Does a beet a day keep heart disease away?

Beetroot juice promotes healthy circulation in postmenopausal women, according to a new study led by Penn State researchers

PENN STATE

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — After women go through menopause, their risk of heart disease increases dramatically. To improve and support heart and blood vessel health among postmenopausal women, researchers at Penn State studied whether beetroot juice can improve how blood vessels function. Results published today (June 10) in Frontiers in Nutrition indicated that daily consumption of beetroot juice by postmenopausal women may improve blood vessel function enough to reduce future heart disease risk.

Beetroot juice contains high levels of nitrate, which the body converts to nitric oxide. Nitric oxide helps blood vessels expand, making it easier for blood to flow through the circulatory system. The ability of nitric oxide to widen blood vessels is known to be particularly helpful during periods of limited blood flow and oxygen delivery, such as during a heart attack, according to the researchers.

David Proctor, professor of kinesiology and physiology at Penn State, and Jocelyn Delgado Spicuzza, who earned her doctorate in integrative and biomedical physiology from Penn State in May, led an interdisciplinary team of researchers who tested how nitrate-rich beetroot juice impacted blood vessel health in 24 postmenopausal women in their 50s and 60s.

“After menopause, women no longer produce estrogen, which helps maintain nitric oxide in the body,” said Delgado Spicuzza, first author of the research and current SAFE-T center research project manager. “This loss of nitric oxide production contributes to the substantial increase in heart disease risk for postmenopausal women. Foods that are rich in nitrate — especially beets — are being investigated as a natural, non-pharmaceutical way to protect the heart and blood vessels.”

Nitrate is an approved food additive for some animal-based food products, such as processed meats. However, nitrate food additives and preservatives are strictly regulated due to their potential to cause cancer, according to Delgado Spicuzza. In contrast, plants like beets, spinach and lettuce naturally accumulate nitrate from the soil. These plant-based sources of nitrate have cardiovascular benefits because the human body can convert nitrates from plants to nitric oxide, which it cannot do with nitrate added to meats.

In this study, participants had their vascular function tested at the Penn State Clinical Research Center and then consumed two 2.3-ounce bottles of beetroot juice as an initial dose, followed by one bottle every morning for a week. All participants consumed concentrated beetroot juice, with each serving providing as much nitrate as three large beets. A few weeks later, the participants drank beetroot juice with the nitrate removed.

Neither the researchers nor the participants knew which juice was being consumed at the time of testing. A day after their last dose, participants returned for testing of their vascular function. The researchers compared how well blood vessels expanded for each woman when they were and were not consuming the nitrate-rich beetroot juice.

The researchers used an ultrasound sensor to monitor how blood flowed through the brachial artery — which is in the upper arm and supplies blood to the hands — during a stress test in which blood flow was restricted in each participant’s forearm for five minutes. When the restriction was removed, researchers measured how blood flow changed in the brachial artery again. 

The results showed that consumption of nitrate-rich beetroot juice each day improved blood flow compared to when the participants drank nitrate-free beetroot juice. The researchers said that this level of improved blood-vessel function — if it could be maintained over the postmenopausal years — could significantly reduce the risk of heart disease. They said that long-term health benefits of beetroot juice have not been studied at this point, but the long-term benefits of nitrate-rich vegetables have been confirmed. 

“Women may need to consume beetroot juice daily — or even more often — to experience all of the potential cardiovascular benefits,” Proctor said. “Still, this research shows that beetroot juice can be very useful in protecting blood vessel health of mid-life women during a period of accelerating heart disease risk.” 

This study included women considered early postmenopausal, or one to six years post-menopause, and late postmenopausal, six or more years post-menopause. Late postmenopausal women saw the same benefits as the early postmenopausal group.  

Delgado Spicuzza said the research team was particularly excited to find that beetroot juice improved blood vessel health for women who had gone through menopause years earlier. Some treatments for protecting cardiovascular health in postmenopausal women — like hormone therapy — are only safe during the first several years post-menopause. After that, hormone therapy can increase the risk of cancers and stroke. 

“Some clinicians are already recommending beetroot juice to men and women with high blood pressure,” Delgado Spicuzza said. “By providing a safe and effective way to improve blood vessel function, beets could help maintain cardiovascular health in postmenopausal women. When you consider that most women are postmenopausal for at least a third of their lives, you can begin to understand the potential significance of these results.”   

Delgado Spicuzza won the Mid-Atlantic American College of Sports Medicine 2023 Doctoral Student Investigator Award for her presentation on this research in fall of 2023. She said it is gratifying to see this research resonate with other researchers and especially with the women in the study, who seemed to embrace the potential of beetroot juice. 

“Several of the participants said that they intended to continue consuming beetroot juice after the study concluded,” she said. “There seems to be a real desire on the part of postmenopausal women to support their cardiovascular health without taking additional medications. In part, I believe beets can be a complimentary food to improve blood vessel health in millions of women as they age.” 

Jigar Gosalia, graduate student in kinesiology at Penn State; Mary Jane De Souza, distinguished professor of kinesiology and physiology at Penn State; Kristina Petersen, associate professor of nutritional sciences at Penn State; Michael Flanagan, doctor of family medicine at Penn State Health; Liezhou Zhong, postdoctoral research fellow in the School of Medical and Health Science at Edith Cowan University in Australia; Catherine Bondonno, senior research fellow in the School of Medical and Health Science at Edith Cowan University in Australia; Elmira Alipour, clinical research coordinator at Atrium Health Carolinas Medical Center; Daniel Kim-Shapiro, professor of physics and Harbert Family Distinguished Chair for Excellence in Teaching and Scholarship at Wake Forest University; and Yasina Somani, assistant professor of exercise physiology at the University of Leeds in the United Kingdom, all contributed to this research. 

The researchers said they are grateful to Cyndi Flanagan and Christa Oelhaf, nurses in the Clinical Research Center, for their contributions to this research. 

This research was funded by the National Institutes of Health and the Huck Endowment for Nutritional Research in Family and Community Medicine at Penn State College of Medicine and University Park. 

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JOURNAL

Frontiers in Nutrition

DOI

10.3389/fnut.2024.1359671 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Randomized controlled/clinical trial

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

People

ARTICLE TITLE

Seven-day dietary nitrate supplementation clinically significantly improves basal macrovascular function in postmenopausal women: a randomized, placebo-controlled, double-blind, crossover clinical trial

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

10-Jun-2024

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SNMMI Image of the Year: Ultra-high-resolution PET provides never before seen images of the brain

SOCIETY OF NUCLEAR MEDICINE AND MOLECULAR IMAGING

 

IMAGE: 

FIGURE 1. A. 18F-SYNVEST-1 IMAGES AT EARLY (0-10) AND LATE (90-120 MINUTE) TIMES POSTINJECTION. THERE IS CLEAR IDENTIFICATION OF HIGH FLOW REGIONS IN THE EARLY IMAGES. THE LATE IMAGES SHOW THE SYNAPTIC (SV2A) PATTERN WHICH DIFFERS FROM THE FLOW PATTERN, E.G., IN THE THALAMUS. B. 11C-PHNO BINDING POTENTIAL (BPND) IMAGES SHOWN IN TRANSVERSE, CORONAL, AND SAGITTAL ORIENTATIONS OF PET ALONE AND PET OVERLAID WITH MRI. LEFT: REGION OF SUBSTANTIA NIGRA (GREEN ARROW, MAX DISPLAY: 4.0). RIGHT: THALAMIC REGION (MAX: 2.5) SHOWING FOCAL BILATERAL BINDING IN A SPECIFIC THALAMIC NUCLEUS (BLUE ARROW, LIKELY ANTEROVENTRAL NUCLEUS). C. SAGITTAL IMAGES OF 11C-LSN3172176 M1 MUSCARINIC CHOLINERGIC BPND (MAX DISPLAY: 10). D. R1 IMAGES OF THE SAME TRACER (MAX: 2). CEREBELLUM (BLUE ARROW) SHOWS NO SPECIFIC BINDING (C) AND HIGH TRACER DELIVERY (D). E. 18F-FE-PE2I DOPAMINE TRANSPORTER BPND IMAGES (ZOOMED, MAX DISPLAY: 6) SHOWING STRIATUM AND SUBSTANTIA NIGRA (GREEN ARROW). F. R1 IMAGES OF THE SAME TRACER (MAX: 2) WITH INSET SHOWING ZOOMED REGION IN E.

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CREDIT: IMAGES CREATED BY RICHARD E. CARSON, ET AL., YALE UNIVERSITY, NEW HAVEN, CT.

Toronto, Ontario—A new ultra-high-performance brain PET system allows for the direct measurement of brain nuclei as never before seen or quantified. With its ultra-high sensitivity and resolution, the NeuroEXPLORER provides exceptional brain PET images and has the potential to spur advances in the treatment of many brain diseases. This research was presented at the 2024 Society of Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging (SNMMI) Annual Meeting, and the grouping of images highlighting targeted tracer uptake in specific brain nuclei has been selected as the 2024 SNMMI Henry N. Wagner, Jr., Image of the Year.

Each year, SNMMI chooses an image that best exemplifies the most promising advances in the field of nuclear medicine and molecular imaging. The state-of-the-art technologies captured in these images demonstrate the capacity to improve patient care by detecting disease, aiding diagnosis, improving clinical confidence, and providing a means of selecting appropriate treatments. This year, the SNMMI Image of the Year was chosen from more than 1,500 abstracts submitted for the meeting.

The image quality of PET systems has improved in recent years, mostly by increases in sensitivity, including enhanced time-of-flight capabilities. However, these systems have shown only minimal improvement in intrinsic resolution. To address these issues, researchers designed the NeuroEXPLORER PET scanner with a focus on ultra-high sensitivity and resolution, as well as continuous head motion correction.

In the study, researchers conducted human brain imaging with both the NeuroEXPLORER and the High Resolution Research Tomograph, or HRRT (the previous state-of-the-art imaging tool). Multiple targeted radiopharmaceuticals were administered to observe synaptic density, dopamine receptors and transporters, muscarinic cholinergic receptors, and glutamate receptors. Images from both scanners were then compared.

A striking improvement in image contrast and quality of the NeuroEXPLORER compared to the HRRT was evident. NeuroEXPLORER images demonstrated low noise and exquisite resolution, showing focal uptake in specific brain nuclei.

“The high resolution of NeuroEXPLORER images is due to the system’s unique detector design and exceptional sensitivity produced by its long axial field-of-view,” said Richard E. Carson, PhD, professor of Biomedical Engineering and of Radiology and Biomedical Imaging and Emeritus director of the PET Center at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut. “This technology will provide the opportunity for advanced research on all types of neuronal molecular and functional activity.”

“The dramatic improvement in resolution and overall quality of the NeuroEXPLORER images compared to the HRRT images is clear,” noted SNMMI Scientific Program Committee chair Heather Jacene, MD. “The NeuroEXPLORER has the potential to be a gamechanger in research for conditions such as Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, epilepsy, and mental illnesses.”

The NeuroEXPLORER scanner was built as a collaboration with Yale University, University of California, Davis, and United Imaging Healthcare of America, and was funded by a National Institutes of Health Brain Initiative grant. While the NeuroEXPLORER is currently used for research purposes, Carson and colleagues hope that once the excellent image quality is recognized by physicians it will become available for clinical use.

Abstract 241473. “Exceptional Brain PET Images from the NeuroEXPLORER: Scans with Targeted Radiopharmaceuticals and Comparison to HRRT.” Richard Carson, Jean-Dominique Gallezot, Takuya Toyonaga, Tommaso Volpi, Nikkita Khattar, Mika Naganawa, Praveen Honhar, Tianyi Zeng, Kathryn Fontaine, Tim Mulnix, Shannan Henry, David Matuskey, Rajiv Radhakrishnan, Nabeel Nabulsi, Yiyun Huang, Ramsey Badawi, Simon Cherry, Ansel Hillmer, Terry Jones, Chi Liu, Evan Morris, Jinyi Qi, Hongdi Li, Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut.

Link to Session

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All 2024 SNMMI Annual Meeting abstracts can be found online.

About the Society of Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging

The Society of Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging (SNMMI) is an international scientific and medical organization dedicated to advancing nuclear medicine and molecular imaging—vital elements of precision medicine that allow diagnosis and treatment to be tailored to individual patients in order to achieve the best possible outcomes.

SNMMI’s members set the standard for molecular imaging and nuclear medicine practice by creating guidelines, sharing information through journals and meetings and leading advocacy on key issues that affect molecular imaging and therapy research and practice. For more information, visit www.snmmi.org.

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JOURNAL

Journal of Nuclear Medicine

ARTICLE TITLE

Exceptional Brain PET Images from the NeuroEXPLORER: Scans with Targeted Radiopharmaceuticals and Comparison to HRRT

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

10-Jun-2024

 

Imposing cost-efficient trade sanctions

SINGAPORE MANAGEMENT UNIVERSITY

 

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A NEW PAPER, CO-AUTHORED BY SMU ASSISTANT PROFESSOR YUAN MEI, COMPUTES THE MOST COST-EFFICIENT WAY TO IMPOSE TRADE SANCTIONS AGAINST RUSSIA IN RESPONSE TO ITS WAR IN UKRAINE.

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CREDIT: SINGAPORE MANAGEMENT UNIVERSITY

By Alistair Jones

SMU Office of Research – Global condemnation of Russia over its invasion of Ukraine has prompted the imposition of trade sanctions. Such measures are a form of economic coercion, commonly used for reasons of foreign policy. 

Trade sanctions can be put in place in an attempt to alter objectionable behaviour – in Russia's case, waging a war – or to punish an offending state through the disruption of economic exchange. 

"Sanctions can be in many forms and raising tariffs is one of them," says Yuan Mei, an Assistant Professor of Economics at Singapore Management University (SMU). Professor Mei is the co-author of a new paper, '(Trade) War and Peace: How to Impose International Trade Sanctions', that was published in the Journal of Monetary Economics. 

The researchers have built a quantitative model of international trade with input-output connections, and the aim of the paper is to "compute the most cost-efficient way to impose trade sanctions against Russia in the context of the Russia-Ukraine war", Professor Mei says.

Willingness to pay

Trade sanctions are meant to hurt the sanctioned country’s economy, but if they severely restrict trade, they can also hurt the sanctioning countries.

"Raising tariffs on Russian goods can hurt the Russian economy. In the meanwhile, this action could also hurt the sanctioning country by making imports more costly," Professor Mei says.

Under import restrictions, consumers in the imposing country may have limited choices of goods, which affects their welfare. And if export restrictions are imposed, or if sanctions prohibit companies in the imposing country from trading with the target country, the imposing country may lose markets and investment opportunities to competing countries.

To make sense of this apparent juggling act, the researchers offer the concept of ‘Willingness to pay’ – the amount of economic burden an imposing country is prepared to incur to exact damage on the target country.

"We find that for countries with a low willingness to pay for sanctions, the optimal strategy is to impose a moderate and similar tariff across all products," Professor Mei says. 

For example, if a sanctioning country is willing to sacrifice US$0.10 per US$1 loss incurred by the Russian economy, the cost-efficient trade sanction would be a uniform tariff of 20 percent.

 The effect would be that "Russia’s export to the sanctioning countries will decrease, which eventually leads to less national income. In this scenario, the eventual welfare (real GDP) loss of Russia is 1.2 percent based on our calculation," he says.

Key exports

"For countries with a high willingness to pay for sanctions, sanctioning countries should target what Russia exports the most – mining and energy products," Professor Mei says.

In fact, the U.S., the European Union (EU), the G7 and sanctioning allies such as Australia have recently prohibited the import of seaborne crude oil and refined petroleum products from Russia. Is this a step in the right direction?

"Yes. Our simulation results show that countries with high willingness to pay should impose an embargo on Russia’s oil and energy exports, and these countries do appear to have a high willingness to pay." Professor Mei says.

But Russia has found alternative markets, notably in India, which is happy to buy discounted crude oil, reportedly in huge quantities. And China, Russia's largest trading partner, has supported what Russia calls its "special military operation" in Ukraine. Can trade sanctions be effective without unified global support?

"That depends on the definition of effective sanction," Professor Mei says. "In the paper, we consider an alternative scenario in which the non-sanctioning countries join the U.S., EU and their allies to sanction Russia. In this case, the maximum welfare loss on Russia increases from two percent to six percent, which we consider a significant increase."

But the economic effect of the existing sanctions regime on non-sanctioning countries does not seem like an incentive to change position.

"The rest of the world (ROW) boosts its exports in reaction to sanctions placed on Russia. As sanctioning countries raise tariffs against Russia, sanctioning countries substitute imports from Russia with those from the ROW. This pattern, referred to as the trade diversion effect, leads to an increase in ROW exports to the sanctioning countries," Professor Mei says.

Carrying the burden

The researchers note that Russia exports much more to the EU – the world's largest trading bloc – than to the U.S. or other sanctioning allies (OSA). Accordingly, tariffs imposed by the U.S. or OSA can, at most, reduce Russian real income by only 0.07 percent or 0.22 percent, respectively. By contrast, the EU alone can reduce real income in Russia by as much as 0.8 percent. Therefore, the burden of trade sanctions against Russia would seem to fall on the EU.

"We are not saying that the EU has to carry the burden. To be more accurate, our message is the EU is the group of countries that can hurt the Russian economy the most – not the U.S. or other sanctioning allies," Professor Mei says.

Sanctions, of course, can go both ways. Russia could retaliate by levying tariffs on the U.S. and Europe, but Professor Mei’s research suggests it would hurt Russia even more.

“If Russia also chooses tariffs to punish the sanctioning countries, the economic consequence of tariff sanctions on Russia would more than double,” he explains. “The EU is an important importing origin for Russia but Russia is not an important exporting destination for the EU. Therefore, Russia imposing retaliatory tariffs on EU would result in a large decline in its own welfare, but it does not decrease EU welfare much.”

 

Bartonella DNA Found in Blood of Patients With Psychosis

NORTH CAROLINA STATE UNIVERSITY

A new study has found that patients diagnosed with schizophrenia or another psychotic disorder are three times more likely to have Bartonella DNA in their blood than adults without these disorders. The work further supports the idea that pathogens – particularly vector-borne pathogens – could play a role in mental illness.

Bartonella are a group of vector-borne bacteria transmitted primarily via arthropods like fleas, lice and potentially ticks, but also by the animals that harbor them. For example, the species Bartonella henselae is associated with cat scratch disease, which until recently was thought to be a short-lived (or self-limiting) infection. There are at least 45 different known Bartonella species, of which 18 have been found to infect humans.

Improved methods for detecting Bartonella infection in animals and humans have led to the diagnosis of bartonelloses in patients with a host of chronic illnesses, as well as in some patients with psychiatric symptoms.

In this latest study, researchers at North Carolina State University analyzed the blood of 116 people for evidence of Bartonella DNA and Bartonella specific antibodies. The samples were collected during a biomarker research study conducted by Dr. Shannon Delaney and colleagues at the Columbia University Irving Medical Center (CUIMC).

Of the 116 people, 29 were in the control group; 16 were prodromal, meaning they had symptoms but no formal diagnosis; 51 were children, adolescents or adults with psychosis; and 20 were close relatives of those diagnosed with psychosis.

In a previous study conducted at Columbia, these same patients had been tested for increased inflammatory mediators – in other words, evidence of inflammation. That study found that patients with psychosis were more likely to have increased inflammatory markers in the blood.

“As an infectious disease researcher, I believe that infection should be critically examined as a potential cause of diseases for which the cause is unclear or unknown,” says Dr. Edward Breitschwerdt, Melanie S. Steele Distinguished Professor of Internal Medicine at NC State’s College of Veterinary Medicine. “We wanted to explore potential drivers of inflammation in patients with neuropsychiatric illnesses. Based on the associations I’ve seen between Bartonella and symptoms of mental illness in my prior work, Bartonella infection could be one possible candidate.”

In a blinded study, the NC State team used immunofluorescence assays and digital droplet PCR testing to detect and amplify DNA in the blood samples. As the blood samples had been frozen and stored, the researchers did not attempt to culture bacteria from them. Culturing the bacteria can further enhance DNA detection.

Forty-three percent of participants diagnosed with psychosis had Bartonella DNA in their blood compared to 14% in the control population. Additionally, using DNA sequencing, the team was able to identify the Bartonella species for 18 of the 31 participants with Bartonella in their blood, including infection or co-infection with Bartonella henselae (11/18), Bartonella vinsonii subsp. berkhoffii (6/18), Bartonella quintana (2/18), Bartonella alsatica (1/18), and Bartonella rochalimae (1/18)

This is the second study to identify Bartonella in the blood of psychiatric patients. A 2020 study, interrupted by the COVID pandemic, found Bartonella species DNA in 11 of 17 (65%) University of North Carolina School of Medicine patients with schizophrenia versus one of 13 (8%) in healthy volunteer controls.

“We’ve now demonstrated the presence of Bartonella species in the blood of two separate cohorts of patients with neuropsychiatric symptoms, which indicates that these bacteria are worth studying further as a potential driver of these symptoms,” Breitschwerdt says. “At the very least, we need to continue to see if these findings are replicated in other patient populations.”

“This study provides further support for an association between Bartonella species infection and psychosis and may have important clinical implications,” notes Dr. Brian Fallon of CUIMC. “However, it is worth emphasizing that association does not prove causality; other factors may account for the association.

“The other significant finding was that the frequency of positive antibody tests for Bartonella infection was not significantly different for the controls versus the individuals with psychosis; this suggests that exposure to Bartonella is common in the general population and that reliance on serologic test results alone can be misleading.”

The study appears in Frontiers in Psychiatry and was supported in part by the Steven & Alexandra Cohen Foundation, the Lyme & Tick-borne Diseases Research Center at CUIMC, and the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry. Dr. Delaney is first author. Cynthia Robveille, assistant research professor at NC State, is co-first author. Drs. Breitschwerdt and Fallon are co-corresponding authors. Other NC State co-authors include Research Professor Ricardo Maggi, former Ph. D. student Dr. Erin Lashnits, junior research scientist Emily Kingston, and graduate research assistant Chance Liedig. Research RN Lilly Murray from Columbia University also contributed to the work.

-peake-

Note to editors: An abstract follows.

“Bartonella species bacteremia in association with adult psychosis”

DOI: 10.3389/fpsyt.2024.1388442

Authors: Cynthia Robeville, Ricardo Maggi, Erin Lashnits, Emily Kingston, Chance Liedig, Edward Breitschwerdt, North Carolina State University; Shannon Delaney, Lily Murray, Brian Fallon, Columbia University
Published: June 6, 2024 in Frontiers in Psychiatry

Abstract:
Introduction: The potential role of pathogens, particularly vector-transmitted infectious agents, as a cause of psychosis has not been intensively investigated. We have reported a potential link between Bartonella spp. bacteremia and neuropsychiatric symptoms, including pediatric acute onset neuropsychiatric syndrome and schizophrenia. The purpose of this study was to further assess whether Bartonella spp. exposure or infection are associated with psychosis. Methods: In a blind manner, we assessed the presence of anti-Bartonella antibodies by indirect immunofluorescence assays (IFA), and infection by amplification of bacterial DNA from blood by quantitative polymerase chain reaction (qPCR), digital PCR (dPCR), and droplet digital PCR (ddPCR) in 116 participants. Participants were categorized into one of five groups: 1) controls unaffected by psychosis (n = 29); 2) prodromal participants (n = 16); 3) children or adolescents with psychosis (n = 7); 4) adults with psychosis (n = 44); and 5) relatives of a participant with psychosis (n = 20). Results: There was no significant difference in Bartonella spp. IFA seroreactivity between adults with psychosis and adult controls unaffected by psychosis. There was a higher proportion of adults with psychosis who had Bartonella spp. DNA in the bloodstream (43.2%) compared to adult controls unaffected by psychosis (14.3%, p = 0.021). The Bartonella species was determined for 18 of the 31 bacteremic participants, including infection or co-infection with Bartonella henselae (11/18), Bartonella vinsonii subsp. berkhoffii (6/18), Bartonella quintana (2/18), Bartonella alsatica (1/18), and Bartonella rochalimae (1/18). Discussion: In conjunction with other recent research, the results of this study provide justification for a large national or international multi-center study to determine if Bartonella spp. bacteremia is more prevalent in adults with psychosis compared to adults unaffected by psychosis. Expanding the investigation to include a range of vector-borne and other microbial infections with potential CNS effects would enhance knowledge on the relationship between psychosis and infection.

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JOURNAL

Frontiers in Psychiatry

DOI

10.3389/fpsyt.2024.1388442 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Observational study

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

Cells

ARTICLE TITLE

Bartonella species bacteremia in association with adult psychosis

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

6-Jun-2024

COI STATEMENT

In conjunction with Dr. S. Sontakke and North Carolina State University, EB holds US Patent No. 7,115,385 Media and Methods for Cultivation of Microorganisms, which was issued on October 3rd, 2006. He is a co-founder, shareholder and Chief Scientific Officer for Galaxy Diagnostics, a company that provides advanced diagnostic testing for the detection of Bartonella spp. infections. RM is a co-founder and the Chief Technical Officer for Galaxy Diagnostics Inc. The remaining authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

 

Pesticides impair mobility and immune system of Brazilian native stingless bees, study shows

After 48 hours of exposure to the pesticides imidacloprid, pyraclostrobin and glyphosate, stingless bees of the species Melipona scutellaris exhibited morphological and behavioral alterations that could weaken colonies and aimpair pollination

FUNDAÇÃO DE AMPARO À PESQUISA DO ESTADO DE SÃO PAULO

 

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BEES FED A SOLUTION CONTAINING ONE OR MORE OF THE PESTICIDES WALKED LESS, MOVED MORE SLOWLY, AND DISPLAYED FAT BODY MORPHOLOGICAL CHANGES

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CREDIT: GRAZIELE LUNA

A study conducted by Brazilian researchers affiliated with São Paulo State University (UNESP), the Federal University of São Carlos (UFSCar) and the Federal University of Viçosa (UFV) has shown how three pesticides widely used by farmers in Brazil – imidacloprid, pyraclostrobin and glyphosate – affect native stingless bees of the species Melipona scutellaris. Whether they are used singly or combined, the pesticides impaired the bees’ ability to move about and weakened their defenses. An article describing the results of the study is published in the journal Environmental Pollution.

Indiscriminate use of pesticides and their adverse effects on the survival of bees are under discussion worldwide, and a great deal of research is being done on the subject, yet most of the findings published to date focus on European and North American bee species. In Brazil, native stingless bees like M. scutellaris are the priority because of their vital role in pollinating many wild plants and economically important crops.

In the study, which was conducted under the aegis of the FAPESP Research Program on Biodiversity Characterization, Conservation, Restoration and Sustainable Use (BIOTA-FAPESP) and supported via two projects (17/21097-3 and 21/09996-8), the researchers assessed the sublethal effects of the three pesticides on the bees’ behavior, morphology and physiology by orally exposing them to the substances singly and in combination for 48 hours. The results were compared with those of a control group.

The harm done by the pesticides was clear. Bees fed a solution containing one or more of the pesticides in solution walked less and moved more slowly. In addition, their fat body, a vital organ for energy storage, metabolism and immune response regulation, underwent morphological change.

“We found that the pesticides, both singly and combined, interfered severely with the bees’ behavior, damaging their fat body and impairing the activity of important proteins for the immune system and cell survival,” said Cliver Fernandes Farder-Gomes, first author of the article and a researcher at UFSCar’s Center for Agrarian Sciences (CCA).

According to Farder-Gomes, the results show that even if the bees survive exposure to the pesticides, their immune system is weakened and cannot adequately combat pathogenic bacteria, so they become more prone to infections.

“The death of bees is always shocking, but it should be borne in mind that it can often be even more hazardous if they survive exposure to pesticides because colonies are weakened and made smaller, with adverse effects on honey production and pollination, which in turn means losses to fruit and vegetable production,” said Roberta Cornélio Ferreira Nocelli, last author of the article. She is a professor at CCA-UFSCar and chairs an International Commission for Plant-Pollinator Relationships (ICCPR) working group that is developing methods to test for toxicity in Brazilian native bees,

Public policy

To complement these results and provide a more comprehensive picture of the adverse effects of the three pesticides, the researchers plan to analyze their influence on the expression of other proteins and find out how they are affecting other native bee species.

According to Osmar Malaspina, penultimate author of the article and a professor at the Institute of Biosciences of UNESP’s campus in Rio Claro, the study led by Farder-Gomes reveals impacts with long-term consequences for biodiversity and food security and should be used by public policymakers as a rationale for tighter restrictions. He cites as examples the contributions made in recent decades by the Ecotoxicology and Bee Conservation Laboratory (LECA-UNESP) and the Research Group on Bees and Environmental Services (ASAs-UFSCar), led by himself and Nocelli.

“Our 80-plus articles and books, among other works, have been used over the years, above all by IBAMA [Brazil’s main environmental law enforcement agency], to restrict the use of agrochemicals such as fipronil, the insecticide that has been most associated with the global decline of bees,” Malaspina said.

Nocelli stressed that he and his colleagues have no interest in hindering Brazilian agriculture. On the contrary, the point of scientific research is to improve it. “We want agriculture to be more sustainable and to go hand in hand with conservation. This is the only way to assure future food security,” he said.

About São Paulo Research Foundation (FAPESP)

The São Paulo Research Foundation (FAPESP) is a public institution with the mission of supporting scientific research in all fields of knowledge by awarding scholarships, fellowships and grants to investigators linked with higher education and research institutions in the State of São Paulo, Brazil. FAPESP is aware that the very best research can only be done by working with the best researchers internationally. Therefore, it has established partnerships with funding agencies, higher education, private companies, and research organizations in other countries known for the quality of their research and has been encouraging scientists funded by its grants to further develop their international collaboration. You can learn more about FAPESP at www.fapesp.br/en and visit FAPESP news agency at www.agencia.fapesp.br/en to keep updated with the latest scientific breakthroughs FAPESP helps achieve through its many programs, awards and research centers. You may also subscribe to FAPESP news agency at http://agencia.fapesp.br/subscribe.

 

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JOURNAL

Environmental Pollution

DOI

10.1016/j.envpol.2024.123783 

ARTICLE TITLE

Exposure of the stingless bee Melipona scutellaris to imidacloprid, pyraclostrobin, and glyphosate, alone and in combination, impair its walking activity and fat body morphology and physiology

 

Analyzing the benefits of transboundary cooperation in the Lancang-Mekong River Basin

INTERNATIONAL INSTITUTE FOR APPLIED SYSTEMS ANALYSIS

A new study conducted by IIASA researchers and their colleagues highlights that cooperation in infrastructure operation between countries surrounding the Lancang-Mekong River Basin could bring major economic and environmental co-benefits.

The Lancang-Mekong River Basin is one of the largest rivers in the world, passing through Cambodia, China, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand, and Vietnam before emptying into the South China Sea. The national economies of those countries are in various ways reliant on the basin’s forest, agricultural, freshwater, coastal, and marine ecosystems, which provide crucial goods and services for the livelihoods of around 75 million people.

The basin is currently undergoing extensive water resource infrastructure development; however, it also faces severe climate change impacts, long-term transboundary conflicts, and trade-offs between economic goals and ecosystem services provision. To address these challenges and minimize the trade-offs, IIASA scientists Taher Kahil, Yoshihide Wada, and colleagues from other institutions conducted a new study, published in Nature Water, seeking to identify sustainable infrastructure operation pathways, which could also be replicated in similar contexts.

The study includes a new holistic modeling framework that simulates the multisectoral impacts of different policies and operational measures to evaluate the overall economic and environmental effects of various water resource development modes (e.g., non-cooperation, partial cooperation, and full cooperation). The framework integrates the physical infrastructure operation processes associated with water, energy, food, the environment, and their interconnectedness with the decision-making behaviors of national governments.

Applying the framework to the Lancang-Mekong River Basin allowed the researchers to draw several important conclusions. Most importantly, the findings of this study provide additional incentive for riparian countries (located on the banks of a natural watercourse) adjacent to transboundary river basins to choose full cooperation, as more incremental benefits from cooperation could be achieved by minimizing adverse environmental impacts from the existing and planned infrastructures, especially under changing climate conditions.

“We found that full cooperation in the operation of existing and proposed infrastructure outweighs non-cooperation or partial-cooperation modes by maximizing economic benefits while also minimizing the losses in fishery and sediment transport,” explains Taher Kahil, Research Group Leader and Senior Research Scholar in the Water Security Research Group of the IIASA Biodiversity and Natural Resources Program and a coauthor of the study. “Full cooperation becomes more beneficial and stable alongside infrastructure expansion, intensification of climate change, and the degree of satisfying hydrological needs for river ecosystems.”

Focusing primarily on riparian countries, the proposed modeling framework can also be applied in other parts of the world where countries share transboundary basins. The extracted data can be used to identify best practices and opportunities for sustainable development concerning water resources and infrastructure operation.

“Our study provides a good starting point for analyzing similar issues in other basins, but the design of full cooperation in a specific basin will require detailed assessments of local human needs, potential conflicts, and key valued ecosystem services,” notes Kahil. “Additional research is needed to deduce how local conditions and future climate will affect the nonlinear response of basin-wide benefits to the hydrological needs of valued ecosystem services, with the ultimate goal of achieving economic-environmental sustainability in complex and contested transboundary basins.”

Reference:
Yu, Y., Bo, Y., Castelletti, A., Dumas, P., Gao, J., Cai, X., Liu, J., Kahil, T., Wada, Y., Hu, S., Liu, B., Zhou, F., & Zhao, J. (2024). Transboundary cooperation in infrastructure operation generates economic and environmental co-benefits to the Lancang-Mekong River Basin. Nature DOI: 10.1038/s44221-024-00246-1

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JOURNAL

Nature Water

DOI

10.1038/s44221-024-00246-1 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Computational simulation/modeling

ARTICLE TITLE

Transboundary cooperation in infrastructure operation generates economic and environmental co-benefits in the Lancang-Mekong River Basin