Study improves understanding of how bacteria benefit plant growth

UC Riverside-led research aims to improve sustainable agricultural practices

Peer-Reviewed Publication

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA - RIVERSIDE

 

IMAGE: CO-AUTHORS ARAFAT RAHMAN (SECOND FROM LEFT) AND MAX MANCI (RIGHT) ARE SEEN HERE IN THE FIELD ALONG WITH COLLEAGUES. view more 

CREDIT: SACHS LAB, UC RIVERSIDE.

RIVERSIDE, Calif. -- Plants form alliances with microbes in the soil in which they grow. Legumes, for example, benefit from a symbiotic relationship with microbes that inhabit nodules in their roots and “fix” nitrogen in the atmosphere to make it available to promote the legumes’ growth. But are microbes always beneficial to plants? Or does competition between strains for plant access degrade the service the bacteria ultimately provide?

A team led by scientists at the University of California, Riverside, set up experiments to answer these questions and better understand the competition process. The researchers used a native California plant with nodules, Acmispon strigosus, and a set of eight compatible nitrogen-fixing bacterial strains. They infected some plants with each of the eight strains to directly measure their ability to infect the plants and provide benefits. They then infected other plants with pairs of bacterial strains to assess the competitive ability of each strain and the effect on plant performance.

The researchers found that competition between strains of beneficial bacteria in the soil degrades the service that the bacteria provide to their hosts. 

“More specifically, we found interstrain competition that occurs in the soil before the bacteria infect the plant causes fewer of the bacteria to colonize the plant, resulting in the plant gaining smaller benefits in the end,” said Joel Sachs, a professor of evolution, ecology, and organismal biology, who led the research team. “To understand symbiosis, we often use sterile conditions where one strain of bacteria is ‘inoculated’ or introduced into an otherwise sterile host. Our experiments show that making that system slightly more complex — simply by using two bacterial strains at a time — fundamentally shifts the balance of benefits that the hosts receive, reshaping our understanding of how symbiosis works.”

Study results appear in the journal Current Biology.

Sachs explained that a core challenge in agriculture is leveraging the services that microbes can provide to crops by promoting growth in a sustainable way, without the environmental costs of chemical fertilizers. His lab studies rhizobia — bacteria that promote plant growth. Rhizobial competition is a longstanding problem for sustainable agriculture. Rhizobia form root nodules on legumes, within which the bacteria fix nitrogen for the plant in exchange for carbon from photosynthesis. Growers have long sought to leverage rhizobia to sustainably fertilize staple legume crops such as soybean, peanuts, peas, and green beans. 

“One might think using rhizobia as inoculants should allow growers to minimize the use of chemical nitrogen, which is environmentally damaging,” said Sachs, who chairs the Department of Evolution, Ecology, and Organismal Biology. “But such rhizobial inoculation is rarely successful. When growers inoculate their crops with high-quality rhizobia — strains that fix a lot of nitrogen — these ‘elite’ strains get outcompeted by indigenous rhizobia that are already in the soil and provide little or no benefit to hosts.”

In their experiments, Sachs and his colleagues used bacterial strains whose genomes they had already sequenced. They also characterized the strains, which ranged from highly beneficial to ineffective at nitrogen fixation, to know exactly how beneficial they were to the target plant species. The researchers sequenced the contents of more than 1,100 nodules, each of which was from a plant that was inoculated with one of 28 different strain combinations.

Next, the researchers developed mathematical models to predict how much benefit co-inoculated plants would gain based on expectations from plants that were “clonally infected” (infected with one strain). This allowed the researchers to calculate the growth deficit that was specifically caused by interstrain competition.

“Our models showed that co-inoculated plants got much lower benefits from symbiosis than what could be expected from the clonal infections,” said Arafat Rahman, a former graduate student in Sachs’ lab and the first author of the research paper. “While beneficial bacteria work well in the lab, they get out-competed in the natural environment. Ultimately, we want to find a strain of bacteria — or a set of them — that gives maximum benefit to the host plant and is competitive against bacterial strains that are already in the soil.”

Sachs explained that to discover and develop a bacterial strain that is highly beneficial to plants, scientists need to conduct experiments under very clean conditions. 

“Ultimately, we want to use beneficial bacteria in agriculture,” he said. “To identify these bacteria, we would, typically, add one bacterial strain to a plant in the lab and show that the plant grows much better with the strain than without. In the field, however, that plant is covered in microbes, complicating the story. In our experiments, we advanced from using one strain to a pair of strains to see what impact that has on plant growth. Interestingly, with just two strains, many of our predictions fell apart.”

Rahman stressed that while experiments are needed to ascertain how beneficial a bacterial strain is, experiments that test how competitive the strain is against a panel of other bacterial strains are also needed.

“Both steps are crucial,” he said. “Our work found some of the best strains can be highly beneficial to plant growth but as soon as you pair them with any other strain, that benefit is greatly reduced. Further, it is important to know at which stage the interstrain competition takes place: before the bacteria interact with the plant or after? Our work suggests it’s the former and provides a useful guide to designing future experiments aimed at discovering strains that are better for delivery in crops.”

Sachs said that in a lot of current experimental designs the focus is on the benefit to plants. 

“It’s important, however, to keep in mind that bacteria are shaped by natural selection,” he said. “Some of them may be highly competitive in entering the nodule to infect the plant but not be very beneficial to the plant and that could be a trait that wins out in nature. If we are to leverage microbial communities for the services they can provide to plants and animals, we need to understand interstrain dynamics in these communities.”

According to Sachs and Rahman, sustainable growth practices need to be a critical aspect of new agriculture to feed a growing population on a limited resource base. 

“This will require moving past polluting methods such as adding huge amounts of chemical nitrogen to soil,” Sachs said. “Understanding how to efficiently deliver beneficial microbes to a target host is a central challenge in medicine, agriculture, and livestock science. By revealing that interstrain dynamics can reduce the benefits of symbiosis, our work has opened new avenues of research to improve sustainable agricultural practices.”

Sachs and Rahman were joined in the study by Max Manci, Cassandra Nadon, Ivan A. Perez, Warisha F. Farsamin, Matthew T. Lampe, Tram H. Le, and Lorena Torres Martínez of UCR, and Alexandra J. Weisberg and Jeff H. Chang of Oregon State University. Rahman plans to join Oregon State University as a postdoctoral researcher.

The research was supported by grants from the National Science Foundation and the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

The title of the research paper is “Competitive interference among rhizobia reduces benefits to hosts.”

The University of California, Riverside is a doctoral research university, a living laboratory for groundbreaking exploration of issues critical to Inland Southern California, the state and communities around the world. Reflecting California's diverse culture, UCR's enrollment is more than 26,000 students. The campus opened a medical school in 2013 and has reached the heart of the Coachella Valley by way of the UCR Palm Desert Center. The campus has an annual impact of more than $2.7 billion on the U.S. economy. To learn more, visit www.ucr.edu.

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JOURNAL

Current Biology

DOI

10.1016/j.cub.2023.06.081 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Experimental study

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

Not applicable

ARTICLE TITLE

Competitive interference among rhizobia reduces benefits to hosts

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

24-Jul-2023

 

Consumption of soft drinks and overweight and obesity among adolescents in 107 countries and regions

JAMA Network Open

Peer-Reviewed Publication

JAMA NETWORK

About The Study: The prevalence of daily consumption of soft drinks was associated with the prevalence of overweight and obesity among adolescent students in this study of 107 countries and regions. These results, in conjunction with other evidence, suggest that reducing soft drink consumption should be a priority in combating adolescent overweight and obesity. 

Authors: Huan Hu, Ph.D., of the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health in Kanagawa, Japan, is the corresponding author. 

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

(doi:10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2023.25158)

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

#  #  #

http://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2023.25158?utm_source=For_The_Media&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=ftm_links&utm_term=072423

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

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JOURNAL

JAMA Network Open

 

Community health worker home visiting and birth outcomes among Medicaid recipients

JAMA Pediatrics

Peer-Reviewed Publication

JAMA NETWORK

About The Study: Participation in a home visiting program provided by community health workers working with nurses and social workers, compared with usual care, was associated with reduced risk for adverse birth outcomes, improved prenatal and postnatal care, and reductions in disparities, among birthing individuals with Medicaid. The risk reductions in adverse birth outcomes were greater among Black individuals. 

Authors: Cristian I. Meghea, Ph.D., of Michigan State University in East Lansing, is the corresponding author.

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

(doi:10.1001/jamapediatrics.2023.2310)

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

#  #  #

 https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamapediatrics/fullarticle/10.1001/jamapediatrics.2023.2310?guestAccessKey=2979eea6-c3d2-4151-a8d4-ad4585abaa9f&utm_source=For_The_Media&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=ftm_links&utm_content=tfl&utm_term=072423

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JOURNAL

JAMA Pediatrics

 

Dementia becomes an emergency 1.4 million times a year

Accidents and behavioral disturbances lead the list of reasons for emergency department visits – suggesting need for better caregiver support to prevent crises

Peer-Reviewed Publication

MICHIGAN MEDICINE - UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN

A busy, crowded, confusing emergency room is not an ideal place for a person living with dementia.

But 1.4 million times a year, people with Alzheimer’s disease and other forms of dementia end up in emergency care, a new study shows.

Together, they make up nearly 7% of all emergency visits for any reason by people over age 65, according to a University of Michigan team’s findings published in JAMA Neurology.

And compared with their peers who don’t have dementia, these patients have twice the rate of seeking emergency care after an accident or a behavioral or mental health crisis, the researchers show.

With about 6 million Americans currently estimated to have dementia, the study suggests there’s a lot of opportunity to prevent future emergency visits by better supporting dementia caregivers, thereby, the researchers say.

Lead author Lauren B. Gerlach, D.O., M.Sc., says the findings could help inform efforts to support family caregivers and nursing facility staff in reducing patients’ risks of injury, and preventing the agitation, aggression and distressing behaviors that people with dementia can experience.

“While dementia is thought of as a cognitive or memory disorder, it is the behavioral aspects of the disease such as anxiety, agitation and sleep disturbances that can cause the most stress for caregivers and patients alike”, said Gerlach, a geriatric psychiatrist at Michigan Medicine, U-M’s academic medical center. “Emergency departments are often not the right place to manage these behaviors,” she added. “We really need to do better to support caregivers so there are options other than seeking emergency care.”

Once a person with dementia is in the emergency department, it can be a very disorienting experience, Gerlach explains. “This is especially true in the context of a busy ED where visits can last many hours and patients may have difficulty understanding what is occurring or communicating their needs,” she said. “Even routine blood draws from unfamiliar staff can be a very scary experience for a patient with advanced dementia.”

To make matters worse, behavioral symptoms common in this group can lead to treatment with potentially dangerous sedative medications.

Emergency department patients with dementia received antipsychotic medications at more than twice the rate as other emergency patients over age 65 during their visit, the study shows. Such drugs, often used to sedate people with dementia and calm their behavioral symptoms, can carry major risks if used long-term – including increasing the risk of fall accidents and death as highlighted in warnings from the U.S. Food & Drug Administration. Long after the emergency has ended, the concern is that these newly started antipsychotic and sedative medications in could then continue to be prescribed long-term, putting patients with dementia at further risk, said Gerlach.

The study also adds evidence that older adults with dementia may be treated differently in the emergency department. People with dementia were much more likely than those without to receive a urine test or a CT scan of their head.

“Difficulty in the ability of patients with dementia to communicate their symptoms verbally can make it challenging to distinguish what is causing their symptoms,” Gerlach explains. “Is it related to a change in their environment, difficulty between the patient and their caregiver, or an underlying medical issue?”

For instance, urinary tract infections can cause pain that can lead to agitation or aggression in a person with dementia, who may not be able to express what they’re feeling. However, these challenges can sometimes lead to indiscriminate laboratory testing and imaging, Gerlach adds.

The data for the study came from the National Hospital Ambulatory Medical Care Survey conducted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and include information on people over 65 no matter what form of health care coverage they had.  

Gerlach and Matthew A. Davis, Ph.D., an associate professor in the U-M School of Nursing and Michigan Medicine’s Department of Learning Health Sciences, note that there has not been much research on emergency care for people with dementia, despite the fact that clinicians and caregivers who care for such patients know from experience that emergencies can be common.

Helping caregivers prevent and respond to dementia-related crises

Caregiver stress and burnout from a lack of respite or support may play a role in the need for seeking emergency care in people with dementia, noted Gerlach, who is an assistant professor in the U-M Department of Psychiatry.

She sees promise in a new proposed Medicare rule that would allow health care teams to get reimbursed for sessions that educate family caregivers – including on how to prevent or soothe behavioral symptoms among their loved ones.

One approach to this, called DICE, was co-developed at Michigan Medicine’s geriatric psychiatry division and is now available online to dementia caregivers anywhere. Gerlach also recommends the caregiver support programs and information offered by the Alzheimer’s Association, and videos from UCLA Health, available in multiple languages, to her patients’ caregivers to help manage these behaviors.

Those who live with people who have dementia should also consider safety upgrades in the home to reduce fall risks and the chance of other injuries. “It’s important to match the home environment to their needs and ability, which could reduce the risk of emergency care being needed,” Gerlach said.

The rise of geriatric-focused emergency departments or areas within larger emergency departments may also help, Gerlach noted, but they are not available in all areas.

It’s also important for families to be realistic about when it’s time to seek emergency services for their loved one with dementia.

If physical aggression or falling risk gets to be too much for a family caregiver to handle, the safety of the patient and the caregiver must outweigh the desire to keep them at home, Gerlach says. “But before that, there is a lot we can do in the outpatient setting to help prevent crisis and the need for emergency care,” she said.

The study was funded by the National institute on Aging, part of the National Institutes of Health (AG066864, AG066582) including the grant that funds the U-M Center to Accelerate Population Research in Alzheimer’s, headed by co-author and geriatrician Julie Bynum, M.D., M.P.H.

Gerlach, Davis and Bynum are members of the U-M Institute for Healthcare Policy and Innovation. U-M data analyst Jonathan Martindale, MHI, is also an author on the paper.

Citation: Characteristics of Emergency Department Visits Among Older Adults With Dementia, JAMA Neurology, DOI:10.1001/jamaneurol.2023.2244

 

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JOURNAL

JAMA Neurology

DOI

10.1001/jamaneurol.2023.2244 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Data/statistical analysis

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

People

ARTICLE TITLE

Characteristics of Emergency Department Visits Among Older Adults With Dementia

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

24-Jul-2023

US Supreme Court asked to set aside ruling that blocks construction on Mountain Valley Pipeline

AP• Yesterday 


CHARLESTON, W.Va. (AP) — The fate of a controversial natural gas pipeline in West Virginia may rest with the U.S. Supreme Court, as the state appealed a lower court's ruling that temporarily blocked construction despite a Congressional order clearing the way for the project.

West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey argued that the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond, Virginia, lacked jurisdiction to block the Mountain Valley Pipeline. In a statement Monday, he said any challenges to Congress' action must be heard by a federal appeals court in Washington, D.C.

Morrisey asked the U.S. Supreme Court to take up the case.

“The Mountain Valley Pipeline is vital to the survival of American energy independence and affects thousands of jobs in West Virginia — its completion is also critical to our national security, the urgent need is for it to be completed as soon as possible,” Morrisey said.

Related video: Appeals court blocks construction on Mountain Valley Pipeline even after Congress says it can't (WTVR Richmond, VA)   Duration 1:20   View on Watch

Congress passed legislation last month ordering all necessary permits be issued for the pipeline, which crosses rugged mountainsides in Virginia and West Virginia. Environmentalists say the construction plan will cause erosion that will ruin soil and water quality.

The legislation addressing the pipeline was part of a bipartisan bill to raise the debt ceiling. It stripped the 4th Circuit Court from jurisdiction over the case. Environmentalists have argued that Congress overstepped its authority by enacting the law, saying it violates the separation of powers outlined in the Constitution.

The appeals court issued a stay July 10 focusing on a 3-mile (5-kilometer) pipeline section that cuts through the Jefferson National Forest. On July 11, the court issued a similar stay in connection with parallel litigation alleging the pipeline would violate the Endangered Species Act. Environmentalists made similar constitutional arguments in that case.

The pipeline's operators say the project is already substantially complete and that only 3 acres (one hectare) of trees need to be cleared, compared to more than 4,400 acres (1,700 hectares) that have been already cleared.

The $6.6 billion, 300-mile (500-kilometer) pipeline is designed to meet growing energy demands in the South and Mid-Atlantic by transporting gas from the Marcellus and Utica fields in Pennsylvania and Ohio.

John Raby, The Associated Press

 

Study: Inflation Reduction Act’s cap on insulin out-of-pocket costs boosts prescription fills

Published in JAMA, the findings from USC and University of Wisconsin–Madison researchers suggest the policy cut the number of Medicare enrollees who weren’t filling insulin because of cost

Peer-Reviewed Publication

UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA

LOS ANGELES – The Inflation Reduction Act’s policy capping out-of-pocket costs for insulin to $35 for a month’s supply led to increases in the total number of insulin fills for Medicare beneficiaries, according to a new study from the USC Schaeffer Center for Health Policy & Economics and University of Wisconsin–Madison.

Following the cap’s enactment in January 2023, the number of insulin fills among Medicare Part D enrollees increased from 519,588 to 523,564 per month. In contrast, the number of insulin fills decreased among older adults without Medicare during the same period. The study was published today in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

The amount spent out-of-pocket for insulin has skyrocketed for Medicare enrollees, from $236 million in 2007 to more than $1 billion in 2020. As a result, many patients with diabetes ration the life-saving drug, increasing the risk of poor health outcomes. In January, the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) capped all Part D beneficiaries’ out-of-pocket costs for insulin at $35 for a month’s supply. The study’s findings suggest the cap is encouraging patients to fill their insulin prescriptions. 

Study analyzed 14 million insulin fills from a national prescription database

To examine the cap’s effectiveness, researchers used data from IQVIA’s National Prescription Audit, which includes 92% of retail pharmacies and 70% of mail-order and long-term care facility pharmacies. The study sample included 14 million insulin fills.

Researchers compared changes in insulin fills for Medicare Part D enrollees aged 65 to 74 with changes among 60- to 64-year-olds without Medicare insurance. The researchers compared outcomes before (September through December 2022) and after (January through April 2023) the IRA cap took effect.

While insulin fills increased among Medicare Part D enrollees after the cap, the number of fills for those without Medicare dropped from 344,719 to 330,229 per month during the same period.

Additionally, the average number of monthly fills with out-of-pocket expenses of $35 or less grew from 340,509 to 366,928 for Medicare enrollees. For those without Medicare, those less expensive fills fell from 242,733 to 220,867, the study found.

After adjusting for differences in the study sample, the analysis suggests that Medicare beneficiaries filled about 50,000 more insulin prescriptions per month that were $35 or less, and about 20,000 of these fills would not have taken place if not for the policy.

Quotes:

“Many Americans are concerned with the cost of insulin because people with diabetes are at great risk of serious health problems, including nerve damage, heart attack and stroke. This new policy has the potential to do two things: save money for people who are taking insulin, and help people afford insulin to begin with,” said study co-author John A. Romley, associate professor at the USC Sol Price School of Public Policy and Alfred E. Mann School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences and a senior fellow at the USC Schaeffer Center.

“Our analysis suggests that this policy meaningfully reduced the number of Medicare beneficiaries who were not filling their insulin because of the cost – which would have potentially put their health at risk,” said lead author Rebecca Myerson, assistant professor of population health sciences at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health and a nonresident senior fellow at the USC Schaeffer Center.

“Ensuring access to affordable insulin is critical for promoting health equity given that Black and Latinx individuals, including among Medicare populations, are more likely to suffer from diabetes and experience barriers in accessing diabetes medications, including insulins,” said co-author Dima Mazen Qato, Hygeia Centennial Chair and associate professor in the Titus Family Department of Clinical Pharmacy at the USC Mann School. She is also a senior fellow with the USC Schaeffer Center.

Dana Goldman, dean and C. Erwin and Ione L. Piper chair of the USC Price School and the co-director of the USC Schaeffer Center, was also a co-author of the study. The research was partially funded by a grant from the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (R01DK107552).

About

Established in 2009, the USC Leonard D. Schaeffer Center for Health Policy & Economics measurably improves value in health through evidence-based policy solutions, research excellence, and private and public-sector engagement. The USC Schaeffer Center combines the rigor and independence of academic research with communication and management resources more typically found in non-academic settings to advance research in health policy. A collaboration between the USC Mann School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences and the USC Sol Price School of Public Policy, the Schaeffer Center has approximately 60 affiliated faculty, including three recipients of the Nobel Prize in Economics, and 40 staff.

The University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health is recognized as a leading institution in health sciences education, research, and service. Founded in 1907 as the medical school of the University of Wisconsin–Madison, we transformed into the nation’s first School of Medicine and Public Health in 2005 to integrate medical and public health approaches throughout our missions. Powered by more than 5,400 faculty and staff, our impact spans the state of Wisconsin and beyond. With deep commitment to a vision of healthy people and healthy communities, we translate discovery into application and foster interconnections between clinical care, education, and research. We are consistently ranked among the nation’s top medical schools, with more than 2,700 students and trainees enrolled in our high-performance academic programs. Annual research funding awards to our scientists averages nearly $450 million. Our 27 departments count some of the nation’s leading researchers, educators, and clinicians among the faculty, including several National Medal of Science recipients and National Academy of Science honorees. Together, we are advancing health and health equity through remarkable service to patients and communities, outstanding education, and innovative research.

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JOURNAL

JAMA

DOI

10.1001/jama.2023.12951 

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

Not applicable

ARTICLE TITLE

Insulin Fills by Medicare Enrollees Before and After the Inflation Reduction Act Caps on Out-of-Pocket Costs

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

24-Jul-2023

 

Dance and the state: Research explores ballet training in Ukraine

While adhering to the Soviet-era Vaganova method, Ukrainian dancers defend their national identity

Peer-Reviewed Publication

BINGHAMTON UNIVERSITY

 

IMAGE: DANCERS TRAIN AT THE KYIV STATE CHOREOGRAPHIC COLLEGE IN UKRAINE IN 2018. view more 

CREDIT: OLEKSANDRA ZLUNITSYNA

BINGHAMTON, N.Y. --  Ballet training centers of Ukraine successfully resist co-optation by both neo-imperial and nationalist ideologies, forming robust and inclusive dancing communities that in many ways mirror structures of modern Ukrainian society, according to research from Binghamton University, State University of New York.

The signature Vaganova style of Soviet ballet can be described in a number of ways: exacting, athletic, classical, Russian. It’s also uniform across post-Soviet training academies, including those based in now-independent Ukraine.

Training shapes bodies, and post-Soviet dancers still begin training young; students at the Kyiv State Choreographic College in Ukraine range from 10 to 17 years old. But if you’re imagining an authoritarian structure with humorless, disciplinarian teachers, you’d be wrong.

During research at the Kyiv school, Binghamton University Research Assistant Professor Ania Nikulina heard instructors crack jokes, often with a touch of dark humor. Students smiled, laughed and even impersonated faculty during a silly end-of-year theatrical performance.

“There’s a very warm, family-like atmosphere at the school, and teachers are always there to help their students in a multitude of ways,” recalled Nikulina, who spent the spring and summer of 2018 at the school for the ethnographic portion of her doctoral research. “The teachers buy water for everyone and make dance shoes, things like that. People care about each other, especially in difficult times.”

And they were tough times indeed: Ukraine was already several years into its “hybrid” conflict with Russia, which began with Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2013 and flamed into open warfare in 2022. Nikulina, a dance historian working with Binghamton’s Theatre and German and Russian Studies departments, explores the intersection of art and nation in “Ballet in Ukraine: From Uncertainty to Defiance and Independence,” recently published in Dance Research Journal. She has an extensive background in dance herself; she trained and performed with different dance companies in various dance styles, including ballet, classical and lyrical jazz, and modern dance, in her Siberian hometown of Novosibirsk.

While classical art often transcends national identity, decisions about which productions to stage are shaped by the realities of funding, Nikulina noted. In places where the main funding authority is the state, performances may incorporate nationalistic themes and explore ideas of nation. Ballet dancers, in a sense, are already sacrificing their bodies for the state; they sustain physical injuries in the course of the art’s long and grueling training.

“Dance historians for at least the past two decades have found deep connections between political regimes and tensions and different dance cultures,” she said. “Dancers, of course, are cultural agents.”

In the Soviet Union, the Ministry of Culture sponsored classical dance and decided which productions would receive state support. That arrangement continued in post-Soviet Russia and Ukraine throughout the 1990s and early 2000s despite salary cuts and delays. When state funding lapses, as it has increasingly in Ukraine, then private institutions begin to fill the gap.

In addition to classical ballets, Ukrainian productions have relied on folk dance and narratives. Nikulina offered one example: the Ukrainian ballet Lileya. While it takes place in Imperial times, its protagonist is a girl whose rural community suffers from Russian aggression.

“There is a very deep coupling of subjectivity with different kinds of nationalistic stories that often feature resistance to Russian authorities,” Nikulina said. “When you’re dancing on stage, you will explore these scenarios. It might feel natural, when the time comes, to defend or criticize these narratives.”

Some ballet dancers have done just that: In the first days of the Russian invasion, they answered their nation’s call to arms and enlisted in military service to defend the homeland.

A tough time for artists

Even before the 2022 invasion, ballet dancers felt the strain of conflict. After all, working in a state-sponsored atmosphere, artists know where the funding comes from — and when funding doesn’t come through because the government needs to give priority to the Ministry of Defense.

National divisions aside, both Ukrainian and Russian dancers study the Vaganova method, which is highly sought-after in international ballet companies. During her interviews and observations at the Kyiv school, however, Nikulina realized that the Ukrainian approach has diverged from its Soviet predecessor. Individual attention and adaptation to student needs are the norm these days, as is humor.

“Students laugh out loud in classes and it seems like it relieves a lot of tension and pressure,” she said.

Teachers and students felt free to criticize state authorities, as funding deficits sometimes left the school without heating during the winter. And while teachers may have some nostalgia for the funding and extensive professional networks of the Soviet period, they don’t miss the Soviet regime or look to Russia as its successor state or as a new cultural capital, Nikulina observed.

Following the 2022 open invasion, many Ukrainian dancers evacuated to countries like Latvia, Lithuania, Poland and Germany to find work; during her ethnographic study, teachers highlighted their connections with international theaters and encouraged their students to head abroad.

“Successful students find jobs elsewhere, partially because of political instability, but also because Russian theaters are not as accessible or desirable to them as they were prior to the war,” Nikulina said. “Because of the revolutions in post-Soviet Ukraine and the hybrid warfare period that began in 2014 until the full-scale invasion, dancers became extra motivated to find positions elsewhere where it’s safe and where they can possibly bring their families.”

Working abroad, however, often means a reliance on short-term contracts with a dance company that can expire after three to six months. While that can be beneficial for dancers looking to escape war, it also leads to a different kind of stress when they consider their longer-term future, Nikulina said.

“For these dancers, instability is doubled: You have political influences such as hybrid warfare, revolution, and full-scale war, but also the particularities of the dance industry and its short-term contracts,” she said. “It’s very hard for artists right now.”

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JOURNAL

Dance Research Journal

DOI

10.1017/S0149767723000062 

ARTICLE TITLE

Ballet in Ukraine: From Uncertainty to Defiance and Independence

 

Muscadine wine shows promise in improving aging skin

Daily dose of dealcoholized wine enhanced skin elasticity in middle-aged women

Reports and Proceedings

AMERICAN SOCIETY FOR NUTRITION

Could muscadine wine help perk up sagging skin? According to a new study, women who drank two glasses of dealcoholized muscadine wine daily showed significant improvements in the elasticity and water retention of their skin compared with those who consumed a placebo.

 

The study is the first time scientists have studied the impacts of nonalcoholic wine consumption on skin health in a randomized clinical trial. Researchers attribute the beneficial effects to chemical compounds called polyphenols that naturally occur in many plants.

 

“Muscadine grapes have been found to have a unique polyphenolic profile in comparison to other red wine varieties,” said Lindsey Christman, PhD, who conducted the research with Liwei Gu, PhD, professor of food chemistry and functional food at the University of Florida. “Our study suggests that muscadine wine polyphenols have potential to improve skin conditions, specifically elasticity and transepidermal water loss, in middle aged and older women.”  

 

Christman will present the findings at NUTRITION 2023, the flagship annual meeting of the American Society for Nutrition held July 22–25 in Boston.

 

Muscadine grapes are native to the Southeastern United States and are commonly used to make wine. Previous clinical trials have suggested that polyphenols found in muscadine wine including anthocyanins, quercetin, and ellagic acid can help to decrease inflammation and oxidative stress. 

 

For the study, researchers recruited 17 women age 40-67 and randomly assigned them to drink either dealcoholized wine or a placebo beverage that looked and tasted similar but did not contain polyphenols. Participants consumed 300 milliliters or about 10 ounces (the equivalent of two glasses of wine) of their assigned beverage daily for six weeks, then took a three-week break before switching to the opposite beverage for six weeks.

 

Researchers measured participants’ skin conditions and markers of inflammation and oxidative stress at the start of the study and at the end of each six-week period. They found that drinking muscadine wine significantly improved skin elasticity (a loss of elasticity is what causes skin to sag more as we age). In addition, the wine was associated with a decrease in water loss at the skin surface, a measurement that indicates the skin is providing a more effective barrier against damage.

 

The researchers did not see any significant difference in the amount of wrinkles on the skin. Participants showed improvements in skin smoothness and less evidence of inflammation and oxidative stress compared to baseline, but there was not a significant difference in these factors between dealcoholized muscadine wine and the placebo.

 

“This cross-over study demonstrated that six weeks of dealcoholized muscadine wine consumption resulted in improvement of certain skin parameters associated with aging, such as elasticity on the forearm and barrier function of the skin on the face, when compared to baseline and placebo,” said Christman. “This is likely due to decreases in inflammation and oxidative stress.”

 

Since the trial involved only 17 participants, repeating the study with a larger and more diverse group of people would help to confirm and strengthen the findings. In addition, most commercially-available muscadine wine contains alcohol, and researchers cautioned that drinking wine with alcohol may produce a different result.

 

“We used dealcoholized muscadine wine because we were interested in the effect of the bioactive compounds in wine, specifically the polyphenols, on skin health,” said Christman. “Alcohol would add another variable to the study that may cause the effects to be different. In addition, the dealcholization process may alter the chemical composition.”

 

Christman will present this research at 12:45 p.m. EDT on Monday, July 24, during the Aging and Chronic Disease Poster Session in the Hynes Convention Center Hall C (abstract; presentation details).

 

Please note that abstracts presented at NUTRITION 2023 were evaluated and selected by a committee of experts but have not generally undergone the same peer review process required for publication in a scientific journal. As such, the findings presented should be considered preliminary until a peer-reviewed publication is available.

 

About NUTRITION 2023

NUTRITION 2023 is the flagship meeting of the American Society for Nutrition and the premier educational event for nutritional professionals around the globe. NUTRITION brings together lab scientists, practicing clinicians, population health researchers, and community intervention investigators to identify solutions to today’s greatest nutrition challenges. Our audience also includes rising leaders in the field – undergraduate, graduate, and medical students. NUTRITION 2023 will be held July 22-25, 2023 in Boston. https://nutrition.org/N23 #Nutrition2023

 

About the American Society for Nutrition (ASN)

ASN is the preeminent professional organization for nutrition research scientists and clinicians around the world. Founded in 1928, the society brings together the top nutrition researchers, medical practitioners, policy makers and industry leaders to advance our knowledge and application of nutrition. ASN publishes four peer-reviewed journals and provides education and professional development opportunities to advance nutrition research, practice, and education. Since 2018, the American Society of Nutrition has presented NUTRITION, the leading global annual meeting for nutrition professionals. http://www.nutrition.org

 

Find more news briefs from NUTRITION 2023 at: https://www.eurekalert.org/newsroom/nutrition2023.

 

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