Could an already approved drug cut down on opioid use after surgery?

A pilot study conducted by Medical University of South Carolina researchers has found that an FDA-approved drug called NAC could be useful for reducing the need for opioids after spinal surgery

Peer-Reviewed Publication

MEDICAL UNIVERSITY OF SOUTH CAROLINA

 

IMAGE: 

AN ASTROCYTE, A TYPE OF NON-NEURONAL CELL, IN THE RODENT CORTEX. THE OUTER BOUNDARY OF THE CELL IS SHOWN IN YELLOW; THE CELL “SKELETON” IN TEAL.

view more 

CREDIT: MEDICAL UNIVERSITY OF SOUTH CAROLINA. IMAGE COURTESY OF DR. MICHAEL D. SCOFIELD OR CONTACT DR. SCOFIELD FOR PERMISSION.

Researchers in the Department of Anesthesia and Perioperative Medicine at the Medical University of South Carolina (MUSC) have found that an FDA-approved drug may help to decrease pain after surgery. In the pilot study published in Pain Management, spinal surgery patients who received N-acetylcysteine (NAC) during surgery in addition to standard pain control treatments reported lower pain scores and requested fewer opioids after surgery than patients given a placebo.

Opioids are often given for a short time after surgery to treat pain. Although effective, their potency can wain and addictive potential can be dangerous without careful supervision by a health care provider. As such, physicians welcome the opportunity to limit opioid use in managing pain.

“Can we stop giving opiates completely? Likely not. Can we decrease the amount patients need? We should try,” said Sylvia Wilson, M.D., the Jerry G. Reves Endowed Chair in Anesthesia Research in the Department of Anesthesia and Perioperative Medicine and a principal investigator of the study.

Wilson has worked for years on efforts to improve pain management and limit opioid usage after surgical operations. As it turns out, a collaboration with a basic scientist within her own department could offer a solution.

A productive partnership

Wilson began to work closely with Michael Scofield, Ph.D., the Jerry G. Reves Endowed Chair in Basic Science Anesthesiology Research and a senior author of the published study. Scofield has conducted laboratory research on NAC, an anti-inflammatory drug that is used to treat acetaminophen poisoning, mushroom poisoning and liver damage. Researchers, such as Scofield, have also studied its effects on the nervous system, especially in the areas of addiction and pain perception. Wilson’s clinical goals and Scofield’s research on NAC made them ideal collaborators.

“This project is really an elegant synthesis of basic science and clinical research, using things we find have efficacy in the laboratory and taking them to the clinic,” said Scofield.

Wilson believes that partnerships between physicians and basic scientists can spur clinical advances. She credits the supportive environment within the department fostered by Chairman Scott Reeves, M.D., and former College of Medicine Dean Jerry G. Reves, M.D., for making such partnerships possible.

Promising trial insights

The research team chose spinal surgery patients for its pilot study because these patients often experience chronic pain before surgery and are more likely to be exposed to higher levels of opioids before, during and after surgery. During surgery, patients received a standard regimen of anesthesia in addition to a dose of NAC or a saline infusion. Information on patients’ pain and opioid consumption was then collected.

In the 48 hours after surgery, patients who were administered NAC via IV infusion (150 mg/kg) received 19% fewer opioid doses on average than patients who received saline. NAC patients also reported lower pain scores and took a longer time to request pain medication after their surgery than the saline patients. The researchers were especially encouraged to see that the beneficial effect seemed to last longer than the NAC was expected to remain in the body.

“We’ve seen the impact of giving this medication persisting, and I think that’s significant,” said Wilson. “We’re not seeing a rebound effect when that medication wears off.”

This extended effect on pain perception mirrored previous findings from Scofield’s laboratory research.

“For heroin addiction, we had seen in NAC preclinical studies that protection against relapse vulnerability is long lasting,” said Scofield. “Certainly, the hope is that it’s something that has a long duration.”

Looking to the future

Next, the research team wants to investigate whether the findings can be translated to other procedures. They are currently enrolling patients undergoing minimally invasive hysterectomies in a larger trial. As more patients are enrolled, the researchers will be able to conduct more in-depth statistical tests to improve their understanding of the effects of NAC on surgery-associated pain. This will help them to set the stage for future clinical trials of NAC during surgery.

“To change practice, you need many large clinical trials with different settings, different types of surgeries to show that you’re going to cause benefit, not harm,” said Wilson. “We want to show good clinical efficacy, but also safety in that situation.”

# # #

About MUSC

Founded in 1824 in Charleston, MUSC is the state’s only comprehensive academic health system, with a unique mission to preserve and optimize human life in South Carolina through education, research and patient care. Each year, MUSC educates more than 3,200 students in six colleges – Dental Medicine, Graduate Studies, Health Professions, Medicine, Nursing and Pharmacy – and trains more than 900 residents and fellows in its health system. MUSC brought in more than $298 million in research funds in fiscal year 2022, leading the state overall in research funding. MUSC also leads the state in federal and National Institutes of Health funding, with more than $220 million. For information on academic programs, visit musc.edu.

As the health care system of the Medical University of South Carolina, MUSC Health is dedicated to delivering the highest-quality and safest patient care while educating and training generations of outstanding health care providers and leaders to serve the people of South Carolina and beyond. Patient care is provided at 16 hospitals (includes owned and equity stake), with approximately 2,700 beds and four additional hospital locations in development; more than 350 telehealth sites and connectivity to patients’ homes; and nearly 750 care locations situated in all regions of South Carolina. In 2022, for the eighth consecutive year, U.S. News & World Report named MUSC Health University Medical Center in Charleston the No. 1 hospital in South Carolina. To learn more about clinical patient services, visit muschealth.org.

MUSC has a total enterprise annual operating budget of $5.1 billion. The nearly 26,000 MUSC family members include world-class faculty, physicians, specialty providers, scientists, students, affiliates and care team members who deliver groundbreaking education, research, and patient care.

  

Michael Scofield, Ph.D.  (left) is the Jerry G. Reves Endowed Chair in Basic Science Anesthesiology Research at the Medical University of South Carolina. Sylvia Wilson, M.D. (right) is the Jerry G. Reves Endowed Chair in Anesthesia Research at MUSC.

CREDIT

Medical University of South Carolina. Photograph by Sarah Pack

JOURNAL

Pain Management

DOI

10.2217/pmt-2023-0061 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Randomized controlled/clinical trial

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

People

ARTICLE TITLE

The impact of intraoperative N-acetylcysteine on opioid consumption following spine surgery: a randomized pilot trial

 

Male gender expression in schools is associated with substance abuse later in life

Peer-Reviewed Publication

UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO MEDICAL CENTER

A new study led by researchers at the University of Chicago found that changes in male gender expression from adolescence to young adulthood align closely with the gender norms present in individuals’ school environments, and that these trajectories are associated with subsequent patterns of substance abuse.

Amidst a growing consensus among social science researchers that separates gender from biological sex, gender has come to be defined as a constellation of expected behaviors, attributes, preferences and beliefs typically associated with a specific gender identity. Prior research shows that traditional models of male gender identity, constructed over time through sociocultural processes and interactions, can be a risk factor for unhealthy behaviors.

With that background, the UChicago researchers set out to explore how sociocultural pressures around male gender in particular might evolve in relation to environmental factors, and how that change could impact a person's long-term health in specific ways.

“There’s a real misconception that men aren’t particularly sensitive or emotional,” said Nathaniel Glasser, MD, a general internist and pediatrician at UChicago Medicine and lead author on the paper. “In reality, I think men’s emotions simply present differently because of the impact of sociocultural narratives telling them not to express emotions through tears or words that construe weakness. And they can face especially harsh social and psychological penalties if they fail to live up to the norms of their gender identity.”

“We set out to investigate how that often-overlooked sensitivity among cisgender men might manifest in a reluctance to engage in healthy behaviors, as well as an over-engagement in health risk behaviors in an effort to convey dominance and reduce vulnerability,” Glasser said.

Impact of gender dynamics within school environments

The UChicago researchers used data from a nationally representative longitudinal cohort study called Add Health. In the initial round of data collection in the 1990s, the study enrolled large numbers of participants who attended the same schools, which enabled granular social network mapping and analyses. Rather than being limited to analyzing data from individuals out of context, researchers could find out how each person compared to their peers in gender expression and who they identified as people close to them.

Using a previously validated technique, Glasser and his colleagues Jacob Jameson, Elizabeth Tung, Stacy Lindau and Harold Pollack measured male gender expression quantitatively by analyzing survey responses to survey items that were found to be answered most differently by male versus female respondents, such as frequency of crying and military service. Importantly, this empirically derived method helped them avoid projecting today’s gender norms onto adolescents in the 1990s.

The researchers found that the way adolescent boys at a school are enacting their gender has a significant impact on other males who attend that school, shaping the ways those same males respond to sociocultural pressures around male gender as young adults. That in turn predicts their likelihood of engaging in substance abuse.

Adolescent boys whose gender expression was further from their school’s norm showed the greatest change in their gender expression as young adults, shifting toward that local norm of their school. Those who displayed the greatest changes were also the most likely to abuse substances including alcohol, cigarettes, marijuana and recreational drugs as young adults.

“These results add quantitative evidence to a conclusion that others have already drawn qualitatively: local expectations shape people’s understanding of their identity and how they perform it to their peers,” said senior author Harold Pollack, PhD, the Helen Ross Distinguished Service Professor at the UChicago Crown Family School of Social Work, Policy and Practice.

Countering the narrative to promote health

Based on these results, Pollack suggested public health experts could play a role in countering detrimental cultural narratives, such as when advertisers use gender-based messaging to promote harmful products like tobacco, alcohol or gambling platforms.

“It’s important to understand what motivates people,” he said. “If someone has a male gender expression where they put a lot of weight on self-reliance and strength and being a source of strength for the people around them, we can help them see that one of the ways to do that is by attending to their health.”

This study is part of a larger body of research around the tangible health effects of social pressures, especially those related to gender identity and expression. The results have the potential to shape paradigms in public health research and in clinical practice.

“We need to start taking social pressures more seriously as health determinants,” Glasser said. “If someone thinks using a product or following a doctor’s recommendation will undermine their identity or status or cause some kind of embarrassment, it is worth considering that social barrier as seriously as affordability or transportation issues.”

The study, “Associations of Adolescent School Social Networks, Gender Norms, and Adolescent-to-Adult Changes in Male Gender Expression With Adult Substance Abuse,” was published in the Journal of Adolescent Health in January 2024. In addition to Pollack and Glasser, co-authors were Jacob Jameson of Harvard University and Elizabeth Tung and Stacy Lindau of University of Chicago.

---

JOURNAL

Journal of Adolescent Health

DOI

10.1016/j.jadohealth.2023.11.018 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Data/statistical analysis

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

People

ARTICLE TITLE

Associations of Adolescent School Social Networks, Gender Norms, and Adolescent-to-Young Adult Changes in Male Gender Expression With Young Adult Substance Use

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

11-Jan-2024

 

Using idle trucks to power the grid with clean energy

Waterloo researchers investigate how fuel cell powered vehicles can reenergize overworked electricity grids

Reports and Proceedings

UNIVERSITY OF WATERLOO

University of Waterloo researchers are tapping into idled electric vehicles to act as mobile generators and help power overworked and aging electricity grids.

After analyzing energy demand on Alberta’s power grid during rush hour, the research proposes an innovative way to replenish electrical grids with power generated from fuel cells in trucks.

“Canada’s power grids need to be upgraded,” said Dr. XiaoYu Wu, lead researcher and a professor in Waterloo’s Department of Mechanical and Mechatronics Engineering. 

“But the price of Alberta’s power grid is much higher than other provinces. Most power is supplied by fossil fuels which results in high carbon emissions. The need to rapidly adjust generators to meet fluctuating demand is one of the reasons that the grid price is unstable and volatile. This creates the potential for clean energy storage to flatten the demand and price of electricity.”

The team's research builds on vehicle-to-grid technology which employs special chargers to push unused energy from electric vehicle (EV) batteries back to the power grid for storage. This electricity in-storage can support the grid during weather-related outages or to reduce the demand during peak periods.

The research proposes paying drivers of fuel cell powered trucks to rest during rush hour and while resting, to plug into a hydrogen refueling station or pipeline and use their trucks’ idle fuel cells as generators to provide electricity to the grid. The result is less vehicle traffic on highways, reduced energy use at peak times and cleaner way to store energy.

Waterloo graduate student Daniel Ding developed a mathematical model to simulate the operation, then used software to analyze and model the feasibility and potential of hydrogen fuel cell-powered electric vehicles to balance the grid load and decrease the peak price and carbon intensity.  

“Hydrogen fuel cells offer advantages over other fuels like batteries which require more investment and pollute more when you dispose of them,” Ding said. “Our preliminary findings show that using existing fuel cells in electric vehicles of the future can decrease costs on the grid.” 

This energy storage solution has application beyond trucks. Heavy-duty vehicles and trains — like switcher locomotives that typically are idled until they’re needed to change train routes — could also be early adopters. 

“With the increasing demand to decarbonize heavy duty vehicles, the fuel cell electric vehicle fleet is expected to expand rapidly,” said Wu. 

“Connecting these trucks to the grid for the peak-shifting purpose may provide economic incentives for adopting hydrogen fuel cell electric vehicles and help facilitate the emergence of a large-scale hydrogen economy.”

The researchers’ next steps plan to test these preliminary findings in the lab and the field to determine its real-world applicability.  

The research is supported by the Transition Accelerator, Mitacs and the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC). It is the latest in Waterloo’s Sustainable Futures Initiative which aims to make the University a global leader in sustainability research, education and innovation to benefit the environment, economy and society.  

More information about this work can be found in the research paper, “Optimization of Fuel Cell Electric Vehicle-to-Grid in Alberta by Mixed Integer Linear Programming”, published in 2023 IEEE 11th International Conference on Smart Energy Grid Engineering (SEGE).

 

More than skin deep: A molecular look at the mechanisms behind pigmentation variation

A new collaborative study offers a better understanding of genes and variants responsible for skin color, providing insights into human evolution and local adaptation.

Peer-Reviewed Publication

UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA

 

IMAGE: 

SARAH TISHKOFF OF THE UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA LED A COLLABORATIVE TEAM OF RESEARCHERS WHO HAVE DISCOVERED KEY INSIGHTS INTO THE MOLECULAR BASIS OF SKIN COLOR DIFFERENCES AMONG AFRICANS. “THERE’S SO MUCH GENETIC DIVERSITY IN AFRICAN POPULATIONS, BUT THEY’VE ALSO BEEN HISTORICALLY UNDERREPRESENTED IN STUDIES,” TISHKOFF SAYS. “OUR FINDINGS OFFER MORE INFORMATION ON THESE POPULATIONS AND PAINT A CLEARER PICTURE OF HUMAN EVOLUTION.” PICTURED HERE: TWO KOESAN-SPEAKING MEN POSE FOR A PHOTOGRAPH. 

view more 

CREDIT: SARAH TISHKOFF

Researchers from the University of Pennsylvania have discovered key insights into the molecular basis of skin color variations among African populations. Their findings, published in Nature Genetics, broaden the understanding of human evolution and the genetics underpinning contemporary human skin color diversity.

“Despite the abundant genetic diversity within African populations, they have been historically underrepresented in genetic studies,” says senior author Sarah Tishkoff, a Penn Integrates Knowledge University Professor with appointments in the Perelman School of Medicine and School of Arts & Sciences. “Our findings offer novel information about the genetic basis and evolutionary history of skin color diversity, contributing to a clearer depiction of human evolution.”

The story of human evolution is as rich and diverse as the adaptations found across the world’s populations, Tishkoff says. She notes that, among many adaptive traits, skin color stands out as one of the most well-known. Darker skin tones, prevalent in equatorial regions, serve as nature’s very own sunblock, evolving over millennia to shield these populations from the sun’s intense ultraviolet radiation. Conversely, lighter pigmentation, as seen in populations closer to the poles, is an adaptation to mitigate the risks of insufficient sun exposure by maximizing vitamin D production, which is triggered by UV exposure. 

Participants gather as Sarah Tishkoff (standing, right) details the purpose of the study. (Image: Courtesy of Alessia Ranciaro)

“Our approach involved genome-wide association studies of skin color from more than 1,500 eastern and southern African individuals as well as scanning the genome to identify genetic variants that are highly differentiated between lightly-pigmented Khoesan-speaking San population and other darkly pigmented Africans and may play a role in local adaptation in that population,” says Yuanqing Feng, first author of the paper and a postdoctoral researcher in the Tishkoff Lab.

The researchers note that pigmentation is a complex trait influenced by hundreds of variants scattered across the genome, with the majority situated in noncoding regions. These noncoding variants may affect the expression of genes located up to one million bases away. The vast number of mutations associated with skin color and the uncertainty surrounding the target genes regulated by these mutations make it particularly arduous for researchers to find the precise genetic mechanisms governing this trait.

Feng and collaborators used massively parallel reporter assays to discern the regulatory activities of thousands of variants. This high-throughput technique narrowed down the thousands of candidates to 165 functional variants. To identify the target genes of these functional variants, Feng further constructed high-resolution chromatin interaction maps in melanocytic cells using chromatin conformation capture assays. “This is a high-resolution 3D genome map in melanoma cells that will be valuable for gene regulation studies in pigmentation and melanoma biology,” Feng says. 

Using CRISPR/Cas9-based genome editing, the researchers discovered that mutations in an enhancer of OCA2, a gene associated with albinism, could lead to a 75% reduction in melanin levels when compared to control cells. Within the same OCA2 enhancer, the researchers identified two closely located regulatory variants, estimated to be 1.2 million years old and 57 thousand years old, with the latter coinciding with the period of human migration from Africa.

A member of Tishkoff’s research team draws blood from a participant to extract the genetic information that will inform the study. (Image: Courtesy of Sarah Tishkfoff)

“This case illustrates the continuous evolution of human skin color, and it’s remarkable to observe the significant effects on skin pigmentation attributed to a single enhancer," Feng says.

San people have relatively lighter pigmentation compared to other African populations and possess the oldest genetic lineages in humans. While it is hypothesized that the light skin color of the San may result from adaptation to a southern African environment, the genetic underpinnings of this adaptation remain elusive. The researchers pinpointed several crucial regulatory variants near MITF, LEF1, and TRPS1 that contribute to the skin color adaptation observed in the San.

“MITF, LEF1, and TRPS1 are involved in signaling pathways regulating both melanocyte differentiation and hair development,” Tishkoff says. “This suggests that the variants influencing the lighter skin pigmentation observed in the San people may also contribute to their distinctive hair morphology.” Notably, the variant near TRPS1 associated with lighter skin color is at nearly 100% frequency in the San and in most non-Africans, whereas the variant associated with darker skin color is common in most other African populations and in the darkly pigmented Melanesian population, a striking example of global adaptations to UV exposure.”

Additionally, the researchers found a novel gene impacting human skin pigmentation, CYB561A3, which regulates iron homeostasis and influences melanin levels in melanocytic cells. “To our knowledge, the role of CYB561A3 in skin pigmentation has not been reported before. Intriguingly, there have been reports linking intravenous iron infusion to skin hyperpigmentation. Given that CYB561A3 encodes an iron reductase, I am curious about the role of this protein in this process,” Tishkoff says. 

“Our findings underscore the complexity of genetic factors influencing skin color and the benefits of including ethnically diverse and underrepresented populations in genetic studies,” she says. “Conducting functional studies on the impact of noncoding variants will enhance our comprehension of the genetics underlying complex human traits and disease risk.”

“The populations included in this study are from remote regions of Africa and required the use of a mobile lab set up in the field sites,” Tishkoff says. “The collaboration with our partners in Africa was key to the success of this research project.”

In future research, the Tishkoff lab would like to use its innovative functional genomics approach to identify more genetic variants contributing to human pigmentation and other adaptive traits in a larger sample of ethnically diverse Africans.  

Sarah Tishkoff is the David and Lyn Silfen University Professor in Genetics and Biology and a Penn Integrates Knowledge University Professor with appointments in the Perelman School of Medicine’s Department of Genetics and Department of Medicine and in the School of Arts & Sciences’ Department of Biology at the University of Pennsylvania.

Yuanqing Feng is a postdoctoral fellow in the Tishkoff lab at Penn.

Other authors include Ning Xie, Chao Zhang, Fang Zhang, and Matthew E.B. Hansen of Penn; Fumitaka Inoue of Kyoto University; Shaohua Fan of Fudan University; Thomas Nyambo of Hubert Kairuki Memorial University; Sununguko Wata Mpoloka and Gaonyadiwe George Mokone of the University of Botswana; Charles Fokunang and Alfred K. Njamnshi of the University of Yaoundé; Gurja Belay of Addis Ababa University; Michael S. Marks of the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia Research Institute; Elena Oancea of Brown University; and Nadav Ahituv of the University of California, San Francisco.

This research was supported by the National Institutes of Health (grants R35GM134957-01, 3UM1HG009408-02S1, 1R01GM113657-01, 5R01AR076241-02, and 1S10OD010786-01) and the Penn Skin Biology and Disease Resource-based Center (Grant NIH P30-AR069589).

---

JOURNAL

Nature Genetics

DOI

10.1038/s41588-023-01626-1 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Observational study

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

People

ARTICLE TITLE

Integrative functional genomic analyses identify genetic variants influencing skin pigmentation in Africans

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

10-Jan-2024

 

Year-end survey spotlights food safety, age-related consumer behavior, out-of-stock trends

Key differences in food sustainability and values emerge between generations

Reports and Proceedings

PURDUE UNIVERSITY

 

IMAGE: 

SHARE OF CONSUMERS WHO ARE “SOMEWHAT LIKELY” OR “VERY LIKELY” TO DISCARD THE FOOD ITEM BASED ON DATE LABELS WITH AND WITHOUT SENSORY CUES, DECEMBER 2023.

view more 

CREDIT: CENTER FOR FOOD DEMAND ANALYSIS AND SUSTAINABILITY

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. — Building off the previous month’s survey, the December 2023 Consumer Food Insights Report digs deeper into the relationships between food-date labels and the decision to discard food. The report also explores generational differences in food behaviors and reviews 2023 trends for out-of-stock items and common foods that people reported limiting in their diets over the year.

The survey-based report out of Purdue University’s Center for Food Demand Analysis and Sustainability assesses food spending, consumer satisfaction and values, support of agricultural and food policies, and trust in information sources. Purdue experts conducted and evaluated the survey, which included 1,200 consumers across the U.S.

In November, survey questions gauged perceptions of “use by” and “best if used by” dates. The data showed that sensory cues, such as smell and appearance, are important in the decision to eat or discard past-date food items. The December survey posed hypothetical scenarios where consumers were asked to decide about discarding or consuming a food item based on different information sets. These could include the date label alone or together with smell and appearance.

“The proportion of consumers who would discard food decreases slightly when they know the type of date label and that the food smells and appears ‘normal,’” said the report’s lead author, Joseph Balagtas, professor of agricultural economics at Purdue and center director. 

The December survey also assessed people’s concerns about the food in each scenario. “Approximately 30% and 45% of consumers indicate safety and taste, respectively, as a concern when eating foods one day past the date,” Balagtas said. 

As for food sustainability and values, Purdue researchers found sizable differences in their Sustainable Food Purchasing Index when separating the sample into generational cohorts: Generation Z, born after 1996; millennials, born 1981-1996; Generation X, born 1965-1980, and boomer-plus, born before 1965. 

“On average, consumers in the older Gen X and boomer-plus generations score higher on the index overall, primarily driven by high scores in the economic, taste and security subcategories,” Balagtas noted. “The Gen Z cohort scored the worst. However, younger generations, millennials in particular, score higher in the environmental and socially sustainable food purchasing dimensions.” 

The analysts see similar results in food values. Younger generations tend to put more weight on environmental impact and social responsibility when deciding which foods to buy. Older generations more often factor taste into their purchasing decisions. 

The December survey also showed that as food price inflation continues to decline, consumers similarly adjust their inflation estimates and expectations. Both decreased by half a percentage point from November.

“It will be interesting to see if this downward trend continues and consumers become more optimistic about food prices as we break into the new year,” said Elijah Bryant, a survey research analyst at the center and co-author of the report. “The expected food inflation rate over the next 12 months is the lowest it has been, 3.5%, since the survey’s inception two years ago." 

The data reveals differences in food spending by generation. “In particular, we see that the middle generations are spending the most per week on food for their households relative to younger Gen Z and boomer-plus consumers,” Bryant said.

Generational average weekly food spending 

Average weekly food spending by generational cohort ($), January 2022-December 2023.

CREDIT

Center for Food Demand Analysis and Sustainability

“A strong correlation between spending and household size suggests that the large spending gap is likely a result of having more mouths to feed,” he said. The proportion of boomer-plus respondents who share a house with more than one other person is smaller than the other generations.

December survey data also showed that food insecurity is consistently higher among young adults compared to older generations. The average food insecurity rate among the Gen Z generation is 32% compared to 18% for millennials, 14% for Gen X and 6% for the oldest boomer-plus group.

“This is likely a result of income differences. Previous research shows that the added work experience that comes with age tends to correspond with higher income levels. Food insecurity tends to hit those with lower incomes the hardest, so this result isn’t necessarily surprising,” Bryant noted.

Consumer trends in 2023 revealed that the average stock-out rates reported by consumers dropped from 18% to 14% compared to 2022. Last year, eggs were the most commonly reported out-of-stock food that followed the widespread 2022 U.S. avian influenza outbreak, which spilled into 2023. For more information about the outbreak’s impact on eggs, see the center’s Chew On This! blog post from last September.

“We also ask consumers each month if they have been limiting any food items from their diets,” Bryant said. “In 2023, the most common response consumers gave was sugar. It would be no surprise if reducing sugar intake makes it on the list of people’s New Year’s food resolutions this month.”

The Center for Food Demand Analysis and Sustainability is part of Purdue’s Next Moves in agriculture and food systems and uses innovative data analysis shared through user-friendly platforms to improve the food system. In addition to the Consumer Food Insights Report, the center offers a portfolio of online dashboards.

Writer: Steve Koppes

---

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Survey

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

People

ARTICLE TITLE

Consumer Food Insights

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

11-Jan-2024

 

ChatGPT has read almost the whole internet. That hasn't solved its diversity issues

Peer-Reviewed Publication

UNIVERSITY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA

AI language models are booming. The current frontrunner is ChatGPT, which can do everything from taking a bar exam, to creating an HR policy, to writing a movie script.

But it and other models still can’t reason like a human. In this Q&A, Dr. Vered Shwartz (she/her), assistant professor in the UBC department of computer science, and masters student Mehar Bhatia (she/her) explain why reasoning could be the next step in AI—and why it’s important to train these models using diverse datasets from different cultures.

What is ‘reasoning’ for AI?

Shwartz: Large language models like ChatGPT learn by reading millions of documents, essentially the entire internet, and recognizing patterns to produce information. This means they can only provide information about things that are documented on the internet. Humans, on the other hand, are able to use reasoning. We use logic and common sense to work out meaning beyond what is explicitly said.

Bhatia: We learn reasoning abilities from birth. For instance, we know not to switch on the blender at 2 a.m. because it will wake everyone up. We’re not taught this, but it’s something you understand based on the situation, your environment and your surroundings. In the near future, AI models will handle many of our tasks. We can’t hard code every single common-sense rule into these robots, so we want them to understand the right thing to do in a specific context.

Shwartz: Bolting on common-sense reasoning to current models like ChatGPT would help them provide more accurate answers and so, create more powerful tools for humans to use. Current AI models have displayed some form of common-sense reasoning. For example, if you ask the latest version of ChatGPT about a child’s and an adult’s mud pie, it can correctly differentiate between dessert and a face full of dirt based on context.

Where do AI language models fail?

Shwartz: Common-sense reasoning in AI models is far from perfect. We’ll only get so far by training on massive amounts of data. Humans will still need to intervene and train the models, including by providing the right data. 

For instance, we know that English text on the web is largely from North America, so English language models, which are the most commonly used, tend to have a North American bias and are at risk of either not knowing about concepts from other cultures or of perpetuating stereotypes. In a recent paper we found that training a common-sense reasoning model on data from different cultures, including India, Nigeria and South Korea, resulted in more accurate, culturally informed responses.

Bhatia: One example included showing the model an image of a woman in Somalia receiving a henna tattoo and asking why she might want this. When trained with culturally diverse data, the model correctly suggested she was about to get married, whereas previously it had said she wanted to buy henna.

Shwartz: We also found examples of ChatGPT lacking cultural awareness. When given a hypothetical situation where a couple tipped four per cent in a restaurant in Spain, the model suggested they may have been unhappy with the service. This assumes that North American tipping culture applies in Spain when actually, tipping is not common in the country and a four per cent tip likely meant exceptional service.

Why do we need to ensure that AI is more inclusive?

Shwartz: Language models are ubiquitous. If these models assume the set of values and norms associated with western or North American culture, their information for and about people from other cultures might be inaccurate and discriminatory. Another concern is that people from diverse backgrounds using products powered by English models would have to adapt their inputs to North American norms or else they might get suboptimal performance.

Bhatia: We want these tools for everyone out there to use, not just one group of people. Canada is a culturally diverse country and we need to ensure the AI tools that power our lives are not reflecting just one culture and its norms. Our ongoing research aims to foster inclusivity, diversity and cultural sensitivity in the development and deployment of AI technologies.

---

DOI

10.18653/v1/2023.emnlp-main.496 

Researchers developing AI to make the internet more accessible

‘Web agent’ navigates complex websites using language commands

Reports and Proceedings

OHIO STATE UNIVERSITY

COLUMBUS, Ohio – In an effort to make the internet more accessible for people with disabilities, researchers at The Ohio State University have begun developing an artificial intelligence agent that could complete complex tasks on any website using simple language commands. 

In the three decades since it was first released into the public domain, the world wide web has become an incredibly intricate, dynamic system. Yet because internet function is now so integral to society’s well-being, its complexity also makes it considerably harder to navigate. 

Today there are billions of websites available to help access information or communicate with others, and many tasks on the internet can take more than a dozen steps to complete. That’s why Yu Su, co-author of the study and an assistant professor of computer science and engineering at Ohio State, said their work, which uses information taken from live sites to create web agents — online AI helpers — is a step toward making the digital world a less confusing place.

“For some people, especially those with disabilities, it’s not easy for them to browse the internet,” said Su. “We rely more and more on the computing world in our daily life and work, but there are increasingly a lot of barriers to that access, which, to some degree, widens the disparity.”

The study was presented in December at the Thirty-seventh Conference on Neural Information Processing Systems (NeurIPS), a flagship conference for AI and machine learning research.

By taking advantage of the power of large language models, the agent works similarly to how humans behave when browsing the web, said Su. The Ohio State team showed that their model was able to understand the layout and functionality of different websites using only its ability to process and predict language. 

Researchers started the process by creating Mind2Web, the first dataset for generalist web agents. Though previous efforts to build web agents focused on toy simulated websites, Mind2Web fully embraces the complex and dynamic nature of real-world websites and emphasizes an agent’s ability of generalizing to entirely new websites it has never seen before. Su said that much of their success is due to their agent’s ability to handle the internet’s ever-evolving learning curve. The team lifted over 2,000 open-ended tasks from 137 different real-world websites, which they then used to train the agent. 

Some of the tasks included booking one-way and round-trip international flights, following celebrity accounts on Twitter, browsing comedy films from 1992 to 2017 streaming on Netflix, and even scheduling car knowledge tests at the DMV. Many of the tasks were very complex – for example, booking one of the international flights used in the model would take 14 actions. Such effortless versatility allows for diverse coverage on a number of websites, and opens up a new landscape for future models to explore and learn in an autonomous fashion, said Su. 

“It’s only become possible to do something like this because of the recent development of large language models like ChatGPT,” said Su. Since the chatbot became public in November 2022, millions of users have used it to automatically generate content, from poetry and jokes to cooking advice and medical diagnoses.

Still, because one website could contain thousands of raw HTML elements, it would be too costly to feed so much information to a single large language model. To address this gap, the study also introduces a framework called MindAct, a two-pronged agent that uses both small and large language models to carry out these tasks. The team found that by using this strategy, MindAct significantly outperforms other common modeling strategies and is able to understand various concepts at a decent level.

With more fine-tuning, the study points out, the model could likely be used in tandem with both open-and closed-source large language models such as Flan-T5 or GPT-4. However, their work does highlight an increasingly relevant ethical problem in creating flexible artificial intelligence, said Su. While it could certainly serve as a helpful agent to humans surfing the web, the model could also be used to enhance systems like ChatGPT and turn the entire internet into an unprecedentedly powerful tool, said Su. 

“On the one hand, we have great potential to improve our efficiency and to allow us to focus on the most creative part of our work,” he said. “But on the other hand, there’s tremendous potential for harm.” For instance, autonomous agents able to translate online steps into the real world could influence society by taking potentially dangerous actions, such as misusing financial information or spreading misinformation.

“We should be extremely cautious about these factors and make a concerted effort to try to mitigate them,” said Su. But as AI research continues to evolve, he notes that it’s likely society will experience major growth in the commercial use and performance of generalist web agents in the years to come, especially as the technology has already gained so much popularity in the public eye. 

“Throughout my career, my goal has always been trying to bridge the gap between human users and the computing world,” said Su. “That said, the real value of this tool is that it will really save people time and make the impossible possible.”

The research was supported by the National Science Foundation, the U.S. Army Research Lab and the Ohio Supercomputer Center. Other co-authors were Xiang Deng, Yu Gu, Boyuan Zheng, Shijie Chen, Samuel Stevens, Boshi Wang and Huan Sun, all of Ohio State.

#

Contact: Yu Su, Su.809@osu.edu  

Written by: Tatyana Woodall, Woodall.52@osu.edu