Nitrogen may help boost gut health

November 27, 2016

Melbourne, Nov 27: Scientists have found that intestinal nitrogen plays a key role in regulating gut microbes, a finding that may help better understand how our diet impacts the microbiota.

nitro "There are many different diet strategies that claim to promote gut health, and until now it has been very difficult to establish clear causality between various types of diet and their effect on the host's microbiome," said Andrew Holmes, associate professor at University of Sydney.

"This is because there are many complex factors at play, including food composition, eating pattern and genetic background," said Holmes.

"This research really lays the groundwork for future modelling by setting out the rules for a general model of how diet shapes the gut ecosystem," Holmes said.

"The simple explanation is that when we eat in a way that encourages cooperation between ourselves and bacteria we achieve a good microbiome, but when we eat in a way that doesn't require cooperation this lets bacteria do whatever they want - and mischief can ensue," he said.

The balance of gut bacteria in the microbiome plays a key role in such functions as immune regulation and digestive wellbeing, and has been linked to other health outcomes like obesity.

Past studies have identified several patterns for how diet influences the microbiome, yet this has not led to a workable model that explains microbial response across many different types of diets.

The new research is the latest in a series stemming from a seminal study in which 25 different diets composed of different amounts of protein, carbohydrates and fat were systematically varied in 858 mice.

Despite the huge diversity of gut bacteria, two main response patterns emerged in the study - microbe species either increased or decreased in their abundance depending on the animal's protein and carbohydrate intake.

"The largest nutrient requirements for our gut bacteria are carbon and nitrogen in the foods we eat," said Holmes.

"As carbohydrates contain no nitrogen but protein does, the bacterial community response to the host animal's diet is strongly affected by this diets' protein-carbohydrate ratio," he said.

"The fact that this same pattern was seen across almost all groups of gut bacteria indicates that the makeup of the microbial ecosystem is fundamentally shaped by a need to access nitrogen in the intestinal environment," he said.

The new model suggests that while high-carbohydrate diets were the most likely to support positive interactions in the microbiome, such benefits were relative to the protein intake of the host animal.

Researchers hope the new findings will lay the foundations for more accurate computer simulations to test hundreds of different diet variants, helping to better predict which dietary combinations lead to optimal gut health.

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Study explains benefits of exercise in preventing vision loss

Agencies

July 3,2020

Apart from the many benefits of doing exercise, new research has now found that exercise can slow down or prevent the development of macular degeneration and may benefit other common causes of vision loss, such as glaucoma and diabetic retinopathy.

The new study from the University of Virginia School of Medicine found that exercise reduced the harmful overgrowth of blood vessels in the eyes of lab mice by up to 45 per cent. This tangle of blood vessels is a key contributor to macular degeneration and several other eye diseases.

The study represents the first experimental evidence showing that exercise can reduce the severity of macular degeneration, a leading cause of vision loss, the scientists report. Ten million Americans are estimated to have the condition.

"There has long been a question about whether maintaining a healthy lifestyle can delay or prevent the development of macular degeneration. The way that question has historically been answered has been by taking surveys of people, asking them what they are eating and how much exercise they are performing," said researcher Bradley Gelfand, PhD, of UVA's Center for Advanced Vision Science.

"That is basically the most sophisticated study that has been done. The problem with that is that people are notoriously bad self-reporters ... and that can lead to conclusions that may or not be true. This [study] offers hard evidence from the lab for the very first time," Gelfand added.

Enticingly, the research found that the bar for receiving the benefits from exercise was relatively low - more exercise didn't mean more benefit.

"Mice are kind of like people in that they will do a spectrum of exercise. As long as they had a wheel and ran on it, there was a benefit. The benefit that they obtained is saturated at low levels of exercise," Gelfand said.

An initial test comparing mice that voluntarily exercised versus those that did not found that exercise reduced the blood vessel overgrowth by 45%. A second test, to confirm the findings, found a reduction of 32 per cent.

The scientists aren't certain exactly how exercise is preventing the blood vessel overgrowth. There could be a variety of factors at play, they say, including increased blood flow to the eyes.

Gelfand, of UVA's Department of Ophthalmology and Department of Biomedical Engineering, noted that the onset of vision loss is often associated with a decrease in exercise.

"It is fairly well known that as people's eyes and vision deteriorate, their tendency to engage in physical activity also goes down. It can be a challenging thing to study with older people. ... How much of that is one causing the other?" he said.
The researchers already have submitted grant proposals in hopes of obtaining funding to pursue their findings further.

"The next step is to look at how and why this happens, and to see if we can develop a pill or method that will give you the benefits of exercise without having to exercise," Gelfand said.

He explained, "We're talking about a fairly elderly population [of people with macular degeneration], many of whom may not be capable of conducting the type of exercise regimen that may be required to see some kind of benefit." (He urged people to consult their doctors before beginning any aggressive exercise program.)
Gelfand, a self-described couch potato, disclosed a secret motivation for the research: "One reason I wanted to do this study was sort of selfish. I was hoping to find some reason not to exercise," he joked. "It turned out exercise really is good for you."

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Congenital heart disease more deadly in low-income countries

Agencies

February 4,2020

Despite tremendous advances in treatment of congenital heart disease (CHD), a new global study shows that the chances for a child to survive a CHD diagnosis is significantly less in low-income countries.

The research revealed that nearly 12 million people are currently living with CHD globally, 18.7 per cent more than in 1990.

The findings, published in The Lancet, is drawn from the first comprehensive study of congenital heart disease across 195 countries, prepared using data from the Global Burden of Diseases, Injuries and Risk Factors Study 2017 (GBD).

"Previous congenital heart estimates came from few data sources, were geographically narrow and did not evaluate CHD throughout the life course," said the study authors from Children's National Hospital in the US.

This is the first time the GBD study data was used along with all available data sources and previous publications - making it the most comprehensive study on the congenital heart disease burden to date.

The study found a 34.5 per cent decline in deaths from congenital disease between 1990 to 2017. Nearly 70 per cent of deaths caused by CHD in 2017 (180,624) were in infants less than one year old.

Most CHD deaths occurred in countries within the low and low-middle socio-demographic index (SDI) quintiles.

Mortality rates get lower as a country's Socio-demographic Index (SDI) rises, the study said.

According to the researchers, birth prevalence of CHD was not related to a country's socio-demographic status, but overall prevalence was much lower in the poorest countries of the world.

This is because children in these countries do not have access to life saving surgical services, they added.

"In high income countries like the United States, we diagnose some heart conditions prenatally during the 20-week ultrasound," said Gerard Martin from Children's National Hospital who contributed to the study.

"For children born in middle- and low-income countries, these data draw stark attention to what we as cardiologists already knew from our own work in these countries -- the lack of diagnostic and treatment tools leads to lower survival rates for children born with CHD," said researcher Craig Sable.

"The UN has prioritised reduction of premature deaths from heart disease, but to meet the target of 'ending preventable deaths of newborns and children under 5 years of age,' health policy makers will need to develop specific accountability measures that address barriers and improve access to care and treatment," the authors wrote.

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