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Chronic alcohol use is a major cause of liver damage and death: Approximately 30,000 persons in the United States die annually from alcoholic liver diseases, such as cirrhosis. Among the negative impacts of excessive alcohol use is its ability to adversely affect the gut microbiome, though how that happens has been a mystery, since the majority of consumed alcohol is absorbed in the mouth and stomach and does not reach the intestines.
In a new study, published August 8, 2022 in Nature Communications, researchers at University of California San Diego, with colleagues elsewhere, propose an answer: Reprogramming of gut microbiota is caused by acetate produced by the liver diffusing back into the intestines where it becomes a carbon source to support bacterial growth.
“You can think of this a bit like dumping fertilizer on a garden,” said co-corresponding author Karsten Zengler, PhD, professor in the departments of Pediatrics and Bioengineering at UC San Diego School of Medicine and Jacobs School of Engineering, respectively. “The result is an explosion of imbalanced biological growth, benefitting some species but not others.”
Bernd Schnabl, MD, professor of medicine and gastroenterology at UC San Diego School of Medicine, is the other co-corresponding author.
Acetate is a nutrient used in cellular metabolism and has roles in appetite regulation, energy expenditure and immune response. In moderate levels, it promotes overall health, from improved cardiac function to enhanced red blood cell production and memory function. In excessive levels, it is associated with metabolic changes linked to disease, including cancer.
In the latest study, Zengler and colleagues fed mice a molecule that could be broken down into three acetates in the rodents’ gut. The researchers noted the animals’ intestinal microbiota were altered by the additional acetate in a way similar to what they observed when feeding alcohol to the mice, but without damaging effects to their livers.
“Chronic alcohol consumption is associated with lower intestinal expression of antimicrobial molecules. Persons will alcohol-related liver disease commonly have bacterial overgrowth in their guts,” said Zengler. “These findings suggest that microbial ethanol metabolism does not contribute significantly to gut microbiome dysbiosis (imbalance) and that the microbiome altered by acetate does not play a major role in liver damage.”
“The situation is more complicated than previously assumed. It’s not as simple as more ethanol equals microbiome changes and thus, microbiome dysbiosis equals more liver disease. While this finding does not translate to imminent new treatments for alcoholic liver disease, it will help to delineate the effect of acetate on the microbiota and help refining future study designs.”
The authors said the findings are important because they move the investigation past whether “changes in the gut microbiome are related to ethanol consumption per se are critical … and towards identifying bacteria that are causal for deleterious effects of alcohol consumption, rather than side-effects either of consumption or disease.”
Co-authors include: Camerson Martino, Livia S. Zaramela, Bei Gao, Mallory Embree, Janna Tarasova, Seth J. Parker, Yanhan Wang, Huikuan Chu, Peng Chen, Kuei-Chuan Lee, Daniela Domingos Glazerani, Asama Lekbua, Maxwell Neal and Rob Knight, all at UC San Diego; Jivani M. Gengatharan and Christian M. Metallo, UC San Diego and Salk Institute for Biological Studies; and Hidekazu Tsukamoto, Southern California Research Center for ALPD and Department of Veterans Affairs Greater Los Angeles Healthcare System.
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Materials provided by University of California – San Diego. Original written by Scott LaFee. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.

Published16 hours agoSharecloseShare pageCopy linkAbout sharingImage source, Getty ImagesThe US declared monkeypox a public health emergency late last week. It follows weeks of concern that more needs to be done to contain the virus.On a private daily Zoom call, adult gay men who have contracted monkeypox compare notes.They share their frustrations over trying to get tested or treated but being turned away by healthcare professionals.They throw around tips on how to manage pain that gets worse with each new blister on your body and leaves you unable to do anything.And, to keep from going stir-crazy as they wait for the lesions to heal, they bond over a shared experience none of them asked for.The first US monkeypox case this year was detected on 18 May in the state of Massachusetts. Since then, more than 10,000 cases have been reported across the country, in every state except Wyoming.Although anybody can contract the virus through direct contact with an infected person or surface, men in recent sexual contact with other men have accounted for the vast majority of cases.What is monkeypox and how do you catch it? Monkeypox: Can we still stop the outbreak?LGBT groups demand more action on monkeypox Last Thursday, the federal government declared a public health emergency over the outbreak, a move that is expected to speed up the distribution of vaccines, treatments and related federal resources.Those who’ve already endured a bout of the virus wish the help had come a lot sooner.”It’s a very traumatic experience,” said Jeffrey Galaise, who hosts the Zoom meetings. “I’m a different person having been through this.””If you haven’t lived through it, you have no idea the kind of pain that this is, and the red tape that’s attached to trying to get help and support.”Image source, Jeffrey GalaiseThe New York native, 41, began feeling sick on the day he was supposed to get his vaccine.Currently on day 25 of the illness, he has experienced practically every symptom, from the lesions and swollen lymph nodes to an extended high fever.Although public awareness is rising, vaccines remain in short supply and the Biden administration has said it will stretch the limited number of jabs available by administering only a fifth of one full dose.But the virus is spreading quickly in larger states like New York, Florida and California. In San Francisco, one state senator said seeking out the vaccine feels “a little bit like the Hunger Games”, a reference to the dystopian Hollywood movie trilogy in which people fight to the death for food and supplies.Mr Galaise also claims that information on how to treat the virus after you’ve got it is still sparse.”People are really suffering and nobody knows what to do,” he said.Gay men from all over the country drop in to his hour-long Zoom conversations, which have become a de facto support group and shared space for resources.Silver Steele, an adult entertainer from Texas, has joined a couple of sessions.His monkeypox ordeal lasted nearly a month. Lesions developed all around his mouth, making eating difficult, and he lost some 13Ibs (5.8kg) in weight.Aside from taking an oral anti-viral drug known as Tpoxx, which has been in short supply, “all you can really do is pain management”, he said.Yet the 42-year-old considers himself lucky, as he has heard “horror stories” from other patients – about anal lesions that make you feel like you’re excreting needles and penile lesions that become bacterial infections of their own.”Even though my face looked really disfigured, I didn’t have anything below the waist,” he said.”I will gladly take it on the lip for the world to see as long as I don’t have to deal with any of that garbage.”Image source, Silver Steele / TwitterMonkeypox is not a new virus; in fact, it is endemic to parts of western and central Africa.But the 2022 outbreak’s prevalence in the gay community has exposed public health flaws, as other demographics – including women and children – also now fall ill.Yvonne Phan ran into roadblock after roadblock when she tried to get tested for monkeypox in Colorado three weeks ago.The first doctor she spoke to misdiagnosed the large red wheals on her skin as contact dermatitis.A sexual health clinic declined to test her, sceptical that a woman, with no recent sexual history, could have contracted the virus.Others redirected the 33-year-old to the state’s department of public health or transferred her call to various specialists, with nobody taking an authoritative stance on what she should do.”It was like trying to ask your mom for permission for something, and she says ‘go ask your dad’, and then your dad says ‘go ask your mom’,” said Ms Phan. “I couldn’t seem to get an answer.”Ms Phan did test positive for monkeypox when she finally secured a swab test, but she does not know how. She still wears a mask in public and avoids large gatherings as a Covid-19 precaution. The only way she could have caught monkeypox, she claims, is from the clinic where she gets her allergy shots.Public health experts have dragged their heels in explaining why this outbreak has affected mostly gay and bisexual men – but it has led many to draw parallels with how the gay community felt abandoned during the AIDS crisis of the 1970s and 80s.”There’s a lot of layered issues that have come up that are very heavy,” said Mr Galaise of his Zoom conversations.”You have people who lived through AIDS suffering from PTSD [post-traumatic stress disorder], people that are in extended isolation for 25 to 30 days, people dealing with stigma from their community.”So patients who are already experiencing the immense pain caused by the virus have had their suffering compounded by the slow response of elected officials and public health experts, and a lack of financial and mental health resources, he said.Silver Steele, the sex worker, documented his illness daily on social media.Many of his posts went viral, some attracting hateful and ignorant comments, he alleged.”So many people just look at what we’re going through and think ‘oh look, its HIV part two.””I noticed the emergency was declared after some children tested positive,” he continued.”It wasn’t an emergency while it was just the gay guys.”This video can not be playedTo play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.More on this storyWhat is monkeypox and how do you catch it?6 days agoMonkeypox: Can we still stop the outbreak?6 days agoLGBT groups demand more action on monkeypox7 days ago

Getty ImagesWhat are the symptoms? People who get sick may experience a fever, headache, back and muscle aches, swollen lymph nodes, or exhaustion. Most people also develop a rash that can spread all over the body or can be limited to a few pustules in one area, like the genitals.

A drug typically used to treat enlarged prostates and high blood pressure has shown promise as a potential new therapy for motor neuron disease (MND) — also known as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) — according to a new study.
MND is a group of rare diseases that destroy nerve cells known as motor neurons, causing patients to slowly lose function of their muscles.
In studies using zebrafish, mice and stem cell models, experts have demonstrated that the drug terazosin protects against the death of motor neurons by increasing their energy production.
Researchers say the drug could help to slow the progression of a disease that affects around 5,000 adults in the UK. The average life expectancy is three years from the onset of symptoms.
The team are starting a feasibility study into the drug’s effect in MND patients. If this proves successful, they will look to launch a full clinical trial.
It is still unclear why motor neurons die, but experts know that a decrease in their energy production takes place at an early stage of the disease.

An analysis of millions of SARS-CoV-2 genomes finds that recombination of the virus is uncommon, but when it occurs, it is most often in the spike protein region, the area which allows the virus to attach to and infect host cells.
The study, led by scientists at UC Santa Cruz, was published August 11 in the journal Nature. It details a new software created by the researchers to search the COVID-19 phylogenetic tree, a diagram of the virus’s evolutionary history, for instances of recombination. This software is open source, allowing public health officials to use it to track instances of recombination within their communities.
Recombination occurs when two genetically distinct forms of the virus hybridize. This study focused on detectable recombination, when the hybridization results in a sequence that is genetically new, and not on instances where two sequences combine to form a sequence identical to an already existing one.
“It’s really important for reconstructing the virus’s evolutionary history,” said Russell Corbett-Detig, senior author on the study and an associate professor of biomolecular engineering at the Baskin School of Engineering. “When there’s recombination it’s not one tree, it’s many trees, and being able to trace that accurately is really crucial for understanding evolution of the virus.”
Findings on recombination
The researchers analyzed 1.6 million samples of COVID-19 and found 589 recombination events, which indicates that only about 2.7% of sequenced genomes result from recombination. These sequences were sourced from the UC Santa Cruz SARS-CoV-2 Browser, a repository for COVID-19 genomic data, which is now the largest collection of genomic sequences of a single species ever assembled, currently at nearly 12 million sequences.

A University of Minnesota Twin Cities-led team has found that electrical stimulation of the body combined with sound activates the brain’s somatosensory or “tactile” cortex, increasing the potential for using the technique to treat chronic pain and other sensory disorders. The researchers tested the non-invasive technique on animals and are planning clinical trials on humans in the near future.
The paper is published in the Journal of Neural Engineering.
During the experiments, the researchers played broadband sound while electrically stimulating different parts of the body in guinea pigs. They found that the combination of the two activated neurons in the brain’s somatosensory cortex, which is responsible for touch and pain sensations throughout the body.
While the researchers used needle stimulation in their experiments, one could achieve similar results using electrical stimulation devices, such as transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation (TENS) units, which are widely available for anyone to buy at pharmacies and stores. The researchers hope that their findings will lead to a treatment for chronic pain that’s safer and more accessible than drug approaches.
“Chronic pain is a huge issue for a lot of people, and for most, it’s not sufficiently treatable,” said Cory Gloeckner, lead author on the paper, a 2017 Ph.D. alumnus of the University of Minnesota Twin Cities Department of Biomedical Engineering, and an assistant professor at John Carroll University. “Right now, one of the ways that we try to treat pain is opioids, and we all know that doesn’t work out well for many people. This, on the other hand, is a non-invasive, simple application. It’s not some expensive medical device that you have to buy in order to treat your pain. It’s something that we think would be available to pretty much anyone because of its low cost and simplicity.”
The researchers plan to continue investigating this “multimodal” approach to treating different neurological conditions, potentially integrating music therapy in the future to see how they can further modify the somatosensory cortex.
“A lot of people have been using acupuncture or electrical stimulation — non-invasive or invasive — to try to alter brain activity for pain,” said Hubert Lim, senior author on the paper and a professor in the University of Minnesota Twin Cities Department of Biomedical Engineering and Department of Otolaryngology. “Our research shows that when you combine this with sound, the brain lights up even more.”
Lim said this opens up a whole new field of using this bimodal and multimodal stimulation for treating diseases.
“It’s odd to think about using sound to treat pain, but if you think about what institutes like the University of Minnesota’s Center for Spirituality and Healing or the NIH’s National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health are doing, they’re looking at music therapy and combining other modalities with the traditional methods to be able to enhance healing of these types of conditions,” Lim said. “This research gives us a new, structured framework for doing that moving forward.”
The research was funded by the National Science Foundation, the Lions Hearing Foundation, the University of Minnesota Interdisciplinary Fellowship, and University of Minnesota Lab Startup Funds.
In addition to Gloeckner and Lim, the research team included University of Minnesota Twin Cities Department of Biomedical Engineering alumnus Jian Nocon (B.S. BME ’17).
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Materials provided by University of Minnesota. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.

A study of over 26,000 middle-aged UK women reveals those with a vegetarian diet had a 33% higher risk of hip fracture compared to regular meat-eaters.
University of Leeds research, published today (Thursday, August 11) in the journal BMC Medicine, investigated the risk of hip fracture in occasional meat-eaters; pescatarians, people who eat fish but not meat; and vegetarians compared to regular meat-eaters.
Among 26,318 women, 822 hip fracture cases were observed over roughly 20 years — that represented just over 3% of the sample population. After adjustment for factors such as smoking and age, vegetarians were the only diet group with an elevated risk of hip fracture.
This study is one of very few studies to compare risk of hip fracture in vegetarians and meat-eaters where the occurrence of hip fracture was confirmed from hospital records.
The scientists stress the need for more research into the exact causes of why vegetarians were at a greater risk of hip fracture.
Vegetarian diets can be ‘healthy or unhealthy’
Study lead author James Webster, a doctoral researcher from the School of Food Science and Nutrition at Leeds, said: “Our study highlights potential concerns regarding risk of hip fracture in women who have a vegetarian diet. However, it is not warning people to abandon vegetarian diets. As with any diet, it is important to understand personal circumstances and what nutrients are needed for a balanced healthy lifestyle.

While research has revealed that children and adults hospitalized with COVID-19 are more susceptible to developing long COVID symptoms, a new study by researchers at UTHealth Houston found that children infected with COVID-19, but not hospitalized, still experienced long COVID symptoms up to three months past infection.
The study was published in The Pediatric Infectious Disease Journal.
Researchers examined data from volunteers across the state of Texas between the ages of 5 and 18 who were enrolled in the Texas CARES survey, which began in October of 2020 with the goal of assessing COVID-19 antibody status over time among a population of adults and children in Texas.
Data for this study was collected before and after the vaccine rollout and during the waves of the Delta and Omicron variants.
“We were interested in understanding if children impacted with an acute or severe infection of COVID-19 would go on to have persisting symptoms, or what we call long COVID,” said Sarah Messiah, PhD, MPH, first author of the study and professor of epidemiology, human genetics, and environmental sciences and director of the Center for Pediatric Population Health at UTHealth School of Public Health-Dallas. “This particular study is unique as the first population-based study in literature to report on prevalence of long COVID in children who have not been hospitalized with COVID-19.”
A total of 82 pediatric volunteers (4.8% of the total 1,813) reported having long COVID symptoms — 1.5% showed symptoms that lasted between four and 12 weeks, including loss of taste and smell, fatigue, and cough. An additional 3.3% reported that symptoms such as loss of taste and smell, cough, and difficulty breathing persisted for longer than 12 weeks.
“From this information we wanted to know, ‘What would put a child more at risk for long COVID and who is more susceptible to this?’ When we looked at risk factors of those who reported symptoms past 12 weeks, we found that children who were unvaccinated and who had obesity had a higher chance of developing long COVID. These findings are consistent with other literature that found children and adults who have comorbid health conditions and are unvaccinated are at a higher risk of being hospitalized for the virus,” Messiah said.
Additionally, researchers found that children infected with COVID-19 before the emergence of the Delta variant were more at risk of developing long COVID. “If you had COVID-19 earlier in the pandemic, you were more at risk for longer symptoms. With Delta and Omicron, we did see a lot of children who ended up hospitalized, but their symptoms were less severe, and our results show they were also less likely to report persistent symptoms too,” Messiah said.
The results of the Texas CARES study, Messiah said, is important because it highlights the presence of non-hospitalized youth who may also experience persistent long COVID symptoms after infection.
“There may be a perception that one needs to be hospitalized to have long COVID, and that is not what we found. I encourage parents to still take caution and get their child vaccinated against COVID-19, because we now know that it will decrease the risk of infection and long COVID,” she said.
Additional UTHealth Houston authors included Eric Boerwinkle, PhD; Stacia M. DeSantis, PhD; Michael D. Swartz, PhD; Tianyao Hao, MS; Yashar Talebi, MS; Harold W. Kohl, III, PhD; Shiming Zhang, MS; Melissa Valerio-Shewmaker, PhD; Ashraf Yaseen, PhD; Steven H. Kelder, PhD; Jessica Ross, BS; Michael O. Gonzalez, MPH; Lequing Wu, MS; Lindsay N. Padilla, MPH; and Kourtney R. Lopez, BS. Other authors included Jennifer A. Shuford, MD, MPH, and Stephen J. Pont, MD, MPH, with the Texas Department of State Health Services; and David Lakey, MD, with The University of Texas System.
The study was funded and supported by the Texas Department of State Health Services (HHS000866600001).

The COVID-19 pandemic, bigger and more frequent wildfires, devastating floods, and powerful storms have become unfortunate facts of life. With each disaster, people depend on the emergency response of governments, nonprofit organizations, and the private sector for aid when their lives are upended. However, a complicating factor in delivering that aid is that people tend to disperse with such disasters.
In research recently published in The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, a team led by Jianxi Gao, assistant professor of computer science at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, and Qi “Ryan” Wang, associate professor of civil and environmental engineering at Northeastern University, formulated a method to predict human movement during large-scale extreme events with the goal of enabling more effective emergency responses. The model also revealed great disparity in movement among different economic groups.
“Despite many possible variables, we found that changes in human mobility behavior during various extreme events exhibit a consistent hyperbolic decline,” said Gao. “We call it ‘spatiotemporal decay.'”
Typically, people’s movements follow predictable patterns. When an extreme event disrupts the pattern, scientists refer to it as a “mobility perturbation.” For example, people may stop commuting to work, or they may change their route, or even evacuate to a shelter. Not only do these mobility perturbations cause challenges when delivering aid, but they also lead to financial, medical, and quality of life repercussions. The nature, extent, and duration of mobility perturbations vary widely.
Gao’s team tracked the anonymous movements of 90 million people in the United States over the course of six large-scale disasters including wildfires, tropical storms, winter freezes, and pandemics in order to develop a unified model.
“Our model reveals the underlying uniformity across variables by incorporating heterogeneity across space and over time,” said Gao. “We found strong regularities in how much mobility behavior changes following extreme events and in how fast mobility behavior returns to normal, allowing us to predict complex human behaviors during large-scale crises.”
Gao’s team found that people living close to the nucleus of the crisis — ground zero, or where a storm hits — limit their mobility significantly and quickly. Those living further away do not alter their movement patterns as drastically. This is what is referred to as ‘spatial decay.’ Over time, mobility patterns either return to normal, inch towards normal, or become even more perturbed. The team accounted for these variables by considering ‘temporal decay,’ as well.
When the team applied the model to the COVID-19 pandemic, it revealed great differences in movement among economic groups, which may help to explain the different infection rates. People from wealthy areas were more able to immediately reduce their mobility and maintain that change longer. People living in lower income areas exhibited a faster and greater hyperbolic decay.
“In other words, wealthier people were able to socially distance,” Gao said. “Lower income people were forced to return to work.”
“If events of recent years have taught us anything, it is that we must do our best to prepare for crises,” said Curt Breneman, Dean of the Rensselaer School of Science. “This work by Dr. Gao and his team can inform enhanced and proactive emergency response planning to mitigate future extreme events. It also shines a light on persistent social inequities that we must find new ways to address.”
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Materials provided by Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. Original written by Katie Malatino. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.

Quality of life is a measure of a person’s level of comfort, health and happiness. For people with multiple sclerosis (MS), a new study has found there are specific factors that may affect a person’s physical and mental quality of life. The study is published in the August 10, 2022, online issue of Neurology®, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology.
Multiple sclerosis is a disease of the central nervous system which is made up of the brain, spinal cord and optic nerves. It is chronic and can be unpredictable and disabling. Symptoms may include fatigue, numbness and tingling, loss of balance, weakness and problems with vision. While there is currently no cure for MS, there are medications to modify the course of the disease and delay its progress as well as treat the symptoms.
“People with multiple sclerosis report a lower quality of life when compared to people without the disease, and even those with other chronic conditions,” said study author Julia O’Mahony, PhD, of the Health Sciences Centre Winnipeg in Winnipeg, Canada. “There are several factors that may play a role. Our research sought to identify such factors so they can be addressed early in the course of the disease.”
The study involved 4,888 people participating in the North American Research Committee on Multiple Sclerosis (NARCOMS) Registry, 81% women, who had an average age of 42 years when diagnosed with MS. All had been diagnosed within three years of the start of the study.
Each person was assessed at least three times for health-related quality of life and filled out an average of 12 quality-of-life questionnaires over up to 27 years.
For physical quality of life, researchers divided participants into five groups. The first group, 26% of participants, had consistently low and stable quality of life. The second group, 29%, had moderately low and stable quality of life. The third group, 13%, had moderate to low quality of life within the first years after diagnosis followed by normal quality of life thereafter. The fourth group, 17%, had early decline and then an increase to moderate to normal quality of life. The fifth group, 14%, had normal quality of life for 20 years and then a decline.