Jealousy is a heterogenous emotion ranging from normality to pathology. Several problems still exist in the distinction between normal and pathological jealousy.

With the present study, we aimed to contribute to the definition of the boundary between obsessional and normal jealousy by means of a specific self-report questionnaire developed by us.

The questionnaire called “Questionnaire on the Affective Relationships” (QAR) and consisting of 30 items, was administered to 400 university students of both sexes and to 14 outpatients affected by obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) whose main obsession was jealousy. The total scores and single items were analysed and compared.

Two hundred and forty-five, approximately 61% of the questionnaires, were returned. The statistical analyses showed that patients with OCD had higher total scores than healthy subjects; in addition, it was possible to identify an intermediate group of subjects, corresponding to 10% of the total, who were concerned by jealousy thoughts around the partner, but at a lower degree than patients, and that we called “healthy jealous subjects” because they had no other psychopathological trait. Significant differences were also observed for single items in the three groups.

Our study showed that 10% of a population of university students, albeit normal, have jealousy thoughts around the partner, as emerged by the specific questionnaire developed by us. This instrument permitted to clearly distinguish these subjects from patients with OCD and healthy subjects with no jealousy concern.

There is increasing evidence for a significant effect of processed meat (PM) intake on cancer risk. However, refined knowledge on how components of this heterogeneous food group are associated with cancer risk is still missing. Here, actual data on the intake of PM subcategories is given; within a food-based approach we considered preservation methods, cooking methods and nutrient content for stratification, in order to address most of the aetiologically relevant hypotheses.

Standardised computerised 24-hour diet recall interviews were collected within the framework of the European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition (EPIC), a prospective cohort study in 27 centres across 10 European countries.

Subjects were 22 924 women and 13 031 men aged 35–74 years.

Except for the so-called ‘health-conscious’ cohort in the UK, energy-adjusted total PM intake ranged between 11.1 and 47.9 g day−1 in women and 18.8 and 88.5 g day−1 in men. Ham, salami-type sausages and heated sausages contributed most to the overall PM intake. The intake of cured (addition of nitrate/nitrite) PM was highest in the German, Dutch and northern European EPIC centres, with up to 68.8 g day−1 in men. The same was true for smoked PM (up to 51.8 g day−1). However, due to the different manufacturing practice, the highest average intake of NaNO2 through PM consumption was found for the Spanish centres (5.4 mg day−1 in men) as compared with German and British centres. Spanish centres also showed the highest intake of NaCl-rich types of PM; most cholesterol- and iron-rich PM was consumed in central and northern European centres. Possibly hazardous cooking methods were more often used for PM preparation in central and northern European centres.

We applied a food-based categorisation of PM that addresses aetiologically relevant mechanisms for cancer development and found distinct differences in dietary intake of these categories of PM across European cohorts. This predisposes EPIC to further investigate the role of PM in cancer aetiology.