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Walking 10,000 steps each day, according to researchers from the University of Sydney in Australia and the University of Southern Denmark, decreases the risk of dementia, heart disease, cancer, and death. A quicker walking speed, such as a power walk, had advantages that extended beyond the amount of steps taken.

The research, which were published in the prestigious journals JAMA Internal Medicine and JAMA Neurology, used wearable trackers to follow 78,500 participants, making them the largest studies to objectively assess step count in connection to health outcomes.

“The take-home message here is that for protective health benefits people could not only ideally aim for 10,000 steps a day but also aim to walk faster,” said co-lead author Dr Matthew Ahmadi, Research Fellow at the University of Sydney’s Charles Perkins Centre and Faculty of Medicine and Health.

‘For less active individuals, our study also demonstrates that as low as 3,800 steps a day can cut the risk of dementia by 25 per cent,” said co-lead author Associate Professor Borja del Pozo Cruz from the University of Southern Denmark and senior researcher in health at the University of Cadiz.

Key points:

– Every 2,000 steps lowered the risk of premature death incrementally by 8 to 11 per cent, up to approximately 10,000 steps a day.

– Similar associations were seen for cardiovascular disease and cancer incidence.

– A higher number of steps per day was associated with a lower risk of all-cause dementia

– 9,800 steps was the optimal dose linked to a lower risk of dementia by 50 per cent, however, the risk was reduced by 25 per cent at as low as 3,800 steps a day.

– Stepping intensity or a faster pace showed beneficial associations for all outcomes (dementia, heart disease, cancer and death) over and above total daily steps.

“Step count is easily understood and widely used by the public to track activity levels thanks to the growing popularity of fitness trackers and apps, but rarely do people think about the pace of their steps,” said senior author Emmanuel Stamatakis, Professor of Physical Activity, Lifestyle and Population Health at the University of Sydney.

“Findings from these studies could inform the first formal step-based physical activity guidelines and help develop effective public health programs aimed at preventing chronic disease.”

The study used UK Biobank data to connect step count data from 78,500 UK participants aged 40 to 79 years with health outcomes 7 years later. Over the course of seven days, participants wore a wrist accelerometer to track their physical activity (minimum 3 days, including a weekend day and monitoring during sleep periods).

With ethical approval, this data was connected to participants’ health records via a variety of data sources and registries, including inpatient hospital records, primary care records, and cancer and death registries.

Only individuals who were free of cardiovascular disease, cancer, or dementia at the start of the trial and remained disease-free for the first two years were included in the final analysis.

Statistical adjustments were also made for confounders, such as the fact that people who do more steps generally walk faster.

The researchers note that the studies are observational, meaning they cannot show direct cause and effect, however, note the strong and consistent associations seen across both studies at the population level.

“The size and scope of these studies using wrist-worn trackers make it the most robust evidence to date suggesting that 10,000 steps a day is the sweet spot for health benefits and walking faster is associated with additional benefits,” said Dr Matthew Ahmadi.

“Going forward more research with longer-term use of trackers will shed more light on the health benefits associated with certain levels and intensity of daily stepping.”

Also Read: Stress in pregnant woman associated with negative emotions in babies: Research

According to the study, pregnant mothers who experienced greater alterations had infants that were more scared, unhappy, and stressed.

The study’s findings were published in the journal ‘Infancy.’ Previous research has found that mothers’ stress during pregnancy is related to infant temperament and behaviour, but this is one of the first studies to measure mothers’ stress in real time on multiple occasions, allowing a closer look at whether changes in mothers’ stress throughout pregnancy matter for infant development.

“Research often examines stress as a static, unchanging construct — one that is either high or low, present or absent — but most of us have a lot of ebbs and flows in our stress depending on what is going on around us,” said lead study author Leigha MacNeill, research assistant professor of medical social sciences at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine and a member of the Northwestern Institute for Innovations in Developmental Sciences (DevSci).

“That variability is inherent in our daily lives, so this lability is capturing an important aspect of stress and offers insight into how to measure stress going forward. This is of particular importance as we work to closely capture the maternal-fetal environment as it relates to how babies develop over time.”

For instance, one mother who has consistent levels of stress over pregnancy and another mother who moves between very low and very high levels of stress over pregnancy may in the end have a similar average level of stress across that time, but that average may not best capture meaningful differences in what the fetus is exposed to, MacNeill explained.

“There may be something about that gestational experience when a mother moves between extremes, that shapes the child’s disposition toward negative emotions,” MacNeill said. “That kind of stress pattern could reflect instability in daily life experiences, unpredictable external stressors or instability in how a mother perceives her lived experiences, which may have important implications for children’s emotional development.”

Having a better understanding of the nature of stress during pregnancy may inform prevention efforts, such as helping individuals reach a consistent level of calm before or at the onset of pregnancy, especially in the context of uncontrollable life events, MacNeill said. Since most expecting parents receive some form of prenatal care, she said stress measures, and ideally management, could be folded into those visits.

‘Stress was unrelated to the timing of the pandemic’

The scientists didn’t set out to conduct a study on prenatal stress during a pandemic. They encountered this “natural experiment” because some participants completed their assessments before the pandemic began; some before and during the pandemic; and some completely during the pandemic, MacNeill said.

“We asked about general stress — not pandemic-related stress,” MacNeill said. “But we took advantage of the occurrence of the pandemic during the course of the study to see if we could detect its impact on mothers’ experiences.

“We found that mothers’ stress patterns were unrelated to the timing of the pandemic. Mothers reported similar levels of stress regardless of whether their stress measurements occurred before or during the pandemic.”

How they measured prenatal stress, infant temperament

The study authors used questionnaires sent to participants’ phones to assess their stress levels up to four times each day for 14 weeks. They identified three forms of stress: stress at the initial evaluation (baseline), average or normal levels of stress across the 14-week period, and the amount a person’s stress fluctuated from one moment to the next over the 14-week period (lability).

The scientists assessed negative emotions in newborns using a temperament questionnaire given to mothers when their babies were three months old. Mothers responded to questions concerning their child’s grief, anguish at restrictions, and fear (e.g., how much they clung to their parent when introduced to an unfamiliar adult). This resulted in an overall negative average score.

Studying fluctuations in stress during pregnancy in relation to infant development is a relatively new idea, and the study authors said there is not yet a clear understanding of how stress and the gestational environment impact the developing fetus. More research in larger, more diverse samples is needed to find out if these patterns hold true for families from different contexts and with different types of supports, MacNeill said.

“This is a really early index (three months), so we’d want to see how consistent their negative affect levels are in the first year of life,” MacNeill said. “Parents are the ones who can soothe their infants and be really responsive to their needs, and as infants grow, there are things parents can do to help the child navigate situations and learn to regulate and cope with their negative emotions.”

“This study illustrates that links between parent and child are based on genes as well as experiences, even before birth,” said Dr. Matthew Davis, chair of the department of pediatrics at Feinberg and the Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago, who was not directly involved with the study. “One of the most important approaches to having a less distressed child is to support expectant parents and minimize their stress during pregnancy. That can be accomplished through clinical care, social supports and policies that are family- and pregnancy-friendly.”

Also Read: Drinking sweetened, unsweetened coffee may lower risk of death: Study

According to a recent study, persons who drank moderate volumes of unsweetened coffee or coffee sweetened with sugar each day (1.5 to 3.5 cups) were less likely to pass away over the course of a 7-year follow-up period than non-coffee drinkers.

Less was known about the outcomes for individuals who utilised artificial sweeteners. The Annals of Internal Medicine publishes the findings. Although prior research on the health effects of coffee concluded that drinking it lowers mortality risk, it did not differentiate between coffee consumed with sugar or artificial sweeteners and coffee consumed unsweetened.

Researchers from Southern Medical University in Guangzhou, China utilised data from the U.K. The intake of sugar-sweetened, artificially sweetened, and unsweetened coffee was compared to all-cause and cause-specific mortality using a health behaviour questionnaire from a biobank research.

More than 171,000 participants from the UK without a history of cancer or heart disease, participants were asked a series of dietary and health-related questionnaires to ascertain their coffee use patterns. The people who drank any amount of unsweetened coffee were 16–21% less likely to pass away over the 7-year follow-up period than participants who did not.

They also found that participants who drank 1.5 to 3.5 daily cups of coffee sweetened with sugar were 29 to 31 percent less likely to die than participants who did not drink coffee. The authors noted that adults who drank sugar-sweetened coffee added only about 1 teaspoon of sugar per cup of coffee on average. Results were inconclusive for participants who used artificial sweeteners in their coffee.

Benefits of Coffee

Any accompanying editorial by the editors of Annals of Internal Medicine notes that while coffee has qualities that could make health benefits possible, confounding variables including more difficult to measure differences in socioeconomic status, diet, and other lifestyle factors may impact findings. The authors add that the participant data is at least 10 years old and collected from a country where tea is a similarly popular beverage.

They warn that the average daily sugars per cup of coffee recorded in this analysis are much lower than specialty drinks in popular coffee restaurant chains and that many coffee drinkers may Drinking it in place of a beverage generates comparisons with people who don’t drink. harder. . Based on this data, clinicians can tell their patients that most coffee drinkers don’t necessarily eliminate the beverage from their diet, but be wary of other types of coffee. Specialty coffee is higher in calories.

Also Read: Researchers find novel method for treating neurological disorders in patient cells and animals

Several lethal inherited neurodegenerative diseases known as lysosomal storage disorders (LSDs) have been successfully reversed in patient cells and mice by researchers at the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences (NCATS), Mount Sinai’s Icahn School of Medicine, and other institutions.

Using new chemicals they identified that boosted the activity of TRAP1, the team at NCATS, a branch of the National Institutes of Health, led by translational scientist Juan Marugan, PhD, and Mount Sinai’s Yiannis Ioannou, PhD, restored the correct operation of the mitochondria and lysosomes. This protein helps the mitochondria, which are responsible for producing energy within cells, function properly. The iScience journal published the study’s findings.

At Mount Sinai’s Icahn School of Medicine, Dr Ioannou teaches genetics and genomic sciences.

Genetic flaws in LSDs prohibit the cell’s lysosomes from digesting and recycling fats, carbohydrates, and proteins. As a result, these substances build up in various organs, such as the liver and brain. This may result in the mitochondria malfunctioning, further harming these organs.

To combat lysosomal storage diseases, researchers have long searched for medications that might have an influence on the lysosomes. This is a novel method of treating various illnesses. Increasing TRAP1 activity aided in the appropriate balance of the cell and improved mitochondrial protein folding. These novel compounds inhibit storage in lysosomal storage disorders by activating TRAP1 in the mitochondria.

The investigations demonstrate that mitochondrial TRAP1 is a possibly novel therapeutic target for a variety of disorders of the central nervous system. The scientists discovered that TRAP1 started a “crosstalk” between mitochondria and lysosomes in order to regain the internal homeostasis of the cell. The fact that activating TRAP1 leads in a cascade that restores typical lysosomal function in lysosomal storage disorders intrigued the researchers.

This interaction circumvents the underlying genetic defect that underlies each lysosomal illness. The team showed that increasing TRAP1 activity might alleviate the lipid storage issue and restore normal cholesterol levels in cells from people with Niemann-Pick disease type C1, a kind of LSD.

Additionally, improving TRAP1 activity reversed the lipid storage in patient cells from different LSDs such as Fabry, Farber, and Wolman illnesses. The rare genetic condition Niemann-Pick disease type C1 impairs the body’s capacity to digest fat in cells.

The findings, according to the researchers, may have ramifications for other neurodegenerative illnesses with comparable underlying causes, like Parkinson’s, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, and Alzheimer’s.

Dr Ioannou and his associates created a technique to gauge a substance’s impact on Niemann-Pick type C1. They worked together with Dr Marugan and NCATS scientists who quickly sorted through hundreds of chemicals using the test and NCATS’ high-throughput screening facilities.

They observed that chemicals that activated TRAP1 helped reduce lipid levels in lysosomes and cells by restoring proper mitochondrial activity and starting the recycling of lysosomes. The researchers chemically improved the top-performing molecules and subjected them to additional testing.

Scientists are interested in finding out more about how the chemicals help alleviate the signs and symptoms of lysosomal storage disorders in order to develop potential pharmaceutical treatments. They also want to continue creating these compounds and researching the outcomes in various animal models, including how effectively they can cure more common neurological diseases like Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s diseases.

Also Read: Ultra-processed ‘gateway’ foods might lead to unhealthy adolescent eating: Study

According to studies on teenage eating patterns, ultra-processed meals such frozen desserts, prepackaged pastries, and sweets may serve as a “gateway” meal that encourages consumption of additional unhealthy foods.

According to 43% of the teenagers, their intake of ultra-processed foods grew between 2019—the year before pandemic restrictions were put in place—and 2022—the year after they were repealed. 57% of teenagers said they will consume less highly processed food between 2019 and 2022. According to the research, cutting back on certain gateway foods may have an effect on how much total ultra-processed food consumption, which is characterised by high levels of sugar, salt, harmful trans fat, and artificial tastes and colours, is consumed.

Ultra-processed foods such as bread, cereals, desserts, sodas and processed meats comprise more than 60% of the calories Americans eat each day. Previous research has linked high consumption of ultra-processed foods with hypertension, weight gain, increased risk of heart disease and premature death.

“Ultra-processed foods are designed to be hyper-palatable, or engineered to be as addictive as possible,” said Maria Balhara, lead researcher of this study and a student at Broward College in Davie, Florida. “They’re also cheap and convenient, which makes them hard to resist. Most people are eating too many of these foods without realizing it.”

Balhara has a unique perspective regarding adolescent eating behavior: She’s 16 years old, and led the study while dual-enrolled at Broward College while attending Cooper City High School.

Balhara gathered data on how frequently adolescents consumed 12 ultra-processed food products during the previous 8 weeks. Ultra-processed foods included prepackaged cookies, candy, chips, chocolate, energy drinks, frozen desserts, soda, store-bought pastries, store-bought smoothies, syrup-sweetened coffee or tea, white bread and processed meat. Study participants included 315 teens, ages 13-19 recruited from 12 high schools in South Florida between February and April 2022.

Average BMI among participants was 22.8 (indicating normal body weight), and 56% of participants self-identified as white, 25.2 % as Hispanic and 7.6% as Black. In addition, 52.2% of participants identified as female, 41.6% male, 3.2% nonbinary, and the rest did not specify their gender.

Participants completed a survey Balhara developed called the Processed Intake Evaluation (PIE). The survey assessed the frequency of their consumption of the 12 processed foods during the previous 8 weeks in 2022, and questions to gauge their 2022 consumption (after COVID 19 restrictions were lifted) with their estimated consumption in 2019 (before COVID restrictions were implemented).

Also Read: Cravings for fatty foods traced to gut-brain connection: Study

The survey asked the students to report “true” or “false” responses to statements, such as “I often drank soda during the preceding 8 weeks in 2022,” and “I often drank soda prior to the pandemic in 2019.”

Their answers were used to compute a PIE score of 0-100, with 8.33 points given for answers of “often” or 0 points otherwise. Their scores for 2022 consumption were compared to their scores for estimated 2019 pre-pandemic consumption.

Candy, prepackaged pastries and frozen desserts were found to act as a possible “gateway” to drive increased (or decreased) consumption of other processed food products. Teenagers who changed their consumption of these “gateway” foods were more likely to change their consumption of all other ultra-processed foods as well.

Reduced consumption of processed meats was linked to an 8% reduction in consumption of all other ultra-processed foods among study participants. White bread consumption was linked to a 9% reduction in consumption of all other ultra-processed foods, and prepackaged cookies consumption was linked to a 10% reduction in consumption of all other ultra-processed foods.

“For teenagers whose consumption of ultra-processed foods has not yet been established, certain gateway foods such as candy, store-bought pastries and frozen desserts should be avoided, since increased consumption of these foods appears to lead to increased consumption of other processed foods,” Balhara said.

“The good news,” she adds, “is that even small changes, such as reducing how often you eat a few gateway foods, may reduce overall consumption of unhealthy foods and have a big impact on your overall health.”

“I commend Ms. Balhara for her project, which highlights the importance of establishing good dietary patterns early in life,” said Donna K. Arnett, Ph.D., the executive vice president for academic affairs and provost at the University of South Carolina, and a former American Heart Association president.

“The relationship between poor dietary quality and cardiovascular risk factors is well-established. While this is a small, preliminary study, it’s an important topic to continue to investigate and help us understand ways we can influence dietary behaviors to promote optimal cardiovascular health for all ages.”

The study’s shortcomings included the fact that the data was self-reported and that it could not be generalised to all teenage demographics. Additionally, the PIE survey has not been verified, and blood tests to assess the effects of participants’ dietary choices were not included in the study’s health data.

A dieter who struggles with cravings for fatty foods could be inclined to put the blame on their tongue since it can be difficult to resist the delightful flavour of butter or ice cream. However, brand-new studies looking into what makes us hungry have found a brand-new link between the gut and the brain that fuels our hunger for fat.

Fat entering the intestines causes a signal to be triggered, according to research conducted on mice at Columbia University’s Zuckerman Institute. This signal triggers a craving for fatty meals when it travels via nerves to the brain. The new research, which will be published in Nature on September 7, 2022, suggests that it may be possible to interfere with this gut-brain link in order to avoid bad decisions and solve the escalating worldwide health issue brought on by overeating.

“We live in unprecedented times, in which the overconsumption of fats and sugars is causing an epidemic of obesity and metabolic disorders,” said first author Mengtong Li, PhD, a postdoctoral researcher in the lab of the Zuckerman Institute’s Charles Zuker, PhD, supported by the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. “If we want to control our insatiable desire for fat, science is showing us that the key conduit driving these cravings is a connection between the gut and the brain.”

This new view of dietary choices and health started with previous work from the Zuker lab on sugar. Researchers found that glucose activates a specific gut-brain circuit that communicates to the brain in the presence of intestinal sugar. Calorie-free artificial sweeteners, in contrast, do not have this effect, likely explaining why diet sodas can leave us feeling unsatisfied.

“Our research is showing that the tongue tells our brain what we like, such as things that taste sweet, salty or fatty,” said Dr. Zuker, who is also a professor of biochemistry and molecular biophysics and of neuroscience at Columbia’s Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons. “The gut, however, tells our brain what we want, what we need.”

Dr. Li wanted to explore how mice respond to dietary fats: the lipids and fatty acids that every animal must consume to provide the building blocks of life. She offered mice bottles of water with dissolved fats, including a component of soybean oil, and bottles of water containing sweet substances known to not affect the gut but that are initially attractive. The rodents developed a strong preference, over a couple of days, for the fatty water. They formed this preference even when the scientists genetically modified the mice to remove the animals’ ability to taste fat using their tongues.

“Even though the animals could not taste fat, they were nevertheless driven to consume it,” said Dr. Zuker.

According to the researchers, fat must be activating particular brain circuits that are responsible for the animals’ behavioural response to fat. Dr. Li examined brain activity in mice while feeding them fat in an effort to identify that circuit.

The caudal nucleus of the solitary tract (cNST), a specific area of the brainstem, had an uptick in its population of neurons.

This was noteworthy because the lab’s earlier finding of the neurological basis of sugar desire also included the cNST.

The communication channels that sent the message to the cNST were later discovered by Dr. Li. When mice had fat in their intestines, the vagus nerve, which connects the gut to the brain, also twittered with activity.

Having identified the biological machinery underlying a mouse’s preference for fat, Dr. Li next took a close look at the gut itself: specifically the endothelial cells lining the intestines. She found two groups of cells that sent signals to the vagal neurons in response to fat.

“One group of cells functions as a general sensor of essential nutrients, responding not only to fat, but also to sugars and amino acids,” said Dr. Li. “The other group responds to only fat, potentially helping the brain distinguish fats from other substances in the gut.”

Dr. Li then went one important step further by blocking the activity of these cells using a drug. Shutting down signaling from either cell group prevented vagal neurons from responding to fat in the intestines. She then used genetic techniques to deactivate either the vagal neurons themselves or the neurons in the cNST. In both cases, a mouse lost its appetite for fat.

“These interventions verified that each of these biological steps from the gut to the brain is critical for an animal’s response to fat,” said Dr. Li. “These experiments also provide novel strategies for changing the brain’s response to fat and possibly behavior toward food.”

The stakes are high. Obesity rates have nearly doubled worldwide since 1980. Today, nearly half a billion people suffer from diabetes.

“The overconsumption of cheap, highly processed foods rich in sugar and fat is having a devastating impact on human health, especially among people of low income and in communities of color,” said Dr. Zuker. “The better we understand how these foods hijack the biological machinery underlying taste and the gut-brain axis, the more opportunity we will have to intervene.”

Scott Sternson, PhD, a professor of neuroscience at University of California, San Diego, who was not involved in the new research highlighted its potential for improving human health.

“This exciting study offers insight about the molecules and cells that compel animals to desire fat,” said Dr. Sternson, whose work focuses on how the brain controls appetite. “The capability of researchers to control this desire may eventually lead to treatments that may help combat obesity by reducing consumption of high-calorie fatty foods.”

The paper, titled “Gut-Brain Circuits for Fat Preference,” was published September 7, 2022, in Nature. Its authors are Mengtong Li, Hwei-Ee Tan, Zhengyuan Lu, Katherine S. Tsang, Ashley J. Chung and Charles S. Zuker.

The Russell Berrie Foundation’s initiative on the neuroscience of obesity helped fund some of this study. Investigator Charles Zuker works with the Howard Hughes Medical Institute.

Also Read: COVID-19 cluster infections in Chinese universities continue to rise amid new semester

Just as students started a new semester and were set to celebrate their three-day Mid-Autumn Festival holiday, a fresh COVID-19 cluster epidemic continued to spread throughout the universities on the Chinese mainland.

Since September 1, the most recent COVID-19 epidemic has spread to 29 provinces, municipalities, and autonomous entities. Between 12 a.m. and 3 p.m. on Sunday, the capital city discovered 14 new COVID-19 verified cases, 13 of which are university students, according to the Global Times. Between 3 p.m. on Saturday and 3 p.m. on Sunday, six additional COVID-19 cases at the Communication University of China (CUC) in the Chaoyang area were verified, increasing the total since 12 a.m. on Saturday to 13.

Another 151 teachers and students of the university were transferred to a centralized isolation point on Sunday, said Li Zhong, deputy Party secretary of the CUC, at the press conference.

On Saturday, eight confirmed local cases were reported from 0:00 to 15:00 pm, with seven of the new cases being students on the campus of the CUC, local authorities said.

In another university, the Beijing University of Chemical Technology (BUCT) 41 infections were reported as of Friday, Global Times reported.

The Deputy Director of the Beijing Center for Disease Control and Prevention, Liu Xiaofeng said, “It is a critical period for schools to deal with the epidemic on campus.”

He urged schools to strengthen the management of epidemic prevention work, including vaccination for returned students, implementing the standardized management of health monitoring stations on campus and making sure that nucleic acid testing, cleaning and disinfection of public bathrooms, laundry rooms, stair handrails, door handles, elevator keys and public articles are conducted in a timely manner.

He urged schools to strengthen the management of epidemic prevention work, including vaccination for returned students, implementing the standardized management of health monitoring stations on campus and making sure that nucleic acid testing, cleaning and disinfection of public bathrooms, laundry rooms, stair handrails, door handles, elevator keys and public articles are conducted in a timely manner.

Covid lockdown

Meanwhile, China’s Xinjiang province is hit with limited options due to a gruelling and week-long COVID-19 pandemic lockdown.

Chris Buckley, writing in The New York Times (NYT) said that Yining, a city in the Xinjiang region of far-western China chafing under a month-long pandemic shut down due to a lack of food, medicine and other crucial supplies.

The Yining residents called for help over limited food, difficulty getting medicines and drastic shortages of sanitary pads for women.

Since early August, residents of the 600,000-person metropolis have been ordered to remain indoors, leaving many to rely heavily on neighbourhood leaders to bring food.

Some of the locals complained that the repetitive diet of rice, naan, and instant noodles had replaced food delivery. Azad, a local, claimed that for the past two weeks, there had only been instant noodles, which he could no longer handle more than twice per day.

After over 500 cases were confirmed last week, Chengdu, the capital of the southern Sichuan province, which has a population of 21 million, is now under lockdown.

Since the start of the pandemic, mainland China has recorded more than 6 million instances of COVID-19 infection and 24,806 fatalities as a result.

A dramatic increase in the COVID-19 virus has been recorded in some areas of China, and the fifth wave’s emergence has forced the populace to once more deal with the totalitarian government’s continuous limitations. Xi Jinping’s so-called “zero-COVID policy,” which has disrupted daily life and delivered a severe blow to the faltering economy, has failed, as seen by the country’s ongoing breakout of widespread infection in spite of China’s robust efforts.

Also Read: Antibiotics might worsen melanoma by depleting the gut microbiome: Study

The use of broad-spectrum antibiotics in mice with malignant melanoma, an aggressive kind of skin cancer, increased their metastatic bone development, according to a recent study by researchers at Emory University in Atlanta.

This most likely occurred as a result of the medications’ effects on the mice’s immune system and gut flora. According to one of the study’s authors, Subhashis Pal, Ph.D., a postdoctoral fellow in endocrinology at the Emory University School of Medicine, the findings highlight the significance of the gut microbiome in overall health and suggest that physicians should carefully consider the gastrointestinal effects when using antibiotic therapies to treat cancer or other diseases.

“Any disease or therapy that harms the gut microbiome could have a negative impact on our health,” said Dr. Pal, who presented the report today at the annual meeting of the American Society of Bone and Mineral Research in Austin, Texas, USA.

“In our study we found that the gut microbiome restrains the progression of melanoma bone lesions in mice by promoting the expansion of intestinal natural-killer (NK) cells and T helper (Th1) cells and enhancing their migration to the tumor site,” Dr. Pal said. “Using oral antibiotics depleted the gut microbiome and reduced the population of intestinal NK cells and Th1 cells. This made the mice more vulnerable for tumor growth. They had a higher melanoma tumor burden than control mice whose gut microbiomes were intact.”

Malignant melanoma complications include osteolytic bone metastases. The scientists reasoned that depleting the gut microbiota of mice with antibiotics would disrupt their intestinal immune cells, modify their immunological response, and hasten bone metastases. Mice given broad-spectrum antibiotic treatment had their hearts and bones injected with B16-F10 melanoma cells. Contrary to control mice that had not gotten the injections, the antibiotic injections in those mice increased bone metastasis growth.

Malignant melanoma complications include osteolytic bone metastases. The scientists reasoned that depleting the gut microbiota of mice with antibiotics would disrupt their intestinal immune cells, modify their immunological response, and hasten bone metastases. Mice given broad-spectrum antibiotic treatment had their hearts and bones injected with B16-F10 melanoma cells. Contrary to control mice that had not gotten the injections, the antibiotic injections in those mice increased bone metastasis growth.

The study identified the melanoma’s metastatic growth mechanism. Intestinal NK and Th1 cells’ growth in response to melanoma and their migration from the gut to tumor-bearing bones were both blocked by microbiome removal, according to a flow cytometric examination of Peyer’s patches and bone marrow cells within tumour lesions. Antibiotics significantly reduced the migration of NK and Th1 cells from the gut to the tumour site, as measured directly by NK and Th1 cell migration in Kaede mice, a type that expresses a photo-convertible fluorescent protein that enables direct tracking of intestinal lymphocytes.

This study strongly indicates that microbiome modifications induced by antibiotics might have negative clinical consequences not only with melanoma, but with other diseases as well, Dr. Pal said. “For example, inflammatory bowel disease, or other gut conditions that create inflammation, can lead to increased Th17 cells, TNF producing cell numbers in the gut, which ultimately has a negative impact on our bone health. Similarly, we have seen that in a murine model of surgical menopause, reduced levels of estrogen cause bacterial metabolites to pass more easily through the gut barrier and hyperactivate the immune system. As a result, the number of intestinal and bone marrow cytokine producing T cells rises, largely contributing to the development of bone loss.”

Dr. Pal added: “We should be very much careful with our gut microbiome, and of the unforeseen adverse consequence of antibiotic regimens. Conversely, probiotics can play a major role to maintain healthy gut microbiome, and better overall health.”

Also Read: Anti-diarrheal drugs might treat core ASD symptoms: Research

Can an existing drug offer a novel therapy for the fundamental signs of autism spectrum disorder (ASD), even if it hasn’t previously been linked to the illness? This query was made in a recent research. The scientists created a computer model that contained the proteins and interactions of ASD-related proteins.

The journal Frontiers in Pharmacology published the study’s findings. They discovered possible treatment options by examining how various drugs altered the system’s proteins. The most likely possibility was loperamide, an antidiarrheal medication that is often used, and the researchers have an intriguing theory about how it can function to treat ASD symptoms.

Some of the most common symptoms in ASD involve difficulties with social interaction and communication.

“There are no medications currently approved for the treatment of social communication deficits, the main symptom in ASD,” said Dr Elise Koch of the University of Oslo, lead author on the study. “However, most adults and about half of children and adolescents with ASD are treated with antipsychotic drugs, which have serious side effects or lack efficacy in ASD.”

The researchers went to pharmacological repurposing, which entails investigating current medications as prospective therapies for a different ailment, in an effort to discover a new method to treat ASD. The method has several advantages since there is frequently a wealth of information regarding the safety, side effects, and biological molecules that existing pharmaceuticals interact with in the body.

Repurposing drugs as new treatments

The researchers employed a computer-based protein interaction network to find potential therapies for ASD. These networks include proteins and the intricate relationships that exist between them. When investigating biological systems, it is crucial to take this complexity into consideration since changing one protein can frequently have a ripple impact on other proteins.

The scientists built a protein interaction network that contained ASD-related proteins. The team discovered numerous possibilities that interfere with the molecular processes behind ASD by looking at current pharmaceuticals and their interactions with proteins in the network.

The most effective medication is loperamide, which is frequently used to treat diarrhoea. Although it may seem odd that an anti-diarrheal medication might alleviate the primary symptoms of ASD, the researchers have created a theory as to how it might operate.

From an upset gastrointestinal system to ASD

A protein known as the m-opioid receptor, which is often impacted by opioid medications like morphine, is bound to and activated byloperamide. The m-opioid receptor impacts social behaviour in addition to the typical benefits of an opioid medication, such as pain alleviation.

Previous research found that genetically altered mice lacking the m-opioid receptor showed social abnormalities resembling those found in ASD. Curiously, medications that stimulate the m-opioid receptor promoted the recovery of social behaviours.

These findings in mice raise the intriguing potential that loperamide or other medications that target the m-opioid receptor may offer a novel strategy for treating the social symptoms associated with ASD, but further research is need to verify this theory.

In any case, the current study demonstrates the power of assuming that old drugs may indeed learn new tricks.

Also Read: Differentaly abled women are more likely to have poor diets: Research

According to a new study from the NYU School of Global Public Health, women with special needs are nearly twice as likely to feel hungry and think their diet is subpar.

The results were reported in the Journal of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics. The capacity to hear, see, think clearly, move about freely, or take care of oneself is impaired in at least one way for one in five American women between the ages of 18 and 44. Researchers have paid less attention to the diets of women with disabilities, though.

“A healthy diet is essential for avoiding many chronic diseases. A nutritious diet can also help pregnant and postpartum outcomes for women of reproductive age, according to study author and associate professor of public health nutrition at NYU School of Global Public Health Andrea Deierlein. Women with disabilities may encounter challenges because of their medical issues or physical limits if they don’t have access to healthy foods or the means to prepare them.

The researchers examined information from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s National Health and Nutrition Examination Surveys’ 2013-2018 waves to gain a better understanding of the diets of women with impairments (CDC). 3,579 women between the ages of 18 and 44 were questioned about their daily dietary intake, which was used to determine their diet quality ratings, as well as other diet-related issues such as food security and involvement in food assistance programmes.

Women were also asked if they had a handicap, which was described as having extreme trouble with one or more of the following: hearing, seeing, focusing, walking, dressing, and/or doing errands. A disability was reported by 16% of respondents, and 6% said they had two or more different disabilities.

Except that women with two or more types of disabilities had slightly lower diet quality scores in relation to their consumption of fruit and protein-rich foods like meat, nuts, and seafood, there were few differences in the diet quality scores of women by their disability status.

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Women with disabilities were more likely than women without disabilities to describe their diet as poor and to say that they had little to no access to food. Additionally, they were more likely to use food assistance programmes and consume frozen goods.

Diet of women

Additionally, it was less common for women with disabilities to be the primary cook, meal planner, and grocery shopper in their homes.

The researchers point out that additional study is necessary to pinpoint possible intervention areas among all persons with impairments. There is a need for study that specifically looks at how socioeconomic determinants of health including housing circumstances, social support, and the food environment in one’s neighbourhood impact food preparation and storage.

The goal of developing tailored nutrition programmes and policies, according to Deierlein, is to reduce health disparities. “Learning more about the diets of women with disabilities will help us better to assess this population’s diet quality and nutrient intake, identify barriers to improving diet, and develop tailored nutrition programmes and policies,” she said.