New study provides insights into COVID-19 vaccine uptake among children and young people

COVID-19 vaccine uptake among children and young people was low across all four UK nations according to pioneering new research

SWANSEA UNIVERSITY

COVID-19 vaccine uptake among children and young people was low across all four UK nations, compared to other age groups, according to the first research study to look at data from all four UK nations.

It also revealed that uptake further reduced for second and booster vaccinations.

Uptake of COVID-19 vaccination was associated with age and sex of the child and young person, as well as number of people and vaccination status of the household.

The research, led by Professor Rhiannon Owen at Swansea University and Professor Sir Aziz Sheikh at the University of Edinburgh, linked health and administrative data to explore COVID-19 vaccine uptake in over 3.4 million children and young people aged between 5 and 17 in the UK.  

The research, published in Nature Communications, was a collaboration between Swansea University, the University of Oxford, Queen's University Belfast, the University of Edinburgh, and Strathclyde University.

The study looked at anonymised data between August 4, 2021, and May 31, 2022. It explored the factors influencing vaccine uptake among children and young people, including sex, age, and household factors, while accounting for delays in vaccine uptake due to infection.

The study used multi-state modelling and meta-analysis techniques to identify key demographic variables influencing vaccine uptake among children and young people on a national scale.

The study showed that across the UK nations 35 per cent of children and young people received the first vaccine, 21 per cent received the second, and 2 per cent received the booster dose. During the study period 13 per cent tested positive for COVID-19 and 133 died of all-causes.

Children and young people aged five to 11 years old were 90 per cent less likely to receive their first COVID-19 vaccine, and 12 to 15-year-olds were 42 per cent less likely compared to 16 to 17-year-olds.

The researchers revealed that children and young people in unvaccinated households were 81 per cent less likely to receive their first COVID-19 vaccine compared to children and young people from households with at least one vaccinated adult.

Males were 7 per cent less likely to receive their first vaccine compared to females, and children and young people residing in single adult households were 11 per cent less likely to receive their first vaccine compared to children living in households with two people.

First author Sarah Aldridge, researcher and data scientist at Population Data Science at Swansea, said:  “Our research emphasises the critical role of prioritising COVID vaccination efforts for children and young people. The data highlights the necessity for targeted interventions to address specific risk factors, ensuring widespread protection and mitigating potential impacts on this age group.

“To prepare for possible future pandemics, understanding and addressing vaccination differences among vulnerable populations are critical to effective public health strategies."

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JOURNAL

Nature Communications

DOI

10.1038/s41467-024-46451-0 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Data/statistical analysis

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

People

ARTICLE TITLE

Uptake of COVID-19 vaccinations amongst 3,433,483 children and young people: meta-analysis of UK prospective cohorts

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

22-Mar-2024

COI STATEMENT

AS has served on a number of UK and Scottish government COVID-19 advisory bodies. CR has served on a number of UK and Scottish government COVID-19 advisory bodies—SPI-M, MHRA Covid Vaccines Benefit and Risk Group, Scottish Government Covid Advisory Group and Chief Nursing Officer Nosocomial Advisory Group. DTB has served on a number of UK and Northern Ireland government COVID-19 advisory bodies. All other authors report no competing interests. RAL was a member of the Welsh Government COVID-19 Technical Advisory Group. RKO is a member of the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) Technology Appraisal Committee, member of the NICE Decision Support Unit (DSU), and associate member of the NICE Technical Support Unit (TSU). RKO has served as a paid consultant to the pharmaceutical industry, providing unrelated methodological advice generally. She reports teaching fees from the Association of British Pharmaceutical Industry (ABPI) and the University of Bristol. SdeL has received grants through his University for vaccine related research from AstraZeneca, GSK, Moderna, MSD, Sanofi and Seqirus. He has also been a member of advisory boards for AstraZeneca, GSK, Sanofi and Seqirus, with any funding paid to his University. The remaining authors have nothing to declare.

Can taking antibiotics combat the gut bacteria that contribute to the pathogenesis of COVID-19?

WILEY

New research indicates that antibiotics can effectively target bacteria in the gut that harbor the virus that causes COVID-19 and produce toxin-like peptides that contribute to COVID-19-related symptoms. In the study, which involved 211 participants and was published in the Journal of Medical Virology, individuals who received early antibiotic treatment after having COVID-19 recovered more quickly than those who did not receive antibiotics.

The authors had already evaluated the efficacy of certain antibiotics in SARS-CoV-2-infected bacterial cultures in vitro, and this new study demonstrates promising results with the use of the combination of 2 antibiotics (amoxicillin and rifaximin) within the first 3 days.

Furthermore, a significant number of patients who received antibiotics within the first 3 days and for a duration of 7 days during the acute phase of COVID-19 did not develop long COVID.

"Our findings suggest that antibiotics should be considered in acute infection and Long COVID. The study also lays the foundation for additional vaccine strategies," said co–corresponding author Marina Piscopo, PhD, of the University of Naples Federico, in Italy.

URL upon publication: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/jmv.29507

 

Additional Information
NOTE: The information contained in this release is protected by copyright. Please include journal attribution in all coverage. For more information or to obtain a PDF of any study, please contact: Sara Henning-Stout, newsroom@wiley.com.

About the Journal
Journal of Medical Virology is a clinical virology journal publishing original scientific papers on fundamental and applied research concerning viruses affecting humans. We welcome reports describing the characterization, diagnosis, epidemiology, immunology and pathogenesis of human viral infections and diseases. Basic studies on virus morphology, genetics, replication and host-cell interactions are also accepted.

About Wiley
Wiley is a knowledge company and a global leader in research, publishing, and knowledge solutions. Dedicated to the creation and application of knowledge, Wiley serves the world’s researchers, learners, innovators, and leaders, helping them achieve their goals and solve the world's most important challenges. For more than two centuries, Wiley has been delivering on its timeless mission to unlock human potential. Visit us at Wiley.com. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Instagram.

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JOURNAL

Journal of Medical Virology

DOI

10.1002/jmv.29507 

ARTICLE TITLE

A retrospective cohort study on early antibiotic use in vaccinated and unvaccinated COVID-19 patients

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

20-Mar-2024

 

Physicists develop modeling software to diagnose serious diseases

UNIVERSITY OF COPENHAGEN - FACULTY OF SCIENCE

 

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ILLUSTRATION OF MESOSCALE SIMULATIONS OF MITOCHONDRIAL MEMBRANE WITH REALISTIC SHAPE AND SIZE

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CREDIT: WERIA PEZESHKIAN

Researchers at the Niels Bohr Institute, University of Copenhagen and University of Southern Denmark have recently published FreeDTS – a shared software package designed to model and study biological membranes at the mesoscale – the scale “in between” the larger macro level and smaller micro level.

This software fills an important missing software among the available biomolecular modeling tools and enables modeling and understanding of many different biological processes involving the cellular membranes e.g. cell division.

Membrane shape contains information about the physiological state of the cell and overall health of an organism, so this new tool, with its wide array of applications, will enhance our understanding of cell behavior and open routes for diagnostics of infections and diseases like Parkinsons.

The publication of FreeDTS is now reported in Nature Communications.

Sharing a powerful tool that could have provided NBI with an advantage. Why?

The software package Weria Pezeshkian from the Niels Bohr Institute has been working on for the last 5 years, after an initial idea between him and John Ipsen from the University of Southern Denmark, is shared – laid open for every researcher in this field to use.

Normally the competition for achieving scientific results is high, and science advancements kept secret until publication – so this seems like a very generous attitude indeed. So generous it might seem a bit naive.

It is a strange mix of respect for the “pioneers” of the biomolecular modeling field and the fact that the field offers so many unanswered questions that it would seem almost disrespectful towards the scientific community to keep the tool to ourselves, Weria Pezeshkian explains.

“There are so many questions and bottlenecks to tackle to reach the end goals, that it would be unlikely that we work on exactly the same problems. However, occasional overlap occurs and is a worthwhile cost we pay for advancing the field.

But there is another aspect as well: One of the reasons our community, the biomolecular simulation and modeling community has had this surge in popularity and a fast growth is that we’ve always strived to get more people into the game and share ideas, results and methods and often direct assistance without expecting immediate personal gains.

This culture was built by the early pioneers in the field, for one, late , who always promoted this approach of sharing and bringing people in – so we are to a large extent standing on the shoulders of giants in this respect”.

Acknowledging Herman Berendsen

Herman Berendsen (1934-2019) was a professor of physical chemistry at the University of Groningen (RUG). He was especially known for his contributions to the field of molecular modeling and his dedication to translate models into accessible applications.

Berendsen was especially praised for his non-hierarchical and open approach. This not only locally at his institute, where he was known for enabling the young researchers in his group, but also among the wider scientific community. He contributed to computer simulation applications that are still widely used to study the dynamics of biomolecules. Examples of this are his SPC (simple-point-charge) model, used to model liquid water; and the ‘Berendsen’ thermostat and barostat, that serves to keep the temperature and pressure constant during simulations.

Also, he organized a series of workshops where pioneers in the field met to discuss and share their newest findings.

Berendsen remains one of RUG’s most cited scholars. The applicability of his work ranges far beyond the field of physical chemistry and it is also used by mathematicians, computer scientists, molecular life scientists and in the development of medical applications.

Biological membranes – what are they really?

When you consider a cell, you can imagine a whole lot of small “factories” inside, called organelles, doing their thing – surrounded by a membrane.

The cell also is surrounded by a membrane called Plasma membrane. But membranes are not just a boundary surface. They are actively participating in many processes. They are made from a myriad of different molecules, and they are dynamic, in motion all the time.

Many diseases are associated with irregular membrane shape and abnormal biomolecular organization, so the study of membranes can help us understand the  state of a cell and overall  health of an organism. For instance, when a neuron has increased spiking activity, indicating a higher energy demand, the structure of mitochondria, an organelle responsible for generating cellular energy parcels from food (often referred to as the powerhouse of the cell), undergoes changes.

Moreover, certain diseases, e.g., Alzheimers for one, have been associated with changes in the mitochondrial membranes shapes.

Computer models will improve our abilities within diagnostics

“For now, we are not able to see exactly what the exact causes of changes in membrane shape are and how are they exactly related to the diagnostics of a certain disease. But at some point, in the future, the try and error works in the lab will become minimal because modelling will guide experiments with unimaginable accuracy, as our modeling becomes more precise and the power of computational options increasing.

We will need a lot of adjustments and there is still long way to go, so it is really nice to work within this sharing community, because we all work on different aspects of it” Weria Pezeshkian explains.

Weria continues with a word of caution: “This is probably stretching it a bit far, but possibly, in the future, by imaging for example our mitochondria and leveraging physics-based computer simulations we may be able to say: This person has this disease with this specific genetic deficiency. So, the perspective for computational modelling is rather great – we are not there yet, but we can see it in the horizon”.

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JOURNAL

Nature Communications

DOI

10.1038/s41467-024-44819-w 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Computational simulation/modeling

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

Cells

ARTICLE TITLE

Mesoscale simulation of biomembranes with FreeDTS

 ALL MEDICINE IS FOR PROFIT

Is active screening for tuberculosis among vulnerable populations cost-effective?

In their systematic review published in Eurosurveillance prior to World TB Day, Gogichadze et al. explore this question particularly for settings with a low incidence of TB cases.

EUROPEAN CENTRE FOR DISEASE PREVENTION AND CONTROL (ECDC)

Early detection and prompt treatment of tuberculosis (TB) are main pillars on the way to end TB as it helps preventing further transmission. Finding those at risk of developing infection, however, requires extra efforts particularly in settings where TB incidence levels are generally low, i.e. when there are less than 10 TB cases per 100,000 population.

This is where active screening targeting populations at higher risk of TB infection, which include people in urban aeras with lower incomes, people experiencing homelessness, communities in remote or isolated areas, indigenous populations, migrants, refugees, internally displaced persons and other vulnerable or marginalised groups with limited access to healthcare, could help detecting (latent) infections.

In the Eurosurveillance issue marking World TB Day 2024 [1], Gogichadze et al. [2] present the findings of their systematic review on active pulmonary TB screening programmes run between 2008 and 2023 in so-called high-risk groups living in low TB incidence countries. The authors wanted to identify if active searches for pulmonary TB would be cost-effective given that passive case finding approach may not be sufficient in the effort of detecting and treating TB patients.  

Active case finding makes a difference
In their search, the authors found 6,318 articles based on their search criteria and included nine of them in their review with the specific angle of active case finding that e.g. included chest X-ray, tuberculin skin test, interferon-gamma release assay and a symptoms questionnaire for screening.

Analysing the results of the reviewed articles, Gogichadze et al. conclude that “screening immigrants from countries with a TB incidence with more than 40 cases per 100,000 population and other vulnerable populations as individuals from isolated communities, people experiencing homelessness, those accessing drug treatment services and contacts, is cost-effective in low-incidence countries”.

A comparison between levels of cost-effectiveness was, however, not possible due to the data heterogenicity and, according to the authors, requires further harmonisation of the methods for cost-effectiveness analysis.

They summarise that “based on the findings spanning 16 years and the guidelines available, we have listed several recommendations for optimising study design for active screening programmes for TB in low-incidence countries. Firstly, to guide policymakers, cost-effectiveness analysis should always be part of TB screening activities targeting high-risk groups in low TB incidence countries. Additionally, cost-effectiveness studies should follow national economic evaluation guidelines in case they are available and consider the published WHO guidance. Moreover, the cost-effectiveness analysis should encompass not only the expenses related to screening, but also those related to diagnosis and treatment.”

 

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References/notes to editors:
[1] In this issue research articles from de Neeling et al. on genetic markers to simply and rapidly screen for drug-resistant TB clones and Ostergaard et al. on The prevalence of tuberculosis infection in adolescents and adults Denmark and a review on cost-effectiveness of active #TB screening programmes. In their rapid communication, Stoycheva et al. argue that targeted healthcare services for Ukrainians are vital for early diagnosis and treatment and preventing transmission.

[2] Gogichadze Nino, Sagrera Arnau, Vicente José Ángel, Millet Joan-Pau, López-Seguí Francesc, Vilaplana Cristina. Cost-effectiveness of active tuberculosis screening among high-risk populations in low tuberculosis incidence countries: a systematic review, 2008 to 2023. Euro Surveill. 2024;29(12):pii=2300614. Available from: https://doi.org/10.2807/1560-7917.ES.2024.29.12.2300614

[3] The World Health Organization (WHO) launched the first World Tuberculosis Day on 24 March 1982, one hundred years after Dr Robert Koch announced the discovery of Mycobacterium tuberculosis, the bacteria that cause TB.

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JOURNAL

Eurosurveillance

DOI

10.2807/1560-7917.ES.2024.29.12.2300614 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Systematic review

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

People

ARTICLE TITLE

Cost-effectiveness of active tuberculosis screening among high-risk populations in low tuberculosis incidence countries: a systematic review, 2008 to 2023

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

21-Mar-2024

 

Mount Sinai is first in New York to study a brain-computer interface designed to record and map the brain’s activity in unprecedented detail

THE MOUNT SINAI HOSPITAL / MOUNT SINAI SCHOOL OF MEDICINE

 

IMAGE: 

THE MOUNT SINAI HOSPITAL CAMPUS

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CREDIT: MOUNT SINAI HEALTH SYSTEM

A multidisciplinary team of neurosurgeons and neuroscientists from the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai are the first in New York to study a new brain-computer interface that’s engineered to map a large area of the brain’s surface, in real time, at resolutions hundreds of times more detailed than typical arrays used in neurosurgical procedures.

A brain-computer interface (BCI) is a system that deciphers brain signals and translates them into commands for external technologies. The ultimate goal of a BCI is to restore function to patients with debilitating neurological conditions by enabling them to operate digital devices using only their thoughts.

The Layer 7 Cortical Interface, developed by Precision Neuroscience Corporation, contains 1,024 tiny electrodes spanning an area of 1.5 square centimeter, embedded in a flexible film that conforms to the brain’s surface. The film is one-fifth the thickness of a human hair and was designed to be implanted and removed by neurosurgeons without damaging brain tissue.

“Mount Sinai has established an international reputation for our ability to conduct the most advanced biomedical and scientific research, for our commitment to exceptional patient care, and for our entrepreneurial approach to generating new treatments and advancements in care,” said Joshua B. Bederson, MD, Chair of Neurosurgery at the Mount Sinai Health System and Co-Founder of Mount Sinai BioDesign. “This culture of excellence, innovation, and collaboration attracts some of the brightest and best clinicians and researchers in the world who are capable of rapidly translating research breakthroughs into new products and services that provide meaningful benefit to patients and our society. We are proud to be one of the leading sites participating in the trials for the new array and eager to see what we learn from the detailed information we will collect and analyze.”

As part of an open-label, single-arm feasibility study, Mount Sinai neurosurgeons are temporarily placing the investigational device on the surface of the study participants’ brains during intracranial procedures where surface mapping is routinely performed and correlated to evoked potentials (tests that measure the brain’s response to sensory stimulation) or standardized behavioral tasks that are routinely performed as part of these procedures. The device records high-resolution electrophysiological signals and the data collected is compared to that obtained using standard-of-care cortical surface arrays.

A team of Mount Sinai neuroscientists who have deep expertise in human electrophysiology will analyze and interpret the massive amount of data collected from the device. A secondary objective of the study is to assess the ability of the thin-film electrode to map electrophysiological correlates of awake behavioral tasks, including motor, speech, and cognitive tasks.

“Despite the vast complexity of activity across the human brain, standard monitoring tools can only capture a tiny fraction of the data we need—from a small handful of areas, or at very slow temporal resolution. This low-resolution data significantly limits our understanding of brain function and brain disorders,” says Ignacio Saez, PhD, Associate Professor of Neuroscience, and Neurosurgery, Director of the Human Neurophysiology Laboratory, and Principal Investigator of the trial at Icahn Mount Sinai. “The new device is exciting because it provides us with an extremely detailed depiction of electrical activity in the brain, capturing thousands of data points per second from a thousand brain sites in each participant. By monitoring neuronal activity at this unprecedented resolution, our interdisciplinary team at Mount Sinai hopes to gain important insights into how brain function supports behavior and is affected by disease states. Our ultimate goal is to obtain actionable knowledge that will open the door to new treatments for neurological and psychiatric disorders and improve quality of life for our patients.”

Precision Neuroscience was co-founded by Benjamin Rapoport, MD, PhD, Assistant Professor of Neurosurgery at Icahn Mount Sinai, a practicing neurosurgeon who has a PhD in electrical engineering and computer science. Dr. Rapoport also serves as the Scientific Director of Mount Sinai BioDesign, a medical technology prototyping center and incubator housed within the Mount Sinai Health System.

Dr. Rapoport is an equity owner in Precision Neuroscience and serves as their Chief Scientific Officer and a member of their board of directors. As a faculty member in the Department of Neurosurgery, he reports to Dr. Bederson. Neither Dr. Bederson nor Mount Sinai have a financial interest in Precision Neuroscience. All Precision Neuroscience research at Mount Sinai is conducted by independent investigators without financial ties to the company.

About the Mount Sinai Health System
Mount Sinai Health System is one of the largest academic medical systems in the New York metro area, with more than 43,000 employees working across eight hospitals, more than 400 outpatient practices, more than 300 labs, a school of nursing, and a leading school of medicine and graduate education. Mount Sinai advances health for all people, everywhere, by taking on the most complex health care challenges of our time—discovering and applying new scientific learning and knowledge; developing safer, more effective treatments; educating the next generation of medical leaders and innovators; and supporting local communities by delivering high-quality care to all who need it. Through the integration of its hospitals, labs, and schools, Mount Sinai offers comprehensive health care solutions from birth through geriatrics, leveraging innovative approaches such as artificial intelligence and informatics while keeping patients’ medical and emotional needs at the center of all treatment. The Health System includes approximately 7,400 primary and specialty care physicians; 13 joint-venture outpatient surgery centers throughout the five boroughs of New York City, Westchester, Long Island, and Florida; and more than 30 affiliated community health centers. Hospitals within the System are consistently ranked by Newsweek’s® “The World’s Best Smart Hospitals, Best in State Hospitals, World Best Hospitals and Best Specialty Hospitals” and by U.S. News & World Report's® “Best Hospitals” and “Best Children’s Hospitals.” The Mount Sinai Hospital is on the U.S. News & World Report® “Best Hospitals” Honor Roll for 2023-2024.

About Mount Sinai BioDesign
Mount Sinai BioDesign is the medical technology prototyping center and incubator housed within the Mount Sinai Health System. The team comprises a unique blend of entrepreneurs, engineers, clinicians, trialists, and project managers with a mission to improve clinical care through the invention, development, and commercialization of new medical technologies. Sinai BioDesign works with internal and external partners, assisting Mount Sinai faculty to develop and launch new technologies, and assisting external industry partners in the optimization and validation of existing technologies. The team has core competencies around rapid iterative prototype development, benchtop testing within bespoke anatomical models, preclinical testing, and the design and operation of early-stage clinical trials. Sinai BioDesign has numerous patent applications, has launched several funded startups, and has existing partnerships with major surgical technology corporations. Originating from the Department of Neurosurgery and led by Dr. Joshua Bederson, the team has a deep portfolio of neurotechnology innovations and partnerships.

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METHOD OF RESEARCH

Experimental study

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

People

 

Multiple unsafe sleep practices found in most sudden infant deaths

UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA HEALTH SYSTEM

 

IMAGE: 

FERN HAUCK, MD, MS, IS A SAFE-SLEEP EXPERT AT UVA HEALTH AND THE UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA SCHOOL OF MEDICINE. 

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CREDIT: DAN ADDISON | UVA COMMUNICATIONS

There were multiple unsafe sleep practices at play in more than three-quarters of Sudden Unexpected Infant Deaths reported in 23 jurisdictions between 2011 and 2020, a new study reveals. The researchers say the findings underscore the need for more comprehensive safe-sleep education for new parents, including from healthcare providers.

Of 7,595 infant deaths reviewed, almost 60% of the infants were sharing a sleep surface, such as a bed, when they died. This practice is strongly discouraged by sleep experts, who warn that a parent or other bed partner could unintentionally roll over and suffocate the baby.

Infants who died while sharing a sleep surface were typically younger (less than 3 months old), non-Hispanic Black, publicly insured, and either in the care of a parent at the time of death or being supervised by someone impaired by drugs or alcohol. These infants were typically found in an adult bed, chair or couch instead of the crib or bassinet recommended by sleep experts.

“The large number of hazardous sleep practices for both infants who were sharing a sleep surface and sleeping alone at the time of death is alarming,” said researcher Fern Hauck, MD, MS, a safe-sleep expert at UVA Health and the University of Virginia School of Medicine. “These are known risk factors for SUID [Sudden Unexpected Infant Death], and tells us that we need to do a better job of working with families to increase acceptance of the recommendations to create safer sleep spaces for their infants.” 

Sudden Unexpected Infant Deaths

To better understand the factors contributing to SUID and improve safe-sleep messaging, Hauck and her collaborators analyzed data from the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s SUID Case Registry. That data reflects localities from Alaska to Wyoming, including the Tidewater area of Virginia. 

Examining the registry allowed the researchers to obtain important insights on the prevalence of practices such as prenatal smoking, a known risk factor for SUID, and breastfeeding, which is thought to have a protective benefit. More than 36% of mothers of infants who died had smoked while pregnant. This percentage was higher among moms who bed shared than those who didn’t, 41.4% to 30.5%. Both bed sharers and non-bed sharers had breastfed at similar rates. 

The researchers note that it was rare for bedsharing to be the only risk factor present during a child’s death. The findings highlight the need for better public education about safe-sleep practices, and for care providers to take a more active role in teaching new parents about the practices, the researchers say.

 “Our findings support comprehensive safe sleep counseling for every family at every encounter beyond just asking where an infant is sleeping,” the researchers write in a new paper in the journal Pediatrics.

In addition to helping parents understand safe-sleep practices, care providers should take steps to ensure parents can follow those practices once they leave the hospital. For example, some families may not have the means to purchase a crib or bassinet; a hospital might direct them to resources to help with that.

“SUID deaths in the U.S. are still higher than in most other countries, and this is unacceptable,” Hauck said. “Clinicians and others caring for infants need to have thoughtful conversations with families at risk to understand the barriers to following safe-sleep guidelines and find ways to work together to overcome them.”

About the SUID Research Team

The SUID research team consisted of Alexa B. Erck Lambert, Carrie K. Shapiro-Mendoza, Sharyn E. Parks, Carri Cottengim, Meghan Faulkner and Hauck. The researchers have no financial interest in the work.

To keep up with the latest medical research news from UVA, subscribe to the Making of Medicine blog

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JOURNAL

PEDIATRICS

DOI

10.1542/peds.2023-061984 

An avocado a day may improve overall diet quality, researchers report

NO MENTION OF TOAST

PENN STATE

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Eating one avocado per day may improve overall diet quality, according to a team led by researchers in Penn State’s Department of Nutritional Sciences. Poor diet quality is a risk factor for many diseases, including heart disease, and many American adults have poor diet quality and do not meet key dietary recommendations provided by the Dietary Guidelines for Americans.

This study was led by Kristina Petersen, associate professor of nutritional sciences, and Penny Kris-Etherton, retired Evan Pugh University Professor of Nutritional Sciences, and recently published in the journal Current Developments in Nutrition.  The researchers examined how a food-based intervention — one avocado per day — impacts overall diet quality.

“Avocados are a nutrient-dense food, containing a lot of fiber and other important nutrients. We wanted to see if regular intake of this food would lead to an increase in diet quality,” Petersen said. “Previous observational research suggests avocado consumers have higher diet quality than non-consumers. So, we developed this study to determine if there is a causational link between avocado consumption and overall diet quality.” 

Petersen stated that because only 2% of American adults are regular avocado consumers, the researchers wanted to determine if including avocados in an individual’s daily diet could significantly increase their diet quality.

Researchers conducted phone interviews with participants before the study began and at a few points throughout to determine what their dietary intake was like in the previous 24 hours and evaluated their diets using the Healthy Eating Index to determine how well they adhered to the Dietary Guidelines for Americans. Adherence to the guidelines was used as a measure of overall diet quality.

The study consisted of 1,008 participants who were split into two groups. One group continued their usual diet and limited their avocado intake during the 26-week study, while the other group incorporated one avocado per day into their diet.

“We found that the participants who had an avocado per day significantly increased their adherence to dietary guidelines,” Petersen said. “This suggests that strategies, like eating one avocado per day, can help people follow dietary guidelines and improve the quality of their diets.”

Although researchers said they were not surprised to see that eating avocados daily improved diet quality, they had not predicted how participants were able to achieve it.

“We determined that participants were using avocados as a substitute for some foods higher in refined grains and sodium,” Petersen said. “In our study, we classified avocados as a vegetable and did see an increase in vegetable consumption attributed to the avocado intake, but also participants used the avocados to replace some unhealthier options.”

According to Petersen, having poor diet quality substantially increases the risk for conditions like heart disease, type 2 diabetes, kidney disease and many other preventable diseases.

“By improving people’s adherence to dietary guidelines, we can help to reduce their risk of developing these chronic conditions and prolong healthy life expectancy,” Petersen said.

Petersen has also conducted similar studies investigating the impact of food-based interventions, including the relationship between pistachios and diet quality, but said that more research is needed to determine what other food-based strategies can be used to improve people’s adherence to dietary guidelines. 

“In studies like this one, we are able to determine food-based ways to improve diet quality, but behavioral strategies are also needed to help people adhere to dietary guidelines and reduce their risk of chronic disease,” Petersen said.

Other contributors to the study include Sydney Smith and David M. Reboussin, Wake Forest University School of Medicine; Alice H. Lichtenstein and Nirupa R. Matthan, Tufts University; Zhaoping Li, David Geffen School of Medicine at the University of California, Los Angeles; and Joan Sabate, Sujatha Rajaram and Gina Segovia-Siapco, Loma Linda University. 

The Avocado Nutrition Center supported this study. The funder did not influence the data analysis, data interpretation or writing of the published study.

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JOURNAL

Current Developments in Nutrition

DOI

10.1016/j.cdnut.2024.102079 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Randomized controlled/clinical trial

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

People

ARTICLE TITLE

One Avocado per Day as Part of Usual Intake Improves Diet Quality: Exploratory Results from a Randomized Controlled Trial

 

Accumulation of 'junk proteins' identified as one cause of aging and possible source of ALS

CENTRO NACIONAL DE INVESTIGACIONES ONCOLÓGICAS (CNIO)

 

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ACCUMULATION OF "JUNK PROTEINS": NORMAL CELLS (LEFT) AND CELLS SUBJECTED TO THE EFFECT OF THE TOXIC ARGININE-RICH PROTEIN (RIGHT). IN THE LATTER, RIBOSOMAL PROTEINS (GREEN FLUORESCENT) AND THE SIZE OF NUCLEOLI (RED) ARE INCREASED.

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CREDIT: CN

• 
  
• 
  
• CNIO researchers provide a new hypothesis to understand the origin of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or ALS. It would be triggered by a similar problem to that occurring in a group of rare diseases called ribosomopathies.
• In ALS patients, motor neurons would accumulate an excess of non-functional ribosomal proteins that eventually collapse the cell's clearance systems and cause toxicity.
• The study also opens a new front in aging research. The authors provide experimental evidence that formally proves a kind of stress called ‘nucleolar stress’ cause aging in mammals.

Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) is a degenerative disease. The neurons responsible for movement begin to die and muscle control is progressively lost, leading to a fatal outcome. The causes of ALS are currently unknown, and there is no effective treatment.

In a paper published in Molecular Cell, a team led by Óscar Fernández-Capetillo, head of the Genomic Instability Group at the Spanish National Cancer Research Center (CNIO), provides the first evidence that a possible cause of the hereditary type of ALS –familial ALS– is the accumulation in motor neurons of 'junk proteins', proteins with no function that wrongly accumulate and prevent the cell from functioning properly.

Specifically, these non-functional proteins that accumulate are ribosomal proteins, which normally form ribosomes, molecular factories in charge of protein production.

Thus, this study provides a new hypothesis for understanding the origin of ALS, by suggesting that it has a similar origin to another group of rare diseases known as ribosomopathies, also associated with an excess of non-functional ribosomal proteins (in the case of ALS, this problem is restricted to motor neurons).

The new study also opens a new front in a different area, aging research. The authors propose a new causal factor in the aging process, which until now would have been overlooked: nucleolar stress, a mechanism by which organelles called nucleoli react to various damages in the cell.

"In our work we report a new model that explains how nucleolar stress induces toxicity in animal cells, and we provide direct evidence that it accelerates aging in mammals," Vanesa Lafarga, corresponding co-author of the study says.

A 'tar' that blocks RNA

Most patients with hereditary ALS share mutations in a gene called C9ORF72. This mutation results in the production of toxic proteins –or peptides– rich in the amino acid arginine. In a previous work, Fernandez Capetillo's group took the first steps to understand why these peptides are toxic. The reason is that these toxins stick to DNA and RNA "as if they were tar," affecting virtually all reactions in the cell that use these nucleic acids.

The study now published in Molecular Cell, with Oleksandra Sirozh as first author, shows that the toxin has a particularly acute effect on the manufacture of new ribosomes, production factories inside the cell, which are made up of RNA and proteins.

ALS as a ribosomopathy

Thus, as they are unable to complete their assembly, "the cell accumulates an excess of orphan ribosomal proteins, incapable of forming ribosomes," explains Fernández Capetillo. "These proteins end up collapsing the cellular clearance systems, which finally leads to the death of the motor neurons".

For the authors, this work suggests for the first time a similarity between the cause of ALS and another type of diseases known as ribosomopathies, also associated with the accumulation of dysfunctional ribosomal proteins in a generalized manner in all cells of the human body.

Potential treatment pathway

Based on this finding, the CNIO group has explored a solution. "As the problem is the excess of ribosomal junk, we explored strategies to make cells produce fewer ribosomes," explains Fernández-Capetillo. To achieve this, they used genetic and pharmacological manipulation to switch off two of the mechanisms that generate ribosomes in tissues in vitro, and found that, by producing less "garbage", toxicity is actually reduced.

However, Fernández-Capetillo says that these results should be interpreted with caution: "We are in the first steps to see if we can give a therapeutic angle to these findings”. For the moment, these experiments simply indicate "the possible existence of avenues that had not been explored in the search for treatments" against ALS. "We must find ways to reduce the production of ribosomes so that waste decreases, while still keeping a sufficient number to guarantee the correct functioning of the cells."

A new cause of aging: nucleolar stress

The nucleolus is the cellular component where ribosomes are synthesized. In recent decades it has been observed that one of its functions is also to detect stress situations in the cell, such as DNA damage or lack of nutrients. Nucleolar stress can eventually alter protein production, and its triggers are the object of a very active area of research.

In the work now published in Molecular Cell, the authors generated animals expressing throughout the body the toxin found in ALS patients, which induced severe nucleolar stress. But the researchers also observed, unexpectedly, that these animals aged very rapidly.

Junk proteins accelerate aging

Based on their previous studies, they found that this aging was also due to the accumulation of non-functional ribosomal proteins: when animals were given a drug that reduces the rate of ribosome production, their life expectancy doubled.

There had been speculation about the relationship between nucleolar stress and aging, but it had not been possible to demonstrate a causal relationship. This work "is the first experimental evidence that generating nucleolar stress accelerates aging," says Fernández Capetillo.

The work has been co-financed by the Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities, FEDER funds from the European Union, the Spanish Association Against Cancer and the "la Caixa" Foundation in alliance with the Francisco Luzón Foundation.

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JOURNAL

Molecular Cell

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Experimental study

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

Animals

ARTICLE TITLE

Nucleolar stress caused by arginine-rich peptides triggers a ribosomopathy and accelerates aging in mice

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

22-Mar-2024