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A new diagnostic method could help identify one of the deadliest types of interstitial lung disease (ILD) sooner, allowing for faster treatment and improved patient outcomes.
Idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF) is one of the most serious and common types of ILD, occurring most often in patients 60 and older with an average survival time of three to five years. At any given time roughly 300 patients are being treated for IPF in London, Ontario. Globally, it is the number one reason for lung transplants.
A new study published in Respiratory Research has found that testing for a protein called cyclin-dependent kinase inhibitor protein (p16) in biopsy tissue may help more accurately identify IPF.
Dr. Marco Mura, Associate Scientist at Lawson and Respirologist at London Health Sciences Centre (LHSC), together with Dr. Matthew J. Cecchini, Pathologist at LHSC, led the study. Dr. Mura says the test could mean knowing years sooner if a lung transplant might be needed.
“We developed a method that is actually quite inexpensive to increase the diagnostic accuracy of the biopsy and help to avoid unclassifiable cases. The method has a prognostic value, so it helps predict survival of these patients at the time of biopsy,” says Dr. Mura, who is also an Associate Professor of Medicine at Western University.
Patients with high expression of p16 were shown to experience worse outcomes than others with ILD, indicating that it is essential for these patients to start necessary treatment without delay. The protein is already widely used in ovarian cancer diagnosis. Now additional ongoing studies will help reinforce the value of the test for IPF diagnosis.
“We have no tests that we can apply to the (lung) biopsy other than the pathologist looking at it and saying ‘OK, this biopsy shows this pattern,'” Dr. Mura says. “There were absolutely zero additional biomarker tests to reinforce, validate or support the diagnosis. So, this will be the first time that we implement such test biomarkers in clinical practice.”
With this type of test that looks at the quantity of the biomarker, there is also the possibility of applying artificial intelligence to advance diagnosis in the future.
The research was supported by a 2018 Internal Research Fund grant from Lawson.
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Materials provided by Lawson Health Research Institute. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.

A pandemic-related shortage of a mundane item — tubes to collect blood samples from patients — has caused headaches for health systems worldwide.
But it may also have a silver lining: A lesson in how to reduce unneeded medical tests, whether or not there’s a shortage, according to a new study.
The shortage of “blue top” blood test tubes gave researchers a chance to see if alerting doctors at the moment they’re placing an order could encourage them to seek a test only when results will immediately affect care.
In the new study, published in JAMA Internal Medicine, an alert led to a nearly immediate 29% drop in orders for one common test. The reduced level persisted for months.
“This shows that small interventions can make a big difference, and suggests the potential for other types of low-value care to benefit from a similar intervention,” says lead author Madison Breeden, M.D., a fellow in infectious diseases at U-M Health who conducted the study during her year as chief resident of Quality and Patient Safety. She’s already exploring if the approach might reduce unnecessary prescribing of antibiotics.
Breeden and her colleagues describe what happened in spring 2021 when University of Michigan Health supply chain and pathology experts began worrying about a potential shortage of “blue top” tubes. The pandemic had created very high demand for the chemical the tubes contain: sodium citrate, which stabilizes blood samples until a laboratory team can analyze three blood clotting-related properties, called PT, INR and PTT.

People with a parent with a history of alcohol problems are at greater risk for showing signs of addiction to highly processed foods, a new University of Michigan study found.
These foods, such as ice cream, chocolate, pizza and fries, contain unnaturally high amounts of refined carbohydrates and fats that may trigger an addictive response in some people.
U-M researchers wanted to know if a major risk factor for addiction — a parent with alcohol problems — predicted an increased risk of addiction to highly processed foods.
As many as 1 in 5 people seem to show this clinically significant addiction to highly processed foods, marked by a loss of control over intake, intense cravings and an inability to cut down despite negative consequences.
“People who have a family history of addiction may be at greater risk for developing a problematic relationship with highly processed foods, which is really challenging in a food environment where these foods are cheap, accessible and heavily marketed,” said Lindzey Hoover, U-M psychology graduate student and the study’s lead author.
But addictive responses didn’t end with food, as people with food addiction were also more likely to exhibit personal problems with alcohol, cannabis, tobacco and vaping, the research showed.
Diets dominated by highly processed food and excessive intake of addictive substances are leading causes of preventable death in the modern world. This study suggests that interventions are needed to simultaneously reduce addictive eating and substance use.
“Public health approaches that have reduced the harm of other addictive substances, like restricting marketing to kids, may be important to consider to reduce the negative impact of highly processed foods,” Hoover said.
The study appears in Psychology of Addictive Behaviors. Co-authors are Hayley Yu, U-M psychology graduate student; Jenna Cummings, postdoctoral fellow for the Division of Population Health Research, National Institute of Child Health and Human Development; Stuart Ferguson, professor at the University of Tasmania; and Ashley Gearhardt, U-M associate professor of psychology.
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Materials provided by University of Michigan. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.

University of Iowa researchers have confirmed in a new study that a specific region in the brain is critical to governing the mind’s communication with the body’s motor control system. The findings could yield advances in treatment for Parkinson’s disease, as declining motor coordination is a central symptom of the disorder.
In experiments with humans, the researchers pinpointed the subthalamic nucleus as the region in the brain that communicates with the motor system to help the body stop an action. This communication is vital because it helps humans avoid surprises and react to potentially dangerous or unforeseen circumstances.
The subthalamic nucleus is a tiny grouping of cells that is part of the basal ganglia, which is a key circuit in controlling movement. The basal ganglia takes initial motor commands generated in the brain and either amplify or halt specific parts of those commands as they pass from the central nervous system to the spinal cord.
“You can think of the subthalamic nucleus as the core region in this ‘halting’ of extra, unwanted components of compound movements, as it is the last relay station before the output nuclei of the basal ganglia, which then communicates these commands to the wider motor system,” says Jan Wessel, associate professor in the Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences at Iowa and the corresponding author on the study.
Previous research had indicated the subthalamic nucleus’ role in this stage of brain-motor control communication, but the hypothesis had not been directly tested in humans until now. To do that, the researchers used some ingenious techniques. First, they recruited 20 patients who have Parkinson’s disease, which affects motor control. These patients had implanted deep-brain stimulators, which the researchers used to activate or deactivate the subthalamic nucleus. They then tracked those changes to motor-control activity through a simple stop-action task, monitoring the brain-motor control responses through a technique called transcranial magnetic stimulation.
Parkinson’s disease patients are treated regularly with deep-brain stimulation, but the addition of transcranial magnetic stimulation allowed the researchers to confirm the subthalamic nucleus’ definitive role. Wessel partnered on the experiments with Jeremy Greenlee, professor and the Arnold H. Menezes Chair in the Department of Neurosurgery, who cares for patients with Parkinson’s disease.
“Deep-brain stimulation is the only method to causally and systematically influence the activity of deeply embedded brain nuclei like the subthalamic nucleus in awake, behaving humans,” says Wessel, also an associate professor in the Department of Neurology. “However, combining deep-brain stimulation with transcranial magnetic stimulation is a highly complicated and novel technical endeavor, especially in awake, behaving humans.”
The subthalamic nucleus-motor control link is important, Wessel says, because it puts to rest a central question in the brain’s communication with the body’s motor system, especially how an initiated action is suddenly halted. But it has potential benefits to patients, too.
“The subthalamic nucleus is a key therapeutic target in Parkinson’s disease,” Wessel says. “Indeed, just like it was done for the patient sample in our study, implantation of stimulation electrodes into the subthalamic nucleus is a highly successful treatment option for the motoric symptoms of Parkinson’s disease. Our study provides some mechanistic insights into this potential patient-care benefit.”
The study, “A causal role for the human subthalamic nucleus in non-selective cortico-motor inhibition,” was published online July 15 in the journal Current Biology.
Contributing authors, all from Iowa, include Darcy Diesburg and Nathan Chalkley.
The National Institutes of Health and the U.S. National Science Foundation funded the research.
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Materials provided by University of Iowa. Original written by Richard C. Lewis. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.

Losing a spouse can be a devastating experience for anyone. A new study found that experiencing the death of a spouse due to COVID-19 may be worse for mental health than deaths from other causes.
Penn State researchers found that while there were strong associations between the recent death of a spouse and poorer mental health both before and during the pandemic, people who lost a spouse to COVID-19 were more likely to report symptoms of depression and loneliness than comparable people whose spouses died just before the pandemic began.
Ashton Verdery, Harry and Elissa Sichi Early Career Professor of Sociology, Demography, and Social Data Analytics at Penn State, said the study underscores the ongoing health risks posed by the COVID-19 pandemic, even to those who have not been infected by the virus.
“These risks apply to millions of people across the globe who have lost their wives, husbands and partners,” Verdery said. “Along with evidence that suggests those who experience the highest rates of mental health problems after the death of a spouse also face the largest risks of subsequent physical health problems, our study underscores the potentially significant health ramifications to those losing loved ones to the pandemic.”
He added that these findings, recently published in the Journals of Gerontology — Series B, could help inform policy and suggest a need for extra clinical attention to those who have recently lost loved ones to COVID-19.
Previous research by Verdery and his team estimated that 8.8 million individuals lost close family members to COVID-19 by April 2022. Additionally, “bereavement” — the experience of recently losing a friend or family member — has been shown to have poor effects on health.

The U.S. Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade paved the way for limits on abortion but also created uncertainty around the future of birth control. This could have far-reaching implications for many people as a research team from Michigan State University found over one in five Michigan adults do not want children.
“We found that 21.6% of adults, or about 1.7 million people, in Michigan do not want children and therefore are ‘childfree.’ That’s more than the population of Michigan’s nine largest cities,” said Zachary Neal, associate professor in MSU’s psychology department and co-author of the study.
The study — published in Scientific Reports — used a set of three questions to identify childfree individuals separately from parents and other types of nonparents. The researchers used data from a representative sample of 1,500 adults who completed MSU’s State of the State Survey, conducted by the university’s Institute for Public Policy and Social Research. Because different types of nonparents are impossible to distinguish in official statistics, Neal explained that this study is one of the first to specifically count childfree adults.
“People — especially women — who say they don’t want children are often told they’ll change their mind, but the study found otherwise,” said Jennifer Watling Neal, associate professor in the psychology department at MSU and co-author of the study. “People are making the decision to be childfree early in life, most often in their teens and twenties. And, it’s not just young people claiming they don’t want children. Women who decided in their teens to be childfree are now, on average, nearly 40 and still do not have children.”
The study was conducted in Michigan, but according to the 2021 census, Michigan is demographically similar to the United States as a whole. Because of this, Neal said, if the pattern holds up nationally, it would mean 50 to 60 million Americans are childfree.
“Following the U.S. Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade, a large number of Americans are now at risk of being forced to have children despite not wanting them,” said Watling Neal. If further precedents are overturned and birth control becomes harder to access, many young women who have decided to be childfree may also have difficulty avoiding pregnancy.
Because so many people are childfree, the researchers said this group warrants more attention. They hope future work will expand beyond Michigan and will help the public understand both why people decide to be childfree and the consequences they experience from that decision.
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Materials provided by Michigan State University. Original written by Kim Ward. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.

Daily exposure to a class of chemicals used in the production of many household items may lead to cancer, thyroid disease, and childhood obesity, a new study shows. The resulting economic burden is estimated to cost Americans a minimum of $5.5 billion and as much as $63 billion over the lifetime of the current population.
The new work revolves around per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), a group of over 4,700 humanmade chemicals that experts have detected for decades in the blood of millions of people. The chemicals are used, for example, in the production of water- and oil-resistant clothing, electronics, and nonstick cookware, and people are thought to ingest them as food comes into contact with packaging. The substances are believed to disrupt the function of hormones, signaling compounds that influence many bodily processes.
Led by researchers at NYU Grossman School of Medicine, the new study in roughly 5,000 Americans identified 13 medical conditions that may result from PFAS exposure, such as infertility, diabetes, and endometriosis, a painful disorder of the uterus. Together, the diseases generate medical bills and reduce worker productivity across a lifetime to create the costs measured by the study, say the study authors.
“Our findings add to the substantial and still-mounting body of evidence suggesting that exposure to PFAS is harming our health and undermining the economy,” says study co-author Linda Kahn, PhD, MPH, an assistant professor in the Departments of Pediatrics and Population Health at NYU Langone Health.
Previous investigations have quantified the medical burden and financial costs of low birth weight due to PFAS exposure. However, the new study, publishing online July 26 in the journal Exposure and Health, incorporates a much broader range of health consequences across the lifespan, says Kahn.
For the investigation, the researchers determined how many Americans were likely exposed to PFAS chemicals in 2018 using blood samples obtained from adults and children who participated in the U.S. National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey. Next, the study team analyzed data from dozens of studies in the past decade that explored diseases connected to the substances.

Differences in the growth, weight, and body fat levels of children conceived through fertility treatment are small, and no longer apparent by late adolescence, finds new research. The University of Bristol-led study, published in JAMA Network Open today [July 26], sought to address concerns around whether fertility treatment is associated with growth, weight, and body fat from infancy to early adulthood.
Since the first birth of a child by in vitro fertilisation (IVF), questions have been raised about the risks to children conceived this way. While previous studies have shown an increased risk of low birthweight and preterm birth in offspring conceived by assisted reproductive technology (ART), relatively little is known about long-term growth and weight gain.
The study, led by an international research group from the Assisted Reproductive Technology and Future Health (ART-Health) Cohort Collaboration, assessed whether conception by ART, which mostly involves IVF, was associated with growth, weight, and body fat from infancy to early adulthood.
Using data on 158,000 European, Asian-Pacific, and Canadian children conceived by ART, the data sample included* 8,600 children from Bristol’s Children of the 90s study, a world-leading health study based in Bristol which has followed 14,000 pregnant women and their offspring since 1991.
The team’s findings show those conceived using ART were on average shorter, lighter, and thinner from infancy up to early adolescence compared with their naturally conceived peers. However, the differences were small across all ages and reduced with older age.
Dr Ahmed Elhakeem, Senior Research Associate in Epidemiology in Bristol Medical School: Population Health Sciences (PHS) at the University of Bristol, and lead study author, said: “This is important work. Over the last three decades conception by ART has increased. In the UK just over one in 30 children have been conceived by ART, so we would expect on average one child in each primary school class to have been conceived this way. Since the first birth of a child by IVF, concerns have been raised about the risks to the children conceived.
“Parents and their children conceived by ART can be reassured that this might mean they are a little bit smaller and lighter from infancy to adolescence, but these differences are unlikely to have any health implications. We acknowledge it is important that as more people conceived by ART become adults, we continue to explore any potential health risks at older age.”
Deborah Lawlor, Professor of Epidemiology, MRC Investigator and British Heart Foundation Chair and senior author from Bristol Medical School PHS, added: “This important research is only possible through large scale international collaboration and longitudinal health studies, where participants contribute health data throughout their entire lives. We are particularly grateful to the European Research Council and Horizon 2020 for making this possible and to all of the study participants and researchers.”
Peter Thompson, Chief Executive, The Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA), said: “Around 1 in 7 couples have difficulty conceiving in the UK which leads to around 53,000 patients a year having fertility treatment (IVF or Donor Insemination). The findings from this study will come as a welcome relief to these patients who begin treatment in the hope of one day having healthy children of their own.
“Health outcomes in children conceived using Assisted Reproductive Technology is a high priority for the HFEA and we monitor the latest research and provide information for patients and professionals. Anyone considering fertility treatment can access this, and other high-quality impartial information on fertility treatments and UK licenced clinics at www.hfea.gov.uk.”
Studies with larger samples at older ages are now needed. Other outcomes such as cardiometabolic risk factors following ART also require investigation. The collaboration network, developed as part of the study, will facilitate future research into health outcomes following ART.
The study, funded by the European Research Council under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation program, Medical Research Council (MRC), British Heart Foundation (BHF) and National Institute for Health and Care Research Bristol Biomedical Research Centre (NIHR Bristol BRC), will be presented at next month’s [27-31 August] 2022 DOHaD World Congress.

Attending daycare in the first three years of life is linked with an increase in lung complications in children who were born prematurely and diagnosed with a form of chronic lung disease, according to new research led by Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP).
The multicenter study, which drew data from nine specialty centers across the United States, found that preterm children with bronchopulmonary dysplasia (BPD) who attend daycare were more likely to visit the emergency department, use systemic steroids and have chronic respiratory symptoms compared with children not in daycare. The findings were published in the The Journal of Pediatrics.
“Preterm children born with BPD have a short window to improve their lung function trajectory, so we are always looking for ways to minimize exposures in early childhood to prevent lung function problems in adult life,” said lead author Sharon McGrath-Morrow, MD, MBA, Associate Chief of the Division of Pulmonary and Sleep Medicine and leader of the Post-preemie Lung Disease Clinic at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. “This study shows that daycare is a modifiable risk factor that is linked with poorer outcomes in preterm children with BPD.”
Several prior studies have shown an association between daycare attendance and increased risk of respiratory complications in very low birth weight children. However, those studies focused on a single center or location and thus the results weren’t generalizable across the population.
To better qualify the impact of daycare exposure on respiratory illnesses in children with BPD, the researchers collected registry data from nine tertiary care centers in the United States who participate in the BPD Collaborative Outpatient Registry. Analyzing 341 former preterm infants with BPD between the ages of 0 and 3, the researchers collected data on daycare attendance, clinical characteristics, acute care use, and chronic respiratory symptoms.
The researchers found that preterm children with BPD who attended daycare were three times as likely to visit the emergency room and four times as likely to use systemic steroids. They also observed a greater risk of chronic respiratory symptoms among preterm children who attended daycare, including breathing problems (coughing or wheezing) and increased use of rescue medication, such as inhalers. There was no difference between children who attended in-home daycares and those who attended center-based daycares.
To determine whether these effects lessened with age, the researchers stratified their data into three age groups: 6-12 months, 12-24 months, and 24-36 months. They found the negative impacts of daycare were highest in the 6-12 months age group, but the data suggested those effects may persist until 36 months of age.
“Many families need childcare outside the home for a variety of reasons, including caregiver employment,” McGrath-Morrow said. “Providers should advise families with infants and young children with BPD about the potential risks of daycare attendance, particularly prior to 1 year of age, while also bearing in mind the financial needs of the family.”
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Materials provided by Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.

Published1 hour agoSharecloseShare pageCopy linkAbout sharingImage source, ReutersScientists say there is “compelling evidence” that Wuhan’s Huanan seafood and wildlife market was at the centre of the Covid-19 outbreak.  Two peer-reviewed studies published on Tuesday re-examine information from the initial outbreak in the Chinese city.One of the studies shows that the earliest known cases were clustered around that market.The other uses genetic information to track the timing of the outbreak. It suggests there were two variants introduced into humans in November or early December 2019. Together, the researchers say this evidence paints a picture that Sars-Cov-2 was present in live mammals that were sold at Huanan market in late 2019. They say it was transmitted into people who were working or shopping there in two separate “spillover events”, where a human contracted the virus from an animal.One of the researchers involved, virologist Prof David Robertson from the University of Glasgow, told BBC News that he hoped the studies would “correct the false record that the virus came from a lab”. Pandemic epicentreTwo years of scientific effort to understand the virus that causes Covid-19 have provided these researchers with a more informed perspective. This has enabled them to address a key conundrum in the earliest patient data: That out of hundreds of people who were hospitalised with Covid-19 in Wuhan, only about 50 had a direct, traceable link to the market. “That was really puzzling that most cases could not be linked to the market,” said Prof Robertson. “But knowing what we know about the virus now, it’s exactly what we would expect – because many people only get very mildly ill, so they would be out in the community transmitting the virus to others and the severe cases would be hard to link to each other.” This Covid-19 case-mapping research found that a large percentage of early patients – with no known connection to the market, meaning they neither worked nor shopped there – did turn out to live near it. This supports the idea that the market was the epicentre of the epidemic, said Prof Michael Worobey, lead author and biologist from the University of Arizona, with sellers getting infected first and setting off a “chain of infections among community members in the surrounding area”.”In a city covering more than 3,000 sq miles (7,770 sq km), the area with the highest probability of containing the home of someone who had one of the earliest Covid-19 cases in the world was an area of a few city blocks, with the Huanan market smack dab inside it,” said Prof Worobey.That study also zoomed in on the market itself. The scientists created a map of the samples – swabs of fluid from drains and on market stalls – that tested positive for the virus. “Most of the positive samples clustered around the south-western side of the market,” explained Prof Robertson. “And that’s the location where we report species like raccoon dogs being sold. “So we have confirmation of animals we now know are susceptible [to Sars-Cov-2, the virus that causes Covid-19] were sold there in late 2019.” The lab leak theory Over the last two years, the search for the origin of the deadly pandemic turned from a scientific investigation into a toxic political row. Viewers in the UK can watch this BBC documentary on the hunt for Covid-19’s origins.One of the subjects of a fierce international blame game – primarily between politicians in the US and China – was a theory that the virus could have been leaked from a Wuhan laboratory, the Wuhan Institute of Virology. But that hypothesis, said Prof Stuart Neil from Kings College, “can’t explain the data”. “We’re now as sure as we can be, based on the fragmentary evidence we do have, that this was a spillover event that happened in the market.” Crowded, live animal markets, many scientists agree, provide an ideal transmission hotspot for new diseases to “spill over” from animals. And in the 18 months up to the beginning of the pandemic, a separate study showed that nearly 50,000 animals – of 38 different species – were sold at markets in Wuhan.Prof Neil said the pandemic was very likely to have been a consequence of an “unhealthy, cruel and unhygienic practice that Chinese authorities had been warned about”.The major risk of being distracted by looking for someone in a laboratory to blame for all this, he added, “is that we run the risk of letting this happen again because we’ve focused on the wrong problem.”This video can not be playedTo play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.More on this storyScientists weigh up evidence over Covid’s origins10 July 2021