Healthcare leaders plea to reinstate the Canadian hypertension control program to prevent death and disability

An editorial published in the Canadian Journal of Cardiology calls for the reestablishment of the national hypertension coalition

Peer-Reviewed Publication

ELSEVIER

Philadelphia, February 26, 2024 – A passionate plea for the re-establishment of Canada's health coalition focused on hypertension prevention and control appears as an editorial in the Canadian Journal of Cardiology, published by Elsevier. "We need a national hypertension control program to prevent death and disability," according to prominent healthcare leaders.

Lead author of the editorial Norm R.C. Campbell, MD, Department of Medicine, University of Calgary, explains, "Hypertension is a leading cause of death and disability in Canada; globally it causes about one in five deaths (19.2%). However, it is possible to reduce that markedly. Throughout my career in healthcare, I have worked on controlling our population's hypertension. What was achieved in Canada was highly unique; Canada used to be the most successful country in controlling hypertension by a large margin and one of the best at prevention."

The editorial describes the pivotal role Canadian coalitions had in the prevention and control of hypertension. In Canada, the delivery of healthcare is a provincial and territorial responsibility, whereas the federal government sets and administers national standards for the healthcare system through the Canada Health Act as well as many nutrition policies. Given the burden of disease associated with increased blood pressure, the Canadian federal and provincial governments released a hypertension strategy in 1986 calling for a coalition of governmental and non-governmental organizations to oversee strategy implementation.

Professor Campbell says, "In recent years, I have seen the Canadian hypertension control coalition and program fall apart while other countries are building much better national programs to control hypertension. As a result, hypertension control in Canada has been declining for the last decade. Hypertension prevention and control on a population scale are proven methods to prevent death and disability as well as reducing healthcare costs. We need to reestablish our national program to save lives."

Ross Tsuyuki, PharmD, President, Hypertension Canada, concurs with Professor Campbell's assessment, and says, "Hypertension Canada is highly concerned about declining control of blood pressure leading to increased death and disability in Canadians. Canada has become complacent. Hypertension Canada is committed to helping reestablish a coalition to bring the stakeholders, being healthcare providers and governments, to the table to address this problem."

Patrice Lindsay, RN, PhD, Lead, PWLE Engagement and Stroke Strategy at the Heart and Stroke Foundation of Canada, adds, “Heart & Stroke recognizes high blood pressure as the leading risk factor for stroke and a major risk factor for heart disease. We strongly support initiatives that will lead to measurable increases in diagnosis, treatment, and control of high blood pressure and result in reductions in death and hospitalization from cardiovascular disease. These measures will improve outcomes and quality of life for individuals affected by high blood pressure."

Prevention of high blood pressure can occur at different levels.

• Via various public health interventions, such as promoting healthy diets, regular physical activity, reducing alcohol consumption, and maintaining a healthy body weight and composition.
• Via clinical interventions, such as advising a healthy lifestyle and drug treatments.

Professor Campbell: "Healthy lifestyles are hard for people to implement in our unhealthy environments; they take time and lots of support. Drug treatment is highly effective and fast and can save money or be cost-effective. Sadly, our clinical interventions are in decline."

The global model to prevent non-communicable disease (NCD) – that account for about 90% of deaths and 85% of disability in Canada – and strengthen primary care is the World Health Organization (WHO)'s HEARTS initiative. HEARTS uses hypertension control as the “entry point” for NCD prevention and control in primary care.

Professor Campbell: "While many public health professionals focus clinical interventions on infections like Covid-19, influenza, and the RS virus, the real issue impacting death and disability in Canada is prevention and control of NCDs. HEARTS is an established global model for Canada to use to rebuild primary care to reduce death rates and prevent NCDs."

Professor Campbell concludes, "Winston Churchill stated, ’never let a good crisis go to waste.’ In Canada, we have an opportunity to build a much stronger collaborative federated health system focused on global best practices to prevent and control our major causes of death and disability, increasing quality of life, and saving health costs. It does not require much innovation or intellect but does require a strong ability to collaborate with the current global best practice being WHO HEARTS."

JOURNAL

Canadian Journal of Cardiology

DOI

10.1016/j.cjca.2023.11.039 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Commentary/editorial

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

People

ARTICLE TITLE

The Urgent Need to Re-establish a Health Coalition Focused on Hypertension Prevention and Control in Canada

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

26-Feb-2024

 

Yoga provides unique cognitive benefits to older women at risk of Alzheimer’s disease, study finds

UCLA Health researchers suggest using Kundalini yoga to compliment standard memory training exercises

Peer-Reviewed Publication

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA - LOS ANGELES HEALTH SCIENCES

A new UCLA Health study found Kundalini yoga provided several benefits to cognition and memory for older women at risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease including restoring neural pathways, preventing brain matter decline and reversing aging and inflammation-associated biomarkers – improvements not seen in a group who received standard memory training exercises. 

The findings, published in the journal Translational Psychiatry, are the latest in a series of studies led by UCLA Health researchers over the past 15 years into the comparative effects of yoga and traditional memory enhancement training on slowing cognitive decline and addressing other risk factors of dementia.  

Led by UCLA Health psychiatrist Dr. Helen Lavretsky of the Jane and Terry Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior, this latest study sought to determine whether Kundalini yoga could be used early on to prevent cognitive decline and trajectories of Alzheimer’s disease among postmenopausal women. 

Women have about twice the risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease compared to men due to several factors including longer life expectancy, changes in estrogen levels during menopause and genetics. 

In the new study, a group of more than 60 women ages 50 and older who had self-reported memory issues and cerebrovascular risk factors were recruited from a UCLA cardiology clinic. The women were divided evenly into two groups. The first group participated in weekly Kundalini yoga sessions for 12 weeks while the other one group underwent weekly memory enhancement training during the same time period. Participants were also provided daily homework assignments. 

Kundalini yoga is a method that focuses on meditation and breath work more so than physical poses. Memory enhancement training developed by the UCLA Longevity center includes a variety of exercises, such as using stories to remember items on a list or organizing items on a grocery list, to help preserve or improve long-term memory of patients. 

Researchers assessed the women’s cognition, subjective memory, depression and anxiety after the first 12 weeks and again 12 weeks later to determine how stable any improvements were. Blood samples were also taken to test for gene expression of aging markers and for molecules associated with inflammation, which are contributing factors to Alzheimer’s disease. A handful of patients were also assessed with MRIs to study changes in brain matter. 

Researchers found the Kundalini yoga group participants saw several improvements not experienced by the memory enhancement training group. These included significant improvement in subjective memory complaints, prevention in brain matter declines, increased connectivity in the hippocampus which manages stress-related memories, and improvement in the peripheral cytokines and gene expression of anti-inflammatory and anti-aging molecules. 

“That is what yoga is good for -- to reduce stress, to improve brain health, subjective memory performance and reduce inflammation and improve neuroplasticity,” Lavretsky said. 

Among the memory enhancement training group, the main improvements were found to be in the participants’ long-term memory.  

Neither group saw changes in anxiety, depression, stress or resilience, though Lavretsky stated this is likely because the participants were relatively healthy and were not depressed. 

While the long-term effects of Kundalini yoga on preventing or delaying Alzheimer’s disease require further study, Lavretsky said the study demonstrates that using yoga and memory training in tandem could provide more comprehensive benefits to the cognition of older women. 

“Ideally, people should do both because they do train different parts of the brain and have different overall health effects,” Lavretsky said. “Yoga has this anti-inflammatory, stress-reducing, anti-aging neuroplastic brain effect which would be complimentary to memory training.”   

Article: Cognitive and immunological effects of yoga compared to memory training in older women at risk for Alzheimer’s disease Published Feb. 14, 2024, Lavretsky et al., Transl Psychiatry 14, 96, ISSN 2158-3188, https://doi.org/10.1038/s41398-024-02807-0 

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JOURNAL

Translational Psychiatry

DOI

10.1038/s41398-024-02807-0 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Randomized controlled/clinical trial

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

People

ARTICLE TITLE

Cognitive and immunological effects of yoga compared to memory training in older women at risk for alzheimer’s disease

 

5G-enabled robotic surgery -- A new era in gastric cancer treatment

Peer-Reviewed Publication

KEAI COMMUNICATIONS CO., LTD.

 

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NETWORK CONFIGURATION AND REMOTE SURGERY PLATFORM

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CREDIT: QUN ZHAO, ET AL.,

Globally, gastric cancer is the fifth most common malignancy and the fourth leading cause of cancer-related death, with China bearing nearly half of these cases. These figures underscore an urgent need for innovative solutions in the field, particularly given the huge disparities in access to diagnostic and treatment resources in remote and underserved areas.

In a study recently published in the KeAi journal Intelligent Surgery, a team of researchers from China reported the first robot-assisted remote radical distal gastrectomy performed using 5G communication technology. While previous studies have demonstrated the effectiveness of 5G technology in various fields, such as urology and orthopedics, its application in gastric surgery has so far been limited to preclinical trials on animals and cadavers.

The novel procedure was conducted on a 51-year-old patient diagnosed with stage T2N0M0 gastric cancer, utilizing the domestically developed Tuomai four-arm laparoscopic robotic surgery system. Notable results  include minimal intraoperative delays and no packet loss, highlighting the potential of 5G technology to advance remote surgical procedures. The patient's quick recovery without complications affirmed the procedure's safety and effectiveness.

Professor Zhao, the lead researcher of the study, states: “This is the initial clinical experience of this new technology, and preliminarily verified the feasibility and safety. We believe that the findings from this study lay a solid foundation for the future of telemedicine in treating patients with gastric cancer.”

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Contact the author: Qun Zhao, zhaoqun@hebmu.edu.cn

The publisher KeAi was established by Elsevier and China Science Publishing & Media Ltd to unfold quality research globally. In 2013, our focus shifted to open access publishing. We now proudly publish more than 100 world-class, open access, English language journals, spanning all scientific disciplines. Many of these are titles we publish in partnership with prestigious societies and academic institutions, such as the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC).

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JOURNAL

Intelligent Surgery

DOI

10.1016/j.isurg.2024.01.004 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Case study

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

People

ARTICLE TITLE

Pioneering case: Robot-assisted remote radical distal gastrectomy for gastric cancer based on 5G communication technology

 

Can they hear you now? Kids increasingly exposed to noise health risks via earbuds and headphones

2 in 3 parents in national poll say their elementary or middle school aged child uses audio devices; half of parents of children ages 5-8 report device use

Reports and Proceedings

MICHIGAN MEDICINE - UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN

 

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ONLY HALF OF PARENTS SHARE THEY’VE TRIED TO LIMIT THEIR CHILD’S AUDIO DEVICE USAGE.

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CREDIT: UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN HEALTH C.S. MOTT CHILDREN’S HOSPITAL NATIONAL POLL ON CHILDREN’S HEALTH

ANN ARBOR, Mich. –  While it’s not surprising to spot teens wearing headphones and earbuds, it’s also becoming a widespread trend among younger children, a national poll suggests.

Two in three parents say their child ages 5-12 uses personal audio devices, with half of parents of children ages 5-8 reporting elementary-aged kids use a device.

Among parents whose children use headphones and earbuds, half say kids spend at least an hour a day using them while one in six say a typical day for their child includes at least two hours of use, according to the University of Michigan Health C.S. Mott Children’s Hospital National Poll on Children’s Health.

“Over recent years we’ve mostly been concerned about teens overusing audio devices. But earbuds have become increasingly popular and prevalent among younger kids, exposing them to more intense noise on a regular basis,” said Susan Woolford, M.D., M.P.H., Mott pediatrician and co-director of the Mott poll.

“Noise exposure risks to young children have historically involved loud singular events like concerts or fireworks, but parents may underestimate the potential harm from excessive use of listening devices. It may be difficult to know whether their child’s exposure to noise is healthy.”

Children are most likely to use these devices at home, school and in the car, report findings show. About a fourth of parents also say children occasionally use audio devices on airplanes while less than 10% say kids use them on the bus, outside or in bed.

Half of parents agree that headphones or earbuds help keep their child entertained.

The American Academy of Pediatrics released a statement in 2023 on the need to reduce noise risks to children, with increasing evidence that children and teens may be more exposed through personal listening devices.

Prolonged or extreme exposure to high volumes of noise can result in long term health issues, including hearing loss or tinnitus, Woolford says.   

“Young children are more vulnerable to potential harm from noise exposure because their auditory systems are still developing. Their ear canals are also smaller than adults, intensifying perceived sound levels,” Woolford said.

“Tiny hair cells inside the inner ear pick up sound waves to help you hear. When these get damaged or die, hearing loss is irreversible.”

Noise exposure among children can also affect their sleep, academic learning, language, stress levels and even blood pressure, she adds.

More parents of children aged 9-12 years than 5-8 years report their child uses headphones or earbuds and daily use was also more likely to be higher among the older age group, the poll suggests. 

But only half of parents share they’ve tried to limit their child’s audio device usage, citing strategies such as asking the child to take a break, having set hours for use and using a timer.  

Parents whose child uses headphones for more than two hours a day are also less likely to set time or volume limits, compared to parents who report less headphone use for their child.

Woolford offers four tips to reduce risks of noise exposure to children through headphones and earbuds:

Monitor volume levels

Parents can minimize the negative impact of audio device usage by monitoring and adjusting the child’s volume and time on devices, Woolford says.

She recommends parents follow the 60/60 rule – children should be limited to no more than 60 minutes of audio devices a day at no more than 60% of the maximum volume.

The sound level on listening devices that are less than 70 dBA (relative loudness of decibels heard) are very unlikely to cause noise-related damage.

“A good way to tell if an audio device is too loud is if a child wearing headphones can’t hear you when you’re an arm’s length away,” she said.

Parents can also limit their child’s risk by setting specific hours for audio device use or using a timer to keep track.

Use noise cancelling or volume limiting headphones

Parents should consider the risk of noise exposure when purchasing audio devices for their child by checking the information on device packages to identify products that limit the volume.

But some products marketed as “kid safe,” Woolford warns, do not limit the volume to 70 decibels.

However, children should avoid using noise-cancelling listening devices in situations when perception of sounds is crucial for safety.

“Noise-cancelling devices may help prevent children from increasing the volume to levels that are too high,” Woolford said. “But these devices shouldn’t be used when a child is engaged in activities where it’s important to hear their surroundings for their safety, such as walking or bike riding.”

Ensure kids take breaks from personal listening devices

Parents should help children intentionally have daily “device-free” time, Woolford says. This may involve putting away or locking the child’s audio devices when time limits are up.

They may also encourage kids to enjoy things like music on a low volume in their rooms instead of using earbuds to reduce noise intensity.

Personal audio devices should also be avoided when children are sleeping or at bedtime, Woolford says.

Be mindful of early signs of hearing loss

If parents feel their child may be at risk of hearing loss due to using audio devices, Woolford recommends checking with a pediatrician, an audiologist, or an ENT (ear, nose and throat) specialist.

“Early signs of hearing loss may include asking for repetition, hearing ringing noises often, speaking loudly to people nearby, delayed speech, or lack of reaction to loud noises,” Woolford said.

“Healthcare providers may be of assistance to parents by offering a simple explanation about hearing loss to help the child understand the reasons for limiting their use of audio devices.”

 

Estonian researchers committed to building the first AI safety engineering focused center in Europe

Business Announcement

ESTONIAN RESEARCH COUNCIL

 

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CREDIT: TALTECH

A consortium of four top European universities, led by Tallinn University of Technology, is determined to establish the Estonian Center for Safe and Trustworthy AI to lead the European discourse on AI safety. Amid the exponential pace of changes in the AI landscape over the past year, including the recent ratification of the European Union's Artificial Intelligence Act, Estonia is taking a bold step towards leading the conversation on “what next?”.

Why Estonia?

Estonia's former Minister of Foreign Trade and IT and current MP, Andres Sutt, has emphasized Estonia’s advantages in hosting an AI Safety Engineering Center with worldwide impact. “For more than a generation, we have been building a digital society. We have always been in the forefront and open to new adventures that technology brings us. That has enabled us to build an ecosystem that is also open to the implementation of AI.” He pointed out that with society’s increasing dependence on ever more powerful technologies, we need increased investment into the capacity and resilience against potential threats. This can only be achieved through investing in research in this field. “AI Safety engineering is one of the courses that science should pursue.”

Estonia, renowned for adopting digital government services at a national level is ready for the next challenge: AI. Sutt, along with other government officials, is also an active member of the Advisory Board of AI and Robotics Estonia (AIRE), a competence center that supports companies and the society more broadly in the implementation of Artificial Intelligence systems. His commitment to this cause exemplifies the government's interest and commitment to cooperating in ensuring human-centric AI.

The perspective of Professor of Tallinn University of Technology Pawel Sobocinski on Estonia's role in shaping the future of AI in Europe highlights the nation's unique position in driving the conversation on AI safety and innovation. Echoing MP Andres Sutt's sentiment, Sobocinski points out Estonia's potential to be a hub for sandboxing initiatives and nurturing entrepreneurial spirit in the AI sector. His emphasis on leveraging Europe's research strengths, particularly in areas like verification and foundations of probabilistic reasoning, underscores the strategic importance of focusing on domains where Europe already excels. “We need to combine European research strengths with leveraging frontier AI. For instance, AI is all about probability. This is where Europe leads and it is one area where research in ECSTAI can make a significant contribution.”

Sobocinski's call to action extends beyond research; it addresses the critical issue of talent retention and capacity building. The brain drain phenomenon, where talent leaves Europe for opportunities elsewhere, is a significant challenge. By focusing on education and training, Sobocinski envisions a robust strategy to cultivate a new generation of experts in trustworthy AI. This approach not only aims to keep Europe at the forefront of AI innovation but also ensures that its advancements are rooted in ethical and reliable practices. He emphasizes the importance of creating the knowledge and expertise as Europe's competitive advantage in the global AI landscape and sees a solution in an interdisciplinary PhD school. By increasing the knowledge capacity in areas of strength, Europe can assert its position as a leader in the development and application of AI technologies that are not only advanced but also trustworthy and aligned with European values and standards.

Why correctness, security and ethical deployment?

The vision of the ECSTAI consortium in tackling the emerging problems in AI safety is to focus on three pillars of AI safety. The consortium believes that the most significant focus areas can be categorized into the correctness of artificial intelligence systems, their security and the ethical considerations in their deployment. Through a unified, interdisciplinary approach to the different questions falling under each category, this consortium believes it can establish a new research discipline: AI Safety engineering.

“To me, trustworthiness in AI is an intersection between correctness, which involves measuring accuracy, risk and performance, security, which is all about the new challenges AI poses on cybersecurity, and ethics, which is all about new challenges to our notions of fairness, etc. Those three things together are crucial for this concept of trustworthiness”, explains Pawel Sobocinski.

Engagement in Brussels

The consortium recently organized a seminar in Brussels to discuss the courses that Europe should take to establish leadership in Artificial Intelligence. The panel discussion took the conversation regarding AI safety to a more philosophical and existential level. Moderated by an industry expert and former Minister of Foreign Trade and IT of Estonia, Kaimar Karu, this dynamic discussion was led with questions like: Who benefits from AI? How much government intervention do we actually want to see? How personalized of a service do we actually need? What regulatory and risk mitigation measures should the AI Act encompass?

Christoph Lütge, Director of the world class Institute of Ethics in AI at Technical University of Munich, brought an interesting argument to these introductory worrisome questions. When asked about the most interesting initiatives in correctness, security and responsible deployment of AI, he argued that amid discussions regarding the numerous initiatives countering the negative effects of AI, we should not overlook the initiatives that focus on leveraging the opportunities that AI can bring in these three strands of AI research. “What I believe should be mentioned are initiatives that look at the ethical opportunities of AI. For example, autonomous driving is a good thing to have if it reduces accidents'', claimed Lütge highlighting the flip side of the coin.

The perspectives of the panel suggest a balanced approach for Europe's tech ecosystem: one that equally values innovation, regulation, and ethics. Investing in technology development, fostering a startup-friendly environment, and ensuring close collaboration between technologists and ethicists could help Europe not only in embedding its values into technology but also in becoming a global leader in ethical tech innovation. “Europe is good in developing regulations, but less in developing technologies. We don't develop technologies ourselves in which our values can be embedded. We need to invest in developing the tech ourselves”, commented Bart Jacobs, from Radboud University. Prof. Lütge from Technical University of Munich encouraged supporting startups and fostering a culture of innovation that doesn't get bogged down by overly burdensome regulations. With around 70 technology-oriented companies founded each year, and with 11 unicorns established by TUM alumni and researchers, TUM already has a proven track record on how to nurture a thriving technological ecosystem.

A point of agreement between the panelists was the importance of establishing trust in society in order to truly ensure that AI is human-centric and benefits a society as a whole rather than a selected elite. Referring to the successful uptake of digital governance by the Estonian population, Meelis Kull, Associate Professor in machine learning at University of Tartu, argued that building a societal understanding of the impacts, dangers and benefits of AI is the basis of ensuring its effects benefit society. “Estonia has particularly been able to get people to trust the digitalization of the state. This is something that can also spread more widely in Europe.” Professor Kull is also the Head of the Estonian Center of Excellence in AI (EXAI), which recently secured national government funding.

When asked about why we need academia to get involved in this emerging market rather than allowing market forces to work, the panelists agreed that the creation of AI safety hubs like ECSTAI have a crucial role in developing best-practices in an unpredictable field like artificial intelligence. “What ECSTAI can do is show how to do things as well as possible.”

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METHOD OF RESEARCH

Computational simulation/modeling

 

Anti-vaccine conspiracies fuel divisive political discourse

New analysis shows conspiracy theories gain political weight due to social media

Peer-Reviewed Publication

UNIVERSITY OF TOKYO

 

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SOCIAL MEDIA HAS HELPED PROPAGATE CONSPIRACY THEORIES FASTER THAN WAS POSSIBLE WITH MORE TRADITIONAL MEDIA. THIS HAS DRIVEN ENGAGEMENT WITH POLITICAL PARTIES THAT FOCUS ON CONSPIRACY THEORIES.

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CREDIT: ENVATO/DC_STUDIO, UNDER LICENSE TO THE UNIVERSITY OF TOKYO.

Heightened use of social media during the coronavirus pandemic brought with it an unprecedented surge in the spread of misinformation. Of particular significance were conspiracy theories surrounding the virus and vaccines made to combat it. Though conspiracy theories about vaccines are not a new phenomenon, this was the first time they were observed becoming elevated to the level of national political discourse. A new study led by researchers from the University of Tokyo shows that online political engagement, conspiracy theories and spirituality played crucial roles in shaping the anti-vaccine beliefs of different groups.

The pandemic was a world-changing event that will likely be studied from many different perspectives for a long time to come. Researchers around the world explore the impacts it had on people, institutions, health, and even the environment. Professor Fujio Toriumi from the Department of Systems Innovation studies how public opinion forms by analyzing communications data such as news media or social networking. His group examined the phenomena of anti-vaccination conspiracy theories, focusing on Japanese Twitter records, and drew some conclusions about the impacts and causes of such beliefs.

“During the COVID-19 pandemic, there was a rise in anti-vaccine sentiments on social media, and our study aimed to understand the triggers that led individuals to adopt anti-vaccine attitudes,” said Toriumi. “We found anti-vaccination conspiracy theorists, so-called anti-vaxxers, exhibited stronger political engagement compared to vaccine supporters. Although some Japanese users express right-wing tendencies, a majority lean toward more left-wing ideologies, in contrast to what was observed in the West.”

Long-term anti-vaxxers showed strong political engagement, often aligning with liberal parties; however, those brought into the fold of anti-vaxxers due to the pandemic exhibited weaker political interest overall, but there were strong and frequent occurrences of terms related to conspiracy theories and spirituality in their Twitter profile descriptions. While the study doesn't establish causation, it highlights the potential role of conspiracy theories and spirituality as gateways leading individuals to support more divisive politicians and political parties.

“Spirituality, naturalism, alternative health practices and anti-vaccine sentiments all have something in common: their indifference or even disdain for scientific evidence,” said Toriumi. “Individuals interested in these topics tend to pick what scientific facts suit their opinions. Also, they exhibit strong resistance to the incorporation of artificial substances into their bodies under the guise of naturalism. It is believed that these similarities serve as gateways to anti-vaccine conspiracy theories.”

It might be tempting to think that the views and opinions of fringe groups online don’t have any real-world consequences, but there have been some high-profile cases of conspiracy theories breaking the confines of the online realm; for example, in the U.S., the so-called Capitol insurrection and far-right conspiracy group QAnon’s obstruction of vaccine efforts, and in Japan, the rise of controversial political party Sanseito, which is built on a variety of conspiracy theories and anti-immigration rhetoric, amongst other things, but also environmentalism. And while the spread and impact of conspiracy theories is a global issue, there are some instances that are particular to Japan.

“The uniqueness of conspiracy theorists leaning left in Japan may be attributed to the impact of the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster,” said Toriumi. “While anti-nuclear sentiments have long been associated with leftist ideologies, the addition of the fear stemming from radioactive contamination has led to the proliferation of conspiracy theories predominantly within the leftist spectrum, believed to be related to fear surrounding the incorporation of foreign substances into the human body. This might have heightened fear, hesitancy and mistrust in vaccines during the pandemic and was likely reinforced by increased representation online.”

All over the world, not just in Japan, social media is considered a major vector for spreading misinformation. The prominent factors for this include the rapid dissemination of information and the wide scope of its reach, as well as the influence of the echo chamber, the nature of social media platforms to present users with things that likely support — and reinforce — their biases. These unique characteristics of social media make it more susceptible to the spread of misinformation compared to traditional media, which are more likely to have editorial oversight or even legal regulation regarding content, and which social media usually lacks. Social media platforms also contain a vast sea of data, which make them far more difficult to observe and analyze.

“The most challenging aspect of conducting this research was applying machine learning and data analysis techniques to vast feeds of Twitter data that were constantly changing,” said Toriumi. “This was done to classify patterns of people's attitude changes toward the COVID-19 vaccine, distinguishing between persistent anti-vaxxers and pandemic-induced new anti-vaxxers. In the future, we intend to explore the effectiveness of different communication strategies in addressing vaccine hesitancy and misinformation. Additionally, we plan to investigate the role of social media platforms and their algorithms in amplifying or mitigating the spread of conspiracy theories and misinformation. Understanding these dynamics is crucial for developing effective interventions to promote public health and combat misinformation.”

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Journal article:

Fujio Toriumi, Takeshi Sakaki, Tetsuro Kobayashi, Mitsuo Yoshida, “Anti-vaccine rabbit hole leads to political representation: the case of Twitter in Japan”, Journal of Computational Social Science, DOI: 10.1007/s42001-023-00241-8

Funding:
This research was conducted with the support of JSPS KAKENHI Grant-in-Aid for Young Scientists (Project Numbers: 21K17859, 19K20413), JST Future Society Creation Project (JPMJMI20B4), and JST RISTEX (JPMJRX20J3).

Links:
Graduate School of Engineering - https://www.t.u-tokyo.ac.jp/soee/index.html
Department of Systems Innovation - https://www.sys.t.u-tokyo.ac.jp/en/?lang=en

Research contact:
Professor Fujio Toriumi
Department of Systems Innovation, Graduate School of Engineering,
The University of Tokyo, 7-3-1 Hongo, Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo 113-8656, Japan
tori@sys.t.u-tokyo.ac.jp

Press contact:
Mr. Rohan Mehra
Public Relations Group, The University of Tokyo,
7-3-1 Hongo, Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo, 113-8656, Japan
press-releases.adm@gs.mail.u-tokyo.ac.jp

About The University of Tokyo:

The University of Tokyo is Japan's leading university and one of the world's top research universities. The vast research output of some 6,000 researchers is published in the world's top journals across the arts and sciences. Our vibrant student body of around 15,000 undergraduate and 15,000 graduate students includes over 4,000 international students. Find out more at www.u-tokyo.ac.jp/en/ or follow us on X (formerly Twitter) at @UTokyo_News_en.

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JOURNAL

Journal of Computational Social Science

DOI

10.1007/s42001-023-00241-8 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Data/statistical analysis

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

People

ARTICLE TITLE

Anti-vaccine rabbit hole leads to political representation: the case of Twitter in Japan

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

25-Feb-2024

OPEN PUBLISHING

Taylor & Francis extends Wikipedia editor access to all journals

New agreement with The Wikipedia Library allows volunteer editors to use the latest peer-reviewed research to enhance the quality and reliability of Wikipedia articles

TAYLOR & FRANCIS GROUP

The work of Wikipedia’s volunteer editors has been given a significant boost with the announcement they now have free access to all Taylor & Francis and Routledge journals. Through The Wikipedia Library, a project of the Wikimedia Foundation, the global non-profit that hosts Wikipedia and other Wikimedia projects, active Wikipedia editors will be able to read and cite millions of peer-reviewed journal articles across every discipline, from anthropology to zoology.

Wikipedia is one of the most widely used sources of information on the internet and has more than 6 million articles in the English-language version alone. The information on Wikipedia is curated by a global community of volunteer editors around the world. These editors compile and share information on notable subjects from reliable sources, such as newspaper articles and peer-reviewed journals, in accordance with the encyclopedia’s editorial policies and guidelines.

Since 2015, The Wikipedia Library and Taylor & Francis partnership has supported active volunteer editors, who often lack access to university collections, to read Taylor & Francis journals in the arts and humanities, strategic studies, and business. The new agreement, which extends the program to more than 3 million articles across all subject disciplines, will substantially increase the diversity of content available to Wikipedia editors.

In 2023, Wikipedia editors visited Taylor & Francis Online more than 9,000 times and there are now almost 67,000 citations in Wikipedia articles to Taylor & Francis journals.

“We are excited to expand our collaboration with Taylor & Francis and offer even more resources to Wikipedia editors as they conduct research on a range of critical topics,” said Sam Walton, Senior Product Manager at the Wikimedia Foundation. “This collaboration helps Wikipedia remain reliable and trustworthy for its millions of monthly readers, drawing on quality reference materials from Taylor & Francis journals.”

Martin Wilson, Head of Content at Taylor & Francis, added: “Wikipedia is the first port of call for so many of us when we want to find out about a new topic and Wikipedia editors do an amazing job helping to keep it as accurate and up to date as possible. We hope this extended partnership with The Wikipedia Library will make Taylor & Francis Online an even more useful resource for supporting that work.”

Biodiversity of gut bacteria is associated with sexual behavior

HZI researchers demonstrated a significantly higher biodiversity of the gut microbiome in men who had sex with men

Peer-Reviewed Publication

HELMHOLTZ CENTRE FOR INFECTION RESEARCH

 

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ELECTRON MICROGRAPH OF SEGATELLA COPRI (STRAIN HDD04)

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CREDIT: HZI/MATHIAS MUESKEN

The human body is colonized by a variety of different microorganisms such as bacteria, yeasts and fungi. All these microbial co-inhabitants - known as the microbiome or microbiota - are important for our health: For example, the microbiome in the gut supports digestion and helps to make nutrients available. Although certain groups of bacteria dominate the human gut microbiome, the exact composition varies from person to person. For example, bacteria from the Prevotellaceae family and the associated genus Segatella are very common, but not much is known about their biology as they are difficult to isolate and cultivate. They are part of the original microbiome and are found in around 90 percent of people living in non-industrialized regions around the world such as the Amazon or parts of Africa. In contrast, only 20 to 30 percent of people in Europe and the USA carry these bacteria.

A research team led by Prof. Till Strowig, who heads the "Microbial Immune Regulation" department at the Helmholtz Centre for Infection Research (HZI) in Braunschweig, recently succeeded in isolating additional representatives of the Segatella bacterial members. "With high-resolution and high-throughput genomic analyses, we were able to show that the Segatella group along with the well-known representative Segatella copri (previously known as Prevotella copri) is a much larger complex than it was previously known, with five species which were never described before," says Strowig. With joint efforts from the Leibniz Institute DSMZ-German Collection of Microorganisms and Cell Cultures GmbH and the University of Trento (Italy), the research team has comprehensively characterized these species regarding their genomic diversity, biological features, and links with human health. "Segatella are specialized in the degradation of dietary fibres. However, it is still not known whether or how they benefit our health," says Strowig. The fact that they occur much less frequently in the microbiome of people living in the westernized world is probably a result of the hygienic conditions: "Due to their extreme specialization in humans, these bacteria are mainly acquired through interpersonal contact, not through food, and intensive hygiene measures can break such natural colonization chains."

Together with Prof. Nicola Segata's team from the University of Trento, the scientists used meta-analyses to build associations between Segatella and certain diseases, but no associations were found. Instead, they found that Segatella is more common in males and is associated with a positive state of the cardiovascular system. The researchers published their findings in the journal Cell Host & Microbe.

In a follow-up study, the research team observed an elevated occurrence of Segatella in German men who had sex with men. They used both microbiome data and information collected by questionnaire from the study participants, who were recruited at the University Hospital Essen under the direction of Dr Jan Kehrmann. Segatella were particularly common in the gut microbiome of men who had sex with men, and their presence was also associated with sexual behaviors. "Around 70 percent of men who practiced sex with men carried multiple Segatella species in their gut microbiome, whereas this only occurs in around ten percent of the total Western population. These men thus had a microbiome that is very similar to that of people in non-industrialized regions and differs significantly from the average microbiome of industrialized societies," says Kehrmann, a physician-scientist at the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Duisburg-Essen. The results have now been published in Cell Reports Medicine.

The analysis of the data on sexual behaviors revealed that a higher Segatella diversity was mainly driven by frequent partner changes. Interestingly, unprotected anal intercourse and oral sex were also significant factors yet with a less remarked influence. The analyzed data was collected as part of an HIV study, consisting of HIV-positive and HIV-negative men. Subjects of both groups were divided into men who practiced sex with men and those who did not. An influence of the HIV infection on the diversity of Segatella species in the intestine could not be observed. "We speculate that the influence of sexual behaviors in the human gut microbiome might not be specific only to men who have sex with men. Therefore, we planned further studies on the microbiome in different sexual behaviors in populations including all genders," says Till Strowig.

In many diseases such as inflammatory bowel disease, the microbiome has a reduced diversity of species, which is why a more diverse microbiome is seen as positive for health. "Mechanistically, the connection between microbial diversity in the gut and a positive effect on health is not yet understood," says Strowig. "However, our study results to date show that there are various transmission pathways for gut-associated Segatella species that influence the diversity of the microbial world."

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JOURNAL

Cell Reports Medicine

DOI

10.1016/j.xcrm.2024.101426 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Randomized controlled/clinical trial

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

People

ARTICLE TITLE

Establishment of a non-Westernized gut microbiota in Men-who-have-sex-with-men is associated with sexual practices