Tag: pubmed

BMC Oral Health. 2023 Jul 22;23(1):513. doi: 10.1186/s12903-023-03235-0.

ABSTRACT

BACKGROUND: Psychological stress is a crucial parameter in defining the symptoms of burning mouth syndrome (BMS). We hypothesized that the level of psychological stress in patients with BMS would correlate with severity of clinical symptoms, cortisol levels, and cortisol/ adrenocorticotropic hormone (ACTH) ratio. We aimed to comprehensively investigate the influence of clinical and hematologic parameters on the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis, particularly concerning the presence or absence of self-perceived psychological stress in patients with BMS. In addition, we aimed to identify parameters predicting psychological stress in these patients.

METHODS: One hundred and forty-one patients with BMS (117 women, 82.98%; 56.21 ± 13.92 years) were divided into psychological stress (n = 68; 55 females, 56.39 ± 12.89 years) and non-psychological stress groups (n = 73; 62 females, 56.03 ± 14.90 years), and inter- and intra-group statistical analyses were conducted. Significant predictors of psychological stress in patients with BMS were investigated through multiple logistic regression analysis.

RESULTS: The prevalence of xerostomia was significantly higher (67.6% vs. 34.2%, p < 0.001), while unstimulated salivary flow rate was lower (0.66 ± 0.59 vs. 0.91 ± 0.53 mL/min, p < 0.01) in the psychological stress group than in the non-psychological stress group. SCL-90R subscale values for somatization, hostility, anxiety, and depression, as well as cortisol and ACTH levels and the cortisol/ACTH ratio, were also higher in the psychological stress group (all p < 0.05). Above-mean values for cortisol (AUC = 0.980, 95%CI: 0.959-1.000) and cortisol/ACTH (AUC = 0.779; 95%CI, 0.701-0.856) were excellent predictors of psychological stress, with cortisol (r = 0.831, p < 0.01) and cortisol/ACTH (r = 0.482, p < 0.01) demonstrating substantial correlations. Above-average values for cortisol (OR = 446.73) and cortisol/ACTH (OR = 6.159) significantly increased incidence of psychological stress in patients with BMS (all p < 0.001).

CONCLUSIONS: Among patients with BMS, xerostomia, decreased salivary flow rate, increased cortisol levels, and cortisol/ACTH ratio were associated with psychological stress, highlighting the psycho-neuro-endocrinological features of this condition. Cortisol and cortisol/ACTH ratio were strong predictors of psychological stress in patients with BMS.

PMID:37481556 | DOI:10.1186/s12903-023-03235-0

BMC Med Res Methodol. 2023 Jul 22;23(1):171. doi: 10.1186/s12874-023-01987-5.

ABSTRACT

BACKGROUND: COVID-19 brought enormous challenges to public health surveillance and underscored the importance of developing and maintaining robust systems for accurate surveillance. As public health data collection efforts expand, there is a critical need for infectious disease modeling researchers to continue to develop prospective surveillance metrics and statistical models to accommodate the modeling of large disease counts and variability. This paper evaluated different likelihoods for the disease count model and various spatiotemporal mean models for prospective surveillance.

METHODS: We evaluated Bayesian spatiotemporal models, which are the foundation for model-based infectious disease surveillance metrics. Bayesian spatiotemporal mean models based on the Poisson and the negative binomial likelihoods were evaluated with the different lengths of past data usage. We compared their goodness of fit and short-term prediction performance with both simulated epidemic data and real data from the COVID-19 pandemic.

RESULTS: The simulation results show that the negative binomial likelihood-based models show better goodness of fit results than Poisson likelihood-based models as deemed by smaller deviance information criteria (DIC) values. However, Poisson models yield smaller mean square error (MSE) and mean absolute one-step prediction error (MAOSPE) results when we use a shorter length of the past data such as 7 and 3 time periods. Real COVID-19 data analysis of New Jersey and South Carolina shows similar results for the goodness of fit and short-term prediction results. Negative binomial-based mean models showed better performance when we used the past data of 52 time periods. Poisson-based mean models showed comparable goodness of fit performance and smaller MSE and MAOSPE results when we used the past data of 7 and 3 time periods.

CONCLUSION: We evaluate these models and provide future infectious disease outbreak modeling guidelines for Bayesian spatiotemporal analysis. Our choice of the likelihood and spatiotemporal mean models was influenced by both historical data length and variability. With a longer length of past data usage and more over-dispersed data, the negative binomial likelihood shows a better model fit than the Poisson likelihood. However, as we use a shorter length of the past data for our surveillance analysis, the difference between the Poisson and the negative binomial models becomes smaller. In this case, the Poisson likelihood shows robust posterior mean estimate and short-term prediction results.

PMID:37481553 | DOI:10.1186/s12874-023-01987-5

Nutr J. 2023 Jul 22;22(1):35. doi: 10.1186/s12937-023-00865-6.

ABSTRACT

BACKGROUND: In recent decades, more and more attention has been paid to the influence of nutrition on reproductive health. Nevertheless, the imminent association between diet-related inflammation and the risk of infertility has not yet been established. The aim of the current study was to investigate the ability of the Dietary Inflammatory Index (DII) to estimate infertility incidence in women.

METHODS: This cross-sectional study was conducted using data from Ravansar non-communicable diseases (RaNCD) cohort study on 4437 participants. The DII was calculated based on the reported consumption of up to 31 food parameters measured via a validated and reproducible 118-item food-frequency questionnaire (FFQ). Multiple logistic regression analysis was applied to estimate the multivariable odds ratio (OR) adjusted for potential confounding variables.

RESULTS: Out of all participants, 411 women (9.26%) were infertile. The mean ± SD age and weight of infertile women were 43.67 ± 7.47 years and 72.86 ± 13.02 kg, respectively. Statistical analyses showed the odds ratio of infertility in the fourth quartile (pro-inflammatory diet) was 1.76 times higher than in the first quartile (anti-inflammatory diet) of DII (95% CI: 1.57-2.02).

CONCLUSIONS: The findings of this study provide compelling evidence about the association between infertility and the quality of diet in women. Therefore, interventions and programs aimed at promoting a healthy lifestyle and using healthy diets can be considered as one of the effective approaches in the prevention and treatment of infertility in women.

PMID:37481550 | DOI:10.1186/s12937-023-00865-6

Eur Stroke J. 2023 Jul 22:23969873231186911. doi: 10.1177/23969873231186911. Online ahead of print.

ABSTRACT

BACKGROUND: The Oxford Carotid Stenosis tool (OCST) and Essen Stroke Risk Score (ESRS) are validated to predict recurrent stroke in patients with and without carotid stenosis. The Symptomatic Carotid Atheroma Inflammation Lumen stenosis (SCAIL) score combines stenosis and plaque inflammation on fluorodeoxyglucose positron-emission tomography (¹⁸FDG-PET). We compared SCAIL with OCST and ESRS to predict ipsilateral stroke recurrence in symptomatic carotid stenosis.

PATIENTS AND METHODS: We pooled three prospective cohort studies of patients with recent (<30 days) non-severe ischaemic stroke/TIA and internal carotid artery stenosis (>50%). All patients had carotid ¹⁸FDG-PET/CT angiography and late follow-up, with censoring at carotid revascularisation.

RESULTS: Of 212 included patients, 16 post-PET ipsilateral recurrent strokes occurred in 343 patient-years follow-up (median 42 days (IQR 13-815)).Baseline SCAIL predicted recurrent stroke (unadjusted hazard ratio [HR] 1.96, CI 1.20-3.22, p = 0.007, adjusted HR 2.37, CI 1.31-4.29, p = 0.004). The HR for OCST was 0.996 (CI 0.987-1.006, p = 0.49) and for ESRS was 1.26 (CI 0.87-1.82, p = 0.23) (all per 1-point score increase). C-statistics were: SCAIL 0.66 (CI 0.51-0.80), OCST 0.52 (CI 0.40-0.64), ESRS 0.61 (CI 0.48-0.74). Compared with ESRS, addition of plaque inflammation (SUV_max) to ESRS improved risk prediction when analysed continuously (HR 1.51, CI 1.05-2.16, p = 0.03) and categorically (p_trend = 0.005 for risk increase across groups; HR 3.31, CI 1.42-7.72, p = 0.006; net reclassification improvement 10%). Findings were unchanged by further addition of carotid stenosis.

CONCLUSIONS: SCAIL predicted recurrent stroke, had discrimination better than chance, and improved the prognostic utility of ESRS, suggesting that measuring plaque inflammation may improve risk stratification in carotid stenosis.

PMID:37480278 | DOI:10.1177/23969873231186911

Plant Dis. 2023 Jul 21. doi: 10.1094/PDIS-04-23-0617-PDN. Online ahead of print.

ABSTRACT

Yam is the world’s fourth most important tuber crop, after cassava, potato, and sweet potato in the world, the cultivation area of yam from the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations Statistics Division database (FAOSTAT) is about 8,831,037 ha in 2020. Chinese yam (Dioscorea opposita Thunb.) is an economically important root crop throughout China due to its high economic and medicinal value. South China including Guangdong and Guangxi provinces is one of the important production districts of Chinese yam with economic value. A disease affecting the leaves was observed on yam leaves in August 2021 with an incidence of 20 to 90% in Guangdong and Guangxi provinces. Symptoms start as pinpoint lesions on yam leaves which enlarged to oval spots and large irregular spots. The spots were brown and surrounded by a chlorotic halo with sunken cavities, which are typical symptoms of anthracnose. To identify the causal agent, 9 symptomatic leaves from 3 different districts were collected in Guangdong and Guangxi provinces. Leaf samples were disinfested with 1% NaOCl for 3 min, and cultured on potato dextrose agar (PDA) at 28 °C for 3 days week. 9 single-spore isolates were recovered from each PDA medium. Colonies on PDA were grayish white with bright orange conidial spore masses. Fungal mycelia were hyaline, septate, and branched. Conidia were born on a long conidiogenous cell, straight, hyaline and cylindrical with rounded ends, 5.3 to 6.8×15.2 to 21.3μm (n = 50). Appressoria were dark, smooth-walled, oval in shape. The isolates were morphologically identified as Colletotrichum sp. (Weir et al. 2012). 3 strains were used for the pathogenicity test, 5 plants at creeping stage were inoculated with each isolate separately and 3-5 leaves of each plant were inoculated. Fresh wounds were made with a sterile needle on the healthy surface of yam leaves and each leaf was covered with a piece of cotton drenched with conidial suspension (106 conidia/mL) from each isolate. Control seedlings were inoculated identically except sterile water was used. Inoculated plants were placed in a moisturizing light incubator at 25℃ and 80% humidity under a 12-h light/dark cycle for 7 days and examined daily to monitor disease symptom development. Small round brown spots were observed at the inoculation sites 3 days after the inoculation and eventually became large brown lesions. No symptoms wre observed in the water-inoculated plants. A Colletotrichum sp. strain based on morphology was reisolated from inoculated leaves, fulfilling Koch’s postulates. For molecular identification, the direct colony PCR method (Lu et al. 2012) was used to amplify the internal transcribed spacer (ITS) region of ribosomal DNA, calmodulin (Cal), tubulin (Tub) and Apmat loci of three isolates using primer pairs of ITS4/ITS5, CL1C/CL2C, T1/T2 and AM-F/AM-R (Sharma et al. 2015). A phylogenetic tree derived from a maximum likelihood analysis of a concatenated alignment of ITS, Cal, Tub and ApMAT sequences was created. The accession numbers of the three isolates YamZJCS, YamSXCS and YamYLCS used in this study were OP128056-OP128058 for ITS, OP128059-OP128061 for ApMAT，OP128062-OP128064 for Cal and OP128065-OP128067 for Tub. The sequences of the 3 isolates were aligned with related species of Colletotrichum (Sharma et al. 2015). Analyses based on concatenated data sets of 4 genes showed that the sequences had high levels of identity to that of the C. siamense strains. According to both morphological and sequence analyses, the pathogen was identified as C. siamense. There were reports of anthracnose on yam caused by Colletotrichum sp. in Guangxi (Zhu et al. 2007), Hainan (Lin et al. 2018) and Jiangsu (Han et al. 2020) provinces in China. To our knowledge, this is the first report of anthracnose on D. opposita caused by C. siamense in Guangdong province in China.

PMID:37480250 | DOI:10.1094/PDIS-04-23-0617-PDN

Med Sci Monit. 2023 Jul 22;29:e940337. doi: 10.12659/MSM.940337.

ABSTRACT

BACKGROUND We explored a new method for measuring the length of artificial stapes during stapedotomy in otoendoscopic middle-ear surgery using a flexible ruler. MATERIAL AND METHODS A retrospective analysis was conducted on 56 cases of otosclerosis, comprising 56 ears with a follow-up of over 6 months and complete data. Patients were admitted to the Department of Otology, Huazhong University of Science and Technology Union Shenzhen Hospital from July 2020 to June 2022. SPSS statistical software was used for efficacy analysis. The results of different measurement methods on the implantation time of the prosthesis and postoperative hearing follow-up were compared. RESULTS The 56 patients were randomly divided into 2 groups. In 1 case measured by the metal measuring stick, the prosthesis was too short and was replaced during the operation; 2 patients experienced transient dizziness postoperatively, and the other patients had no surgical complications. All 56 patients had varying degrees of hearing improvement after surgery, and no dislocation of the ossicular chain was observed during the follow-up. There was a statistically significant difference in the implantation time of the prosthesis between the different measurement methods (P<0.05). The improvement in hearing in the flexible ruler group was statistically significant (P<0.05). CONCLUSIONS The selection of the length of the ossicular prosthesis is a crucial step in the operation and can directly affect hearing outcomes. The use of a flexible ruler to measure prosthesis length can significantly shorten operation time and improve hearing, and the ruler is easily obtainable. It is worth promoting its application in ear endoscopic stapedotomy.

PMID:37480226 | DOI:10.12659/MSM.940337

Int J Geriatr Psychiatry. 2023 Jul;38(7):e5980. doi: 10.1002/gps.5980.

ABSTRACT

BACKGROUND: Observational studies have shown the relationship between sarcopenia and psychiatric disorders. However, due to the limitations of traditional research methods, the causal relationship between them has not been accurately concluded. At the same time, considering that sarcopenia is mainly manifested by low muscle strength and low muscle mass, we used Mendelian randomization (MR) analysis in this study to explore the causal relationship of anxiety, depression, and neuroticism with muscle strength and muscle mass, respectively.

METHODS: Genetic variants associated with depression were obtained from FinnGen Biobank (Ncase = 33,812, Ncontrol = 271,380), those associated with anxiety were from FinnGen Biobank (Ncase = 21,519, Ncontrol = 307,558), and those associated with neuroticism, including 12 items, were from a large-scale genome-wide association study (N range: 366,301-375,913). Muscle strength was represented by the hand grip strength (HGS), and muscle mass was represented by the appendicular lean mass (ALM) and the body fat percentage. The inverse-variance weighted (IVW) method was used as the primary analysis method, and the Mendelian Randomization Egger (MR-Egger) and the weighted median were used as supplementary methods to test whether the three psychological factors were causally related to these two main indicators of sarcopenia severity.

RESULTS: Depression and neuroticism had different degrees of causal influence on muscle mass and strength, which was statistically significant. Specifically, the depression predicted by genes was significantly associated with ALM (beta = -0.043, p = 0.027), low hand grip strength (LHGS, measured for people of 60 years and older) (odds ratio (OR) = 1.129 (1.019-1.251), p = 0.019), right HGS (beta = -0.050, p = 0.001), left HGS (beta = -0.06, p = 0.001), and body fat percentage (beta = 0.035, p = 0.0138). The neuroticism predicted by genes was significantly associated with ALM (beta = -0.073, p = 0.034), LHGS (OR = 1.222 (1.085-1.377), p = 0.001), right HGS (beta = -0.058, p = 0.000), left HGS (beta = -0.080, p < 0.000), and body fat percentage (beta = 0.063, p = 0.008). However, anxiety was only significantly associated with LHGS (OR = 1.215 (1.008-1.465), p = 0.041) but not significantly associated with ALM (beta = 0.033, p = 0.313), right HGS (beta = -0.008, p = 0.678), left HGS (beta = 0.007, p = 0.712), or body fat percentage (beta = 0.022, p = 0.559).

CONCLUSION: This study supported the causal association of depression and neuroticism with muscle strength and mass, which are the two main indicators of sarcopenia. At the same time, there was no sufficient evidence for the causal relationship between anxiety and muscle strength or mass. The results of this study pointed to the need to intervene in the mental health of the elderly to prevent sarcopenia or reduce its severity.

PMID:37480221 | DOI:10.1002/gps.5980

J Periodontol. 2023 Jul 21. doi: 10.1002/JPER.23-0184. Online ahead of print.

ABSTRACT

BACKGROUND: Aberrant deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) contributes to inflammasome orchestrated progression of chronic inflammatory diseases like diabetes and periodontitis. The purpose of the present study was to estimate salivary levels of DNA sensing inflammasomes; absent in melanoma 2 (AIM2), interferon γ inducible protein (IFI16) and cytokine interleukin 18 (IL18) in individuals with periodontitis, diabetes and healthy controls and interpret its association with periodontal and diabetic parameters.

METHODS: Salivary levels of AIM2, IFI16 and IL18 was estimated by enzyme linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) in a total of 120 individuals (n = 30 in each group), namely healthy (Group 1), periodontitis (Group 2), diabetes (Group 3) and diabetes with periodontitis (Group 4). Correlations of inflammasome levels and periodontal clinical parameters – plaque index (PI), gingival index (GI), bleeding on probing (BOP), probing pocket depth (PPD), clinical attachment level (CAL) and periodontal inflamed surface area (PISA)was performed. Multiple regression was carried out to predict AIM2 and IFI16 with various independent variables.

RESULTS: The mean salivary levels of AIM2, IFI16 and IL18 were highest in diabetes with periodontitis (Group 4) and least in healthy (Group 1) and statistically significant between the groups (p = 0.000). Significant positive correlation between clinical periodontal parameters and AIM2, IFI16 and IL8 was present (p≤0.05). Multiple regression showed HbA1C (p = 0.002), GI (p = 0.016), PISA (p = 0.002) and CAL (p = 0.004) were significant predictors of AIM2, while HbA1C (p = 0.012), PISA (P = 0.003) and CAL (p = 0.007) predicted IFI16.

CONCLUSION: The results of the present study showed higher levels of AIM2, IFI16 and IL18 in saliva of individuals with diabetes and periodontitis. HbA1C, PISA and CAL were significant independent predictors of salivary AIM2 and IFI16 levels. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.

PMID:37480196 | DOI:10.1002/JPER.23-0184

Eur J Med Res. 2023 Jul 22;28(1):245. doi: 10.1186/s40001-023-01215-2.

ABSTRACT

BACKGROUND: Prolyl 4-hydroxylase subunit beta (P4HB) has been reported as a suppressor in ferroptosis. However, no known empirical research has focused on exploring relationships between P4HB and prostate cancer (PCa). In this research, we initially examine the function of P4HB in PCa by thorough analysis of numerous databases and proliferation experiment.

METHODS: We analyzed the correlations of P4HB expression with prognosis, clinical features, mutation genes, tumor heterogeneity, stemness, tumor immune microenvironment and PCa cells using multiple databases and in vitro experiment with R 3.6.3 software and its suitable packages.

RESULTS: P4HB was significantly upregulated in tumor tissues compared to normal tissues and was closely related to biochemical recurrence-free survival. In terms of clinical correlations, we found that higher P4HB expression was significantly related to older age, higher Gleason score, advanced T stage and residual tumor. Surprisingly, P4HB had highly diagnostic accuracy of radiotherapy resistance (AUC 0.938). TGF beta signaling pathway and dorso ventral axis formation were upregulated in the group of low-expression P4HB. For tumor stemness, P4HB expression was positively related to EREG.EXPss and RNAss, but was negatively associated with ENHss and DNAss with statistical significance. For tumor heterogeneity, P4HB expression was positively related to MATH, but was negatively associated with tumor ploidy and microsatellite instability. For the overall assessment of TME, we observed that P4HB expression was negatively associated with all parameters, including B cells, CD4+ T cells, CD8+ T cells, neutrophils, macrophages, dendritic cells, stromal score, immune score and ESTIMATE score. Spearman analysis showed that P4HB expression was negatively related to TIDE score with statistical significance. In vitro experiment, RT-qPCR and western blot showed that three siRNAs of P4HB were effective on the knockdown of P4HB expression. Furthermore, we observed that the downregulation of P4HB had significant influence on the cell proliferation of six PCa cell lines, including LNCap, C4-2, C4-2B, PC3, DU145 and 22RV1 cells.

CONCLUSIONS: In this study, we found that P4HB might serve as a prognostic biomarker and predict radiotherapy resistance for PCa patients. Downregulation of P4HB expression could inhibit the cell proliferation of PCa cells.

PMID:37480146 | DOI:10.1186/s40001-023-01215-2

Virol J. 2023 Jul 21;20(1):162. doi: 10.1186/s12985-023-02124-w.

ABSTRACT

BACKGROUND: Hepatitis C virus (HCV) is well-known to be associated with multiple extrahepatic manifestations such as arthralgia, myalgia, arthritis, and vasculitis. Many studies reported frequent rheumatologic manifestations among patients infected by HCV. The purpose of this study was to determine the prevalence of HCV among chronic unexplained arthralgia patients in order to aid in the early detection and treatment of silent HCV infection.

METHODS: This study was a cross-sectional observational study conducted from July 2020 to May 2022. It included 145 individuals suffering from chronic unexplained arthralgia, with vast majority having oligoarticular joint pain (110, 75.9%). They were 103 (71%) females and 42 (29%) males. Serum samples from all patients were examined for the presence of anti-HCV antibodies using a rapid immunochromatographic assay. Seropositive samples were further examined using polymerase chain reaction (PCR) for detection of HCV RNA to confirm HCV infection.

RESULTS: Out of 145 patients who complained of arthralgia, seven patients tested positive for anti-HCV with a seroprevalence of 4.8% while five patients tested positive for HCV-RNA with a molecular prevalence of 3.4%. All positive patients were males (11.9%) with high statistical significance (χ² = 12.7 and p = 0.002). No association was found between HCV infection and age, blood transfusion, surgery, using personal shaving tools, or being a health-care worker.

CONCLUSIONS: The prevalence of HCV was high among males who complained of arthralgia. Patients with arthralgia, especially male patients, are recommended to perform HCV screening test.

PMID:37480120 | DOI:10.1186/s12985-023-02124-w