New research from Trinity College Dublin and University of Edinburgh has examined the association between vitamin D and COVID-19, and found that ambient ultraviolet B (UVB) radiation (which is key for vitamin D production in the skin) at an individual’s place of residence in the weeks before COVID-19 infection, was strongly protective against severe disease and death. The paper has been published in the journal Scientific Reports.
Previous studies have linked vitamin D deficiency with an increased susceptibility to viral and bacterial respiratory infections. Similarly, several observational studies found a strong correlation between vitamin D deficiency and COVID-19, but it could be that these effects are confounded and in fact a result of other factors, such as obesity, older age or chronic illness which are also linked with low vitamin D.
To overcome this, researchers were able to calculate “genetically-predicted” vitamin D level, that is not confounded by other demographic, health and lifestyle factors, by using the information from over one hundred genes that determine vitamin D status.
The Mendelian Randomisation is a particular analytical approach that enabled researchers to investigate whether vitamin D and COVID-19 might be causally linked using genetic data. Few earlier studies attempted this but failed to show a causal link. This could be because UVB radiation sunshine which is the most important source of vitamin D for majority of people was ignored.
Researchers, for the first time, looked jointly at genetically-predicted and UVB-predicted vitamin D level. Almost half a million individuals in the UK took part in the study, and ambient UVB radiation before COVID-19 infection was individually assessed for each participant. When comparing the two variables, researchers found that correlation with measured vitamin D concentration in the circulation was three-fold stronger for UVB-predicted vitamin D level, compared to genetically-predicted.
Researchers found that ambient UVB radiation at an individual’s place of residence preceding COVID-19 infection was strongly and inversely associated with hospitalisation and death. This suggests that vitamin D may protect against severe COVID-19 disease and death. Additionally, while the results from the Mendelian Randomisation analysis weren’t conclusive, some indication of a potential causal effect was noted. Because of the relatively weak link between genetically-predicted vitamin D level that is used for Mendelian Randomisation analysis, it is possible that the number of cases in the current study was too small to convincingly determine causal effect, but future larger studies might provide the answer.
Professor Lina Zgaga, Associate Professor in Epidemiology, School of Medicine, Trinity College and senior researcher on the study said:
“Our study adds further evidence that vitamin D might protect against severe COVID-19 infection. Conducting a properly designed COVID-19 randomised controlled trial of vitamin D supplementation is critical. Until then, given that vitamin D supplements are safe and cheap, it is definitely advisable to take supplements and protect against vitamin D deficiency, particularly with winter on the horizon.”
Professor Evropi Theodoratou, Professor of Cancer Epidemiology and Global Health, University of Edinburgh and senior researcher on the study said:
“Given the lack of highly effective therapies against COVID-19, we think it is important to remain open-minded to emerging results from rigorously conducted studies of vitamin D.”
Dr Xue Li, a researcher on the study from Zhejiang University said:
“Our study supports the recommendation of vitamin D supplementation for not only the maintenance of bone and muscle health during the lock down, but also the potential benefits in relation to protection from COVID-19.”
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Depression in children and adolescents has become a major, global, public health challenge, with several negative health outcomes — many of which manifest themselves later in adulthood. A new study in the Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry (JAACAP), published by Elsevier, investigates subthreshold depression, a more severe form of depression that includes not only sad mood, but also some of the other symptoms of depression, and reports that psychological interventions may have a modest, but significant effect on the treatment of this type of depression in adolescents.
Characterized by clinically relevant symptoms that do not meet criteria for a depressive disorder, subthreshold depression can still have functionally impairing effects, leading to an increased risk of experiencing a major depression event and personal suffering.
Lead author, Pim Cuijpers, Professor of Clinical Psychology, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam in the Netherlands said: “It has become increasingly clear that depression can be best viewed asa continuum-ranging from no depression at all, to very severe at the other end-and many different states in between. Because the prevalence can be seen as much higher than the frequency of major depression, subthreshold depression is associated with a considerable disease burden on the population level and has also been found to be associated with the development of major depression and other mental disorders.”
While there have been several randomized trials examining the effects of psychological interventions on subthreshold depression in children and adolescents, these studies have not all resulted in the same outcomes.
To connect the dots between the existing research, the authors conducted an extensive search of bibliographic databases, and identified 12 studies examining psychological interventions for subthreshold depression in children and adolescents. With a total of 1,576 participants, these earlier outcomes were compared with usual care or other control conditions. Some studies also provided longer follow-up measurements to examine how many participants developed a depressive disorder over time.
The authors found that most studies focused on adolescents and only two examined children below 12 years of age, which meant there was not enough data to provide evidence on the effects of subthreshold depression in children.
For adolescents however, a significant effect was found for the psychological interventions. The effect size was moderate (with a standardized mean difference of 0.38), indicating that approximately eight adolescents had to be treated in order to have one more positive outcome than no treatment at all. When studies with low quality were excluded very comparable effects were found.
The overall findings also uncovered some indications for “publication bias,” a phenomenon that results in negative studies being overlooked (or not published at all), as they do not promote results that show a significant finding. After statistical adjustment for this type of bias, the effects were considerably smaller (standardized mean difference of 0.24).
No significant effect was found on the incidence of new cases of major depression at follow-up. Although the results pointed in the expected direction (the risk to develop a depressive disorder was reduced to approximately 50% in the treatments) this was not significant. This finding could be related to the small number of studies examining this outcome.
Overall, this study shows that interventions for subthreshold depression may have positive effects in adolescents. At this point in time however, there is insufficient evidence that these interventions are effective in children less than 12 years of age, or that they prevent the onset of major depression at follow-up.
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Surpassed only by water, tea is the second most consumed beverage worldwide. When boiled tap water is used to brew tea, residual chlorine in the water can react with tea compounds to form disinfection byproducts (DBPs). Now, researchers reporting in Environmental Science & Technology measured 60 DBPs in three types of tea, unexpectedly finding lower levels in brewed tea than in tap water. However, they also detected many unknown DBPs with uncertain health effects.
Although disinfection is important to ensure drinking water safety, a downside is DBP formation. Tea contains about 500 compounds, including polyphenols, amino acids, caffeine and others, that can react with chlorine to form DBPs, some of which have been linked in epidemiological studies with cancer and adverse birth outcomes. In addition, DBPs can form from reactions with compounds in the tap water itself. Susan Richardson and colleagues wanted to conduct a comprehensive survey to measure 60 known DBPs in three green and black teas popular in the U.S.
The researchers brewed the teas and then measured the compounds using gas chromatography-mass spectrometry. Levels of the 60 DBPs were higher in tap water than in the brewed teas, likely because many compounds evaporated or were absorbed by tea leaves. However, the 60 known DBPs comprised only 4% of the total organic halogen (a measure of all halogen-containing DBPs) in tea, indicating that the majority of these compounds in tea are uncharacterized. The team identified 15 of these compounds — which likely form from the reaction of chlorine with natural phenolic and polyphenolic precursors in tea leaves — for the first time in the beverage. Although no “safe” levels have yet been established for most DBPs, for the ones that are regulated, an average person would need to drink 18-55 cups of tea per day to exceed the limits established by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the researchers say.
The authors acknowledge funding from the National Science Foundation, the University of South Carolina and the Chinese Scholarship Council.
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In her first major role in a feature film, she wasn’t fazed by things that might unnerve others, but she had to show filmmakers how to work with deafness.The assistant director was concerned.They were about to do something very loud (no spoilers!) on the outdoor set of Marvel’s “Eternals,” and this foolish woman didn’t want earplugs.“Are you sure?” he asked.Well, if I’m wrong, this is definitely going to be a first, thought Lauren Ridloff, an actress who has been deaf since birth. She plays Makkari, the first deaf superhero in the Marvel Cinematic Universe in “Eternals,” which is due in theaters on Nov. 5.“I really did feel like a superhero at that moment,” she said. “Everyone else was like ‘Wow, that was loud!’”This is the first major role in a feature film for Ridloff, who’s become known for playing Connie, a survivor, in “The Walking Dead.” (She’s shooting the final season now.) In “Eternals,” from the Oscar-winning director Chloé Zhao, she is the supersonically speedy scout on a team of 10 immortal guardians of humanity that also includes Kumail Nanjiani and Angelina Jolie.In the comics, Ridloff’s character is a hulking, hearing white man. She’s not exactly sure what made the “Eternals” casting director Sarah Finn look at her and say, “Yes, Makkari!” but she’s of course glad it happened.Ridloff plays Makkari, the resident speedster on a team of immortals.Sophie Mutevelian/Marvel Studios“It means my two boys, who are also deaf, will grow up in a world where there are superheroes who are deaf,” said Ridloff, whose children are 7 and 9. “It means they’ll be able to dream a bit more wildly.”In a video call in August from her home in Atlanta (“I’m hoping my boys don’t run behind me!,” she said), conducted with the assistance of an American Sign Language interpreter, Ridloff discussed how she got the role without auditioning, how venting to Jolie at a holiday party led to a solution for an irritating obstacle to deaf actors on set, and how Hollywood can be more inclusive for deaf individuals, both onscreen and behind the scenes. These are edited excerpts from the conversation.How did you land this role?I brought my son to an audition — I can’t tell you what for! — and the casting director saw me and wanted to cast me for something else. Then a few months later the casting director reached out to my manager and said, “We want to consider Lauren for a Marvel film, and I can’t tell you what it is.” I was like, ‘Wait, this is Marvel, seriously?” My first thought was maybe it would be “Black Panther.” Then I got the call that the director of the movie wanted to meet with me, so I dropped everything and came to L.A. Chloé Zhao and [executive producer] Nate Moore broke everything down and asked if I was interested, and my immediate answer was yes.In the comics, Makkari is a hulking, hearing white dude. Were they specifically looking for a nonwhite, deaf, female actor?To be honest, I don’t know much about how they made that decision. But I love that they decided to make Makkari everything he’s not in the comic books — he’s a huge guy, let’s find someone tiny. He’s blond, let’s find someone who has Black hair. He’s a man, let’s go with a woman. He’s hearing, and now the character’s deaf.What did you have to educate people about as far as working with deaf actors?When people learn they’ll be working with deaf actors, they think “She needs an interpreter,” but they often don’t realize they need to think in terms of resources and support, too.As Hollywood’s understanding of representation grows, Ridloff said, “we need to have deaf writers and creative talent involved in the process of planning film projects from the beginning.”Amy Harrity for The New York TimesWhat were some of the logistical challenges on set?In some scenes, I had to face a wall. As a deaf person, how do you cue me? At one point, I was sharing my frustration with Angie — Angelina Jolie — at a holiday party after a day of shooting. And she immediately made a suggestion — why don’t we use a laser pen that special effects can easily erase? It was an “Aha, wow” moment. Whenever I’m looking at a wall, the interpreters would use a laser pen to make a circle on the wall — “rolling, rolling, rolling” — and once it went away that meant, “Action!”Were you comfortable asking for what you needed?I got to set believing that I had to show how easy I am to work with as a deaf person. I was concerned about seeming too fragile. But after working with others, I realized everyone has their own unique set of challenges, and that I need to think about what I need to deliver as an actor, and don’t apologize for it.What should Hollywood do to be more inclusive of deaf actors?Hollywood is finally figuring out why it’s so important to have representation, and now it’s more about how. That’s the part that’s more tricky. We need to have deaf writers and creative talent involved in the process of planning film projects from the beginning. When you have deaf experts within and on the stage, from the crew to makeup artists, it feels like that naturally leads to more authentic representation onscreen.What about for deaf audiences?Hollywood needs to take the lead on subtitling ads, trailers and those cute little interviews with clips that celebrities do promoting their movies. Another thing I’d like to see improve is the specifics of audio description. It’s not enough to see “music is playing” in a scene — what kind of music is it? Happy? Scary?Are most movie theaters accessible to people who are deaf?No! We’re an afterthought in movie theaters, and that needs to change. You have to use a special closed-captioning device to watch subtitling in a theater, and it’s a headache, because most of the time the devices don’t work. Then you have to go back to the front desk and find somebody to help, and by the time they figure it out that it’s not working — that it’s not going to be subtitled at all — the movie’s halfway done. Then you get, “Well, how about I give you a free ticket for the next movie?” And I’m like, “Are you kidding me?” That doesn’t fix the problem.Do you feel pressure to pave the way for future deaf actors?I’m not going to lie, I do feel the pressure and stress sometimes, and that can be a burden. I have to remember that it’s not my job to inspire others, or to be a model — but what I do have is the ability to create those connections.What do you hope people take away from this film?Growing up, I didn’t dream about becoming an actor. I didn’t see myself on the screen. As a little girl, I thought I was one of only a few deaf people walking on this Earth. Now, as an adult, I’m aware there are at least 466 million deaf people and hard-of-hearing people out there. I’m not the only one. And that’s what it means to have a deaf superhero — a lot more people will see a lot more possibility.

Two studies suggest the sweet spot for longevity lies around 7,000 to 8,000 daily steps or about 30 to 45 minutes of exercise most days. To increase our chances for a long life, we probably should take at least 7,000 steps a day or play sports such as tennis, cycling, swimming, jogging or badminton for more than 2.5 hours per week, according to two, large-scale new studies of the relationship between physical activity and longevity. The two studies, which, together, followed more than 10,000 men and women for decades, show that the right types and amounts of physical activity reduce the risk of premature death by as much as 70 percent.But they also suggest that there can be an upper limit to the longevity benefits of being active, and pushing beyond that ceiling is unlikely to add years to our life spans and, in extreme cases, might be detrimental.Plenty of research already suggests that people who are active outlive those who seldom move. A 2018 study by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, for instance, concluded that about 10 percent of all deaths among Americans 40 to 70 years old are a result of too little exercise. A 2019 European study found that two decades of inactivity doubled Norwegian people’s risk of dying young. But scientists have not yet pinned down precisely how much — or little — movement might be most strongly associated with greater longevity. Nor is it clear whether we can overdo exercise, potentially contributing to a shorter life.Those issues lie at the heart of the two new studies, which look at the links between activity and longevity from distinct but intersecting angles. The first of the studies, published this month in JAMA Network Open, centered on steps. Most of us are familiar with daily step counts as an activity goal, since our phones, smart watches and other activity trackers typically prompt us to take a certain number of steps every day, often 10,000. But as I have written before, current science does not show that we require 10,000 steps for health or longevity. Researchers from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, the C.D.C. and other institutions wondered if, instead, smaller step totals might be related to longer lives. So, they turned to data gathered in recent years for a large, ongoing study of health and heart disease in middle-aged men and women. Most of the participants had joined the study about 10 years earlier, when they were in their 40s. At the time, they completed medical tests and wore an activity tracker to count their steps every day for a week.Now, the researchers pulled records for 2,110 of the participants and checked their names against death registries. They found that 72 participants had passed away in the intervening decade, a relatively small number but not surprising given the people’s relative youth. But the scientists also noticed a strong association with step counts and mortality. Those men and women accumulating at least 7,000 daily steps when they joined the study were about 50 percent less likely to have died since than those who took fewer than 7,000 steps, and the mortality risks continued to drop as people’s step totals rose, reaching as high as 70 percent less chance of early death among those taking more than 9,000 steps.But at 10,000 steps, the benefits leveled off. “There was a point of diminishing returns,” said Amanda Paluch, an assistant professor of kinesiology at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, who led the new study. People taking more than 10,000 steps per day, even plenty more, rarely outlived those taking at least 7,000.Helpfully, the second study, which was published in August in Mayo Clinic Proceedings, settled on broadly similar activity levels as best bets for long life. This study involved data from the decades-long Copenhagen City Heart Study, which has recruited tens of thousands of Danish adults since the 1970s and asked them how many hours each week they play sports or exercise, including cycling (wildly popular in Copenhagen), tennis, jogging, swimming, handball, weight lifting, badminton, soccer and others.The researchers focused on 8,697 of the study’s Danes, who had joined in the 1990s, noted their activity habits then and checked their names against death records. In the 25 years or so since most had joined, about half had passed away. But those who reported exercising, in some way, between 2.6 and 4.5 hours per week when they joined were 40 percent or so less likely to have died in the interim than less active people.Translating those hours of exercise into step counts is not an exact science, but the researchers estimate that people exercising for 2.6 hours a week, or about 30 minutes most days, likely would accumulate around 7,000 to 8,000 steps most days, between their exercise and daily life, while those working out for 4.5 hours a week probably would be approaching the 10,000-steps threshold most days.And at that point, as in the first study, benefits plateaued. But in this study, they then surprisingly declined among the relatively few people who worked out for 10 hours or more per week, or about 90 minutes or so most days.“The very active group, people doing 10-plus hours of activity a week, lost about a third of the mortality benefits,” compared to people exercising for 2.6 to 4.5 hours a week, said Dr. James O’Keefe, a professor of medicine at the University of Missouri-Kansas City and director of preventive cardiology at the St. Luke’s Mid America Heart Institute, who was an author on the study.Both studies are associational, though, meaning they show that physical activity is linked to life span but not that being more active directly causes life spans to lengthen.Together, however, they provide useful takeaways for all of us hoping to live long and well:Both studies pinpoint the sweet spot for activity and longevity at somewhere around 7,000 to 8,000 daily steps or about 30 to 45 minutes of exercise most days. Doing more may marginally improve your odds of a long life, Dr. O’Keefe said, but not by much, and doing far more might, at some point, be counterproductive.Accumulate and measure your activities “in whatever way works for you,” said Dr. Paluch. “Step counting may work well for someone who does not have the time to fit in a longer bout of exercise. But if a single bout of exercise fits best with your lifestyle and motivations, that is great as well. The idea is just to move more.”

There will be “no single trigger” for reimposing some coronavirus restrictions during winter, the health secretary says.Sajid Javid told BBC Breakfast: “We don’t want to get to the position ever again where there’s unsustainable pressure on the NHS so it’s not able to see people in the usual way when it needs to, particularly emergency patients.”He said hospital admissions were the “number one issue” when determining further restrictions.

A four-year-old girl from London with leukaemia has been given only weeks to live unless she can find a stem cell donor.Esha Nadeswaran was diagnosed with leukaemia back in May. Her family are desperately looking for South Asians who can save her life – but it is proving difficult.They are organising drop-in testing centres around the UK to try and find a match.

Eighteen months ago, stickers began to dot the floors of most shops, spaced about six feet apart, indicating the physical distance required to avoid the COVID-19 virus an infected person may shed when breathing or speaking. But is the distance enough to help avoid infectious aerosols?
Not indoors, say researchers in the Penn State Department of Architectural Engineering. The team found that indoor distances of two meters — about six and a half feet — may not be enough to sufficiently prevent transmission of airborne aerosols. Their results were made available online ahead of the October print edition of Sustainable Cities and Society.
“We set out to explore the airborne transport of virus-laden particles released from infected people in buildings,” said Gen Pei, first author and doctoral student in architectural engineering at Penn State. “We investigated the effects of building ventilation and physical distancing as control strategies for indoor exposure to airborne viruses.”
The researchers examined three factors: the amount and rate of air ventilated through a space, the indoor airflow pattern associated with different ventilation strategies and the aerosol emission mode of breathing versus talking. They also compared transport of tracer gas, typically employed to test leaks in air-tight systems, and human respiratory aerosols ranging in size from one to 10 micrometers. Aerosols in this range can carry SARS-CoV-2.
“Our study results reveal that virus-laden particles from an infected person’s talking — without a mask — can quickly travel to another person’s breathing zone within one minute, even with a distance of two meters,” said Donghyun Rim, corresponding author and associate professor of architectural engineering. “This trend is pronounced in rooms without sufficient ventilation. The results suggest that physical distance alone is not enough to prevent human exposure to exhaled aerosols and should be implemented with other control strategies such as masking and adequate ventilation.”
The researchers found that aerosols traveled farther and more quickly in rooms with displacement ventilation, where fresh air continuously flows from the floor and pushes old air to an exhaust vent near the ceiling. This is the type of ventilation system installed in most residential homes, and it can result in a human breathing zone concentration of viral aerosols seven times higher than mixed-mode ventilation systems. Many commercial buildings use mixed-mode systems, which incorporate outside air to dilute the indoor air and result in better air integration — and tempered aerosol concentrations, according to the researchers.
“This is one of the surprising results: Airborne infection probability could be much higher for residential environments than office environments,” Rim said. “However, in residential environments, operating mechanical fans and stand-alone air cleaners can help reduce infection probability.”
According to Rim, increasing the ventilation and air mixing rates can effectively reduce the transmission distance and potential accumulation of exhaled aerosols, but ventilation and distance are only two options in an arsenal of protective techniques.
“Airborne infection control strategies such as physical distancing, ventilation and mask wearing should be considered together for a layered control,” Rim said.
The researchers are now applying this analysis technique to various occupied spaces, including classrooms and transportation environments.
Mary Taylor, a graduate student at Penn State at the time of the research, also contributed to this work, which was supported by the National Science Foundation.
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Materials provided by Penn State. Original written by Ashley J. WennersHerron. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.

Tree felling — whether by professional loggers in a forest setting or by landscapers in urban and rural landscapes — is the most dangerous job in what are two of the most dangerous industries, according to Penn State researchers who conducted a new study of associated deaths.
The Occupational Safety and Health Administration calls logging “the most dangerous occupation in the United States.” The fatal injury rate for loggers is more than 30 times the rate for all U.S. workers. Tree-care workers also encounter hazards at rates much higher than the average employee.
“This was the first research to look at commercial logging and landscaping services together,” said Judd Michael, Nationwide Insurance Professor of Agricultural Safety and Health and professor of agricultural and biological engineering, College of Agricultural Sciences. “It was a unique and more accurate way to assess fatalities. The commonality, of course, is that workers in both fields fell trees. They do it using very different methods, but either way, it is extremely hazardous work.”
Logging in Appalachia and other regions with forests growing on rough, mountainous terrain continues largely unmechanized, with workers felling trees with chainsaws, standing at their bases; landscapers, on the other hand — because they must control the fall of limbs and trunks — must climb trees with chainsaws and cut sections down.
To reach their conclusions, the researchers analyzed an Occupational Safety and Health Administration database to identify occupational tree-felling fatalities in the United States during a 10-year period — from 2010 through the first half of 2020. They compared data for the two industry segments of logging and landscaping services.
In findings recently published in the American Journal of Industrial Medicine, the researchers reported that there were 314 fatalities over the period. The victims were overwhelmingly male, with the median age being 43. “Struck-by” was the No. 1 event type causing fatalities, with the head being the most frequent body part involved in fatalities.

Eating yogurt containing a particular strain of a well-studied probiotic appears to protect against harmful changes in the gut microbiome that are associated with antibiotic administration. That is the finding from a new randomized clinical trial, led by researchers at the University of Maryland School of Maryland (UMSOM), the University of Maryland School of Pharmacy (UMSOP), and Georgetown University Medical Center, which was recently published in the journal Nutrients.
The study found that yogurt containing the probiotic Bifidobacterium lactis BB-12 worked better than a placebo at maintaining the community of bacteria in the colon. The findings were so positive that the NIH funded an additional follow-up study.
“This finding provides important new insights into the mechanisms by which the probiotic, BB-12, may protect against antibiotic-associated diarrhea,” said study co-leader Claire Fraser, PhD, Professor of Medicine and Dean’s Endowed Professor of UMSOM and Director of the UMSOM Institute for Genome Sciences. “The new insights that we obtained regarding BB-12 reflect the multi-omics approach that we used in our study. This was possible only because of the different expertise that each of the principal investigators brought to this collaboration.”
In the study, 42 healthy volunteers were randomly assigned to consume a daily serving-size container of yogurt containing BB-12 along with a standard week-long regimen of the antibiotic amoxicillin clavulanate. They continued to consume the yogurt every day for a week after finishing the antibiotic. An additional 20 participants served as the control group and were randomly assigned to consume a daily yogurt without the probiotic for two weeks while also taking the same antibiotic regimen.
The researchers found that levels of the short chain fatty acid acetate, a beneficial metabolite produced by the microbiota, were reduced in all subjects after taking the antibiotic; however, the reduction in acetate was significantly greater in subjects receiving the placebo yogurt as compared with BB-12 supplemented yogurt. Acetate levels in subjects who received BB-12 also returned to baseline levels by 30 days, while they remained below baseline in subjects receiving the placebo.
About one in five people who take antibiotics develop antibiotic-associated diarrhea due to the drugs disrupting the healthy gut microbiome. Patients may stop taking their medications early after developing diarrhea, which could cause their original infection to persist. A small percentage may develop a life-threatening infection with the bacteria C. difficile, which can reside in the gut but is usually kept in check by good bacteria in the microbiome.
“An important reason why our study may have demonstrated positive results may be the timing of the probiotic administration on the day antibiotics were initiated by the study volunteers,” said study co-leader Daniel Merenstein, MD, Professor of Family Medicine and Director of Research Programs for the Department of Family Medicine at Georgetown University School of Medicine. “Starting the probiotic as early as possible, before the antibiotic symptoms have progressed, may result in a greater opportunity for the probiotic mechanisms to be expressed and may ultimately lead to more beneficial clinical outcomes.”
The researchers plan a follow-up study to further explore this question and decide when is the best time to consume a probiotic.
“This exciting clinical study was enabled by mass spectrometry-based quantitation of acetate which was a key endpoint important to assessing the effect of the BB-12,” said study co-leader Maureen Kane, PhD, Associate Professor of Pharmaceutical Sciences and Executive Director of the UMSOP Mass Spectrometry Center. The mass spectrometry-based approach, which detects molecules according to their molecular mass, allowed for accurate and precise determination of the amount of acetate. It also allowed for the determination of several other short chain fatty acids within the biological samples obtained from patients.
“The School of Pharmacy’s Mass Spectrometry Center lends its expertise to a wide array of research studies and projects, demonstrating the enormous value of this technology,” said Natalie D. Eddington, PhD, FAAPS, FCP, Professor and Dean of the University of Maryland School of Pharmacy. “Working with 17 mass spectrometers, our faculty, staff, and graduate students contribute to discoveries that span basic biology and medicine to technology development and translational research.”
Funding research was supported by the National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health of the National Institutes of Health under Award Number R61AT009622. Additional support was provided by the University of Maryland School of Pharmacy Mass Spectrometry Center (SOP1841-IQB2014).
“Our researchers seek to advance treatments for patients by truly understanding the mechanisms behind those treatments using sophisticated technologies. We are delighted to be able to collaborate with the School of Pharmacy and its distinguished faculty on this very important project,” said E. Albert Reece, MD, PhD, MBA, Executive Vice President for Medical Affairs, UM Baltimore, and the John Z. and Akiko K. Bowers Distinguished Professor and Dean, University of Maryland School of Medicine. “The multi-disciplinary approach to understanding how probiotics work to maintain a healthy microbiome is crucial for advancing this field and ultimately helping patients avoid debilitating side effects from antibiotics.”