Strong and biodegradable

A polyester plastic of great mechanical stability, which is also easily recyclable and even compostable: Stefan Mecking, chemist at the University of Konstanz, and his research group present a new material

Peer-Reviewed Publication

UNIVERSITY OF KONSTANZ

How can plastics be designed so they retain their desirable properties but at the same time can be more effectively recycled? This and other questions concerning the eco-friendliness of plastics are the focus of chemist Stefan Mecking and his research group at the University of Konstanz. In their latest paper in the international edition of Angewandte Chemie, the team presents a new polyester which exhibits material properties that are attractive for industry while being environmentally friendly.

Normally hardly compatible
Plastics are made of long chains of one or several chemical basic modules, so-called monomers. Plastics distinguished by high crystallinity and water repellency, therefore mechanically highly resilient and stable, are widely used. A well-known example is high density polyethylene (HDPE), whose basic modules consist of non-polar hydrocarbon molecules. What may on the one side be advantageous properties for applications can also have adverse effects: It is very energy intensive and inefficient to recycle such plastics and recover the basic modules. Also, if such plastics leak into the environment, the degradation process is extremely long.

To overcome this supposed incompatibility between the stability and biodegradability of plastics, Mecking and his team insert chemical “breaking points” in their materials. They already showed that this greatly improves the recyclability of polyethylene-like plastics. However, good biodegradability is not automatically guaranteed. “Plastics often gain high resilience because they are ordered in densely packed crystalline structures,” Mecking explains: “Crystallinity in combination with water repellency usually strongly decelerates the biodegradation process, as it impairs the microorganisms‘ access to the breaking points.” However, this does not apply to the researchers’ new plastic.

Crystalline and yet compostable
The new plastic, polyester-2,18, consists of two basic modules: a short diol unit with two carbon atoms and a dicarboxylic acid with 18 carbon atoms. Both modules can be easily obtained from sustainable sources. For example, the starting material for the dicarboxylic acid, which is the plastic’s main component, comes from a renewable source. The polyester’s properties resemble those of HDPE: due to its crystalline structure, for example, it exhibits both mechanical stability and temperature resistance. At the same time, first experiments for recyclability showed that under comparatively mild conditions, this material’s basic modules can be recovered.

The new plastic also has another, quite unexpected property: in spite of its high crystallinity it is biodegradable, as lab experiments with natural enzymes and tests at an industrial composting plant showed. Within a few days, in a lab experiment the polyester was degraded by enzymes. The composting plant’s microorganisms required about two months, so this plastic even meets ISO-composting standards. “We too were amazed by this rapid degradation,” says Mecking, who adds: “Of course we cannot transfer the results of the composting plant one-to-one into any conceivable environmental condition. But they do confirm that this material is indeed biodegradable and indicate that it is much less persistent than plastics like HDPE, if it should unintentionally be released into the environment.”

Both the recyclability of this polyester and its biodegradability under variable environmental conditions are now to be studied further. Mecking sees possible applications for this new material, e.g. in 3D-printing or in the production of packing foils. In addition, there are further areas of interest, in which it is desirable to combine crystallinity with recyclability and the degradation of abraded particles or similar loss of material.

 

Key facts:

• Original publication: Marcel Eck et al. (2022) Biodegradable high density polyethylene-like material. Angewandte Chemie International Edition; DOI: https://doi.org/10.1002/ange.202213438
• Researchers at the University of Konstanz develop new plastic which is highly stable, biodegradable and readily recyclable
• Stefan Mecking is professor of chemical materials science in the Department of Chemistry at the University of Konstanz. With his team, he does research on catalysis, with the aim of improving the environmental friendliness of plastics
• Funding: An ERC Advanced Grant for the project DEEPCAT (Degradable Polyolefin Materials Enabled by Catalytic Methods)

 

Note to editors:
You can download images here:

Link: https://www.uni-konstanz.de/fileadmin/pi/fileserver/2022/hochbelastbar.jpg
Caption: Regarding its properties and structure, the novel polyester resembles high density polyethylene (HDPE), but at the same time, it is recyclable and biodegradable.
Copyright: Mecking lab

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JOURNAL

Angewandte Chemie

DOI

10.1002/ange.202213438 

ARTICLE TITLE

Biodegradable high density polyethylene-like material

Virginia Tech researchers receive $3.3 million in Department of Defense grants to study deadly virus

Grant and Award Announcement

VIRGINIA TECH

 

IMAGE: RESEARCHERS LED BY VIROLOGY PROFESSOR KYLENE KEHN-HALL AT VIRGINIA TECH’S VIRGINIA-MARYLAND COLLEGE OF VETERINARY MEDICINE RECEIVED A $3.3 MILLION FROM THE DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE TO STUDY HOW EASTERN EQUINE ENCEPHALITIS VIRUS CHANGES THE BRAIN. PHOTO BY ANDREW MANN FOR VIRGINIA TECH. view more 

CREDIT: VIRGINIA TECH

Eastern equine encephalitis virus is a grim diagnosis: One in three people infected with the mosquito-borne disease will die within two weeks, and survivors face debilitating, long-term mental and physical impairments.  

Researchers led by Kylene Kehn-Hall, professor of virology at Virginia Tech’s Virginia-Maryland College of Veterinary Medicine, received a total of $3.3 million from the Department of Defense to study models of how Eastern equine encephalitis virus (EEEV) changes the brain.  

EEEV affects a small number of people every year — in 2020, 13 people in the United States were diagnosed — but it is a serious disease. There are no specific antiviral treatments available, and the virus has a mortality rate between 30 and 80 percent. EEEV can cause neurologic disease, which can permanently damage the brains of survivors.

"We're most interested in individuals who survive the infection. There's a 50 to 90 percent chance of long-term complications. These complications can be things such as seizures, intellectual disabilities like memory issues, and behavioral and emotional issues. We are trying to understand why that's happening and ways to prevent it,” said Kehn-Hall.  

For the past 10 years, Kehn-Hall has studied Venezuelan equine encephalitis virus, EEEV’s far milder cousin. To study the lasting effects of EEEV, she will collaborate with researchers from Virginia Tech, George Mason University, and the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Chemical Defense.  

As part of one grant, Kehn-Hall and her collaborators will develop a mouse model of EEEV's lasting neurological effects in an attempt to understand the underlying biology and what is happening on the molecular level. They will work toward identifying neurological pathways in hopes of identifying therapeutics that can reverse the damage.  

While other studies have examined models of how the virus kills, Kehn-Hall, along with Barney Bishop of George Mason University and the veterinary college’s Michelle Theus, associate professor of molecular and cellular neurobiology, are looking at survivors.  

"Of course we want to prevent death, but we also want to prevent people from having disabilities for a long period of time, even the rest of their lives. If we can model what's contributing to these changes, then we can intervene early in such a way that we can prevent that damage from occurring,” said Kehn-Hall.

As part of the second grant, Kehn-Hall will work with Theus and Hehuang “David” Xie, professor of epigenomics and computational biology. Co-investigators will include Xiaowei Wu, assistant at Virginia Tech College of Science’s Department of Statistics, and John McDonough and Erik Johnson of the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Chemical Defense.

The team will compare data regarding traumatic brain injury, organophosphate nerve agent, and encephalitic alphaviruses, which include Venezuelan, Eastern, and Western equine encephalitis viruses.  

“We will investigate the association between gene expression profiles and disease phenotypes,” Xie said.

“My team’s work on traumatic brain injury draws many parallels to what happens to the brain when it’s infected with viruses,” said Theus. “The comparative work underway will help us understand the common pathologies between these traumatic events and whether select regions of the brain are similarly affected. We hope to expand what we have learned in traumatic brain injuries to injuries associated with this type of biological threat.”

They will look for gene expression and cellular changes in mice exposed to Venezuelan and Eastern equine encephalitis virus.

Epileptic seizures are already known to be a common outcome associated with traumatic brain injury, equine encephalitis viruses, and nerve agents. ”We believe there is a common event that occurs in the development of seizures that can be targeted therapeutically,” said Theus.

Because the development of seizures is already known, the researchers will focus on the hippocampus and changes in neurons.

By comparing data from encephalitic alphaviruses, organophosphate nerve agent, and traumatic brain injury, they aim to better understand the similarities between these conditions and thus identify potential medical treatment.  

There is no approved human vaccine for EEEV, but there is an equine vaccine administered yearly. Though EEEV may be deadly and have devastating, lasting effects, the low number of annual cases means there isn’t much incentive for humans to get vaccinated. Because of this, therapeutics are a better option than vaccines.  

Through developing therapeutics, researchers can help those who are fighting this virus and its long-term effects.  

Written by Sarah Boudreau

Orangutan communication sheds light on human speech origins

Research finds orangutans communicate using a complex repertoire of consonant-like calls, more so than African apes, which provides clues about how consonants became a component part of the human language

Peer-Reviewed Publication

UNIVERSITY OF WARWICK

New research from The University of Warwick has revealed that orangutans, the most arboreal of the great apes, produce consonant-like calls more often and of greater variety than their African ground-dwelling cousins (gorillas, bonobos and chimpanzees).  

This contrasts with the expectation that, whilst being closely related to humans, African apes should have call repertoires which are more like our speech. Arboreal versus terrestrial lifestyles appear to have driven great apes to develop different vocal repertoires, with large and varied inventories of consonant-like calls arising from tree-dwelling apes like orangutans, rather than the ground-dwelling apes. The study suggests that our own evolutionary ancestors might have lived a more tree-dwelling lifestyle than previously thought. 

Dr Adriano Lameira, Associate Professor of Psychology at The University of Warwick, investigated the origins of human spoken language, which is universally composed of vowels that take the form of voiced sounds, whereas voiceless sounds take the form of consonants.  

Non-human primates have been studied for decades in search for clues about how speech and language evolved in our species. However, the calls of non-human primates are composed primarily or exclusively of voiced vowel-like sounds. “This raises questions about where all the consonants, that compose all the world’s languages, originally come from,” says Dr Adriano Lameira. 

“Existing theories of speech evolution have thus far, focused exclusively on the connection between primate laryngeal anatomy and human use of vowels. 

“This doesn’t explain though, how voice-less, consonant-like sounds became a fundamental component of every language spoken around the globe.” 

In order to understand the origins of human speech and the root-cause of consonant sounds in the human lineage, Dr Lameira compared patterns of consonant-like vocal production in the vocal repertoire of three major great ape lineages that survive today from a once-diverse family – orangutans, gorillas, bonobos and chimpanzees. 

Unlike other primates, but similarly to any spoken human language, great ape call repertoires consist of both consonant-like and vowel-like calls. However, there are inconsistencies within great apes’ use of consonant sounds in nature.  

“Wild gorillas, chimpanzees and bonobos don’t use a huge variety of consonant-like calls,” he explains.  

“Gorillas for example, have been found to use a particular consonant-like call, but this is only prevalent in some gorilla populations and not others. Some chimpanzee populations produce one or two consonant-like calls associated with a single behaviour, for example while they are grooming, but these same grooming calls are uncommon in other chimpanzee populations. 

“Wild orangutans, however, use consonant-like calls universally and consistently across different populations and for multiple behaviours, much like humans do with speech. Their vocal repertoire is a rich display of smacking, clicks, kiss-sounds, splutters and raspberries.” 

Professor Lameira has observed orangutans in their natural habitat throughout the last 18 years and says their arboreal lifestyle and feeding habits could help to explain the complexity and sophistication of their consonant-like calls. 

“All apes are accomplished extractive foragers. They have developed complex mechanisms to access protected or hidden foods like nuts or plant piths, which often requires either meticulous use of hands or tools. Apes such as gorillas and chimpanzees need the stability of the ground in order to successfully handle these foods and use tools, however orangutans are largely tree-dwelling, and access their food up in the canopy, where at least one of their limbs is constantly used to provide stability among the trees.  

“It is because of this limitation, that orangutans have developed greater control over their lips, tongue and jaw and can use their mouths as a fifth hand to hold food and manoeuvre tools. Orangutans are known for peeling an orange with just their lips so their fine oral neuro-motoric control is far superior to that of African apes, and it has evolved to be an integral part of their biology,” states Dr Lameira. 

The research suggests that living in trees could have been a preadaptation for the emergence of consonants, and by extension, for speech evolution in our human ancestors.   

The paper, Arboreal origin of consonants, and thus, ultimately, speech, has been published in Trends in Cognitive Sciences. 

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JOURNAL

Trends in Cognitive Sciences

ARTICLE TITLE

Arboreal origin of consonants, and thus, ultimately, speech

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

20-Dec-2022

Humans continue to evolve with the emergence of new genes

Peer-Reviewed Publication

CELL PRESS

 

IMAGE: THIS GRAPHICAL ABSTRACT DEPICTS THE RISE OF NEW GENES IN HUMANS. view more 

CREDIT: VAKIRLIS ET AL.

Modern humans evolutionarily split from our chimpanzee ancestors nearly 7 million years ago, yet we are continuing to evolve. 155 new genes have been identified within the human lineage that spontaneously arose from tiny sections of our DNA. Some of these new genes date back to the ancient origin of mammals, with a few of these “microgenes” predicted to be associated with human-specific diseases. This work is publishing on December 20th in the journal Cell Reports.

“This project started back in 2017 because I was interested in novel gene evolution and figuring out how these genes originate,” says first author Nikolaos Vakirlis (@vakirlis), a scientist at the Biomedical Sciences Research Center “Alexander Fleming” in Vari, Greece. “It was put on ice for a few years, until another study got published that had some very interesting data, allowing us to get started on this work.”

Taking the previously published dataset of functionally relevant new genes, the researchers created an ancestral tree comparing humans to other vertebrate species. They tracked the relationship of these genes across evolution and found 155 that popped up from regions of unique DNA. New genes can arise from duplication events that already exist in the genome; however, these genes arose from scratch.

“It was quite exciting to be working in something so new,” says senior author Aoife McLysaght (@aoifemcl), a scientist at Trinity College Dublin. “When you start getting into these small sizes of DNA, they're really on the edge of what is interpretable from a genome sequence, and they're in that zone where it's hard to know if it is biologically meaningful.”

Of these 155 new genes, 44 of them are associated with growth defects in cell cultures, demonstrating the importance of these genes in maintaining a healthy, living system. Since these genes are human specific, it makes direct testing difficult. Researchers must seek another way to explore what effects these new genes may have on the body. Vakirlis and his team examined patterns found within the DNA that can hint at if these genes play a role in specific diseases.

Three of these 155 new genes have disease-associated DNA markers that point to connections with ailments such as muscular dystrophy, retinitis pigmentosa, and Alazami syndrome. Apart from disease, the researchers also found a new gene that is associated with human heart tissue. This gene emerged in human and chimp right after the split from gorilla and shows just how fast a gene can evolve to become essential for the body.

“It will be very interesting in future studies to understand what these microgenes might do and whether they might be directly involved in any kind of disease,” says Vakirlis.

“These genes are convenient to ignore because they're so difficult to study, but I think it'll be increasingly recognized that they need to be looked at and considered,” says McLysaght. “If we're right in what we think we have here, there's a lot more functionally relevant stuff hidden in the human genome.”

###

Financial support provided by the European Research Council and by Greece and the European Union. Aoife McLysaght was a member of the journal’s Advisory Board at the time of this article’s initial submission.

Cell Reports, Vakirlis et al., “De novo birth of functional microproteins in the human lineage.” https://www.cell.com/cell-reports/fulltext/S2211-1247(22)01696-5 

Cell Reports (@CellReports), published by Cell Press, is a weekly open access journal that publishes high-quality papers across the entire life sciences spectrum. The journal features reports, articles, and resources that provide new biological insights, are thought-provoking, and/or are examples of cutting-edge research. Visit: http://www.cell.com/cell-reports. To receive Cell Press media alerts, contact press@cell.com.

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JOURNAL

Cell Reports

DOI

10.1016/j.celrep.2022.111808 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Observational study

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

People

ARTICLE TITLE

De novo birth of functional microproteins in the human lineage

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

20-Dec-2022

Comparison of firearm-related deaths among children, adolescents by race, ethnicity

JAMA

Peer-Reviewed Publication

JAMA NETWORK

About The Study: This study found racial and ethnic differences in firearm-related deaths of U.S. youths, with the highest overall burden and recent increase among Black youths. The large increase in firearm-related mortality between 2019 and 2020 may be related to the COVID-19 pandemic and social unrest; further follow-up is needed to see if this trend continues. 

Authors: Leonardo Mariño-Ramírez, Ph.D., of the National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities in Bethesda, Maryland, is the corresponding author.

To access the embargoed study: Visit our For The Media website at this link https://media.jamanetwork.com/

(doi:10.1001/jama.2022.19508)

Editor’s Note: Please see the article for additional information, including other authors, author contributions and affiliations, conflict of interest and financial disclosures, and funding and support.

#  #  #

Embed this link to provide your readers free access to the full-text article This link will be live at the embargo time https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/10.1001/jama.2022.19508?guestAccessKey=7d97c0ad-32a0-4c09-9410-b1279dd40e20&utm_source=For_The_Media&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=ftm_links&utm_content=tfl&utm_term=122022

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JOURNAL

JAMA

Representation of women, racial and ethnic minority groups among medical school faculty

JAMA Network Open

Peer-Reviewed Publication

JAMA NETWORK

About The Study: The findings of this study of faculty from 144 U.S. medical schools from 1990 to 2019 suggest that representation of women in academic medicine improved with time, while underrepresented groups in medicine overall experienced only modest increases with wide variability across institutions. Among underrepresented groups in medicine, the Hispanic population has lost representational ground. 

Authors: Alexander Yoo, M.D., of the University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine in Philadelphia, is the corresponding author. 

To access the embargoed study: Visit our For The Media website at this link https://media.jamanetwork.com/ 

(doi:10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2022.47640)

Editor’s Note: Please see the article for additional information, including other authors, author contributions and affiliations, conflict of interest and financial disclosures, and funding and support.

#  #  #

Embed this link to provide your readers free access to the full-text article This link will be live at the embargo time http://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2022.47640?utm_source=For_The_Media&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=ftm_links&utm_term=122022

About JAMA Network Open: JAMA Network Open is an online-only open access general medical journal from the JAMA Network. On weekdays, the journal publishes peer-reviewed clinical research and commentary in more than 40 medical and health subject areas. Every article is free online from the day of publication.

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JOURNAL

JAMA Network Open

Early forests did not significantly change the atmospheric CO2

Peer-Reviewed Publication

UNIVERSITY OF NOTTINGHAM

 

IMAGE: CLOSE UP OF FOSSIL AND LYCOPHYTE view more 

CREDIT: M.A.R HARDING

Scientists have discovered that the atmosphere contained far less CO2 than previously thought when forests emerged on our planet, the new study has important implications for understanding how land plants affect the climate.

The research has been led by the University of Copenhagen in collaboration with the University of Nottingham and alters 30 years of previous understanding. The study is published in Nature Communications.

Earth’s continents were colonized by tall trees and forests about 385 million years ago. Before then, shallow shrub-like plants with vascular tissue, stems, shallow roots, and no flowers had invaded the land. Textbooks tell us that the atmosphere at that time had far higher CO2 levels than today and that an intense greenhouse effect led to a much warmer climate. The emergence of forests was previously thought to promote CO2 removal from the atmosphere, driving the Earth into a long cool period with ice cover at the poles. 

Reconstructing atmospheric CO2 levels in the geological past is difficult and has previously relied on proxies that also depend on parameters that had to be assumed. Climate scientists agree that CO2 plays a crucial role in shaping Earth’s climate both today and in the past. Therefore, a grand challenge for Earth scientist is to understand what has controlled the abundance CO2 in the atmosphere.

“We calibrated a mechanistic model for the gas-exchange between plant leaves and the ambient air to the oldest lineage of vascular land plants, namely clubmosses. With this approach, we could calculate the CO2 level in the air solely from observations made on the plant material”, tells associate professor Tais W. Dahl from the Globe institute at University of Copenhagen, who led the study in collaboration with an international team of researchers from Germany, Saudi Arabia, UK, and USA.

The new method builds on three observations that can be made both in living plants and fossil plant tissue, including the ratio of two stable carbon isotopes and the size and density of stomata (pore openings) through which CO2 is taken up by the plant. The researchers calibrated the method in living clubmosses and found that this approach can accurately reproduce ambient CO2 levels in the greenhouse.

“The newly calibrated method to study CO2 levels from the geological record is superior to previous approaches that produce estimates with unbound error bars simply because they depend on parameters that cannot be independently constrained in the geological record,” says Barry Lomax Professor at University of Nottingham and a co-author on the study. 

The research team applied the method to some of the oldest vascular plant fossils that lived before and after trees evolved on our planet and discovered that the ratio of the two stable carbon isotopes, carbon-13 and carbon-12, is very similar to that of modern plants. Further, the stomata density and size were also very similar to that observed in their living descendants. These observations kickstarted a more thorough investigation of the early CO2 record.

Dahl and colleagues collected data from 66 fossils of three distinct species of club mosses found in 9 different localities worldwide 410 to 380 million years in age. In all cases, the atmospheric CO2 levels were only 30-70% higher (~525 – 715 ppm) than today (~415 ppm). This is far lower than previously thought (2000-8000 ppm). Ppm stands for parts-per-million and is the unit used to measure carbon dioxide concentrations in air.

The team utilized a paleoclimate model to show that Earth was a temperate planet with mean tropical surface air temperatures of 24.1-24.6°C. 

“We used a fully coupled atmosphere-ocean model to find that Earth had ice-covered poles when forests emerged. Yet, land plants could thrive in the tropical, subtropical and temperate zones,” explains Georg Feulner from the Potsdam Institute for Climate in Germany, who co-authored the study. 

The new study suggest that trees actually play an insignificant role on atmospheric CO2 levels over longer time scales because early trees had deeper root systems and produced more developed soils that are associated with lower nutrient loss. With more efficient nutrient recycling in soils, trees actually have a smaller weathering demand than the shallow shrub-like vegetation that came before them. This idea goes against previous thinking that trees with deeper root system promoted CO2 removal through enhanced chemical weathering and dissolution of silicate rocks. 

Dahl and colleagues used Earth system models to show that primitive shrub-like vascular plants could have caused a massive decline in atmospheric CO2 earlier in history, when they first spread on the continents. The model shows that vascular ecosystem would have simultaneously led to a rise in atmospheric O2 levels.

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JOURNAL

Nature Communications

DOI

10.1038/s41467-022-35085-9. 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Experimental study

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

Not applicable

ARTICLE TITLE

Low atmospheric CO2 levels before the rise of forested ecosystems

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

20-Dec-2022

Common food dye can trigger inflammatory bowel diseases, say McMaster researchers

Allura Red (also called FD&C Red 40 and Food Red 17), is a common ingredient in candies, soft drinks, dairy products and some cereals

Peer-Reviewed Publication

MCMASTER UNIVERSITY                                                                                        

Common food dye can trigger inflammatory bowel diseases, say McMaster researchers

Hamilton, ON (Dec. 20, 2022) – Long-term consumption of Allura Red food dye can be a potential trigger of inflammatory bowel diseases (IBDs), Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis, says McMaster University’s Waliul Khan. Researchers using experimental animal models of IBD found that continual exposure to Allura Red AC harms gut health and promotes inflammation.

The dye directly disrupts gut barrier function and increases the production of serotonin, a hormone/neurotransmitter found in the gut, which subsequently alters gut microbiota composition leading to increased susceptibility to colitis.

Khan said Allura Red (also called FD&C Red 40 and Food Red 17), is a common ingredient in candies, soft drinks, dairy products and some cereals. The dye is used to add colour and texture to foodstuffs, often to attract children.

The use of synthetic food dyes such as Allura Red has increased significantly over the last several decades, but there has been little earlier study of these dyes’ effects on gut health. Khan and his team published their findings in Nature Communications. Yun Han (Eric) Kwon, who recently completed PhD in Khan’s laboratory, is first author.

“This study demonstrates significant harmful effects of Allura Red on gut health and identifies gut serotonin as a critical factor mediating these effects. These findings have important implication in the prevention and management of gut inflammation,” said Khan, the study’s senior author, a professor of the Department of Pathology and Molecular Medicine and a principal investigator of Farncombe Family Digestive Health Research Institute.

“What we have found is striking and alarming, as this common synthetic food dye is a possible dietary trigger for IBDs. This research is a significant advance in alerting the public on the potential harms of food dyes that we consume daily,” he said.

“The literature suggests that the consumption of Allura Red also affects certain allergies, immune disorders and behavioural problems in children, such as attention deficit hyperactivity disorder.”

Khan said that IBDs are serious chronic inflammatory conditions of the human bowel that affect millions of people worldwide. While their exact causes are still not fully understood, studies have shown that dysregulated immune responses, genetic factors, gut microbiota imbalances, and environmental factors can trigger these conditions.

In recent years there has been significant progress in identifying susceptibility genes and understanding the role of the immune system and host microbiota in the pathogenesis of IBDs. However, similar advances in defining environmental risk factors have lagged, he said.

Khan said that environmental triggers for IBDs include the typical Western diet, which includes processed fats, red and processed meats, sugar and a lack of fibre. He added that the Western diet and processed food also includes large amounts of various additives and dyes.

He added that the study suggests a link between a commonly used food dye and IBDs and warrants further exploration between food dyes and IBDs at experimental, epidemiological and clinical levels

The study was funded by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research.

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Editors:

Pictures of Waliul Khan may be found at: https://bit.ly/3jdynps

The paper is available post embargo at: https://go.nature.com/3hALLDA

JOURNAL

Nature Communications

DOI

10.1038/s41467-022-35309-y 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Experimental study

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

Animals

ARTICLE TITLE

Chronic exposure to synthetic food colorant Allura Red AC promotes susceptibility to experimental colitis via intestinal serotonin in mice

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

20-Dec-2022

Program that trains community health workers to deliver hearing care shows success among low-income older adults

Peer-Reviewed Publication

JOHNS HOPKINS MEDICINE

 

IMAGE: TRUSTED COMMUNITY HEALTH WORKERS CONNECT OLDER ADULTS IN THEIR COMMUNITY WITH LOW-COST HEARING TECHNOLOGY AS PART OF THE HEARS TRIAL. view more 

CREDIT: PHOTO COURTESY OF DANIEL MARTINEZ, STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER FOR THE JOHNS HOPKINS SCHOOL OF NURSING

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

A first-in-kind program that trains trusted older adult community health workers to fit and deliver low-cost hearing technology to peers with hearing loss significantly improved communication function among participants, according to the results of a randomized clinical trial led by Johns Hopkins Medicine researchers.

According to the National Institutes of Health, two-thirds of adults 70 and older have clinically significant hearing loss, but less than 20% of adults with hearing loss use a hearing aid. Rates of hearing aid use are even lower among low-income adults, often due to the high cost of devices, limited insurance coverage and inadequate access to hearing care professionals. Racial and ethnic health inequities also contribute to low levels of hearing aid use among older African Americans with hearing loss.  

Hearing loss isn’t just an inconvenience that comes with getting older — it’s a critical public health issue that is now the focus of national and international initiatives coming from the national academies, the White House and the World Health Organization. This global attention to hearing loss is the result of the growing understanding of the impact that hearing loss can have on the risk of dementia, cognitive decline, greater health care costs and other adverse outcomes.

To bridge this gap in access to hearing care, Johns Hopkins Medicine researchers developed HEARS (Hearing health Equity through Accessible Research and Solutions) to train community health workers (CHWs) to work one on one with their peers living in affordable independent housing. The CHWs, trained and supervised by local audiologists, conducted two-hour sessions with clients, counseling them about the basics of age-related hearing loss and communication strategies, then delivering and fitting them with low-cost, over-the-counter amplification devices provided by the HEARS program.

Otologist Carrie Nieman, M.D., M.P.H., core faculty at the Johns Hopkins Cochlear Center for Hearing and Public Health, first author of the clinical trial and co-creator of the HEARS model, said the program is not intended to replace audiologists and otolaryngologists who have specialized training in hearing loss. The goal instead, she said, is to “recruit and train community health workers who share some of the same lived experiences as those who go without hearing care, which represents the vast majority of older adults with hearing loss. From this position, CHWs can gain trust and connect with their clients in ways that hearing care professionals, like myself, often cannot.”

In this trial, researchers recruited 151 participants from 13 community sites in Baltimore, Maryland, which included affordable independent housing complexes and senior centers. A randomized group of 78 people received a CHW-led hearing care intervention, while a waitlist control group of 73 people did not. The average age of participants was 76.7 years old, 101 participants were women and 65 identified as African American. Two-thirds of participants were in the low-income bracket, and nearly half did not have or use a smartphone. 

Communication function, a measure of the impact of hearing loss on an individual’s daily communication, was assessed for all participants through a commonly used tool known as the Hearing Handicap Inventory. Scoring on the measure ranges from zero to 40, with higher scores indicating more communication difficulty.

Those who received help from a CHW had a baseline median score of 21.7 and a median score of 7.9 at a three-month follow-up visit with the CHW. By contrast, the waitlist control group saw little to no change, with a baseline median score of 20.1 and a median score of 21 at the three-month follow-up.

Overall, the researchers say, the results of the trial, published Dec. 20 in the Journal of American Medical Association, revealed that participants reported significant improvement after a three-month follow-up compared with the control group. Results suggest that those who worked with a CHW experienced benefits from the two-hour hearing intervention session that were similar in magnitude to what is reported in the literature for hearing aids fit by an audiologist.

Trusted community health workers connect older adults in their community with low-cost hearing technology as part of the HEARS Trial.

CREDIT

Photo courtesy of Daniel Martinez, staff photographer for the Johns Hopkins School of Nursing

“They came to us and received help from us because we are just like them — we are seniors,” said Renee Hicks, a CHW who provided hearing devices and education to her peers. “They would learn from us because we were living in the same community. It helped health-wise, too; people were coming out of their apartments and participating in activities.”

“This trial validates a model of hearing care that empowers community health workers to reach older adults with untreated hearing loss. The HEARS program connects individuals with a hearing device and needed education,” said Nieman. “The reach of the HEARS program is amplified by newly available over-the-counter hearing aids, providing older adults the tools they need to age well.”

Nieman says further trials of the HEARS program are planned at three sites across Maryland, and is seeking collaborators and funding to grow the program globally.   

The research team is cross-disciplinary, and includes Frank Lin, Joshua Betz, Emmanuel Garcia Morales, Jonathan Suen, Jami Trumbo, Nicole Marrone, Hae-Ra Han and Sarah Szanton.

Funding for this study was supported by the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders.

Nieman and Lin are co-founders and volunteer board members for the nonprofit Access HEARS.

Bottle with a message: Story writing connects children to the environment

Peer-Reviewed Publication

UNIVERSITY OF YORK

Researchers used story-writing to explore schoolchildren’s perceptions of marine plastic litter and the effects on their behaviours to the problem.  

The team, including the Universities of York,  Plymouth, and Universidad Católica del Norte, Coquimbo (Chile), looked at school children’s perceptions of marine plastic litter in Latin American countries along the Pacific and examined the impact of the story-writing activity on the children’s perceptions and their behaviours. 

The researchers encouraged the children to use their imaginations about common litter items found on the beach and in the marine environment, which included toys, a plastic bag, toothbrush, bottle, and straw and how they came to be in the ocean.

By imagining the journey these items had taken, they were able to think about ways of preventing the litter from entering the environment on the East Pacific Coast.

The activity showed that through story writing, children mostly focused on preventing the problem from worsening, rather than cleaning up existing litter, with the most popular solution being adequate disposal of litter and recycling. Other solutions included reducing plastic use, reusing items, education and convincing the community of the importance of the issue.

During the COVID-19 lockdowns, schoolchildren from the East Pacific coast participated in this activity, creating a story, and answering a pre-post survey. The participating children were part of the school citizen science program “Científicos de la Basura” (Litter Scientists), in which schoolteachers together with their classes investigate the problem of marine litter along the coasts of Latin America. 

The study was designed and timed to give schoolchildren in this region an activity to engage with while the schools were closed, and they were experiencing isolation.

In total, 89 children aged between 10 and 18 years old took part in the study from countries along the Pacific coast, including Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Mexico, Panama and Peru.

Lead author of the study, Estelle Praet from the Department of Archaeology at the University of York, said: “Stories offer a new and different way to explore what people believe and how they perceive and make sense of their environment, including in this study, marine plastic litter. The results were truly inspiring and showed the children’s awareness of plastic's impact on marine life and the environment.”

The children were given a choice of items and asked to create a fictional story, to reflect on the plastic pollution problem. More than half of the children’s stories showed awareness of the harmful nature of plastics when interacting with marine life, including when animals ingest plastic, get entangled or become intoxicated by the components of the plastic. 

Many of the stories described several consequences, including injuries, death, impact on the environment and the widespread effects on beach aesthetics. Co-author Diamela de Veer from the Científicos de la Basura program at Universidad Católica del Norte in Chile highlighted the similarities with another recent study: “In a previous activity, the schoolchildren had visited the beaches and made drawings of their beaches before and after the visit - many of these drawings also contained litter items, including some of them showed interactions between litter and marine life, underscoring that they notice the environmental problem caused by litter.”

Professor John Schofield, from the Department of Archaeology, said: “By viewing these plastic items as artefacts, each with its own story, we can bring this back to the human behaviours that related to the objects' use and their disposal. This project has helped show how we can get that message across to children and hopefully then make a difference.”

By developing stories around the items and recognising that human behaviours are at the root of plastic pollution, this exercise was also found to have an impact on the children themselves. 

Dr Kayleigh Wyles, an environmental psychologist from the University of Plymouth who contributed to the paper, said: “A key element of our project was to examine the children’s responses to questionnaires they completed before and after writing these stories. We found that their knowledge on the topic increased and they became more proactive, as they reported doing more pro-environmental acts afterwards.”

The stories themselves also highlighted the importance of individual action, with  77% of the stories including possible solutions that people can do to help address this global issue. 

This research,  also in partnership with institutions and NGOs in the UK and Mexico, is funded by the Galapagos Conservation Trust and the Global Challenges Research Fund as part of the Pacific Plastics: Science to Solutions (PPSS) programme, and published in the journal Marine Pollution Bulletin.

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JOURNAL

Marine Pollution Bulletin