World-first trial offers new hope for type 1 diabetes

Research published in the New England Journal of Medicine today has shown that a commonly prescribed rheumatoid arthritis drug can suppress the progression of type 1 diabetes. 

Peer-Reviewed Publication

ST VINCENT'S INSTITUTE OF MEDICAL RESEARCH

Researchers at St Vincent’s Institute of Medical Research (SVI) in Melbourne have shown that a commonly prescribed rheumatoid arthritis drug can suppress the progression of type 1 diabetes.  

The world-first human trial, published today in the New England Journal of Medicine and led by SVI’s Professor Thomas Kay, showed that a drug called baricitinib can safely and effectively preserve the body’s own insulin production and suppress the progression of type 1 diabetes in people who initiated treatment within 100 days of diagnosis.    

“When type 1 diabetes is first diagnosed there is a substantial number of insulin-producing cells still present. We wanted to see whether we could protect further destruction of these cells by the immune system. We showed that baricitinib is safe and effective at slowing the progression of type 1 diabetes in people who have been recently diagnosed,” said Professor Kay.  

This ground-breaking research shows promise as the first disease-modifying treatment of its kind for type 1 diabetes that can be delivered as a tablet.  

“It is tremendously exciting for us to be the first group anywhere in the world to test the efficacy of baricitinib as a potential type 1 diabetes treatment,” said Professor Kay.  

“Up until now, people with type 1 diabetes have been reliant on insulin delivered via injection or infusion pump. Our trial showed that, if started early enough after diagnosis, and while the participants remained on the medication, their production of insulin was maintained. People with type 1 diabetes in the trial who were given the drug required significantly less insulin for treatment.”   

Management of the lifelong autoimmune disease is incredibly burdensome on those diagnosed and their families, requiring meticulous glucose monitoring and insulin administration day and night to stay alive.   

Up until insulin’s discovery more than 100 years ago, type 1 diabetes was a fatal condition. Despite insulin’s life-saving role, the therapy itself is potentially dangerous if too much or too little is administered, and the condition still comes with long-term complications, including heart attack and stroke, vision impairment, kidney disease and nerve damage.   

“We are very optimistic that this treatment will become clinically available. This would be a huge step-change in how type 1 diabetes is managed and we believe it shows promise as a fundamental improvement in the ability to control type 1 diabetes,” said Professor Helen Thomas, preclinical lead on the trial.  

The clinical trial was funded by JDRF, the leading type 1 diabetes research, advocacy and community programs organisation, including through the JDRF Type 1 Diabetes Clinical Research Network. Partners included The Royal Melbourne Hospital, St Vincent’s Hospital Melbourne, The Royal Children’s Hospital and The Women’s and Children’s Hospital in Adelaide.  

About St Vincent’s Institute  

St Vincent’s Institute of Medical Research (SVI) is a Melbourne-based, independent medical research institute that conducts biomedical research into the cause, prevention and treatment of high-impact diseases such as cancer, heart disease, diabetes, obesity, bone diseases and Alzheimer’s. SVI is affiliated with St. Vincent’s Hospital and the University of Melbourne. www.svi.edu.au.  

Background information  

About type 1 diabetes   

• Type 1 diabetes is an autoimmune disease in which the body’s immune system mistakenly attacks and kills the cells in the pancreas that produce insulin.  

• People with type 1 diabetes are dependent on externally administered insulin in order to survive.  

• Type 1 diabetes is most commonly diagnosed in children, but adults can also be diagnosed with the disease.  

• More than 130,000 Australians have type 1 diabetes – we have one of the highest rates of type 1 diabetes in the world. In 2022, around 4,000 people were newly diagnosed with type 1 diabetes in Australia.  

• The estimated health care cost in Australia for treating people with type 1 diabetes in 2012 was $570 million annually (latest figures available).  

  More about the science  

1. On average, bringing a new drug to market costs $2-3 billion and takes more than 13 years of intense study and clinical trials. Many drugs fall at one or other of the hurdles put before them – they have unintended side effects, or are toxic, or patients don’t show the benefits that have been seen in animal models of disease. Because of the great investment in time, money and resources spent on getting a drug to the clinic, researchers are increasingly combing through the medicine chest of approved drugs to identify those that might work for a different indication.  

1. The randomised, double-blind, placebo-controlled human trial of the drug baricitinib monitored the blood glucose and insulin production of 91 participants over the course of one year.  Of these, 60 were given baricitinib and 31 were given a placebo. All trial participants were aged between 10 years old and 30 years old and started on the trial within 100 days of having been diagnosed with type 1 diabetes. Participants continued with their prescribed insulin therapy throughout the duration of the study. Researchers monitored participants’ total daily dose of insulin, the amount of insulin produced endogenously (by their own pancreas), their blood glucose levels, and their HbA1C levels. HbA1c, or glycated haemoglobin, is a measure of average blood glucose (sugar) levels for the last two to three months.  

1. Baricitinib blocks an enzyme which normally helps to transmit signals that regulate the immune system and inflammation. The drug is currently prescribed for the treatment of rheumatoid arthritis, which is another autoimmune disease. It is thought that the drug similarly dampens down the immune response that is mounted against insulin-producing cells in people with newly diagnosed type 1 diabetes, thus delaying the onset of full-blown symptoms of the disease, improving glucose control and reducing potential for detrimental longer term health effects.   

1. The attached videos demonstrate the ‘life and death of a beta cell’, and what happens in the lab setting when a similar drug is used in cell culture with insulin-producing cells incubated together with immune cells. In the first video, without the treatment, the immune cells attack and kill the insulin-producing cells. When the drug is included in the second video, the immune cells are disabled and are unable to kill the insulin-producing cells.   

https://youtu.be/yPovcqYu8a4  

https://youtu.be/Cs7UgvQcrko  

ENDS  

 

 

 

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JOURNAL

New England Journal of Medicine

DOI

10.1056/NEJMoa2306691 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Randomized controlled/clinical trial

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

People

ARTICLE TITLE

Baricitinib and β-Cell Function in Patients with New-Onset Type 1 Diabetes

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

7-Dec-2023

Disclaimer: AA

 

It turns out, this fossil plant is really a fossil baby turtle

Researchers nicknamed the fossil “Turtwig” after a Pokemon that’s half-turtle, half-plant

Peer-Reviewed Publication

FIELD MUSEUM

 

IMAGE: 

THE FOSSIL THAT WAS ORIGINALLY INTERPRETED TO BE A PLANT, BUT RESEARCHERS HAVE NOW DISCOVERED IS THE INSIDE OF THE SHELL OF A BABY TURTLE. 

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CREDIT: PHOTO BY FABIANY HERRERA AND HÉCTOR PALMA-CASTRO.

From the 1950s to the 1970s, a Colombian priest named Padre Gustavo Huertas collected rocks and fossils near a town called Villa de Levya. Two of the specimens he found were small, round rocks patterned with lines that looked like leaves; he classified them as a type of fossil plant. But in a new study, published in the journal Palaeontologia Electronica, researchers re-examined these “plant” fossils and found that they weren’t plants at all: they were the fossilized remains of baby turtles.

“It was truly surprising to find these fossils,” says Héctor Palma-Castro, a paleobotany student at the Universidad Nacional de Colombia.

The plants in question had been described by Huertas in 2003 as Sphenophyllum colombianum. The fossils come from Early Cretaceous rocks, between 132 and 113 million years ago, during the dinosaurs’ era. Fossils of Sphenophyllum colombianum were surprising at this time and place— the other known members of the genus Sphenophyllum died out more than 100 million years prior. The plants’a ge and locality piqued the interest of Fabiany Herrera, the Negaunee assistant curator of fossil plants at the Field Museum in Chicago, and his student, Palma-Castro.

“We went to the fossil collection at the Universidad Nacional de Colombia in Bogotá and started looking at the plants, and as soon as we photographed them, we thought, ‘this is weird,’” says Herrera, who has been collecting Early Cretaceous plants from northwestern South America, an area of the world with little paleobotanical work.

At first glance, the fossils, about 2 inches in diameter, looked like rounded nodules containing the preserved leaves of the plant Sphenophyllum. But Herrera and Palma-Castro noticed key features that weren’t quite right.

“We spent days searching through wooden cabinets for fossil plants. When we finally found this fossil, deciphering the shape and margin of the leaf proved challenging,” says Palma-Castro.

“When you look at it in detail, the lines seen on the fossils don’t look like the veins of a plant— I was positive that it was most likely bone,” says Herrera. So he reached out to an old colleague of his, Edwin-Alberto Cadena.

“They sent me the photos, and I said, “This definitely looks like a carapace’— the bony upper shell of a turtle,” says Cadena, a paleontologist who focuses on turtles and other vertebrates at the Universidad del Rosario in Bogotá. When he saw the scale of the photos, Cadena recalls, “I said, ‘Well, this is remarkable, because this is not only a turtle, but it’s also a hatchling specimen, it’s very, very small.”

Cadena and his student, Diego Cómbita-Romero of the Universidad Nacional de Colombia, further examined the specimens, comparing them with the shells of both fossil and modern turtles. “When we saw the specimen for the first time I was astonished, because the fossil was missing the typical marks on the outside of a turtle’s shell,” says Cómbita-Romero. It was a little bit concave, like a bowl. At that moment we realized that the visible part of the fossil was the other side of the carapace, we were looking at the part of the shell that is inside the turtle.”

Details in the turtle’s bones helped the researchers estimate how old it was at death. “Turtle growth rates and sizes vary,” says Cómbita-Romero, so the team looked at features like the thickness of its carapace and the spots where its ribs were knitting together into solid bone. “This is a feature uncommon in hatchlings but observed in juveniles. All this information suggests that the turtle likely died with a slightly developed carapace, between 0 to 1 years old, in a post-hatchling stage,” he says.

“This is actually really rare to find hatchlings of fossil turtles in general,” says Cadena. “When the turtles are very young, the bones in their shells are very thin, so they can be easily destroyed.”

The researchers say that the rarity of fossilized baby turtles makes their discovery an important one. “These turtles were likely relatives of other Cretaceous species that were up to fifteen feet long, but we don’t know much about how they actually grew to such giant sizes,” says Cadena.

The researchers don’t fault Padre Huertas for his mistake— the preserved shells really do resemble many fossil plants. But the features that Huertas thought were leaves and stems are actually the modified rib bones and vertebrae that make up a turtle’s shell. Cómbita-Romero and Palma-Castro nicknamed the specimens as “Turtwig,” after a Pokémon that’s half-turtle, half-plant.

Drawing highlighting the rib and back bones, superimposed onto the fossil.

CREDIT

Photo by Fabiany Herrera and Héctor Palma-Castro; drawing by Edwin-Alberto Cadena and Diego Cómbita-Romero.

“In the Pokémon universe, you encounter the concept of combining two or more elements, such as animals, machines, plants, etc. So, when you have a fossil initially classified as a plant that turns out to be a baby turtle, a few Pokémon immediately come to mind. In this case, Turtwig, a baby turtle with a leaf attached to its head,” says Palma-Castro.” In paleontology, your imagination and capacity to be amazed are always put to the test. Discoveries like these are truly special because they not only expand our knowledge about the past but also open a window to the diverse possibilities of what we can uncover.”

The scientists also note the importance of these fossils in the larger scheme of Colombian paleontology. “We resolved a small paleobotanical mystery, but more importantly, this study shows the need to re-study historical collections in Colombia. The Early Cretaceous is a critical time in land plant evolution, particularly for flowering plants and gymnosperms. Our future job is to discover the forests that grew in this part of the world,” says Herrera.

This project was supported by the National Geographic Society, grant (EC-96755R-22) Discovering Early Cretaceous Floras from Northern South America & the Negaunee Integrative Research Center, Field Museum.

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DOI

10.26879/1306 

ARTICLE TITLE

An Early Cretaceous Sphenophyllum or a hatchling turtle?

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

7-Dec-2023

 21ST CENTURY SPAGYRIC HERBALISM

Manipulation of gut microbiota with flaxseed could reduce breast cancer risk

Peer-Reviewed Publication

AMERICAN SOCIETY FOR MICROBIOLOGY

Washington, D.C.— A new study demonstrates that the human gut microbiome may be a factor in breast health. Lifestyle and diet have long been known to affect human health. In the study, flaxseed components called lignans were shown to influence the relationship between gut microorganisms and the expression of mammary gland microRNAs (miRNAs). A subset of these miRNAs regulates the genes involved in breast cancer, including genes that control cell proliferation and migration. The study was published in Microbiology Spectrum, a journal of the American Society for Microbiology.

“The gastrointestinal microbiota plays an important role in modifying many components of our diet to impact human health,” said Jennifer Auchtung, Ph.D., Assistant Professor in the Food Science and Technology Department at the University of Nebraska - Lincoln, the editor who coordinated the review of the paper. “In this study, we found correlations between diets enriched in flaxseed, cecal microbiota composition and miRNA profiles in the mammary gland that regulate many pathways, including those involved in cancer development. This preliminary study supports further research into the role that the microbiota plays in dietary approaches to reduce risk factors associated with disease.”

The researchers studied the effects of flaxseed lignans on the microbiota of young female mice. Lignans, fiber-associated compounds found in many foods and particularly plentiful in flaxseed, are associated with reduced breast cancer mortality in postmenopausal women. The researchers found that lignan components generate specific miRNA responses in the mammary gland. miRNAs are short, noncoding RNAs that regulate gene expression by targeting the 3’ untranslated region of target mRNAs. 

To determine whether the relationship between the microbiota and mammary gland miRNAs could be manipulated to reduce the risk of breast cancer, the researchers fed flaxseed lignan components to female mice to determine whether gut cecal microbiota profiles are related to miRNA expression in the mammary gland. The cecum, the first part of the colon, located in the right lower abdomen near the appendix, is believed to have a role in production of short-chain fatty acids and has been proposed to serve as a reservoir of anaerobic bacteria.

One flaxseed oil lignan requires microbial processing to release bioactive metabolites, small-molecule chemicals produced during metabolism that influence physiology and disease —in this case having antitumor effects. The researchers found that the microbiota and mammary gland miRNA are related and that flaxseed lignans modify the relationship to be non-cancer causing. 

“If these findings are confirmed, the microbiota becomes a new target to prevent breast cancer through dietary intervention,” said Elena M. Comelli, Ph.D., Associate Professor in the Department of Nutritional Sciences and the Temerty Faculty of Medicine, University of Toronto, the corresponding author on the paper.
 

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The American Society for Microbiology is one of the largest professional societies dedicated to the life sciences and is composed of 36,000 scientists and health practitioners. ASM's mission is to promote and advance the microbial sciences.

ASM advances the microbial sciences through conferences, publications, certifications, educational opportunities and advocacy efforts. It enhances laboratory capacity around the globe through training and resources. It provides a network for scientists in academia, industry and clinical settings. Additionally, ASM promotes a deeper understanding of the microbial sciences to diverse audiences.

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JOURNAL

Microbiology Spectrum

 

Unlocking brain secrets: New insights into how our minds control impulses

Peer-Reviewed Publication

WEST CHINA HOSPITAL OF SICHUAN UNIVERSITY

 

IMAGE: 

BRAIN ACTIVATION MAPS FOR GENERAL RESPONSE INHIBITION ON WHOLE BRAIN LEVEL (CONTRAST: NOGO > GO; P < 0.05 FWE, PEAK LEVEL). L, LEFT; R, RIGHT. THE COLOR BAR REPRESENTS THE T-VALUES OF THE BOLD SIGNAL AND REFLECT THE SIGNIFICANCE LEVEL OF THE CONTRAST.

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CREDIT: PSYCHORADIOLOGY

Published in the 2023 Volume 3 issue of Psychoradiology a team of dedicated researchers from The University of Hong Kong and The University of Electronic Science and Technology of China has conclusively identified the right inferior frontal gyrus (rIFG) as a key input and causal regulator within the subcortical response inhibition nodes. This right-lateralized inhibitory control circuit, characterized by its significant intrinsic connectivity, highlights the crucial role of the rIFG in orchestrating top-down cortical-subcortical control, underscoring the intricate dynamics of brain function in response inhibition.

In this comprehensive study, researchers employed dynamic causal modeling (DCM-PEB) and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) with a substantial sample size (n = 250) to explore inhibitory circuits in the brain, particularly focusing on the right inferior frontal gyrus (rIFG), caudate nucleus (rCau), globus pallidum (rGP), and thalamus (rThal). This approach treated the brain as a nonlinear dynamical system, enabling the estimation of directed causal influences among these nodes, influenced by task demands and biological variables. Findings revealed a high intrinsic connectivity within this neural circuit, with response inhibition notably enhancing causal projections from the rIFG to both rCau and rThal, particularly amplifying the regulatory role of the rIFG during such tasks. The study also uncovered that sex and performance metrics significantly affect the circuit's functional architecture; for instance, women exhibited increased self-inhibition in the rThal and reduced modulation to the GP, while better inhibitory performance was linked to more robust communication from the rThal to the rIFG. Interestingly, these communication patterns were not mirrored in a left-lateralized model, highlighting a hemispheric asymmetry. The research indicates that different brain processes might mediate similar behavioral performances in response inhibition across genders, particularly in thalamic loops, with higher response inhibition accuracy associated with stronger information flow from the rThal to the rIFG.

These insights into the brain's inhibitory control mechanisms have significant implications for understanding a range of mental and neurological disorders characterized by response inhibition deficits. The study's findings could guide the development of targeted neuromodulation strategies and personalized interventions to address these deficits, enhancing the treatment and management of such conditions.

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References

DOI

10.1093/psyrad/kkad016

Original Source URL

https://doi.org/10.1093/psyrad/kkad016

Funding information

The National Key Research and Development Program of China (2018YFA0701400), The National Natural Science Foundation of China (31530032, 91632117, 32200904), The Key Technological Projects of Guangdong Province (2018B030335001).

About Psychoradiology

Psychoradiology is an open-access journal co-published by Oxford University Press and West China Hospital. It has been indexed by DOAJ and the APC is waived during its early   stage. We welcome interdisciplinary submissions in the fields of radiology, psychology, psychiatry, neurology and neuroscience, as well as medical imaging, interventional medicine, artificial intelligence, and computer science, etc. A fast-track production mode will be adopted to ensure the manuscript is published as soon as possible.

Location of regions included in the right model and group-level connectivity parameters. 

WEST CHINA HOSPITAL OF SICHUAN UNIVERSITY

(a) Location of regions included in the right model. The A matrix: intrinsic connectivity across all experimental conditions (b, f). The B matrix: modulatory effect on effective connectivity between regions and self-inhibitions from NoGo (c, g) and Go condition (d, h). The C matrix: Driving inputs in ROI in the NoGo and Go condition (e, i). Values in matrices reflect the connectivity parameters.

CREDIT

Psychoradiology

JOURNAL

Psychoradiology

DOI

10.1093/psyrad/kkad016 

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

Not applicable

ARTICLE TITLE

The right inferior frontal gyrus as pivotal node and effective regulator of the basal ganglia-thalamocortical response inhibition circuit

Most of the world’s countries receive failing grade in global ‘human rights report card’

A research team based at the University of Rhode Island drew on a vast quantitative dataset to grade human rights practices in every country around the world

Reports and Proceedings

UNIVERSITY OF RHODE ISLAND

KINGSTON, R.I. —Dec. 7, 2023—A new report that grades all the countries of the world on their respect for human rights paints a grim picture of human rights practices in the 21st century.

Produced by the Global RIghts Project (GRIP), a research team based in the University of Rhode Island’s Center for Nonviolence and Peace Studies, the report draws on a vast quantitative human rights dataset to grade each country’s human rights practices on a 100-point scale. The report found that 60% of the world’s countries get an ‘F’ (a score of 0-59) for their human rights practices, while only about 20% of countries receive a grade of ‘A’ or ‘B’ (a score of 80-100). The global median score was 50.

“We show that most countries of the world are failing to protect their citizens’ most basic rights,” said Skip Mark, an assistant professor of political science at URI and director of the Center for Nonviolence and Peace Studies. “We think these findings make it clear that there’s a lot of work to do in terms of ensuring that all people have a chance to live a life of dignity and respect. We hope objective measures of human rights practices in this report will be a resource for policymakers, nongovernmental organizations, researchers, and anyone else interested in improving human rights around the world.”

GRIP grades are based on the extent to which countries respect a suite of 25 individual human rights. Those rights include physical integrity rights such as freedom from torture or political imprisonment, empowerment rights such as freedom of speech and assembly, worker rights such as the right to unionize and freedom from child labor, and justice rights such as the right to a fair trial.

Measures of the rights that comprise the GRIP grades are derived from the CIRIGHTS Data Project, the largest quantitative human rights dataset in the world. Drawing on human rights reports from the U.S. Department of State, Amnesty International, the United Nations’ State of the World’s Indigenous Peoples Report, and other sources, CIRIGHTS aims to collect objective measures for every recognized human right in every country. By creating a composite score using the 25 representative rights, the GRIP report seeks to provide an overall picture of each country’s human rights practices.

“It's been at least 40 years since there has been an annual human rights report card for all nations of the world,” said David Cingranelli, a professor at Binghamton University and a co-leader of the CIRGHTS Data Project. “This report gives us an objective measure of human rights using a methodology that’s transparent and replicable.”

Human rights around the world

According to the report, the five top countries for human rights were Finland (with a grade of 98 or ‘A’), Australia (92, ‘A-’), Estonia (92, ‘A-’), Sweden (92, ‘A-’), and Austria (90, ‘A-’). The bottom five were Iran (0, ‘F’), Syria (6, ‘F’), Yemen (8, ‘F’), Venezuela (12, ‘F’), and Egypt (14, ‘F’). Canada had the highest grade in the Americas with an 88 (B). Taiwan led Asian nations with a score of 78 (C+), while Cabo Verde had the highest score in Africa with an 84 (B). The United States had a score of 64 (D), ranking 59th worldwide.

The researchers also looked at the characteristics of countries that were correlated with better or worse human rights. They found that:

• Democracies tend to have significantly better human rights, with GRIP scores 24 to 27 points higher than autocracies.
• Small-population countries tend to have better human rights. The smallest countries score 30 to 35 points higher than the largest countries.
• Wealthy countries have better human rights. The poorest countries have a human rights score that is 34 to 40 points lower than the richest countries.

Given these characteristics, the score for the U.S. (64) is unsurprising, the researchers say. The U.S. is a wealthy country, which correlates with better human rights. But it also has a large population, which correlates to worse rights. Democracy monitoring organizations such as the Center for Systematic Peace have downgraded the U.S. from a full democracy to an anocracy (a middle ground between full democracy and autocracy) in recent years. 

“Given what we know about the way a country’s characteristics correlate with human rights, the U.S. falls about where we’d expect it to be,” Mark said. "However, if the U.S. is no longer a democracy and democratic backsliding continues then human rights are likely to significantly decline in the near future."  

While the U.S. had strong scores for several civil and political rights, it continues to violate many labor rights, women's rights, and civil and political rights such as freedom from torture and extrajudicial killings, the researchers found.

The report also shed light on which rights tend to be the most and least protected. That analysis found the civil and political rights (freedom of movement, freedom from political imprisonment, freedom from extrajudicial killing) are the most protected rights worldwide, while economic rights (freedom from child labor, the right to unionize, the right to reasonable work hours and safe working conditions, freedom from human trafficking) are the least protected worldwide.

“This suggests that a focus on improving economic rights may have the biggest immediate impact in terms of improving people’s lives worldwide,” Mark said.

Because the CIRIGHTS dataset includes more than 40 years of human rights data, the researchers were able to look at changes in rights over time. They found that respect for human rights globally has declined in the 21st century, with average GRIP grades falling between one and three points in the last 20 years.

Rights declined significantly during the COVID-19 pandemic as well. For example, GRIP scores related to human trafficking declined 62% in the two years after the onset of the pandemic compared with the two years before. That’s likely because those who suffered the economic consequences of the pandemic became more susceptible to trafficking, the researchers say. Other rights including the right to unionize, electoral self-determination, and freedom of movement also declined significantly.

The GRIP researchers plan to work with the CIRIGHTS team to issue a similar report each year. The goal, the researchers say, is to provide a measuring tool that can be used to help improve human rights worldwide.

“This report makes uniquely clear the human rights footprints left by governments in every part of the world,” said David Richards, a professor at the University of Connecticut and co-leader of CIRIGHTS. “Since there's no helping human dignity without fully understanding the nature and extent of threats to its respect, the information these data bring to light couldn't be more important.”

The GRIP research team, led by Mark, includes Ekaterina (Kate) Sylvester, a research associate in the Center for Nonviolence and Peace Studies; Margaret Frost, an assistant professor of political science at URI; as well as URI graduate and undergraduate students. The CIRIGHTS Data Project is led by Mark, Cingranelli, Richards and Mikhail Filippov of Binghamton University.

ROUND UP THE USUAL SUSPECTS

 

PFAS exposure linked to decreased bone health in adolescents and young Hispanic adults

Led by researchers at the Keck School of Medicine of USC, this is one of the first longitudinal studies of PFAS — also known as “forever chemicals” because they don’t break down — and bone mineral density focused on young people of Hispanic origin

Peer-Reviewed Publication

KECK SCHOOL OF MEDICINE OF USC

Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), manufactured chemicals used in products such as food packaging and cosmetics, can lead to reproductive problems, increased cancer risk and other health issues. A growing body of research has also linked the chemicals to lower bone mineral density, which can lead to osteoporosis and other bone diseases. But most of those studies have focused on older, non-Hispanic white participants and only collected data at a single point in time.

Now, researchers from the Keck School of Medicine of USC have replicated those results in a longitudinal study of two groups of young participants, primarily Hispanics, a group that faces a heightened risk of bone disease in adulthood.

“This is a population completely understudied in this area of research, despite having an increased risk for bone disease and osteoporosis,” said Vaia Lida Chatzi, MD, PhD, a professor of population and public health sciences at the Keck School of Medicine and the study’s senior author.

In a group of 304 adolescents, exposure to PFAS was linked to a decrease in bone mineral density over time. In a group of 137 young adults, PFAS exposure was also linked to lower baseline bone density, but no differences were observed over time. The results were just published in the journal Environmental Research.

“Many existing studies haven’t included participants this young, but we’re now able to see that this association is already happening at a time when bones are supposed to be developing,” said Emily Beglarian, MPH, a doctoral student in the Keck School of Medicine’s Department of Population and Public Health Sciences and lead author of the study.

The researchers say the findings highlight the need for stricter regulation of PFAS, which have contaminated public drinking water, food and soil across the United States.

“PFAS are ubiquitous—we are all exposed to them,” Chatzi said. “We need to eliminate that exposure to allow our youth to reach their full potential in terms of bone development to help them avoid osteoporosis later in life.”

Implications across the lifespan

Bone mineral density increases during adolescence, peaks between the ages of 20 and 30, then slowly decreases throughout adulthood. Peak bone mineral density helps predict whether a person will get osteoporosis later in life, prompting the researchers to investigate how PFAS can affect young people.

“We want to make sure we’re not exposing ourselves to things that harm our bone development, because it has implications over the rest of our lives,” Beglarian said.

The researchers studied 304 Hispanic adolescents, with an average age of 11 years, from the Study of Latino Adolescents at Risk of Type 2 Diabetes. They collected blood samples to measure PFAS levels and a special kind of x-ray known as a dual x-ray absorptiometry (DXA) scan to measure bone density, then followed up after about one and a half years to check for a change over time. For each doubling of baseline perfluorooctanesulfonic acid (PFOS), one type of PFAS, participants had an average decrease in bone mineral density of .003 g/cm2 per year at follow-up.

They also studied 137 young adults, who were 58.4% Hispanic and had an average age of 19 years, from the Southern California Children's Health Study. They collected blood samples and DXA scans at baseline, then followed up about four years later. When baseline levels of PFOS doubled, participants had an average of .032 g/cm2 lower baseline bone mineral density, though no significant change was observed over time.

Limiting exposure to PFAS

The researchers say stricter regulations are needed for PFAS, especially to protect high-risk communities such as Hispanics who also face increased exposures to other types of pollutants. 

“It’s important to regulate PFAS as a class, because we are not just exposed to one chemical, we are exposed to thousands of chemicals,” Chatzi said.

While the burden of reducing PFAS should not fall to individuals, the researchers are planning outreach efforts to help people learn how to limit their personal exposure. Tips include avoiding nonstick pans and personal care products known to include PFAS.

Chatzi, Beglarian and their colleagues are also expanding their research to confirm the findings across the lifespan and in other communities throughout the U.S., with a continued focus on Hispanics. They also plan to study the biological mechanisms behind the effects of PFAS on bone health, including looking for biomarkers that could indicate bone health is at risk before osteoporosis sets in.

About this research

In addition to Chatzi and Beglarian, the study's other authors are Elizabeth Costello, Hongxu Wang, Zhanghua Chen, Brittney Baumert, Sarah Rock, Bruna Rubbo, Max Aung, Frank Gilliland, Rob McConnell, Sandrah Eckel, David Conti and Jesse Goodrich from the Department of Population and Public Health Sciences, Keck School of Medicine of USC; Douglas Walker from the Rollins School of Public Health, Emory University; Tanya Alderete from the Department of Integrative Physiology, University of Colorado Boulder; Damaskini Valvi from the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai; Michael Goran from the Department of Pediatrics; Children’s Hospital Los Angeles; and Dean Jones from the Division of Pulmonary, Allergy Critical Care and Sleep Medicine, Emory University.

This work is supported primarily by the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences [R01ES029944]. Funding for the Study of Latino Adolescents at Risk (SOLAR) came from the National Institutes of Health [R01DK59211] and funding for the Meta-AIR study, a subset of the Southern California Children's Health Study, came from the Southern California Children's Environmental Health Center grants funded by the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences [5P01ES022845-03, 5P30ES007048, 5P01ES011627], the United States Environmental Protection Agency [RD83544101] and the Hastings Foundation.

 

 

 

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JOURNAL

Environmental Research

DOI

10.1016/j.envres.2023.117611 

ARTICLE TITLE

Exposure to perfluoroalkyl substances and longitudinal changes in bone F mineral density in adolescents and young adults: A multi-cohort study

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

6-Dec-2023

 GREEN CAPITALI$M

Focus on people to boost Africa’s climate resilience

Reports and Proceedings

UNIVERSITY OF EXETER

Investments in Africa’s infrastructure can make people and communities far more resilient to the threats posed by climate change, a new report says.

Traditionally, financiers and developers have focused on risks to infrastructure such as transport, water and energy systems when considering climate resilience (being able to cope with threats such as extreme heat and storms).

However, a new report launched today at COP28 – produced by the Private Infrastructure Development Group (PIDG) and the University of Exeter – calls for an expanded focus.  

Specifically, it says financiers and developers should consider how infrastructure can most effectively contribute to the resilience of the communities and economies it serves – especially those most vulnerable to climate extremes.

Professor Richard Betts MBE, a lead author of the report, said: “Climate hazards such as extreme heat and humidity, drought, heavy rainfall and sea-level rise are increasingly seen across many parts of Africa, and will be more widespread and more severe in the coming decades.

“Millions of people in Africa are more vulnerable to these threats because they lack access to critical power, transport and water services, or rely on aging, overstretched or informal infrastructure.”

The report outlines the varying climate threats facing different African regions.

While much of the continent will experience increasing heat stress, some areas will be particularly prone to droughts (e.g. North Africa, Southern Africa and areas of the Sahara), while others are more likely to experience heavy rainfall and flooding (e.g. East Africa, Central and West Africa), and others may be hit by both (e.g. Madagascar).

Coastal flooding and wildfires are also likely to increase in some areas.

Given these growing threats, the report urges investors to gain a better understanding of which vulnerabilities need to be addressed, and therefore which kinds of investment can be the most powerful in building resilience.

Anna Murphy, the other lead author, said: “When considering infrastructure investments for climate resilience, the focus needs to be on the people who use it.

“The most inspiring and effective solutions focus on people, yet tackle multiple issues simultaneously.

“I spoke with entrepreneurs building affordable solar-powered irrigation systems which improve crop yields even in drought and bring clean power to communities - and therefore provide a cascade of education, information and economic opportunities.

“Multipurpose roads can be designed to mitigate flood risk and store water for use in drought periods.

“Or sewage sludge can be converted from a health risk exacerbated by flooding, into fuel, reducing business emissions and costs as well as deforestation – and solving a health risk.

“Entrepreneurs developed these solutions by working closely with their users.

“They show how determined and creative problem-solving are identifying win-win-win solutions for climate resilience local livelihoods, wider economies and the planet.”

The report says climate resilience and sustainable development can be mutually beneficial.

Considered together, they can trigger processes of change that widen and accelerate – going beyond incremental change to transform lives and ensure African economies continue to develop and grow in the face of climate hazards.

“The challenge for investors is to use resources strategically to maximise climate-resilient development,” said Tom Powell, another key author.

“By doing this, investment can drive processes and outcomes which can endure, self-sustain and cascade, even in the face of climate change.

“Such opportunities exist.

“In contrast to some other regions, Africa’s great need for new infrastructure creates the opportunity to leapfrog to an integrated approach which delivers on sustainability, adaptation and resilience.

“Africa’s young, educated and entrepreneurial population is developing and scaling solutions which deliver development, adaptation and resilience simultaneously.”

The report highlights nature-based “green infrastructure” solutions, which have huge potential in some settings given their effectiveness in delivering resilience, adaptation and development – while being typically cheaper than conventional hard infrastructure solutions.

Infrastructure can drive climate-resilience and development through providing direct adaptation or resilience benefits that protect from climate hazards; through driving economic development that underpins people’s capacity and resources to adapt; and through contributing to macro-economic resilience by facilitating trade or reducing dependence on imports.

“Infrastructure financing at scale and pace in developing and emerging markets is crucial to climate resilience and sustainable development where these challenges are most urgent,” said Philippe Valahu, from PIDG.

“Our report identifies the hazards and opportunities – and aims to redefine what investing in climate action means in Africa, opening new avenues for investors and helping them make decisions that enable and accelerate climate-resilient development.”

The report is entitled: “Africa Climate Solutions: Investing in infrastructure for climate resilience across Africa.”

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ARTICLE TITLE

Africa Climate Solutions: Investing in infrastructure for climate resilience across Africa.”