscripts, so the language in submitted articles must be clear, correct, and unambiguous. Any typographical or grammatical errors should be corrected at revision, so please note any specific errors here. Reviewer #1: Yes Reviewer #2: Yes ********** 6. Review Comments to the Author Please use the space provided to explain your answers to the questions above and, if applicable, provide comments about issues authors must address before this protocol can be accepted for publication. You may also include additional comments for the author, including concerns about research or publication ethics. You may also provide optional suggestions and comments to authors that they might find helpful in planning their study. (Please upload your review as an attachment if it exceeds 20,000 characters) Reviewer #1: Journal: PLOS ONE Title: Nutrition and Health in Arab Adolescents (NaHAR): Study Protocol for the Determination of Ethnic-Specific Body Fat and Anthropometric Cut-offs to Identify Metabolic Syndrome Reviewer’s comments Sample size: The manuscript used 210 and a minimum of 210 interchangeably for sample size. The authors should be clear about how many subjects will be included in each country. Under data collection: How many schools will be included in each country needs to be made clear. If your sample size is 210 and all students in grades 10-12 are invited to participate, what do you do with those children whose parents have consented for them to participate after you reach your sample size? It is unclear how the sample size will be maintained unless you have a pre-determined number of schools selected for each country and the number of students to participate in the study per school. Extra care should also be taken not to overburden parents when you know that only a few students will be selected for the study in a particular school. Under Anthropometrics: Provide the company(manufacturer) names and locations for each tool used. E.g., Seca scale, measuring tape for WC and MUAC, D2O for DDL, and Fourier Transform Infrared (FTIR) spectrometry. Provide details similar to what you did for the BIVA device (BIA 101, Akern, Via Lisbona, Italy) WHO Anthroplus software(provide a citation) Ethical considerations: “Country-specific data will be pooled within a regional database for data analysis.” it is unclear why this statement is here. Statistical analysis: Lines#309,310: Chi-square and independent t-tests. Specify which test is for categorical and which is for continuous variables. Lines#317,318 and 322-324. What is the purpose of performing repeated ANOVA and paired t-tests on DDL vs. BIVA? What additional information will both tests provide instead of just one? Data management plan: Fix the typo in the second sentence. Line# 335. Use sentence case formatting as done for the other headings. Reviewer #2: The manuscript entitled "Nutrition and Health in Arab Adolescents ( 1 NaHAR): Study Protocol for the Determination of Ethnic-Specific Body Fat and Anthropometric Cut-offs to Identify Metabolic Syndrome” is led by Nasreddine L et al., from a multicenter and multinational group of investigators. The strong team is set to achieve the goals listed in the protocol review. The study will contribute to the validation of anthropometric cut-off points in the middle-east population of adolescents with excess adiposity and associated metabolic syndrome risks. The following points are written to improve their study: 1. Investigators from Jordan is still not have approved ethical clearance. Authors should clearly state whether it is okay to have this protocol publication before the approval of investigation in one site. 2. How was the sample size calculated? The sample size of 210 is sufficient for their population, without statistical analysis for sample size, this becomes a weakness. 3. Authors should consider food frequency questionnaire (FFQ) to monitor dietary intake 4. Authors can also consider measuring liver function test in the blood, as part of metabolic syndrome and this data will be useful in addition not lipid biomarkers in the adolescent population. ********** 7. PLOS authors have the option to publish the peer review history of their article (what does this mean?). If published, this will include your full peer review and any attached files. If you choose “no”, your identity will remain anonymous but your review may still be made public. Do you want your identity to be public for this peer review? For information about this choice, including consent withdrawal, please see our Privacy Policy. Reviewer #1: No Reviewer #2: No ********** [NOTE: If reviewer comments were submitted as an attachment file, they will be attached to this email and accessible via the submission site. Please log into your account, locate the manuscript record, and check for the action link "View Attachments". If this link does not appear, there are no attachment files.] While revising your submission, please upload your figure files to the Preflight Analysis and Conversion Engine (PACE) digital diagnostic tool, https://pacev2.apexcovantage.com/. PACE helps ensure that figures meet PLOS requirements. To use PACE, you must first register as a user. Registration is free. Then, login and navigate to the UPLOAD tab, where you will find detailed instructions on how to use the tool. If you encounter any issues or have any questions when using PACE, please email PLOS at figures@plos.org. Please note that Supporting Information files do not need this step. |
| Revision 1 |
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PONE-D-23-02201R1Nutrition and Health in Arab Adolescents (NaHAR): Study Protocol for the Determination of Ethnic-Specific Body Fat and Anthropometric Cut-offs to Identify Metabolic SyndromePLOS ONE Dear Dr. Nasreddine, Thank you for submitting your manuscript to PLOS ONE. After careful consideration, we feel that it has merit but does not fully meet PLOS ONE’s publication criteria as it currently stands. Therefore, we invite you to submit a revised version of the manuscript that addresses the points raised during the review process.
Please submit your revised manuscript by Oct 19 2023 11:59PM. If you will need more time than this to complete your revisions, please reply to this message or contact the journal office at plosone@plos.org. When you're ready to submit your revision, log on to https://www.editorialmanager.com/pone/ and select the 'Submissions Needing Revision' folder to locate your manuscript file. Please include the following items when submitting your revised manuscript:
If applicable, we recommend that you deposit your laboratory protocols in protocols.io to enhance the reproducibility of your results. Protocols.io assigns your protocol its own identifier (DOI) so that it can be cited independently in the future. For instructions see: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/submission-guidelines#loc-laboratory-protocols. Additionally, PLOS ONE offers an option for publishing peer-reviewed Lab Protocol articles, which describe protocols hosted on protocols.io. Read more information on sharing protocols at https://plos.org/protocols?utm_medium=editorial-email&utm_source=authorletters&utm_campaign=protocols. We look forward to receiving your revised manuscript. Kind regards, Fredirick Lazaro mashili, MD, PhD Academic Editor PLOS ONE Journal Requirements: Please review your reference list to ensure that it is complete and correct. If you have cited papers that have been retracted, please include the rationale for doing so in the manuscript text, or remove these references and replace them with relevant current references. Any changes to the reference list should be mentioned in the rebuttal letter that accompanies your revised manuscript. If you need to cite a retracted article, indicate the article’s retracted status in the References list and also include a citation and full reference for the retraction notice. Additional Editor Comments: The authors should address the minor comment given by the reviewer [Note: HTML markup is below. Please do not edit.] Reviewers' comments: Reviewer's Responses to Questions Comments to the Author 1. Does the manuscript provide a valid rationale for the proposed study, with clearly identified and justified research questions? The research question outlined is expected to address a valid academic problem or topic and contribute to the base of knowledge in the field. Reviewer #2: Yes Reviewer #3: Yes ********** 2. Is the protocol technically sound and planned in a manner that will lead to a meaningful outcome and allow testing the stated hypotheses? The manuscript should describe the methods in sufficient detail to prevent undisclosed flexibility in the experimental procedure or analysis pipeline, including sufficient outcome-neutral conditions (e.g. necessary controls, absence of floor or ceiling effects) to test the proposed hypotheses and a statistical power analysis where applicable. As there may be aspects of the methodology and analysis which can only be refined once the work is undertaken, authors should outline potential assumptions and explicitly describe what aspects of the proposed analyses, if any, are exploratory. Reviewer #2: Yes Reviewer #3: Yes ********** 3. Is the methodology feasible and described in sufficient detail to allow the work to be replicable? Descriptions of methods and materials in the protocol should be reported in sufficient detail for another researcher to reproduce all experiments and analyses. The protocol should describe the appropriate controls, sample size calculations, and replication needed to ensure that the data are robust and reproducible. Reviewer #2: Yes Reviewer #3: Yes ********** 4. Have the authors described where all data underlying the findings will be made available when the study is complete? The PLOS Data policy requires authors to make all data underlying the findings described in their manuscript fully available without restriction, with rare exception, at the time of publication. The data should be provided as part of the manuscript or its supporting information, or deposited to a public repository. For example, in addition to summary statistics, the data points behind means, medians and variance measures should be available. If there are restrictions on publicly sharing data—e.g. participant privacy or use of data from a third party—those must be specified. Reviewer #2: No Reviewer #3: Yes ********** 5. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English? PLOS ONE does not copyedit accepted manuscripts, so the language in submitted articles must be clear, correct, and unambiguous. Any typographical or grammatical errors should be corrected at revision, so please note any specific errors here. Reviewer #2: Yes Reviewer #3: Yes ********** 6. Review Comments to the Author Please use the space provided to explain your answers to the questions above and, if applicable, provide comments about issues authors must address before this protocol can be accepted for publication. You may also include additional comments for the author, including concerns about research or publication ethics. You may also provide optional suggestions and comments to authors that they might find helpful in planning their study. (Please upload your review as an attachment if it exceeds 20,000 characters) Reviewer #2: Authors have improved their protocol. I would still suggest them to include Harvard Willet FFQ for their study and liver function test would be additional work, but would provide great knowledge. However, this is a protocol and their choice is okay Reviewer #3: INTRODUCTION Lines 112 and 113 •Why did the authors not put under consideration other core elements for anthropometry such as waist-to-hip ratio, thigh-to-hip ratio, and skinfold thickness? This has also been used in measuring adiposity. Line 121- 124. •I would advise revising the sentence to be more inclusive of the study objectives, not only anthropometrics cut-offs. i.e. will the study not bring validated Body Fats measurements? MATERIALS AND METHODS Table 1. What types of illnesses among the wide range of inborn metabolic disorders do you specifically mean when you say "those with inborn errors of metabolism"? and How will they be recognized for the purpose of exclusion Deuterium Dilution Technique: •Due to the circadian effect on saliva. It is recommended to collect saliva at a specific time. Does this apply to this study? Authors should revise thoroughly on methods for saliva collection. Including the exclusion of participants with any oral illness like xerostomia and others that may affect the saliva flow rate and therefore distort the results. For more insights about saliva collection methods authors can read this paper https://doi.org/10.3390/oral3030027 •Will participants be allowed to eat or drink anything before post-dose saliva collection? •If “Yes” will it not bring errors in Salimetrics •If "No," authors should explain how they will restrict eating since participants must fast for at least eight hours in order to measure blood parameters that need fasting and as a prerequisite for saliva collection. Three more hours would jeopardize the participants and some may hesitate to participate. Status and Timeline of the study The table is not clear. Have the authors begun the data collection? ********** 7. PLOS authors have the option to publish the peer review history of their article (what does this mean?). If published, this will include your full peer review and any attached files. If you choose “no”, your identity will remain anonymous but your review may still be made public. Do you want your identity to be public for this peer review? For information about this choice, including consent withdrawal, please see our Privacy Policy. Reviewer #2: No Reviewer #3: Yes: Oscar Mbembela ********** [NOTE: If reviewer comments were submitted as an attachment file, they will be attached to this email and accessible via the submission site. Please log into your account, locate the manuscript record, and check for the action link "View Attachments". If this link does not appear, there are no attachment files.] While revising your submission, please upload your figure files to the Preflight Analysis and Conversion Engine (PACE) digital diagnostic tool, https://pacev2.apexcovantage.com/. PACE helps ensure that figures meet PLOS requirements. To use PACE, you must first register as a user. Registration is free. Then, login and navigate to the UPLOAD tab, where you will find detailed instructions on how to use the tool. If you encounter any issues or have any questions when using PACE, please email PLOS at figures@plos.org. Please note that Supporting Information files do not need this step. |
| Revision 2 |
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Nutrition and Health in Arab Adolescents (NaHAR): Study Protocol for the Determination of Ethnic-Specific Body Fat and Anthropometric Cut-offs to Identify Metabolic Syndrome PONE-D-23-02201R2 Dear Dr. Nasreddine, We’re pleased to inform you that your manuscript has been judged scientifically suitable for publication and will be formally accepted for publication once it meets all outstanding technical requirements. Within one week, you’ll receive an e-mail detailing the required amendments. When these have been addressed, you’ll receive a formal acceptance letter and your manuscript will be scheduled for publication. An invoice for payment will follow shortly after the formal acceptance. To ensure an efficient process, please log into Editorial Manager at http://www.editorialmanager.com/pone/, click the 'Update My Information' link at the top of the page, and double check that your user information is up-to-date. If you have any billing related questions, please contact our Author Billing department directly at authorbilling@plos.org. If your institution or institutions have a press office, please notify them about your upcoming paper to help maximize its impact. If they’ll be preparing press materials, please inform our press team as soon as possible -- no later than 48 hours after receiving the formal acceptance. Your manuscript will remain under strict press embargo until 2 pm Eastern Time on the date of publication. For more information, please contact onepress@plos.org. Kind regards, Fredirick Lazaro mashili, MD, PhD Academic Editor PLOS ONE Additional Editor Comments (optional): All the comments raised by all the teviewers have been sufficiently addressed Reviewers' comments: Reviewer's Responses to Questions Comments to the Author 1. Does the manuscript provide a valid rationale for the proposed study, with clearly identified and justified research questions? The research question outlined is expected to address a valid academic problem or topic and contribute to the base of knowledge in the field. Reviewer #3: Yes Reviewer #4: Yes ********** 2. Is the protocol technically sound and planned in a manner that will lead to a meaningful outcome and allow testing the stated hypotheses? The manuscript should describe the methods in sufficient detail to prevent undisclosed flexibility in the experimental procedure or analysis pipeline, including sufficient outcome-neutral conditions (e.g. necessary controls, absence of floor or ceiling effects) to test the proposed hypotheses and a statistical power analysis where applicable. As there may be aspects of the methodology and analysis which can only be refined once the work is undertaken, authors should outline potential assumptions and explicitly describe what aspects of the proposed analyses, if any, are exploratory. Reviewer #3: Yes Reviewer #4: Yes ********** 3. Is the methodology feasible and described in sufficient detail to allow the work to be replicable? Descriptions of methods and materials in the protocol should be reported in sufficient detail for another researcher to reproduce all experiments and analyses. The protocol should describe the appropriate controls, sample size calculations, and replication needed to ensure that the data are robust and reproducible. Reviewer #3: Yes Reviewer #4: Yes ********** 4. Have the authors described where all data underlying the findings will be made available when the study is complete? The PLOS Data policy requires authors to make all data underlying the findings described in their manuscript fully available without restriction, with rare exception, at the time of publication. The data should be provided as part of the manuscript or its supporting information, or deposited to a public repository. For example, in addition to summary statistics, the data points behind means, medians and variance measures should be available. If there are restrictions on publicly sharing data—e.g. participant privacy or use of data from a third party—those must be specified. Reviewer #3: Yes Reviewer #4: Yes ********** 5. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English? PLOS ONE does not copyedit accepted manuscripts, so the language in submitted articles must be clear, correct, and unambiguous. Any typographical or grammatical errors should be corrected at revision, so please note any specific errors here. Reviewer #3: Yes Reviewer #4: Yes ********** 6. Review Comments to the Author Please use the space provided to explain your answers to the questions above and, if applicable, provide comments about issues authors must address before this protocol can be accepted for publication. You may also include additional comments for the author, including concerns about research or publication ethics. You may also provide optional suggestions and comments to authors that they might find helpful in planning their study. (Please upload your review as an attachment if it exceeds 20,000 characters) Reviewer #3: After reading the responses to the antecedent comments, I'm confident that they have been well-defended, thus this work can be approved for publication. Reviewer #4: The authors have sufficiently addressed all the comments raised by both the reviewers and they have added a data availability statement as recommended. The manuscript meets formatting specifications ********** 7. PLOS authors have the option to publish the peer review history of their article (what does this mean?). If published, this will include your full peer review and any attached files. If you choose “no”, your identity will remain anonymous but your review may still be made public. Do you want your identity to be public for this peer review? For information about this choice, including consent withdrawal, please see our Privacy Policy. Reviewer #3: Yes: Oscar Mbembela Reviewer #4: Yes: Fredirick Mashili ********** |
| Formally Accepted |
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PONE-D-23-02201R2 PLOS ONE Dear Dr. Nasreddine, I'm pleased to inform you that your manuscript has been deemed suitable for publication in PLOS ONE. Congratulations! Your manuscript is now being handed over to our production team. At this stage, our production department will prepare your paper for publication. This includes ensuring the following: * All references, tables, and figures are properly cited * All relevant supporting information is included in the manuscript submission, * There are no issues that prevent the paper from being properly typeset If revisions are needed, the production department will contact you directly to resolve them. If no revisions are needed, you will receive an email when the publication date has been set. At this time, we do not offer pre-publication proofs to authors during production of the accepted work. Please keep in mind that we are working through a large volume of accepted articles, so please give us a few weeks to review your paper and let you know the next and final steps. Lastly, if your institution or institutions have a press office, please let them know about your upcoming paper now to help maximize its impact. If they'll be preparing press materials, please inform our press team within the next 48 hours. Your manuscript will remain under strict press embargo until 2 pm Eastern Time on the date of publication. For more information, please contact onepress@plos.org. If we can help with anything else, please email us at customercare@plos.org. Thank you for submitting your work to PLOS ONE and supporting open access. Kind regards, PLOS ONE Editorial Office Staff on behalf of Dr Fredirick Lazaro mashili Academic Editor PLOS ONE |
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