User login
High salt intake linked to atherosclerosis even with normal BP
A high salt intake is an important risk factor for atherosclerosis, even in the absence of hypertension, a large study from Sweden concludes.
The study, including more than 10,000 individuals between the ages of 50 and 64 years from the Swedish Cardiopulmonary bioImage Study, showed a significant link between dietary salt intake and the risk for atherosclerotic lesions in the coronary and carotid arteries, even in participants with normal blood pressure and without known cardiovascular disease.
The finding suggests that salt could be a damaging factor in its own right before the development of hypertension, the authors write. The results were published online in European Heart Journal Open.
It has been known for a long time that salt is linked to hypertension, but the role that salt plays in atherosclerosis has not been examined, first author Jonas Wuopio, MD, Karolinska Institutet, Huddinge, and Clinical Research Center, Falun, Uppsala University, both in Sweden, told this news organization.
“Hardly anyone looks at changes in the arteries’ calcification, the atherosclerotic plaques and the association with salt intake,” Dr. Wuopio said. “We had this exclusive data from our cohort, so we wanted to use it to close this knowledge gap.”
The analysis included 10,788 adults aged 50-64 years, (average age, 58 years; 52% women) who underwent a coronary computed tomography angiography (CCTA) scan. The estimated 24-hour sodium excretion was used to measure sodium intake.
CCTA was used to obtain 3-D images of the coronary arteries to measure the degree of coronary artery calcium as well as detect stenosis in the coronary arteries. Participants also had an ultrasound of the carotid arteries.
After adjusting for age, sex, and study site (the study was done at Uppsala and Malmö, Sweden), the researchers found that rising salt consumption was linked with increasing atherosclerosis in a linear fashion in both the coronary and carotid arteries.
Each 1,000 mg rise in sodium excretion was associated with a 9% increased occurrence of carotid plaque (odds ratio, 1.09; P < .001; confidence interval, 1.06-1.12), a higher coronary artery calcium score (OR, 1.16; P < .001; CI, 1.12-1.19), and a 17% increased occurrence of coronary artery stenosis (OR, 1.17; P < .001; CI, 1.13-1.20).
The association was abolished, though, after adjusting for blood pressure, they note. Their “interpretation is that the increase in blood pressure from sodium intake, even below the level that currently defines arterial hypertension, is an important factor that mediates the interplay between salt intake and the atherosclerotic process,” they write. “As we observed an association in individuals with normal blood pressure, one possible explanation for these findings is that the detrimental pathological processes begin already prior to the development of hypertension,” they note, although they caution that no causal relationships can be gleaned from this cross-sectional study.
They also reported no sign of a “J-curve”; participants with the lowest levels of sodium excretion had the lowest occurrence of both coronary and carotid atherosclerosis, which contradicts findings in some studies that found very low sodium linked to increased cardiovascular disease–related events.
“There have been some controversies among researchers regarding very low intake, where some say very low salt intake can increase the risk of cardiovascular disease, but we could not find this in this study,” Dr. Wuopio said.
“Our study is confirming that excess salt is not a good thing, but the fact that it is linked to atherosclerosis, even in the absence of hypertension, was a bit of a surprise,” he said.
“I will be telling my patients to follow the advice given by the World Health Organization and other medical societies, to limit your intake of salt to approximately 1 teaspoon, even if your blood pressure is normal.”
Time to scrutinize salt’s role in atherosclerosis
In an accompanying editorial, Maciej Banach, MD, Medical University of Lodz, and Stanislaw Surma, MD, Faculty of Medical Sciences in Katowice, both in Poland, write that excessive dietary salt intake is a well-documented cardiovascular risk factor, and that the association is explained in most studies by increased blood pressure.
“We should look more extensively on the role of dietary salt, as it affects many pathological mechanisms, by which, especially with the coexistence of other risk factors, atherosclerosis may progress very fast,” they write.
“The results of the study shed new light on the direct relationship between excessive dietary salt intake and the risk of ASCVD [atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease], indicating that salt intake might be a risk factor for atherosclerosis even prior to the development of hypertension,” they conclude.
Confirmatory and novel
“Nobody questions the fact that high blood pressure is a powerful risk factor for atherosclerotic disease, but not all studies have suggested that, at least at significantly higher levels of sodium intake, that high salt intake tracks with risk for atherosclerotic disease,” Alon Gitig, MD, assistant professor and director of cardiology, Mount Sinai Doctors-Westchester, Yonkers, New York, told this news organization.
Most of the studies of salt intake in the diet are based on patient self-reports via food frequency questionnaires, which can give a general idea of salt intake, but are often not totally accurate, Dr. Gitig said.
“Here, they measured sodium in the urine and estimated the 24-hour salt intake from that, which is slightly novel,” he said.
Everybody knows that high blood pressure is associated with future cardiovascular disease risk, but what many don’t realize is that that risk starts to increase slightly but significantly above a blood pressure that is already in the range of 115 mm Hg/75 mm Hg, he said.
“The lower you can get your blood pressure down, to around 115-120, the lower your risk for cardiovascular disease,” Dr. Gitig said.
It is possible for most people to lower blood pressure through attention to diet, restricting sodium, performing cardio and weight training exercises, and maintaining a healthy weight, he said.
An example of a cardiovascular health diet is the Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension (DASH) diet.
“The DASH diet, consisting of 9 servings of fruits and vegetables a day with few refined carbs, flour and sugar, has been shown in a randomized trial to dramatically reduce blood pressure. There are two reasons for that. One is that the fruits and vegetables have many phytonutrients that are good for arteries. The other is that a large proportion of U.S. adults have insulin resistance, which leads to high blood pressure.
“The more fruits and vegetables and healthy animal products, and less sugar and flour, the more you are going to improve your insulin resistance, so you can bring your blood pressure down that way,” Dr. Gitig said.
The study was funded by the Swedish Heart-Lung Foundation, the Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundation, the Swedish Research Council and Vinnova (Sweden’s Innovation agency), the University of Gothenburg and Sahlgrenska University Hospital, the Karolinska Institutet and Stockholm County Council, the Linköping University and University Hospital, the Lund University and Skane University Hospital, the Umea University and University Hospital, and the Uppsala University and University Hospital. Dr. Wuopio and Dr. Gitig report no relevant financial relationships. Dr. Banach reports financial relationships with Adamed, Amgen, Daichii Sankyo, Esperion, KrKa, NewAmsterdam, Polpharma, Novartis, Pfizer, Sanofi, Teva, Viatris, and CMDO at Longevity Group (LU). Dr. Surma reports a financial relationship with Sanofi and Novartis.
A version of this article first appeared on Medscape.com.
A high salt intake is an important risk factor for atherosclerosis, even in the absence of hypertension, a large study from Sweden concludes.
The study, including more than 10,000 individuals between the ages of 50 and 64 years from the Swedish Cardiopulmonary bioImage Study, showed a significant link between dietary salt intake and the risk for atherosclerotic lesions in the coronary and carotid arteries, even in participants with normal blood pressure and without known cardiovascular disease.
The finding suggests that salt could be a damaging factor in its own right before the development of hypertension, the authors write. The results were published online in European Heart Journal Open.
It has been known for a long time that salt is linked to hypertension, but the role that salt plays in atherosclerosis has not been examined, first author Jonas Wuopio, MD, Karolinska Institutet, Huddinge, and Clinical Research Center, Falun, Uppsala University, both in Sweden, told this news organization.
“Hardly anyone looks at changes in the arteries’ calcification, the atherosclerotic plaques and the association with salt intake,” Dr. Wuopio said. “We had this exclusive data from our cohort, so we wanted to use it to close this knowledge gap.”
The analysis included 10,788 adults aged 50-64 years, (average age, 58 years; 52% women) who underwent a coronary computed tomography angiography (CCTA) scan. The estimated 24-hour sodium excretion was used to measure sodium intake.
CCTA was used to obtain 3-D images of the coronary arteries to measure the degree of coronary artery calcium as well as detect stenosis in the coronary arteries. Participants also had an ultrasound of the carotid arteries.
After adjusting for age, sex, and study site (the study was done at Uppsala and Malmö, Sweden), the researchers found that rising salt consumption was linked with increasing atherosclerosis in a linear fashion in both the coronary and carotid arteries.
Each 1,000 mg rise in sodium excretion was associated with a 9% increased occurrence of carotid plaque (odds ratio, 1.09; P < .001; confidence interval, 1.06-1.12), a higher coronary artery calcium score (OR, 1.16; P < .001; CI, 1.12-1.19), and a 17% increased occurrence of coronary artery stenosis (OR, 1.17; P < .001; CI, 1.13-1.20).
The association was abolished, though, after adjusting for blood pressure, they note. Their “interpretation is that the increase in blood pressure from sodium intake, even below the level that currently defines arterial hypertension, is an important factor that mediates the interplay between salt intake and the atherosclerotic process,” they write. “As we observed an association in individuals with normal blood pressure, one possible explanation for these findings is that the detrimental pathological processes begin already prior to the development of hypertension,” they note, although they caution that no causal relationships can be gleaned from this cross-sectional study.
They also reported no sign of a “J-curve”; participants with the lowest levels of sodium excretion had the lowest occurrence of both coronary and carotid atherosclerosis, which contradicts findings in some studies that found very low sodium linked to increased cardiovascular disease–related events.
“There have been some controversies among researchers regarding very low intake, where some say very low salt intake can increase the risk of cardiovascular disease, but we could not find this in this study,” Dr. Wuopio said.
“Our study is confirming that excess salt is not a good thing, but the fact that it is linked to atherosclerosis, even in the absence of hypertension, was a bit of a surprise,” he said.
“I will be telling my patients to follow the advice given by the World Health Organization and other medical societies, to limit your intake of salt to approximately 1 teaspoon, even if your blood pressure is normal.”
Time to scrutinize salt’s role in atherosclerosis
In an accompanying editorial, Maciej Banach, MD, Medical University of Lodz, and Stanislaw Surma, MD, Faculty of Medical Sciences in Katowice, both in Poland, write that excessive dietary salt intake is a well-documented cardiovascular risk factor, and that the association is explained in most studies by increased blood pressure.
“We should look more extensively on the role of dietary salt, as it affects many pathological mechanisms, by which, especially with the coexistence of other risk factors, atherosclerosis may progress very fast,” they write.
“The results of the study shed new light on the direct relationship between excessive dietary salt intake and the risk of ASCVD [atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease], indicating that salt intake might be a risk factor for atherosclerosis even prior to the development of hypertension,” they conclude.
Confirmatory and novel
“Nobody questions the fact that high blood pressure is a powerful risk factor for atherosclerotic disease, but not all studies have suggested that, at least at significantly higher levels of sodium intake, that high salt intake tracks with risk for atherosclerotic disease,” Alon Gitig, MD, assistant professor and director of cardiology, Mount Sinai Doctors-Westchester, Yonkers, New York, told this news organization.
Most of the studies of salt intake in the diet are based on patient self-reports via food frequency questionnaires, which can give a general idea of salt intake, but are often not totally accurate, Dr. Gitig said.
“Here, they measured sodium in the urine and estimated the 24-hour salt intake from that, which is slightly novel,” he said.
Everybody knows that high blood pressure is associated with future cardiovascular disease risk, but what many don’t realize is that that risk starts to increase slightly but significantly above a blood pressure that is already in the range of 115 mm Hg/75 mm Hg, he said.
“The lower you can get your blood pressure down, to around 115-120, the lower your risk for cardiovascular disease,” Dr. Gitig said.
It is possible for most people to lower blood pressure through attention to diet, restricting sodium, performing cardio and weight training exercises, and maintaining a healthy weight, he said.
An example of a cardiovascular health diet is the Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension (DASH) diet.
“The DASH diet, consisting of 9 servings of fruits and vegetables a day with few refined carbs, flour and sugar, has been shown in a randomized trial to dramatically reduce blood pressure. There are two reasons for that. One is that the fruits and vegetables have many phytonutrients that are good for arteries. The other is that a large proportion of U.S. adults have insulin resistance, which leads to high blood pressure.
“The more fruits and vegetables and healthy animal products, and less sugar and flour, the more you are going to improve your insulin resistance, so you can bring your blood pressure down that way,” Dr. Gitig said.
The study was funded by the Swedish Heart-Lung Foundation, the Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundation, the Swedish Research Council and Vinnova (Sweden’s Innovation agency), the University of Gothenburg and Sahlgrenska University Hospital, the Karolinska Institutet and Stockholm County Council, the Linköping University and University Hospital, the Lund University and Skane University Hospital, the Umea University and University Hospital, and the Uppsala University and University Hospital. Dr. Wuopio and Dr. Gitig report no relevant financial relationships. Dr. Banach reports financial relationships with Adamed, Amgen, Daichii Sankyo, Esperion, KrKa, NewAmsterdam, Polpharma, Novartis, Pfizer, Sanofi, Teva, Viatris, and CMDO at Longevity Group (LU). Dr. Surma reports a financial relationship with Sanofi and Novartis.
A version of this article first appeared on Medscape.com.
A high salt intake is an important risk factor for atherosclerosis, even in the absence of hypertension, a large study from Sweden concludes.
The study, including more than 10,000 individuals between the ages of 50 and 64 years from the Swedish Cardiopulmonary bioImage Study, showed a significant link between dietary salt intake and the risk for atherosclerotic lesions in the coronary and carotid arteries, even in participants with normal blood pressure and without known cardiovascular disease.
The finding suggests that salt could be a damaging factor in its own right before the development of hypertension, the authors write. The results were published online in European Heart Journal Open.
It has been known for a long time that salt is linked to hypertension, but the role that salt plays in atherosclerosis has not been examined, first author Jonas Wuopio, MD, Karolinska Institutet, Huddinge, and Clinical Research Center, Falun, Uppsala University, both in Sweden, told this news organization.
“Hardly anyone looks at changes in the arteries’ calcification, the atherosclerotic plaques and the association with salt intake,” Dr. Wuopio said. “We had this exclusive data from our cohort, so we wanted to use it to close this knowledge gap.”
The analysis included 10,788 adults aged 50-64 years, (average age, 58 years; 52% women) who underwent a coronary computed tomography angiography (CCTA) scan. The estimated 24-hour sodium excretion was used to measure sodium intake.
CCTA was used to obtain 3-D images of the coronary arteries to measure the degree of coronary artery calcium as well as detect stenosis in the coronary arteries. Participants also had an ultrasound of the carotid arteries.
After adjusting for age, sex, and study site (the study was done at Uppsala and Malmö, Sweden), the researchers found that rising salt consumption was linked with increasing atherosclerosis in a linear fashion in both the coronary and carotid arteries.
Each 1,000 mg rise in sodium excretion was associated with a 9% increased occurrence of carotid plaque (odds ratio, 1.09; P < .001; confidence interval, 1.06-1.12), a higher coronary artery calcium score (OR, 1.16; P < .001; CI, 1.12-1.19), and a 17% increased occurrence of coronary artery stenosis (OR, 1.17; P < .001; CI, 1.13-1.20).
The association was abolished, though, after adjusting for blood pressure, they note. Their “interpretation is that the increase in blood pressure from sodium intake, even below the level that currently defines arterial hypertension, is an important factor that mediates the interplay between salt intake and the atherosclerotic process,” they write. “As we observed an association in individuals with normal blood pressure, one possible explanation for these findings is that the detrimental pathological processes begin already prior to the development of hypertension,” they note, although they caution that no causal relationships can be gleaned from this cross-sectional study.
They also reported no sign of a “J-curve”; participants with the lowest levels of sodium excretion had the lowest occurrence of both coronary and carotid atherosclerosis, which contradicts findings in some studies that found very low sodium linked to increased cardiovascular disease–related events.
“There have been some controversies among researchers regarding very low intake, where some say very low salt intake can increase the risk of cardiovascular disease, but we could not find this in this study,” Dr. Wuopio said.
“Our study is confirming that excess salt is not a good thing, but the fact that it is linked to atherosclerosis, even in the absence of hypertension, was a bit of a surprise,” he said.
“I will be telling my patients to follow the advice given by the World Health Organization and other medical societies, to limit your intake of salt to approximately 1 teaspoon, even if your blood pressure is normal.”
Time to scrutinize salt’s role in atherosclerosis
In an accompanying editorial, Maciej Banach, MD, Medical University of Lodz, and Stanislaw Surma, MD, Faculty of Medical Sciences in Katowice, both in Poland, write that excessive dietary salt intake is a well-documented cardiovascular risk factor, and that the association is explained in most studies by increased blood pressure.
“We should look more extensively on the role of dietary salt, as it affects many pathological mechanisms, by which, especially with the coexistence of other risk factors, atherosclerosis may progress very fast,” they write.
“The results of the study shed new light on the direct relationship between excessive dietary salt intake and the risk of ASCVD [atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease], indicating that salt intake might be a risk factor for atherosclerosis even prior to the development of hypertension,” they conclude.
Confirmatory and novel
“Nobody questions the fact that high blood pressure is a powerful risk factor for atherosclerotic disease, but not all studies have suggested that, at least at significantly higher levels of sodium intake, that high salt intake tracks with risk for atherosclerotic disease,” Alon Gitig, MD, assistant professor and director of cardiology, Mount Sinai Doctors-Westchester, Yonkers, New York, told this news organization.
Most of the studies of salt intake in the diet are based on patient self-reports via food frequency questionnaires, which can give a general idea of salt intake, but are often not totally accurate, Dr. Gitig said.
“Here, they measured sodium in the urine and estimated the 24-hour salt intake from that, which is slightly novel,” he said.
Everybody knows that high blood pressure is associated with future cardiovascular disease risk, but what many don’t realize is that that risk starts to increase slightly but significantly above a blood pressure that is already in the range of 115 mm Hg/75 mm Hg, he said.
“The lower you can get your blood pressure down, to around 115-120, the lower your risk for cardiovascular disease,” Dr. Gitig said.
It is possible for most people to lower blood pressure through attention to diet, restricting sodium, performing cardio and weight training exercises, and maintaining a healthy weight, he said.
An example of a cardiovascular health diet is the Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension (DASH) diet.
“The DASH diet, consisting of 9 servings of fruits and vegetables a day with few refined carbs, flour and sugar, has been shown in a randomized trial to dramatically reduce blood pressure. There are two reasons for that. One is that the fruits and vegetables have many phytonutrients that are good for arteries. The other is that a large proportion of U.S. adults have insulin resistance, which leads to high blood pressure.
“The more fruits and vegetables and healthy animal products, and less sugar and flour, the more you are going to improve your insulin resistance, so you can bring your blood pressure down that way,” Dr. Gitig said.
The study was funded by the Swedish Heart-Lung Foundation, the Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundation, the Swedish Research Council and Vinnova (Sweden’s Innovation agency), the University of Gothenburg and Sahlgrenska University Hospital, the Karolinska Institutet and Stockholm County Council, the Linköping University and University Hospital, the Lund University and Skane University Hospital, the Umea University and University Hospital, and the Uppsala University and University Hospital. Dr. Wuopio and Dr. Gitig report no relevant financial relationships. Dr. Banach reports financial relationships with Adamed, Amgen, Daichii Sankyo, Esperion, KrKa, NewAmsterdam, Polpharma, Novartis, Pfizer, Sanofi, Teva, Viatris, and CMDO at Longevity Group (LU). Dr. Surma reports a financial relationship with Sanofi and Novartis.
A version of this article first appeared on Medscape.com.
Noisy incubators could stunt infant hearing
Incubators save the lives of many babies, but new data suggest that the ambient noise associated with the incubator experience could put babies’ hearing and language development skills at risk.
Previous studies have shown that the neonatal intensive care unit is a noisy environment, but specific data on levels of sound inside and outside incubators are limited, wrote Christoph Reuter, MA, a musicology professor at the University of Vienna, and colleagues.
“By the age of 3 years, deficits in language acquisition are detectable in nearly 50% of very preterm infants,” and high levels of NICU noise have been cited as possible contributors to this increased risk, the researchers say.
In a study published in Frontiers in Pediatrics, the researchers aimed to compare real-life NICU noise with previously reported levels to describe the sound characteristics and to identify resonance characteristics inside an incubator.
The study was conducted at the Pediatric Simulation Center at the Medical University of Vienna. The researchers placed a simulation mannequin with an ear microphone inside an incubator. They also placed microphones outside the incubator to collect measures of outside noise and activity involved in NICU care.
Data regarding sound were collected for 11 environmental noises and 12 incubator handlings using weighted and unweighted decibel levels. Specific environmental noises included starting the incubator engine; environmental noise with incubator off; environmental noise with incubator on; normal conversation; light conversation; laughter; telephone sounds; the infusion pump alarm; the monitor alarm (anomaly); the monitor alarm (emergency); and blood pressure measurement.
The 12 incubator handling noises included those associated with water flap, water pouring into the incubator, incubator doors opening properly, incubators doors closing properly, incubator doors closing improperly, hatch closing, hatch opening, incubator drawer, neighbor incubator doors closing (1.82 m distance), taking a stethoscope from the incubator wall, putting a stethoscope on the incubator, and suctioning tube. Noise from six levels of respiratory support was also measured.
The researchers reported that the incubator tended to dampen most sounds but also that some sounds resonated inside the incubator, which raised the interior noise level by as much as 28 decibels.
Most of the measures using both A-weighted decibels (dBA) and sound pressure level decibels (dBSPL) were above the 45-decibel level for neonatal sound exposure recommended by the American Academy of Pediatrics. The measurements (dBA) versus unweighted (dBSPL) are limited in that they are designed to measure low levels of sound and therefore might underestimate proportions of high and low frequencies at stronger levels, the researchers acknowledge.
Overall, most measures were clustered in the 55-75 decibel range, although some sound levels for incubator handling, while below levels previously reported in the literature, reached approximately 100 decibels.
The noise involved inside the incubator was not perceived as loud by those working with the incubator, the researchers note.
As for resonance inside the incubator, the researchers measured a low-frequency main resonance of 97 Hz, but they write that this resonance can be hard to capture in weighted measurements. However, the resonance means that “noises from the outside sound more tonal inside the incubator, booming and muffled as well as less rough or noisy,” and sounds inside the incubator are similarly affected, the researchers say.
“Most of the noise situations described in this manuscript far exceed not only the recommendation of the AAP but also international guidelines provided by the World Health Organization and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency,” which recommend, respectively, maximum dBA levels of 35 dBA and 45 dBA for daytime and 30 dBA and 35 dBA for night, the researchers indicate.
Potential long-term implications are that babies who spend time in the NICU are at risk for hearing impairment, which could lead to delays in language acquisition, they say.
The findings were limited by several factors, including the variance among the incubators, which prevents generalizability, the researchers note. Other limitations include the use of a simulation room rather than everyday conditions, in which the environmental sounds would likely be even louder.
However, the results provide insights into the specifics of incubator and NICU noise and suggest that sound be a consideration in the development and promotion of incubators to help protect the hearing of the infants inside them, the researchers conclude.
A generalist’s take
“This is an interesting study looking at the level and character of the sound experienced by preterm infants inside an incubator and how it may compare to sounds experienced within the mother’s womb,” said Tim Joos, MD, a Seattle-based clinician with a combination internal medicine/pediatrics practice, in an interview.
In society at large, “there has been more focus lately on the general environment and its effect on health, and this study is a unique take on this concept,” he said. “Although in general the incubators work to dampen external sounds, low-frequency sounds may actually resonate more inside the incubators, and taps on the outside or inside of the incubator itself are amplified within the incubator,” he noted. “It is sad but not surprising that the decibel levels experienced by the infants in the incubators exceed the recommended levels recommended by AAP.”
As for additional research, “it would be interesting to see the results of trials looking at various short- or long-term outcomes experienced by infants exposed to a lower-level noise compared to the current levels,” Dr. Joos told this news organization.
A neonatologist’s perspective
“As the field of neonatology advances, we are caring for an ever-growing number of extremely preterm infants,” said Caitlin M. Drumm, MD, of Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, Bethesda, Md., in an interview.
“These infants will spend the first few months of their lives within an incubator in the neonatal intensive care unit, so it is important to understand the potential long-term implications of environmental effects on these vulnerable patients,” she said.
“As in prior studies, it was not surprising that essentially every environmental, handling, or respiratory intervention led to noise levels higher than the limit recommended by the American Academy of Pediatrics,” Dr. Drumm said. “What was surprising was just how high above the 45-dB recommended noise limit many environmental stimuli are. For example, the authors cite respiratory flow rates of 8 L/min or higher as risky for hearing health at 84.72 dBSPL, “ she said.
The key message for clinicians is to be aware of noise levels in the NICU, Dr. Drumm said. “Environmental stimuli as simple as putting a stethoscope on the incubator lead to noise levels well above the limit recommended by the American Academy of Pediatrics. The entire NICU care team has a role to play in minimizing environmental sound hazards for our most critically ill patients.”
Looking ahead, “future research should focus on providing more information correlating neonatal environmental sound exposure to long-term hearing and neurodevelopmental outcomes,” she said.
The study received no outside funding. The researchers report no relevant financial relationships. Dr. Joos serves on the editorial advisory board of Pediatric News. Dr. Drumm has disclosed no relevant financial relationships.
A version of this article first appeared on Medscape.com.
Incubators save the lives of many babies, but new data suggest that the ambient noise associated with the incubator experience could put babies’ hearing and language development skills at risk.
Previous studies have shown that the neonatal intensive care unit is a noisy environment, but specific data on levels of sound inside and outside incubators are limited, wrote Christoph Reuter, MA, a musicology professor at the University of Vienna, and colleagues.
“By the age of 3 years, deficits in language acquisition are detectable in nearly 50% of very preterm infants,” and high levels of NICU noise have been cited as possible contributors to this increased risk, the researchers say.
In a study published in Frontiers in Pediatrics, the researchers aimed to compare real-life NICU noise with previously reported levels to describe the sound characteristics and to identify resonance characteristics inside an incubator.
The study was conducted at the Pediatric Simulation Center at the Medical University of Vienna. The researchers placed a simulation mannequin with an ear microphone inside an incubator. They also placed microphones outside the incubator to collect measures of outside noise and activity involved in NICU care.
Data regarding sound were collected for 11 environmental noises and 12 incubator handlings using weighted and unweighted decibel levels. Specific environmental noises included starting the incubator engine; environmental noise with incubator off; environmental noise with incubator on; normal conversation; light conversation; laughter; telephone sounds; the infusion pump alarm; the monitor alarm (anomaly); the monitor alarm (emergency); and blood pressure measurement.
The 12 incubator handling noises included those associated with water flap, water pouring into the incubator, incubator doors opening properly, incubators doors closing properly, incubator doors closing improperly, hatch closing, hatch opening, incubator drawer, neighbor incubator doors closing (1.82 m distance), taking a stethoscope from the incubator wall, putting a stethoscope on the incubator, and suctioning tube. Noise from six levels of respiratory support was also measured.
The researchers reported that the incubator tended to dampen most sounds but also that some sounds resonated inside the incubator, which raised the interior noise level by as much as 28 decibels.
Most of the measures using both A-weighted decibels (dBA) and sound pressure level decibels (dBSPL) were above the 45-decibel level for neonatal sound exposure recommended by the American Academy of Pediatrics. The measurements (dBA) versus unweighted (dBSPL) are limited in that they are designed to measure low levels of sound and therefore might underestimate proportions of high and low frequencies at stronger levels, the researchers acknowledge.
Overall, most measures were clustered in the 55-75 decibel range, although some sound levels for incubator handling, while below levels previously reported in the literature, reached approximately 100 decibels.
The noise involved inside the incubator was not perceived as loud by those working with the incubator, the researchers note.
As for resonance inside the incubator, the researchers measured a low-frequency main resonance of 97 Hz, but they write that this resonance can be hard to capture in weighted measurements. However, the resonance means that “noises from the outside sound more tonal inside the incubator, booming and muffled as well as less rough or noisy,” and sounds inside the incubator are similarly affected, the researchers say.
“Most of the noise situations described in this manuscript far exceed not only the recommendation of the AAP but also international guidelines provided by the World Health Organization and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency,” which recommend, respectively, maximum dBA levels of 35 dBA and 45 dBA for daytime and 30 dBA and 35 dBA for night, the researchers indicate.
Potential long-term implications are that babies who spend time in the NICU are at risk for hearing impairment, which could lead to delays in language acquisition, they say.
The findings were limited by several factors, including the variance among the incubators, which prevents generalizability, the researchers note. Other limitations include the use of a simulation room rather than everyday conditions, in which the environmental sounds would likely be even louder.
However, the results provide insights into the specifics of incubator and NICU noise and suggest that sound be a consideration in the development and promotion of incubators to help protect the hearing of the infants inside them, the researchers conclude.
A generalist’s take
“This is an interesting study looking at the level and character of the sound experienced by preterm infants inside an incubator and how it may compare to sounds experienced within the mother’s womb,” said Tim Joos, MD, a Seattle-based clinician with a combination internal medicine/pediatrics practice, in an interview.
In society at large, “there has been more focus lately on the general environment and its effect on health, and this study is a unique take on this concept,” he said. “Although in general the incubators work to dampen external sounds, low-frequency sounds may actually resonate more inside the incubators, and taps on the outside or inside of the incubator itself are amplified within the incubator,” he noted. “It is sad but not surprising that the decibel levels experienced by the infants in the incubators exceed the recommended levels recommended by AAP.”
As for additional research, “it would be interesting to see the results of trials looking at various short- or long-term outcomes experienced by infants exposed to a lower-level noise compared to the current levels,” Dr. Joos told this news organization.
A neonatologist’s perspective
“As the field of neonatology advances, we are caring for an ever-growing number of extremely preterm infants,” said Caitlin M. Drumm, MD, of Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, Bethesda, Md., in an interview.
“These infants will spend the first few months of their lives within an incubator in the neonatal intensive care unit, so it is important to understand the potential long-term implications of environmental effects on these vulnerable patients,” she said.
“As in prior studies, it was not surprising that essentially every environmental, handling, or respiratory intervention led to noise levels higher than the limit recommended by the American Academy of Pediatrics,” Dr. Drumm said. “What was surprising was just how high above the 45-dB recommended noise limit many environmental stimuli are. For example, the authors cite respiratory flow rates of 8 L/min or higher as risky for hearing health at 84.72 dBSPL, “ she said.
The key message for clinicians is to be aware of noise levels in the NICU, Dr. Drumm said. “Environmental stimuli as simple as putting a stethoscope on the incubator lead to noise levels well above the limit recommended by the American Academy of Pediatrics. The entire NICU care team has a role to play in minimizing environmental sound hazards for our most critically ill patients.”
Looking ahead, “future research should focus on providing more information correlating neonatal environmental sound exposure to long-term hearing and neurodevelopmental outcomes,” she said.
The study received no outside funding. The researchers report no relevant financial relationships. Dr. Joos serves on the editorial advisory board of Pediatric News. Dr. Drumm has disclosed no relevant financial relationships.
A version of this article first appeared on Medscape.com.
Incubators save the lives of many babies, but new data suggest that the ambient noise associated with the incubator experience could put babies’ hearing and language development skills at risk.
Previous studies have shown that the neonatal intensive care unit is a noisy environment, but specific data on levels of sound inside and outside incubators are limited, wrote Christoph Reuter, MA, a musicology professor at the University of Vienna, and colleagues.
“By the age of 3 years, deficits in language acquisition are detectable in nearly 50% of very preterm infants,” and high levels of NICU noise have been cited as possible contributors to this increased risk, the researchers say.
In a study published in Frontiers in Pediatrics, the researchers aimed to compare real-life NICU noise with previously reported levels to describe the sound characteristics and to identify resonance characteristics inside an incubator.
The study was conducted at the Pediatric Simulation Center at the Medical University of Vienna. The researchers placed a simulation mannequin with an ear microphone inside an incubator. They also placed microphones outside the incubator to collect measures of outside noise and activity involved in NICU care.
Data regarding sound were collected for 11 environmental noises and 12 incubator handlings using weighted and unweighted decibel levels. Specific environmental noises included starting the incubator engine; environmental noise with incubator off; environmental noise with incubator on; normal conversation; light conversation; laughter; telephone sounds; the infusion pump alarm; the monitor alarm (anomaly); the monitor alarm (emergency); and blood pressure measurement.
The 12 incubator handling noises included those associated with water flap, water pouring into the incubator, incubator doors opening properly, incubators doors closing properly, incubator doors closing improperly, hatch closing, hatch opening, incubator drawer, neighbor incubator doors closing (1.82 m distance), taking a stethoscope from the incubator wall, putting a stethoscope on the incubator, and suctioning tube. Noise from six levels of respiratory support was also measured.
The researchers reported that the incubator tended to dampen most sounds but also that some sounds resonated inside the incubator, which raised the interior noise level by as much as 28 decibels.
Most of the measures using both A-weighted decibels (dBA) and sound pressure level decibels (dBSPL) were above the 45-decibel level for neonatal sound exposure recommended by the American Academy of Pediatrics. The measurements (dBA) versus unweighted (dBSPL) are limited in that they are designed to measure low levels of sound and therefore might underestimate proportions of high and low frequencies at stronger levels, the researchers acknowledge.
Overall, most measures were clustered in the 55-75 decibel range, although some sound levels for incubator handling, while below levels previously reported in the literature, reached approximately 100 decibels.
The noise involved inside the incubator was not perceived as loud by those working with the incubator, the researchers note.
As for resonance inside the incubator, the researchers measured a low-frequency main resonance of 97 Hz, but they write that this resonance can be hard to capture in weighted measurements. However, the resonance means that “noises from the outside sound more tonal inside the incubator, booming and muffled as well as less rough or noisy,” and sounds inside the incubator are similarly affected, the researchers say.
“Most of the noise situations described in this manuscript far exceed not only the recommendation of the AAP but also international guidelines provided by the World Health Organization and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency,” which recommend, respectively, maximum dBA levels of 35 dBA and 45 dBA for daytime and 30 dBA and 35 dBA for night, the researchers indicate.
Potential long-term implications are that babies who spend time in the NICU are at risk for hearing impairment, which could lead to delays in language acquisition, they say.
The findings were limited by several factors, including the variance among the incubators, which prevents generalizability, the researchers note. Other limitations include the use of a simulation room rather than everyday conditions, in which the environmental sounds would likely be even louder.
However, the results provide insights into the specifics of incubator and NICU noise and suggest that sound be a consideration in the development and promotion of incubators to help protect the hearing of the infants inside them, the researchers conclude.
A generalist’s take
“This is an interesting study looking at the level and character of the sound experienced by preterm infants inside an incubator and how it may compare to sounds experienced within the mother’s womb,” said Tim Joos, MD, a Seattle-based clinician with a combination internal medicine/pediatrics practice, in an interview.
In society at large, “there has been more focus lately on the general environment and its effect on health, and this study is a unique take on this concept,” he said. “Although in general the incubators work to dampen external sounds, low-frequency sounds may actually resonate more inside the incubators, and taps on the outside or inside of the incubator itself are amplified within the incubator,” he noted. “It is sad but not surprising that the decibel levels experienced by the infants in the incubators exceed the recommended levels recommended by AAP.”
As for additional research, “it would be interesting to see the results of trials looking at various short- or long-term outcomes experienced by infants exposed to a lower-level noise compared to the current levels,” Dr. Joos told this news organization.
A neonatologist’s perspective
“As the field of neonatology advances, we are caring for an ever-growing number of extremely preterm infants,” said Caitlin M. Drumm, MD, of Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, Bethesda, Md., in an interview.
“These infants will spend the first few months of their lives within an incubator in the neonatal intensive care unit, so it is important to understand the potential long-term implications of environmental effects on these vulnerable patients,” she said.
“As in prior studies, it was not surprising that essentially every environmental, handling, or respiratory intervention led to noise levels higher than the limit recommended by the American Academy of Pediatrics,” Dr. Drumm said. “What was surprising was just how high above the 45-dB recommended noise limit many environmental stimuli are. For example, the authors cite respiratory flow rates of 8 L/min or higher as risky for hearing health at 84.72 dBSPL, “ she said.
The key message for clinicians is to be aware of noise levels in the NICU, Dr. Drumm said. “Environmental stimuli as simple as putting a stethoscope on the incubator lead to noise levels well above the limit recommended by the American Academy of Pediatrics. The entire NICU care team has a role to play in minimizing environmental sound hazards for our most critically ill patients.”
Looking ahead, “future research should focus on providing more information correlating neonatal environmental sound exposure to long-term hearing and neurodevelopmental outcomes,” she said.
The study received no outside funding. The researchers report no relevant financial relationships. Dr. Joos serves on the editorial advisory board of Pediatric News. Dr. Drumm has disclosed no relevant financial relationships.
A version of this article first appeared on Medscape.com.
Clinical Practice Update: Alpha-gal syndrome often causes GI issues without anaphylaxis, skin changes
according to an American Gastroenterological Association clinical practice update.
Although the allergic response is best known for a combination of anaphylaxis, skin changes, and gastrointestinal symptoms that occurs within hours of consuming mammalian-derived food products, health care providers should know that many patients experience gastrointestinal distress in the absence of other clinical signs, lead author Sarah K. McGill, MD, MSc, of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and colleagues reported.
“It is important for gastroenterologists to be aware of this condition and to be capable of diagnosing and treating it in a timely manner,” the investigators wrote in Clinical Gastroenterology and Hepatology.
To this end, Dr. McGill and colleagues drafted the present clinical practice update, covering pathogenesis, clinical manifestations, diagnosis, and management.
“The allergy in alpha-gal syndrome is to galactose alpha-1,3-galactose, an oligosaccharide on the cells of all nonprimate mammals,” the investigators wrote. “Surprisingly, sensitization to alpha-gal, that is, the process by which human beings develop IgE antibodies to the sugar, is understood to occur after the bite of a tick or parasitic infection. In the United States, the Lone Star tick, an ectoparasite whose principal host is deer, is strongly implicated.”
Gastrointestinal focused clinical research is scarce, the investigators noted, citing two observational studies involving 375 patients positive for alpha-gal IgE. Almost half of these patients (40.7%) had gastrointestinal symptoms alone. Across the entire population, the most common gastrointestinal symptoms were abdominal pain (71%) and vomiting (22%). About three out of four patients reported improvement on an alpha-gal avoidance diet.
“Clinicians should consider alpha-gal syndrome in the differential diagnosis of patients with unexplained gastrointestinal symptoms of abdominal pain, diarrhea, nausea, and vomiting, particularly those who live or have lived in an alpha-gal–prevalent area,” the investigators wrote.
In the United States, these areas span the domain of the Lone Star tick, including most of the East Coast, the central Midwest, the South, and all of Texas. Overseas, alpha-gal syndrome has been reported in Japan, Australia, Western Europe, and South Africa.
Clinical suspicion should be increased in patients with a history of tick bite, engagement in outdoor activities, and awakening in the night with gastrointestinal distress (because of the delay between allergen ingestion and symptom onset). Workup should include serum testing for alpha-gal IgE antibodies, according to the update. Serum positivity alone, however, is not sufficient for diagnosis. Alpha-gal syndrome must be confirmed by symptom resolution or improvement upon adherence to an alpha-gal avoidance diet for at least a month.
“During this time, patients may want to avoid eating at restaurants, which can easily cross-contaminate food, and processed food, which may contain alpha-gal in additives,” Dr. McGill and colleagues wrote.
Patients with alpha-gal syndrome who accidentally consume alpha-gal should take 25-50 mg of diphenhydramine and ensure access to a self-injectable epinephrine if symptoms progress, particularly if respiratory compromise occurs, they added.
The coauthors are Jana G. Hasash, MD, and Thomas A. Platts-Mills, MD, PhD.
The investigators disclosed relationships with Olympus America, Exact Sciences, Guardant Health, Finch Therapeutics, and others.
according to an American Gastroenterological Association clinical practice update.
Although the allergic response is best known for a combination of anaphylaxis, skin changes, and gastrointestinal symptoms that occurs within hours of consuming mammalian-derived food products, health care providers should know that many patients experience gastrointestinal distress in the absence of other clinical signs, lead author Sarah K. McGill, MD, MSc, of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and colleagues reported.
“It is important for gastroenterologists to be aware of this condition and to be capable of diagnosing and treating it in a timely manner,” the investigators wrote in Clinical Gastroenterology and Hepatology.
To this end, Dr. McGill and colleagues drafted the present clinical practice update, covering pathogenesis, clinical manifestations, diagnosis, and management.
“The allergy in alpha-gal syndrome is to galactose alpha-1,3-galactose, an oligosaccharide on the cells of all nonprimate mammals,” the investigators wrote. “Surprisingly, sensitization to alpha-gal, that is, the process by which human beings develop IgE antibodies to the sugar, is understood to occur after the bite of a tick or parasitic infection. In the United States, the Lone Star tick, an ectoparasite whose principal host is deer, is strongly implicated.”
Gastrointestinal focused clinical research is scarce, the investigators noted, citing two observational studies involving 375 patients positive for alpha-gal IgE. Almost half of these patients (40.7%) had gastrointestinal symptoms alone. Across the entire population, the most common gastrointestinal symptoms were abdominal pain (71%) and vomiting (22%). About three out of four patients reported improvement on an alpha-gal avoidance diet.
“Clinicians should consider alpha-gal syndrome in the differential diagnosis of patients with unexplained gastrointestinal symptoms of abdominal pain, diarrhea, nausea, and vomiting, particularly those who live or have lived in an alpha-gal–prevalent area,” the investigators wrote.
In the United States, these areas span the domain of the Lone Star tick, including most of the East Coast, the central Midwest, the South, and all of Texas. Overseas, alpha-gal syndrome has been reported in Japan, Australia, Western Europe, and South Africa.
Clinical suspicion should be increased in patients with a history of tick bite, engagement in outdoor activities, and awakening in the night with gastrointestinal distress (because of the delay between allergen ingestion and symptom onset). Workup should include serum testing for alpha-gal IgE antibodies, according to the update. Serum positivity alone, however, is not sufficient for diagnosis. Alpha-gal syndrome must be confirmed by symptom resolution or improvement upon adherence to an alpha-gal avoidance diet for at least a month.
“During this time, patients may want to avoid eating at restaurants, which can easily cross-contaminate food, and processed food, which may contain alpha-gal in additives,” Dr. McGill and colleagues wrote.
Patients with alpha-gal syndrome who accidentally consume alpha-gal should take 25-50 mg of diphenhydramine and ensure access to a self-injectable epinephrine if symptoms progress, particularly if respiratory compromise occurs, they added.
The coauthors are Jana G. Hasash, MD, and Thomas A. Platts-Mills, MD, PhD.
The investigators disclosed relationships with Olympus America, Exact Sciences, Guardant Health, Finch Therapeutics, and others.
according to an American Gastroenterological Association clinical practice update.
Although the allergic response is best known for a combination of anaphylaxis, skin changes, and gastrointestinal symptoms that occurs within hours of consuming mammalian-derived food products, health care providers should know that many patients experience gastrointestinal distress in the absence of other clinical signs, lead author Sarah K. McGill, MD, MSc, of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and colleagues reported.
“It is important for gastroenterologists to be aware of this condition and to be capable of diagnosing and treating it in a timely manner,” the investigators wrote in Clinical Gastroenterology and Hepatology.
To this end, Dr. McGill and colleagues drafted the present clinical practice update, covering pathogenesis, clinical manifestations, diagnosis, and management.
“The allergy in alpha-gal syndrome is to galactose alpha-1,3-galactose, an oligosaccharide on the cells of all nonprimate mammals,” the investigators wrote. “Surprisingly, sensitization to alpha-gal, that is, the process by which human beings develop IgE antibodies to the sugar, is understood to occur after the bite of a tick or parasitic infection. In the United States, the Lone Star tick, an ectoparasite whose principal host is deer, is strongly implicated.”
Gastrointestinal focused clinical research is scarce, the investigators noted, citing two observational studies involving 375 patients positive for alpha-gal IgE. Almost half of these patients (40.7%) had gastrointestinal symptoms alone. Across the entire population, the most common gastrointestinal symptoms were abdominal pain (71%) and vomiting (22%). About three out of four patients reported improvement on an alpha-gal avoidance diet.
“Clinicians should consider alpha-gal syndrome in the differential diagnosis of patients with unexplained gastrointestinal symptoms of abdominal pain, diarrhea, nausea, and vomiting, particularly those who live or have lived in an alpha-gal–prevalent area,” the investigators wrote.
In the United States, these areas span the domain of the Lone Star tick, including most of the East Coast, the central Midwest, the South, and all of Texas. Overseas, alpha-gal syndrome has been reported in Japan, Australia, Western Europe, and South Africa.
Clinical suspicion should be increased in patients with a history of tick bite, engagement in outdoor activities, and awakening in the night with gastrointestinal distress (because of the delay between allergen ingestion and symptom onset). Workup should include serum testing for alpha-gal IgE antibodies, according to the update. Serum positivity alone, however, is not sufficient for diagnosis. Alpha-gal syndrome must be confirmed by symptom resolution or improvement upon adherence to an alpha-gal avoidance diet for at least a month.
“During this time, patients may want to avoid eating at restaurants, which can easily cross-contaminate food, and processed food, which may contain alpha-gal in additives,” Dr. McGill and colleagues wrote.
Patients with alpha-gal syndrome who accidentally consume alpha-gal should take 25-50 mg of diphenhydramine and ensure access to a self-injectable epinephrine if symptoms progress, particularly if respiratory compromise occurs, they added.
The coauthors are Jana G. Hasash, MD, and Thomas A. Platts-Mills, MD, PhD.
The investigators disclosed relationships with Olympus America, Exact Sciences, Guardant Health, Finch Therapeutics, and others.
FROM CLINICAL GASTROENTEROLOGY AND HEPATOLOGY
Four PTSD blood biomarkers identified
“More accurate means of predicting or screening for PTSD could help to overcome the disorder by identifying individuals at high risk of developing PTSD and providing them with early intervention or prevention strategies,” said study investigator Stacy-Ann Miller, MS.
She also noted that the biomarkers could be used to monitor treatment for PTSD, identify subtypes of PTSD, and lead to a new understanding of the mechanisms underlying PTSD.
The findings were presented at Discover BMB, the annual meeting of the American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology.
Toward better clinical assessment
The findings originated from research conducted by the Department of Defense–initiated PTSD Systems Biology Consortium. The consortium’s goals include developing a reproducible panel of blood-based biomarkers with high sensitivity and specificity for PTSD diagnosis and is made up of about 45 researchers, led by Marti Jett, PhD, Charles Marmar, MD, and Francis J. Doyle III, PhD.
The researchers analyzed blood samples from 1,000 active-duty Army personnel from the 101st Airborne at Fort Campbell, Ky. Participants were assessed before and after deployment to Afghanistan in February 2014 and are referred to as the Fort Campbell Cohort (FCC). Participants’ age ranged from 25 to 30 and approximately 6% were female.
Investigators collected blood samples from the service members and looked for four biomarkers: glycolytic ratio, arginine, serotonin, and glutamate. The team then divided the participants into four groups – those with PTSD (PTSD Checklist score above 30), those who were subthreshold for PTSD (PTSD Checklist score 15-30), those who had high resilience, and those who had low levels of resilience.
The resilience groups were determined based on answers to the Generalized Anxiety Disorder Questionnaire, Patient Health Questionnaire, Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index, Intensive Combat Exposure (DRRI-D), the number of deployments, whether they had moderate or severe traumatic brain injury, and scores on the Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test.
Those who scored in the high range at current or prior time points or who were PTSD/subthreshold at prior time points were placed in the low resilience group.
Ms. Miller noted that those in the PTSD group had more severe symptoms than those in the PTSD subthreshold group based on the longitudinal clinical assessment at 3-6 months, 5 years, and longer post deployment. The low resilience group had a much higher rate of PTSD post deployment than the high resilience group.
Investigators found participants with PTSD or subthreshold PTSD had significantly higher glycolic ratios and lower arginine than those with high resilience. They also found that those with PTSD had significantly lower serotonin and higher glutamate levels versus those with high resilience. These associations were independent of factors such as sex, age, body mass index, smoking, and caffeine consumption.
Ms. Miller said that the study results require further validation by the consortium’s labs and third-party labs.
“We are also interested in determining the most appropriate time to screen soldiers for PTSD, as it has been noted that the time period where we see the most psychological issues is around 2-3 months post return from deployment and when the soldier is preparing for their next assignment, perhaps a next deployment,” she said.
She added that previous studies have identified several promising biomarkers of PTSD. “However, like much of the research data, the study sample was comprised mainly of combat-exposed males. With more women serving on the front lines, the military faces new challenges in how combat affects females in the military,” including sex-specific biomarkers that will improve clinical assessment for female soldiers.
Eventually, the team would also like to be able to apply their research to the civilian population experiencing PTSD.
“Our research is anticipated to be useful in helping the medical provider select appropriate therapeutic interventions,” Ms. Miller said.
A version of this article first appeared on Medscape.com.
“More accurate means of predicting or screening for PTSD could help to overcome the disorder by identifying individuals at high risk of developing PTSD and providing them with early intervention or prevention strategies,” said study investigator Stacy-Ann Miller, MS.
She also noted that the biomarkers could be used to monitor treatment for PTSD, identify subtypes of PTSD, and lead to a new understanding of the mechanisms underlying PTSD.
The findings were presented at Discover BMB, the annual meeting of the American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology.
Toward better clinical assessment
The findings originated from research conducted by the Department of Defense–initiated PTSD Systems Biology Consortium. The consortium’s goals include developing a reproducible panel of blood-based biomarkers with high sensitivity and specificity for PTSD diagnosis and is made up of about 45 researchers, led by Marti Jett, PhD, Charles Marmar, MD, and Francis J. Doyle III, PhD.
The researchers analyzed blood samples from 1,000 active-duty Army personnel from the 101st Airborne at Fort Campbell, Ky. Participants were assessed before and after deployment to Afghanistan in February 2014 and are referred to as the Fort Campbell Cohort (FCC). Participants’ age ranged from 25 to 30 and approximately 6% were female.
Investigators collected blood samples from the service members and looked for four biomarkers: glycolytic ratio, arginine, serotonin, and glutamate. The team then divided the participants into four groups – those with PTSD (PTSD Checklist score above 30), those who were subthreshold for PTSD (PTSD Checklist score 15-30), those who had high resilience, and those who had low levels of resilience.
The resilience groups were determined based on answers to the Generalized Anxiety Disorder Questionnaire, Patient Health Questionnaire, Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index, Intensive Combat Exposure (DRRI-D), the number of deployments, whether they had moderate or severe traumatic brain injury, and scores on the Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test.
Those who scored in the high range at current or prior time points or who were PTSD/subthreshold at prior time points were placed in the low resilience group.
Ms. Miller noted that those in the PTSD group had more severe symptoms than those in the PTSD subthreshold group based on the longitudinal clinical assessment at 3-6 months, 5 years, and longer post deployment. The low resilience group had a much higher rate of PTSD post deployment than the high resilience group.
Investigators found participants with PTSD or subthreshold PTSD had significantly higher glycolic ratios and lower arginine than those with high resilience. They also found that those with PTSD had significantly lower serotonin and higher glutamate levels versus those with high resilience. These associations were independent of factors such as sex, age, body mass index, smoking, and caffeine consumption.
Ms. Miller said that the study results require further validation by the consortium’s labs and third-party labs.
“We are also interested in determining the most appropriate time to screen soldiers for PTSD, as it has been noted that the time period where we see the most psychological issues is around 2-3 months post return from deployment and when the soldier is preparing for their next assignment, perhaps a next deployment,” she said.
She added that previous studies have identified several promising biomarkers of PTSD. “However, like much of the research data, the study sample was comprised mainly of combat-exposed males. With more women serving on the front lines, the military faces new challenges in how combat affects females in the military,” including sex-specific biomarkers that will improve clinical assessment for female soldiers.
Eventually, the team would also like to be able to apply their research to the civilian population experiencing PTSD.
“Our research is anticipated to be useful in helping the medical provider select appropriate therapeutic interventions,” Ms. Miller said.
A version of this article first appeared on Medscape.com.
“More accurate means of predicting or screening for PTSD could help to overcome the disorder by identifying individuals at high risk of developing PTSD and providing them with early intervention or prevention strategies,” said study investigator Stacy-Ann Miller, MS.
She also noted that the biomarkers could be used to monitor treatment for PTSD, identify subtypes of PTSD, and lead to a new understanding of the mechanisms underlying PTSD.
The findings were presented at Discover BMB, the annual meeting of the American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology.
Toward better clinical assessment
The findings originated from research conducted by the Department of Defense–initiated PTSD Systems Biology Consortium. The consortium’s goals include developing a reproducible panel of blood-based biomarkers with high sensitivity and specificity for PTSD diagnosis and is made up of about 45 researchers, led by Marti Jett, PhD, Charles Marmar, MD, and Francis J. Doyle III, PhD.
The researchers analyzed blood samples from 1,000 active-duty Army personnel from the 101st Airborne at Fort Campbell, Ky. Participants were assessed before and after deployment to Afghanistan in February 2014 and are referred to as the Fort Campbell Cohort (FCC). Participants’ age ranged from 25 to 30 and approximately 6% were female.
Investigators collected blood samples from the service members and looked for four biomarkers: glycolytic ratio, arginine, serotonin, and glutamate. The team then divided the participants into four groups – those with PTSD (PTSD Checklist score above 30), those who were subthreshold for PTSD (PTSD Checklist score 15-30), those who had high resilience, and those who had low levels of resilience.
The resilience groups were determined based on answers to the Generalized Anxiety Disorder Questionnaire, Patient Health Questionnaire, Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index, Intensive Combat Exposure (DRRI-D), the number of deployments, whether they had moderate or severe traumatic brain injury, and scores on the Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test.
Those who scored in the high range at current or prior time points or who were PTSD/subthreshold at prior time points were placed in the low resilience group.
Ms. Miller noted that those in the PTSD group had more severe symptoms than those in the PTSD subthreshold group based on the longitudinal clinical assessment at 3-6 months, 5 years, and longer post deployment. The low resilience group had a much higher rate of PTSD post deployment than the high resilience group.
Investigators found participants with PTSD or subthreshold PTSD had significantly higher glycolic ratios and lower arginine than those with high resilience. They also found that those with PTSD had significantly lower serotonin and higher glutamate levels versus those with high resilience. These associations were independent of factors such as sex, age, body mass index, smoking, and caffeine consumption.
Ms. Miller said that the study results require further validation by the consortium’s labs and third-party labs.
“We are also interested in determining the most appropriate time to screen soldiers for PTSD, as it has been noted that the time period where we see the most psychological issues is around 2-3 months post return from deployment and when the soldier is preparing for their next assignment, perhaps a next deployment,” she said.
She added that previous studies have identified several promising biomarkers of PTSD. “However, like much of the research data, the study sample was comprised mainly of combat-exposed males. With more women serving on the front lines, the military faces new challenges in how combat affects females in the military,” including sex-specific biomarkers that will improve clinical assessment for female soldiers.
Eventually, the team would also like to be able to apply their research to the civilian population experiencing PTSD.
“Our research is anticipated to be useful in helping the medical provider select appropriate therapeutic interventions,” Ms. Miller said.
A version of this article first appeared on Medscape.com.
FROM DISCOVER BMB
De-escalation still beneficial after 10 years for some HER2+ breast cancers
Lowering the intensity of chemotherapy also reduces the adverse events that are associated with it.
An open-label study of about 400 participants indicated that 12 weeks of treatment with paclitaxel (Abraxane) and trastuzumab (Herceptin), followed by 9 months of trastuzumab monotherapy, was associated with very good long-term outcomes for patients with certain HER2-positive breast cancers. Few distant recurrences were observed, and tolerability was good.
The study was conducted by a team that included researchers from the European Institute of Oncology in Milan, one of the main oncology institutes in Italy.
“HER2-positive breast cancers harbor a particularly poor prognosis, compared with HER2-negative tumors, if left untreated. However, the blockade of HER2 with trastuzumab, when added to adjuvant multiagent chemotherapy, has been shown to improve outcomes for this population,” wrote the researchers, led by Sara M. Tolaney, MD, chief of breast oncology at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston. “To our knowledge, this is the first study to report the long-term outcomes of patients with small, node-negative, HER2-positive breast cancers prospectively treated with a de-escalated adjuvant regimen.”
The study was published in the March issue of The Lancet Oncology.
Avoiding side effects
HER2-positive breast cancers, which are characterized by amplification of the HER2 gene and overexpression of the HER2 protein, account for 15% of new cases of localized breast cancer. They are more aggressive and resistant to some anticancer treatments but show sensitivity to stronger chemotherapy.
“We presented the 10-year analysis, which shows that survival for breast cancer among the 406 patients recruited in the study was 98.8% after 10 years, with only 6 recurrences,” study author Paolo Tarantino, MD, researcher at the European Institute of Oncology and clinical research fellow at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Boston, said in a statement. “Our data support the use of the de-escalated adjuvant paclitaxel trastuzumab regimen as an adequate standard for small HER2-positive breast cancers, which avoids the side effects of polychemotherapy.”
The researchers also focused on patient selection and identified a significant relationship between the value of HER2DX, a new diagnostic tool capable of describing multiple characteristics of HER2-positive breast cancer, and the prognosis. If future research validates these preliminary results, the biomarker may help to further customize cancer treatments in the future, according to Dr. Tarantino.
‘A valuable alternative’
“This is the 10-year update of the APT study, which is not randomized and has no control arm,” Alessandra Gennari, MD, PhD, associate professor of oncology at the University of Eastern Piedmont and head of oncology at Maggiore University Hospital in Novara, Italy, said in an interview. Dr. Gennari, who was not involved in the study, was lead author of the European Society for Medical Oncology’s 2021 guidelines on metastatic breast cancer. “This study shows, nevertheless, that in a subpopulation of HER2-positive patients with low to moderate risk of recurrence, the de-escalation of chemotherapy together with trastuzumab is a valuable alternative to more complex regimens with chemotherapy agents and is very well tolerated.”
Dr. Gennari’s comment echoes those of an editorial that accompanied the Lancet Oncology study. “This work represents a milestone in the history of breast cancer: We have definitively shown that for early HER2-positive tumors, you can do less by getting more,” coauthor Giuseppe Curigliano, MD, PhD, full professor of medical oncology at University of Milan and head of early drug development at the European Institute of Oncology, told this news organization. “It completes a pathway started by my group at the European Institute of Oncology in 2009, when we showed that HER2-positive tumors have a very good prognosis if diagnosed at a very early stage, and therefore can be treated with less aggressive and less toxic chemotherapies.” Candiolo Cancer Institute oncologists Elena Geuna, MD, and Filippo Montemurro, MD, coauthored the editorial with Dr. Curigliano.
Research on de-escalation increased after that study, and data showed that a lighter chemotherapy regimen is safe and effective and allows patients to live longer and with fewer side effects. “This finding immediately changed clinical practice, and the newly published work now adds an important piece: De-escalation maintains its benefit over the long term, beyond 10 years,” said Dr. Curigliano. “It also shows that in the future, we could identify the patients that will benefit from doing more, but also those that will benefit from doing even less, thanks to the new marker HER2DX.”
The study was funded by Genentech. Dr. Tolaney has received consulting or advisory board fees from Genentech, AstraZeneca, Eli Lilly, Merck, Novartis, Pfizer, Gilead, BMS, Eisai, Sanofi, and other pharmaceutical companies. Dr. Tarantino has received consulting or advisory board fees from AstraZeneca, Daiichi Sankyo, and Lilly, and has received payment or honoraria for educational events from AstraZeneca and Daiichi Sankyo. Dr. Curigliano and Dr. Gennari reported no relevant financial relationships.
A version of this article originally appeared on Medscape.com.
Lowering the intensity of chemotherapy also reduces the adverse events that are associated with it.
An open-label study of about 400 participants indicated that 12 weeks of treatment with paclitaxel (Abraxane) and trastuzumab (Herceptin), followed by 9 months of trastuzumab monotherapy, was associated with very good long-term outcomes for patients with certain HER2-positive breast cancers. Few distant recurrences were observed, and tolerability was good.
The study was conducted by a team that included researchers from the European Institute of Oncology in Milan, one of the main oncology institutes in Italy.
“HER2-positive breast cancers harbor a particularly poor prognosis, compared with HER2-negative tumors, if left untreated. However, the blockade of HER2 with trastuzumab, when added to adjuvant multiagent chemotherapy, has been shown to improve outcomes for this population,” wrote the researchers, led by Sara M. Tolaney, MD, chief of breast oncology at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston. “To our knowledge, this is the first study to report the long-term outcomes of patients with small, node-negative, HER2-positive breast cancers prospectively treated with a de-escalated adjuvant regimen.”
The study was published in the March issue of The Lancet Oncology.
Avoiding side effects
HER2-positive breast cancers, which are characterized by amplification of the HER2 gene and overexpression of the HER2 protein, account for 15% of new cases of localized breast cancer. They are more aggressive and resistant to some anticancer treatments but show sensitivity to stronger chemotherapy.
“We presented the 10-year analysis, which shows that survival for breast cancer among the 406 patients recruited in the study was 98.8% after 10 years, with only 6 recurrences,” study author Paolo Tarantino, MD, researcher at the European Institute of Oncology and clinical research fellow at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Boston, said in a statement. “Our data support the use of the de-escalated adjuvant paclitaxel trastuzumab regimen as an adequate standard for small HER2-positive breast cancers, which avoids the side effects of polychemotherapy.”
The researchers also focused on patient selection and identified a significant relationship between the value of HER2DX, a new diagnostic tool capable of describing multiple characteristics of HER2-positive breast cancer, and the prognosis. If future research validates these preliminary results, the biomarker may help to further customize cancer treatments in the future, according to Dr. Tarantino.
‘A valuable alternative’
“This is the 10-year update of the APT study, which is not randomized and has no control arm,” Alessandra Gennari, MD, PhD, associate professor of oncology at the University of Eastern Piedmont and head of oncology at Maggiore University Hospital in Novara, Italy, said in an interview. Dr. Gennari, who was not involved in the study, was lead author of the European Society for Medical Oncology’s 2021 guidelines on metastatic breast cancer. “This study shows, nevertheless, that in a subpopulation of HER2-positive patients with low to moderate risk of recurrence, the de-escalation of chemotherapy together with trastuzumab is a valuable alternative to more complex regimens with chemotherapy agents and is very well tolerated.”
Dr. Gennari’s comment echoes those of an editorial that accompanied the Lancet Oncology study. “This work represents a milestone in the history of breast cancer: We have definitively shown that for early HER2-positive tumors, you can do less by getting more,” coauthor Giuseppe Curigliano, MD, PhD, full professor of medical oncology at University of Milan and head of early drug development at the European Institute of Oncology, told this news organization. “It completes a pathway started by my group at the European Institute of Oncology in 2009, when we showed that HER2-positive tumors have a very good prognosis if diagnosed at a very early stage, and therefore can be treated with less aggressive and less toxic chemotherapies.” Candiolo Cancer Institute oncologists Elena Geuna, MD, and Filippo Montemurro, MD, coauthored the editorial with Dr. Curigliano.
Research on de-escalation increased after that study, and data showed that a lighter chemotherapy regimen is safe and effective and allows patients to live longer and with fewer side effects. “This finding immediately changed clinical practice, and the newly published work now adds an important piece: De-escalation maintains its benefit over the long term, beyond 10 years,” said Dr. Curigliano. “It also shows that in the future, we could identify the patients that will benefit from doing more, but also those that will benefit from doing even less, thanks to the new marker HER2DX.”
The study was funded by Genentech. Dr. Tolaney has received consulting or advisory board fees from Genentech, AstraZeneca, Eli Lilly, Merck, Novartis, Pfizer, Gilead, BMS, Eisai, Sanofi, and other pharmaceutical companies. Dr. Tarantino has received consulting or advisory board fees from AstraZeneca, Daiichi Sankyo, and Lilly, and has received payment or honoraria for educational events from AstraZeneca and Daiichi Sankyo. Dr. Curigliano and Dr. Gennari reported no relevant financial relationships.
A version of this article originally appeared on Medscape.com.
Lowering the intensity of chemotherapy also reduces the adverse events that are associated with it.
An open-label study of about 400 participants indicated that 12 weeks of treatment with paclitaxel (Abraxane) and trastuzumab (Herceptin), followed by 9 months of trastuzumab monotherapy, was associated with very good long-term outcomes for patients with certain HER2-positive breast cancers. Few distant recurrences were observed, and tolerability was good.
The study was conducted by a team that included researchers from the European Institute of Oncology in Milan, one of the main oncology institutes in Italy.
“HER2-positive breast cancers harbor a particularly poor prognosis, compared with HER2-negative tumors, if left untreated. However, the blockade of HER2 with trastuzumab, when added to adjuvant multiagent chemotherapy, has been shown to improve outcomes for this population,” wrote the researchers, led by Sara M. Tolaney, MD, chief of breast oncology at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston. “To our knowledge, this is the first study to report the long-term outcomes of patients with small, node-negative, HER2-positive breast cancers prospectively treated with a de-escalated adjuvant regimen.”
The study was published in the March issue of The Lancet Oncology.
Avoiding side effects
HER2-positive breast cancers, which are characterized by amplification of the HER2 gene and overexpression of the HER2 protein, account for 15% of new cases of localized breast cancer. They are more aggressive and resistant to some anticancer treatments but show sensitivity to stronger chemotherapy.
“We presented the 10-year analysis, which shows that survival for breast cancer among the 406 patients recruited in the study was 98.8% after 10 years, with only 6 recurrences,” study author Paolo Tarantino, MD, researcher at the European Institute of Oncology and clinical research fellow at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Boston, said in a statement. “Our data support the use of the de-escalated adjuvant paclitaxel trastuzumab regimen as an adequate standard for small HER2-positive breast cancers, which avoids the side effects of polychemotherapy.”
The researchers also focused on patient selection and identified a significant relationship between the value of HER2DX, a new diagnostic tool capable of describing multiple characteristics of HER2-positive breast cancer, and the prognosis. If future research validates these preliminary results, the biomarker may help to further customize cancer treatments in the future, according to Dr. Tarantino.
‘A valuable alternative’
“This is the 10-year update of the APT study, which is not randomized and has no control arm,” Alessandra Gennari, MD, PhD, associate professor of oncology at the University of Eastern Piedmont and head of oncology at Maggiore University Hospital in Novara, Italy, said in an interview. Dr. Gennari, who was not involved in the study, was lead author of the European Society for Medical Oncology’s 2021 guidelines on metastatic breast cancer. “This study shows, nevertheless, that in a subpopulation of HER2-positive patients with low to moderate risk of recurrence, the de-escalation of chemotherapy together with trastuzumab is a valuable alternative to more complex regimens with chemotherapy agents and is very well tolerated.”
Dr. Gennari’s comment echoes those of an editorial that accompanied the Lancet Oncology study. “This work represents a milestone in the history of breast cancer: We have definitively shown that for early HER2-positive tumors, you can do less by getting more,” coauthor Giuseppe Curigliano, MD, PhD, full professor of medical oncology at University of Milan and head of early drug development at the European Institute of Oncology, told this news organization. “It completes a pathway started by my group at the European Institute of Oncology in 2009, when we showed that HER2-positive tumors have a very good prognosis if diagnosed at a very early stage, and therefore can be treated with less aggressive and less toxic chemotherapies.” Candiolo Cancer Institute oncologists Elena Geuna, MD, and Filippo Montemurro, MD, coauthored the editorial with Dr. Curigliano.
Research on de-escalation increased after that study, and data showed that a lighter chemotherapy regimen is safe and effective and allows patients to live longer and with fewer side effects. “This finding immediately changed clinical practice, and the newly published work now adds an important piece: De-escalation maintains its benefit over the long term, beyond 10 years,” said Dr. Curigliano. “It also shows that in the future, we could identify the patients that will benefit from doing more, but also those that will benefit from doing even less, thanks to the new marker HER2DX.”
The study was funded by Genentech. Dr. Tolaney has received consulting or advisory board fees from Genentech, AstraZeneca, Eli Lilly, Merck, Novartis, Pfizer, Gilead, BMS, Eisai, Sanofi, and other pharmaceutical companies. Dr. Tarantino has received consulting or advisory board fees from AstraZeneca, Daiichi Sankyo, and Lilly, and has received payment or honoraria for educational events from AstraZeneca and Daiichi Sankyo. Dr. Curigliano and Dr. Gennari reported no relevant financial relationships.
A version of this article originally appeared on Medscape.com.
FROM LANCET ONCOLOGY
Ultraprocessed foods and cancer: Small changes may lower risk
Processed and ultraprocessed food consumption has been shown to increase the risk for various cancers. A new analysis suggests that replacing even a small amount of such foods with an equal amount of minimally processed options may reduce that risk.
Using data from more than 450,000 participants, the dietary substitution analysis found that as well as the risk for several cancer types, including esophageal squamous cell carcinoma by 43% and hepatocellular carcinoma by 23%.
Making this substitution with ultraprocessed foods also appeared to lower cancer risk but often to a lesser degree. For instance, swapping 10% of ultraprocessed foods for minimally processed foods lowered the overall cancer risk by just 1%, the risk of hepatocellular carcinoma by 27%, and the risk of esophageal squamous cell carcinoma by 20%.
Overall, “this study suggests that the replacement of processed and ultraprocessed foods and drinks with an equal amount of minimally processed foods might reduce the risk of various cancer types,” Nathalie Kliemann, PhD, from the World Health Organization’s International Agency for Research on Cancer, Lyon, France, and colleagues concluded.
The findings were published in The Lancet Planetary Health.
Processed and ultraprocessed foods tend to have high-energy density and low nutritional value, and some epidemiological evidence indicates a possible link between consuming ultraprocessed food and cancer outcomes.
Dr. Kliemann and colleagues, for instance, recently published a study showing a link between ultraprocessed food consumption and increased risk for cancer, particularly ovarian cancer, as well as increased risk of dying from cancer. That study of nearly 200,000 middle-aged adults in the UK Biobank database showed that, for each 10 percentage point increase in the consumption of ultraprocessed foods, there was a 2% increase in the overall incidence of cancer and a 19% increase in ovarian cancer incidence.
However, conflicting reports exist, and research exploring associations between processed foods and cancer remains limited.
The researchers wanted to better understand the potential association between the degree of food processing and risk for cancer in a larger cohort of individuals.
The investigators performed a dietary substitution analysis using data from more than 450,000 participants from the European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition (EPIC) study and looking at 25 anatomical sites. EPIC study participants, who had no cancer diagnoses prior to enrollment, were identified between March 1991 and July 2001. Of the 450,111 included in the analysis, 47,573 were diagnosed with cancer during a mean follow-up of 14.1 years. Mean age at recruitment was 51 years, and mean BMI was 25.3 kg/m2.
Food items were classified according to their level of processing using the NOVA classification system: minimally or nonprocessed foods (NOVA 1), processed culinary ingredients (NOVA 2), processed foods (NOVA 3), and ultraprocessed foods (NOVA 4). The investigators highlighted comparisons between NOVA 1 and NOVA 3 and between NOVA 1 and NOVA 4.
The analysis revealed that swapping out just 10% of processed foods with minimally processed foods significantly lowered the risk for cancer overall (hazard ratio, 0.96) as well as for esophageal squamous cell carcinoma (HR, 0.57), hepatocellular carcinoma (HR, 0.77), head and neck cancers (HR, 0.80), colon cancer (HR, 0,88), rectal cancer (HR, 0.90), and postmenopausal breast cancer (HR, 0.93)
Swapping 10% of ultraprocessed foods for minimally processed foods lowered the risk of cancer overall only slightly (HR, 0.99) as well as the risk for various cancer types, including hepatocellular carcinoma (HR, 0.73), head and neck cancers (HR, 0.80), esophageal adenocarcinoma (HR, 0.80), and colon cancer (HR, 0.93).
The authors noted several limitations to the analysis, perhaps most notably that intake of ultraprocessed foods contributed to about 32% of total daily energy intake among study participants, but today that percentage could be nearly double across European countries.
“This discrepancy might explain the fewer significant associations observed between ultraprocessed foods and cancer risk than in processed foods and cancer risk,” the authors suggested.
The findings are “broadly in line with current evidence,” but the authors also noted some inconsistencies. For example, the current study showed a positive association between processed food consumption and risk for colorectal cancer and postmenopausal breast cancer, whereas other studies have not.
Overall, though, the authors concluded that increased consumption of minimally processed and fresh foods was associated with reduced overall risk for cancer and risk for specific cancers, and increased consumption of processed and ultraprocessed foods was associated with increased cancer risks.
This study “is the largest study investigating these associations between food processing and cancer risk and therefore has greater power to detect differences in populations, potentially explaining why we found overall more significant results for different cancer sites than other cohorts,” Dr. Kliemann and colleagues wrote.
This study was funded by Cancer Research UK, the French National Cancer Institute, and World Cancer Research Fund International. The authors declared no competing interests.
A version of this article originally appeared on Medscape.com.
Processed and ultraprocessed food consumption has been shown to increase the risk for various cancers. A new analysis suggests that replacing even a small amount of such foods with an equal amount of minimally processed options may reduce that risk.
Using data from more than 450,000 participants, the dietary substitution analysis found that as well as the risk for several cancer types, including esophageal squamous cell carcinoma by 43% and hepatocellular carcinoma by 23%.
Making this substitution with ultraprocessed foods also appeared to lower cancer risk but often to a lesser degree. For instance, swapping 10% of ultraprocessed foods for minimally processed foods lowered the overall cancer risk by just 1%, the risk of hepatocellular carcinoma by 27%, and the risk of esophageal squamous cell carcinoma by 20%.
Overall, “this study suggests that the replacement of processed and ultraprocessed foods and drinks with an equal amount of minimally processed foods might reduce the risk of various cancer types,” Nathalie Kliemann, PhD, from the World Health Organization’s International Agency for Research on Cancer, Lyon, France, and colleagues concluded.
The findings were published in The Lancet Planetary Health.
Processed and ultraprocessed foods tend to have high-energy density and low nutritional value, and some epidemiological evidence indicates a possible link between consuming ultraprocessed food and cancer outcomes.
Dr. Kliemann and colleagues, for instance, recently published a study showing a link between ultraprocessed food consumption and increased risk for cancer, particularly ovarian cancer, as well as increased risk of dying from cancer. That study of nearly 200,000 middle-aged adults in the UK Biobank database showed that, for each 10 percentage point increase in the consumption of ultraprocessed foods, there was a 2% increase in the overall incidence of cancer and a 19% increase in ovarian cancer incidence.
However, conflicting reports exist, and research exploring associations between processed foods and cancer remains limited.
The researchers wanted to better understand the potential association between the degree of food processing and risk for cancer in a larger cohort of individuals.
The investigators performed a dietary substitution analysis using data from more than 450,000 participants from the European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition (EPIC) study and looking at 25 anatomical sites. EPIC study participants, who had no cancer diagnoses prior to enrollment, were identified between March 1991 and July 2001. Of the 450,111 included in the analysis, 47,573 were diagnosed with cancer during a mean follow-up of 14.1 years. Mean age at recruitment was 51 years, and mean BMI was 25.3 kg/m2.
Food items were classified according to their level of processing using the NOVA classification system: minimally or nonprocessed foods (NOVA 1), processed culinary ingredients (NOVA 2), processed foods (NOVA 3), and ultraprocessed foods (NOVA 4). The investigators highlighted comparisons between NOVA 1 and NOVA 3 and between NOVA 1 and NOVA 4.
The analysis revealed that swapping out just 10% of processed foods with minimally processed foods significantly lowered the risk for cancer overall (hazard ratio, 0.96) as well as for esophageal squamous cell carcinoma (HR, 0.57), hepatocellular carcinoma (HR, 0.77), head and neck cancers (HR, 0.80), colon cancer (HR, 0,88), rectal cancer (HR, 0.90), and postmenopausal breast cancer (HR, 0.93)
Swapping 10% of ultraprocessed foods for minimally processed foods lowered the risk of cancer overall only slightly (HR, 0.99) as well as the risk for various cancer types, including hepatocellular carcinoma (HR, 0.73), head and neck cancers (HR, 0.80), esophageal adenocarcinoma (HR, 0.80), and colon cancer (HR, 0.93).
The authors noted several limitations to the analysis, perhaps most notably that intake of ultraprocessed foods contributed to about 32% of total daily energy intake among study participants, but today that percentage could be nearly double across European countries.
“This discrepancy might explain the fewer significant associations observed between ultraprocessed foods and cancer risk than in processed foods and cancer risk,” the authors suggested.
The findings are “broadly in line with current evidence,” but the authors also noted some inconsistencies. For example, the current study showed a positive association between processed food consumption and risk for colorectal cancer and postmenopausal breast cancer, whereas other studies have not.
Overall, though, the authors concluded that increased consumption of minimally processed and fresh foods was associated with reduced overall risk for cancer and risk for specific cancers, and increased consumption of processed and ultraprocessed foods was associated with increased cancer risks.
This study “is the largest study investigating these associations between food processing and cancer risk and therefore has greater power to detect differences in populations, potentially explaining why we found overall more significant results for different cancer sites than other cohorts,” Dr. Kliemann and colleagues wrote.
This study was funded by Cancer Research UK, the French National Cancer Institute, and World Cancer Research Fund International. The authors declared no competing interests.
A version of this article originally appeared on Medscape.com.
Processed and ultraprocessed food consumption has been shown to increase the risk for various cancers. A new analysis suggests that replacing even a small amount of such foods with an equal amount of minimally processed options may reduce that risk.
Using data from more than 450,000 participants, the dietary substitution analysis found that as well as the risk for several cancer types, including esophageal squamous cell carcinoma by 43% and hepatocellular carcinoma by 23%.
Making this substitution with ultraprocessed foods also appeared to lower cancer risk but often to a lesser degree. For instance, swapping 10% of ultraprocessed foods for minimally processed foods lowered the overall cancer risk by just 1%, the risk of hepatocellular carcinoma by 27%, and the risk of esophageal squamous cell carcinoma by 20%.
Overall, “this study suggests that the replacement of processed and ultraprocessed foods and drinks with an equal amount of minimally processed foods might reduce the risk of various cancer types,” Nathalie Kliemann, PhD, from the World Health Organization’s International Agency for Research on Cancer, Lyon, France, and colleagues concluded.
The findings were published in The Lancet Planetary Health.
Processed and ultraprocessed foods tend to have high-energy density and low nutritional value, and some epidemiological evidence indicates a possible link between consuming ultraprocessed food and cancer outcomes.
Dr. Kliemann and colleagues, for instance, recently published a study showing a link between ultraprocessed food consumption and increased risk for cancer, particularly ovarian cancer, as well as increased risk of dying from cancer. That study of nearly 200,000 middle-aged adults in the UK Biobank database showed that, for each 10 percentage point increase in the consumption of ultraprocessed foods, there was a 2% increase in the overall incidence of cancer and a 19% increase in ovarian cancer incidence.
However, conflicting reports exist, and research exploring associations between processed foods and cancer remains limited.
The researchers wanted to better understand the potential association between the degree of food processing and risk for cancer in a larger cohort of individuals.
The investigators performed a dietary substitution analysis using data from more than 450,000 participants from the European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition (EPIC) study and looking at 25 anatomical sites. EPIC study participants, who had no cancer diagnoses prior to enrollment, were identified between March 1991 and July 2001. Of the 450,111 included in the analysis, 47,573 were diagnosed with cancer during a mean follow-up of 14.1 years. Mean age at recruitment was 51 years, and mean BMI was 25.3 kg/m2.
Food items were classified according to their level of processing using the NOVA classification system: minimally or nonprocessed foods (NOVA 1), processed culinary ingredients (NOVA 2), processed foods (NOVA 3), and ultraprocessed foods (NOVA 4). The investigators highlighted comparisons between NOVA 1 and NOVA 3 and between NOVA 1 and NOVA 4.
The analysis revealed that swapping out just 10% of processed foods with minimally processed foods significantly lowered the risk for cancer overall (hazard ratio, 0.96) as well as for esophageal squamous cell carcinoma (HR, 0.57), hepatocellular carcinoma (HR, 0.77), head and neck cancers (HR, 0.80), colon cancer (HR, 0,88), rectal cancer (HR, 0.90), and postmenopausal breast cancer (HR, 0.93)
Swapping 10% of ultraprocessed foods for minimally processed foods lowered the risk of cancer overall only slightly (HR, 0.99) as well as the risk for various cancer types, including hepatocellular carcinoma (HR, 0.73), head and neck cancers (HR, 0.80), esophageal adenocarcinoma (HR, 0.80), and colon cancer (HR, 0.93).
The authors noted several limitations to the analysis, perhaps most notably that intake of ultraprocessed foods contributed to about 32% of total daily energy intake among study participants, but today that percentage could be nearly double across European countries.
“This discrepancy might explain the fewer significant associations observed between ultraprocessed foods and cancer risk than in processed foods and cancer risk,” the authors suggested.
The findings are “broadly in line with current evidence,” but the authors also noted some inconsistencies. For example, the current study showed a positive association between processed food consumption and risk for colorectal cancer and postmenopausal breast cancer, whereas other studies have not.
Overall, though, the authors concluded that increased consumption of minimally processed and fresh foods was associated with reduced overall risk for cancer and risk for specific cancers, and increased consumption of processed and ultraprocessed foods was associated with increased cancer risks.
This study “is the largest study investigating these associations between food processing and cancer risk and therefore has greater power to detect differences in populations, potentially explaining why we found overall more significant results for different cancer sites than other cohorts,” Dr. Kliemann and colleagues wrote.
This study was funded by Cancer Research UK, the French National Cancer Institute, and World Cancer Research Fund International. The authors declared no competing interests.
A version of this article originally appeared on Medscape.com.
FROM THE LANCET PLANETARY HEALTH
Lack of food for thought: Starve a bacterium, feed an infection
A whole new, tiny level of hangry
Ever been so hungry that everything just got on your nerves? Maybe you feel a little snappy right now? Like you’ll just lash out unless you get something to eat? Been there. And so have bacteria.
New research shows that some bacteria go into a full-on Hulk smash if they’re not getting the nutrients they need by releasing toxins into the body. Sounds like a bacterial temper tantrum.
Even though two cells may be genetically identical, they don’t always behave the same in a bacterial community. Some do their job and stay in line, but some evil twins rage out and make people sick by releasing toxins into the environment, Adam Rosenthal, PhD, of the University of North Carolina and his colleagues discovered.
To figure out why some cells were all business as usual while others were not, the investigators looked at Clostridium perfringens, a bacterium found in the intestines of humans and other vertebrates. When the C. perfringens cells were fed a little acetate to munch on, the hangry cells calmed down faster than a kid with a bag of fruit snacks, reducing toxin levels. Some cells even disappeared, falling in line with their model-citizen counterparts.
So what does this really mean? More research, duh. Now that we know nutrients play a role in toxicity, it may open the door to finding a way to fight against antibiotic resistance in humans and reduce antibiotic use in the food industry.
So think to yourself. Are you bothered for no reason? Getting a little testy with your friends and coworkers? Maybe you just haven’t eaten in a while. You’re literally not alone. Even a single-cell organism can behave based on its hunger levels.
Now go have a snack. Your bacteria are getting restless.
The very hangry iguana?
Imagine yourself on a warm, sunny tropical beach. You are enjoying a piece of cake as you take in the slow beat of the waves lapping against the shore. Life is as good as it could be.
Then you feel a presence nearby. Hostility. Hunger. A set of feral, covetous eyes in the nearby jungle. A reptilian beast stalks you, and its all-encompassing sweet tooth desires your cake.
Wait, hold on, what?
As an unfortunate 3-year-old on vacation in Costa Rica found out, there’s at least one iguana in the world out there with a taste for sugar (better than a taste for blood, we suppose).
While out on the beach, the lizard darted out of nowhere, bit the girl on the back of the hand, and stole her cake. Still not the worst party guest ever. The child was taken to a local clinic, where the wound was cleaned and a 5-day antibiotic treatment (lizards carry salmonella) was provided. Things seemed fine, and the girl returned home without incident.
But of course, that’s not the end of the story. Five months later, the girl’s parents noticed a red bump at the wound site. Over the next 3 months, the surrounding skin grew red and painful. A trip to the hospital in California revealed that she had a ganglion cyst and a discharge of pus. Turns out our cake-obsessed lizard friend did give the little girl a gift: the first known human case of Mycobacterium marinum infection following an iguana bite on record.
M. marinum, which causes a disease similar to tuberculosis, typically infects fish but can infect humans if skin wounds are exposed to contaminated water. It’s also resistant to most antibiotics, which is why the first round didn’t clear up the infection. A second round of more-potent antibiotics seems to be working well.
So, to sum up, this poor child got bitten by a lizard, had her cake stolen, and contracted a rare illness in exchange. For a 3-year-old, that’s gotta be in the top-10 worst days ever. Unless, of course, we’re actually living in the Marvel universe (sorry, multiverse at this point). Then we’re totally going to see the emergence of the new superhero Iguana Girl in 15 years or so. Keep your eyes open.
No allergies? Let them give up cake
Allergy season is already here – starting earlier every year, it seems – and many people are not happy about it. So unhappy, actually, that there’s a list of things they would be willing to give up for a year to get rid of their of allergies, according to a survey conducted by OnePoll on behalf of Flonase.
Nearly 40% of 2,000 respondents with allergies would go a year without eating cake or chocolate or playing video games in exchange for allergy-free status, the survey results show. Almost as many would forgo coffee (38%) or pizza (37%) for a year, while 36% would stay off social media and 31% would take a pay cut or give up their smartphones, the Independent reported.
More than half of the allergic Americans – 54%, to be exact – who were polled this past winter – Feb. 24 to March 1, to be exact – consider allergy symptoms to be the most frustrating part of the spring. Annoying things that were less frustrating to the group included mosquitoes (41%), filing tax returns (38%), and daylight savings time (37%).
The Trump arraignment circus, of course, occurred too late to make the list, as did the big “We’re going back to the office! No wait, we’re closing the office forever!” email extravaganza and emotional roller coaster. That second one, however, did not get nearly as much media coverage.
A whole new, tiny level of hangry
Ever been so hungry that everything just got on your nerves? Maybe you feel a little snappy right now? Like you’ll just lash out unless you get something to eat? Been there. And so have bacteria.
New research shows that some bacteria go into a full-on Hulk smash if they’re not getting the nutrients they need by releasing toxins into the body. Sounds like a bacterial temper tantrum.
Even though two cells may be genetically identical, they don’t always behave the same in a bacterial community. Some do their job and stay in line, but some evil twins rage out and make people sick by releasing toxins into the environment, Adam Rosenthal, PhD, of the University of North Carolina and his colleagues discovered.
To figure out why some cells were all business as usual while others were not, the investigators looked at Clostridium perfringens, a bacterium found in the intestines of humans and other vertebrates. When the C. perfringens cells were fed a little acetate to munch on, the hangry cells calmed down faster than a kid with a bag of fruit snacks, reducing toxin levels. Some cells even disappeared, falling in line with their model-citizen counterparts.
So what does this really mean? More research, duh. Now that we know nutrients play a role in toxicity, it may open the door to finding a way to fight against antibiotic resistance in humans and reduce antibiotic use in the food industry.
So think to yourself. Are you bothered for no reason? Getting a little testy with your friends and coworkers? Maybe you just haven’t eaten in a while. You’re literally not alone. Even a single-cell organism can behave based on its hunger levels.
Now go have a snack. Your bacteria are getting restless.
The very hangry iguana?
Imagine yourself on a warm, sunny tropical beach. You are enjoying a piece of cake as you take in the slow beat of the waves lapping against the shore. Life is as good as it could be.
Then you feel a presence nearby. Hostility. Hunger. A set of feral, covetous eyes in the nearby jungle. A reptilian beast stalks you, and its all-encompassing sweet tooth desires your cake.
Wait, hold on, what?
As an unfortunate 3-year-old on vacation in Costa Rica found out, there’s at least one iguana in the world out there with a taste for sugar (better than a taste for blood, we suppose).
While out on the beach, the lizard darted out of nowhere, bit the girl on the back of the hand, and stole her cake. Still not the worst party guest ever. The child was taken to a local clinic, where the wound was cleaned and a 5-day antibiotic treatment (lizards carry salmonella) was provided. Things seemed fine, and the girl returned home without incident.
But of course, that’s not the end of the story. Five months later, the girl’s parents noticed a red bump at the wound site. Over the next 3 months, the surrounding skin grew red and painful. A trip to the hospital in California revealed that she had a ganglion cyst and a discharge of pus. Turns out our cake-obsessed lizard friend did give the little girl a gift: the first known human case of Mycobacterium marinum infection following an iguana bite on record.
M. marinum, which causes a disease similar to tuberculosis, typically infects fish but can infect humans if skin wounds are exposed to contaminated water. It’s also resistant to most antibiotics, which is why the first round didn’t clear up the infection. A second round of more-potent antibiotics seems to be working well.
So, to sum up, this poor child got bitten by a lizard, had her cake stolen, and contracted a rare illness in exchange. For a 3-year-old, that’s gotta be in the top-10 worst days ever. Unless, of course, we’re actually living in the Marvel universe (sorry, multiverse at this point). Then we’re totally going to see the emergence of the new superhero Iguana Girl in 15 years or so. Keep your eyes open.
No allergies? Let them give up cake
Allergy season is already here – starting earlier every year, it seems – and many people are not happy about it. So unhappy, actually, that there’s a list of things they would be willing to give up for a year to get rid of their of allergies, according to a survey conducted by OnePoll on behalf of Flonase.
Nearly 40% of 2,000 respondents with allergies would go a year without eating cake or chocolate or playing video games in exchange for allergy-free status, the survey results show. Almost as many would forgo coffee (38%) or pizza (37%) for a year, while 36% would stay off social media and 31% would take a pay cut or give up their smartphones, the Independent reported.
More than half of the allergic Americans – 54%, to be exact – who were polled this past winter – Feb. 24 to March 1, to be exact – consider allergy symptoms to be the most frustrating part of the spring. Annoying things that were less frustrating to the group included mosquitoes (41%), filing tax returns (38%), and daylight savings time (37%).
The Trump arraignment circus, of course, occurred too late to make the list, as did the big “We’re going back to the office! No wait, we’re closing the office forever!” email extravaganza and emotional roller coaster. That second one, however, did not get nearly as much media coverage.
A whole new, tiny level of hangry
Ever been so hungry that everything just got on your nerves? Maybe you feel a little snappy right now? Like you’ll just lash out unless you get something to eat? Been there. And so have bacteria.
New research shows that some bacteria go into a full-on Hulk smash if they’re not getting the nutrients they need by releasing toxins into the body. Sounds like a bacterial temper tantrum.
Even though two cells may be genetically identical, they don’t always behave the same in a bacterial community. Some do their job and stay in line, but some evil twins rage out and make people sick by releasing toxins into the environment, Adam Rosenthal, PhD, of the University of North Carolina and his colleagues discovered.
To figure out why some cells were all business as usual while others were not, the investigators looked at Clostridium perfringens, a bacterium found in the intestines of humans and other vertebrates. When the C. perfringens cells were fed a little acetate to munch on, the hangry cells calmed down faster than a kid with a bag of fruit snacks, reducing toxin levels. Some cells even disappeared, falling in line with their model-citizen counterparts.
So what does this really mean? More research, duh. Now that we know nutrients play a role in toxicity, it may open the door to finding a way to fight against antibiotic resistance in humans and reduce antibiotic use in the food industry.
So think to yourself. Are you bothered for no reason? Getting a little testy with your friends and coworkers? Maybe you just haven’t eaten in a while. You’re literally not alone. Even a single-cell organism can behave based on its hunger levels.
Now go have a snack. Your bacteria are getting restless.
The very hangry iguana?
Imagine yourself on a warm, sunny tropical beach. You are enjoying a piece of cake as you take in the slow beat of the waves lapping against the shore. Life is as good as it could be.
Then you feel a presence nearby. Hostility. Hunger. A set of feral, covetous eyes in the nearby jungle. A reptilian beast stalks you, and its all-encompassing sweet tooth desires your cake.
Wait, hold on, what?
As an unfortunate 3-year-old on vacation in Costa Rica found out, there’s at least one iguana in the world out there with a taste for sugar (better than a taste for blood, we suppose).
While out on the beach, the lizard darted out of nowhere, bit the girl on the back of the hand, and stole her cake. Still not the worst party guest ever. The child was taken to a local clinic, where the wound was cleaned and a 5-day antibiotic treatment (lizards carry salmonella) was provided. Things seemed fine, and the girl returned home without incident.
But of course, that’s not the end of the story. Five months later, the girl’s parents noticed a red bump at the wound site. Over the next 3 months, the surrounding skin grew red and painful. A trip to the hospital in California revealed that she had a ganglion cyst and a discharge of pus. Turns out our cake-obsessed lizard friend did give the little girl a gift: the first known human case of Mycobacterium marinum infection following an iguana bite on record.
M. marinum, which causes a disease similar to tuberculosis, typically infects fish but can infect humans if skin wounds are exposed to contaminated water. It’s also resistant to most antibiotics, which is why the first round didn’t clear up the infection. A second round of more-potent antibiotics seems to be working well.
So, to sum up, this poor child got bitten by a lizard, had her cake stolen, and contracted a rare illness in exchange. For a 3-year-old, that’s gotta be in the top-10 worst days ever. Unless, of course, we’re actually living in the Marvel universe (sorry, multiverse at this point). Then we’re totally going to see the emergence of the new superhero Iguana Girl in 15 years or so. Keep your eyes open.
No allergies? Let them give up cake
Allergy season is already here – starting earlier every year, it seems – and many people are not happy about it. So unhappy, actually, that there’s a list of things they would be willing to give up for a year to get rid of their of allergies, according to a survey conducted by OnePoll on behalf of Flonase.
Nearly 40% of 2,000 respondents with allergies would go a year without eating cake or chocolate or playing video games in exchange for allergy-free status, the survey results show. Almost as many would forgo coffee (38%) or pizza (37%) for a year, while 36% would stay off social media and 31% would take a pay cut or give up their smartphones, the Independent reported.
More than half of the allergic Americans – 54%, to be exact – who were polled this past winter – Feb. 24 to March 1, to be exact – consider allergy symptoms to be the most frustrating part of the spring. Annoying things that were less frustrating to the group included mosquitoes (41%), filing tax returns (38%), and daylight savings time (37%).
The Trump arraignment circus, of course, occurred too late to make the list, as did the big “We’re going back to the office! No wait, we’re closing the office forever!” email extravaganza and emotional roller coaster. That second one, however, did not get nearly as much media coverage.
AGA clinical practice update addresses role of endoscopic ultrasound–guided gallbladder drainage in acute cholecystitis
according to a recent clinical practice update by the American Gastroenterological Association.
The update, written by Shayan S. Irani, MD, of Virginia Mason Medical Center, Seattle, and colleagues, also covers techniques and outcomes of EUS-GBD and provides suggestions for training and patient selection.
“In this clinical practice update, we comment on the role of EUS-GBD (compared with ET-GBD [endoscopic treatment via transpapillary gallbladder drainage] and PT [percutaneous transhepatic]-GBD) in the management of acute cholecystitis, and describe its indications, contraindications, procedural considerations, and associated adverse events,” the authors wrote in Clinical Gastroenterology and Hepatology.
Dr. Irani and colleagues noted that EUS-GBD is a valuable alternative to PT-GBD, which can have a significant morbidity, and ET-GBD has been associated with relatively lower technical and clinical success rates in the presence of obstructing pathology of the cystic duct. Advances in lumen-apposing metal stents have further improved outcomes in EUS-GBD, as demonstrated by multiple case series and comparative trials.
According to the update, EUS-GBD is suggested in three scenarios: for draining the gallbladder in patients with acute cholecystitis who are at high risk for surgery, for removing percutaneous cholecystostomy drains in patients who cannot undergo cholecystectomy, and for draining malignant biliary obstruction in patients who have not responded to other treatments. EUS-GBD is contraindicated in patients with significant coagulopathy, large-volume uncontrolled ascites, or gallbladder perforation.
Dr. Irani and colleagues also noted that, between the three main techniques mentioned above, EUS-GBD has the lowest risk of recurrent cholecystitis, whereas ET-GBD and PT-GBD present slightly lower mortality rates.
While the update provides technical guidance on performing EUS-GBD, Dr. Irani and colleagues make clear that EUS-GBD is a highly specialized procedure that requires sufficient training to optimal results.
“Performing the procedure has an associated learning curve and requires advanced EUS training,” they wrote. “Two recent publications have suggested that the minimum number of procedures to gain competency should be approximately 19-25 procedures.”
Addressing unmet needs, Dr. Irani and colleagues suggested that more research is needed to standardize patient selection, procedure technique, and stent follow-up evaluation.
Ongoing studies aim to address whether endoscopic management of cholecystitis and symptomatic gallstones could become a mainstream treatment in the future, they wrote, but “we are still a long way from abandoning standard of care with cholecystectomy.”
This clinical practice update was commissioned by the AGA. Dr. Irani is a consultant for Boston Scientific, ConMed, and GORE; one coauthor received research support from Boston Scientific and Olympus and is a consultant and speaker for Boston Scientific, Cook, Medtronic, Olympus and ConMed. The remaining coauthor disclosed no conflicts.
according to a recent clinical practice update by the American Gastroenterological Association.
The update, written by Shayan S. Irani, MD, of Virginia Mason Medical Center, Seattle, and colleagues, also covers techniques and outcomes of EUS-GBD and provides suggestions for training and patient selection.
“In this clinical practice update, we comment on the role of EUS-GBD (compared with ET-GBD [endoscopic treatment via transpapillary gallbladder drainage] and PT [percutaneous transhepatic]-GBD) in the management of acute cholecystitis, and describe its indications, contraindications, procedural considerations, and associated adverse events,” the authors wrote in Clinical Gastroenterology and Hepatology.
Dr. Irani and colleagues noted that EUS-GBD is a valuable alternative to PT-GBD, which can have a significant morbidity, and ET-GBD has been associated with relatively lower technical and clinical success rates in the presence of obstructing pathology of the cystic duct. Advances in lumen-apposing metal stents have further improved outcomes in EUS-GBD, as demonstrated by multiple case series and comparative trials.
According to the update, EUS-GBD is suggested in three scenarios: for draining the gallbladder in patients with acute cholecystitis who are at high risk for surgery, for removing percutaneous cholecystostomy drains in patients who cannot undergo cholecystectomy, and for draining malignant biliary obstruction in patients who have not responded to other treatments. EUS-GBD is contraindicated in patients with significant coagulopathy, large-volume uncontrolled ascites, or gallbladder perforation.
Dr. Irani and colleagues also noted that, between the three main techniques mentioned above, EUS-GBD has the lowest risk of recurrent cholecystitis, whereas ET-GBD and PT-GBD present slightly lower mortality rates.
While the update provides technical guidance on performing EUS-GBD, Dr. Irani and colleagues make clear that EUS-GBD is a highly specialized procedure that requires sufficient training to optimal results.
“Performing the procedure has an associated learning curve and requires advanced EUS training,” they wrote. “Two recent publications have suggested that the minimum number of procedures to gain competency should be approximately 19-25 procedures.”
Addressing unmet needs, Dr. Irani and colleagues suggested that more research is needed to standardize patient selection, procedure technique, and stent follow-up evaluation.
Ongoing studies aim to address whether endoscopic management of cholecystitis and symptomatic gallstones could become a mainstream treatment in the future, they wrote, but “we are still a long way from abandoning standard of care with cholecystectomy.”
This clinical practice update was commissioned by the AGA. Dr. Irani is a consultant for Boston Scientific, ConMed, and GORE; one coauthor received research support from Boston Scientific and Olympus and is a consultant and speaker for Boston Scientific, Cook, Medtronic, Olympus and ConMed. The remaining coauthor disclosed no conflicts.
according to a recent clinical practice update by the American Gastroenterological Association.
The update, written by Shayan S. Irani, MD, of Virginia Mason Medical Center, Seattle, and colleagues, also covers techniques and outcomes of EUS-GBD and provides suggestions for training and patient selection.
“In this clinical practice update, we comment on the role of EUS-GBD (compared with ET-GBD [endoscopic treatment via transpapillary gallbladder drainage] and PT [percutaneous transhepatic]-GBD) in the management of acute cholecystitis, and describe its indications, contraindications, procedural considerations, and associated adverse events,” the authors wrote in Clinical Gastroenterology and Hepatology.
Dr. Irani and colleagues noted that EUS-GBD is a valuable alternative to PT-GBD, which can have a significant morbidity, and ET-GBD has been associated with relatively lower technical and clinical success rates in the presence of obstructing pathology of the cystic duct. Advances in lumen-apposing metal stents have further improved outcomes in EUS-GBD, as demonstrated by multiple case series and comparative trials.
According to the update, EUS-GBD is suggested in three scenarios: for draining the gallbladder in patients with acute cholecystitis who are at high risk for surgery, for removing percutaneous cholecystostomy drains in patients who cannot undergo cholecystectomy, and for draining malignant biliary obstruction in patients who have not responded to other treatments. EUS-GBD is contraindicated in patients with significant coagulopathy, large-volume uncontrolled ascites, or gallbladder perforation.
Dr. Irani and colleagues also noted that, between the three main techniques mentioned above, EUS-GBD has the lowest risk of recurrent cholecystitis, whereas ET-GBD and PT-GBD present slightly lower mortality rates.
While the update provides technical guidance on performing EUS-GBD, Dr. Irani and colleagues make clear that EUS-GBD is a highly specialized procedure that requires sufficient training to optimal results.
“Performing the procedure has an associated learning curve and requires advanced EUS training,” they wrote. “Two recent publications have suggested that the minimum number of procedures to gain competency should be approximately 19-25 procedures.”
Addressing unmet needs, Dr. Irani and colleagues suggested that more research is needed to standardize patient selection, procedure technique, and stent follow-up evaluation.
Ongoing studies aim to address whether endoscopic management of cholecystitis and symptomatic gallstones could become a mainstream treatment in the future, they wrote, but “we are still a long way from abandoning standard of care with cholecystectomy.”
This clinical practice update was commissioned by the AGA. Dr. Irani is a consultant for Boston Scientific, ConMed, and GORE; one coauthor received research support from Boston Scientific and Olympus and is a consultant and speaker for Boston Scientific, Cook, Medtronic, Olympus and ConMed. The remaining coauthor disclosed no conflicts.
FROM CLINICAL GASTROENTEROLOGY AND HEPATOLOGY
SARS-CoV-2 crosses placenta and infects brains of two infants: ‘This is a first’
, according to a study published online today in Pediatrics .
One of the infants died at 13 months and the other remained in hospice care at time of manuscript submission.
Lead author Merline Benny, MD, with the division of neonatology, department of pediatrics at University of Miami, and colleagues briefed reporters today ahead of the release.
“This is a first,” said senior author Shahnaz Duara, MD, medical director of the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit at Holtz Children’s Hospital, Miami, explaining it is the first study to confirm cross-placental SARS-CoV-2 transmission leading to brain injury in a newborn.
Both infants negative for the virus at birth
The two infants were admitted in the early days of the pandemic in the Delta wave to the neonatal ICU at Holtz Children’s Hospital at University of Miami/Jackson Memorial Medical Center.
Both infants tested negative for the virus at birth, but had significantly elevated SARS-CoV-2 antibodies in their blood, indicating that either antibodies crossed the placenta, or the virus crossed and the immune response was the baby’s.
Dr. Benny explained that the researchers have seen, to this point, more than 700 mother/infant pairs in whom the mother tested positive for COVID in Jackson hospital.
Most who tested positive for COVID were asymptomatic and most of the mothers and infants left the hospital without complications.
“However, (these) two babies had a very unusual clinical picture,” Dr. Benny said.
Those infants were born to mothers who became COVID positive in the second trimester and delivered a few weeks later.
Seizures started on day 1 of life
The babies began to seize from the first day of life. They had profound low tone (hypotonia) in their clinical exam, Dr. Benny explained.
“We had absolutely no good explanation for the early seizures and the degree of brain injury we saw,” Dr. Duara said.
Dr. Benny said that as their bodies grew, they had very small head circumference. Unlike some babies born with the Zika virus, these babies were not microcephalic at birth. Brain imaging on the two babies indicated significant brain atrophy, and neurodevelopment exams showed significant delay.
Discussions began with the center’s multidisciplinary team including neurologists, pathologists, neuroradiologists, and obstetricians who cared for both the mothers and the babies.
The experts examined the placentas and found some characteristic COVID changes and presence of the COVID virus. This was accompanied by increased markers for inflammation and a severe reduction in a hormone critical for placental health and brain development.
Examining the infant’s autopsy findings further raised suspicions of maternal transmission, something that had not been documented before.
Coauthor Ali G. Saad, MD, pediatric and perinatal pathology director at Miami, said, “I have seen literally thousands of brains in autopsies over the last 14 years, and this was the most dramatic case of leukoencephalopathy or loss of white matter in a patient with no significant reason. That’s what triggered the investigation.”
Mothers had very different presentations
Coauthor Michael J. Paidas, MD, with the department of obstetrics, gynecology, and reproductive sciences at Miami, pointed out that the circumstances of the two mothers, who were in their 20s, were very different.
One mother delivered at 32 weeks and had a very severe COVID presentation and spent a month in the intensive care unit. The team decided to deliver the child to save the mother, Dr. Paidas said.
In contrast, the other mother had asymptomatic COVID infection in the second trimester and delivered at full term.
He said one of the early suspicions in the babies’ presentations was hypoxic ischemic encephalopathy. “But it wasn’t lack of blood flow to the placenta that caused this,” he said. “As best we can tell, it was the viral infection.”
Instances are rare
The researchers emphasized that these instances are rare and have not been seen before or since the period of this study to their knowledge.
Dr. Duara said, “This is something we want to alert the medical community to more than the general public. We do not want the lay public to be panicked. We’re trying to understand what made these two pregnancies different, so we can direct research towards protecting vulnerable babies.”
Previous data have indicated a relatively benign status in infants who test negative for the COVID virus after birth. Dr. Benny added that COVID vaccination has been found safe in pregnancy and both vaccination and breastfeeding can help passage of antibodies to the infant and help protect the baby. Because these cases happened in the early days of the pandemic, no vaccines were available.
Dr. Paidas received funding from BioIncept to study hypoxic-ischemic encephalopathy with Preimplantation Factor, is a scientific advisory board member, and has stock options. Dr. Paidas and coauthor Dr. Jayakumar are coinventors of SPIKENET, University of Miami, patent pending 2023. The other authors have no conflicts of interest to disclose.
, according to a study published online today in Pediatrics .
One of the infants died at 13 months and the other remained in hospice care at time of manuscript submission.
Lead author Merline Benny, MD, with the division of neonatology, department of pediatrics at University of Miami, and colleagues briefed reporters today ahead of the release.
“This is a first,” said senior author Shahnaz Duara, MD, medical director of the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit at Holtz Children’s Hospital, Miami, explaining it is the first study to confirm cross-placental SARS-CoV-2 transmission leading to brain injury in a newborn.
Both infants negative for the virus at birth
The two infants were admitted in the early days of the pandemic in the Delta wave to the neonatal ICU at Holtz Children’s Hospital at University of Miami/Jackson Memorial Medical Center.
Both infants tested negative for the virus at birth, but had significantly elevated SARS-CoV-2 antibodies in their blood, indicating that either antibodies crossed the placenta, or the virus crossed and the immune response was the baby’s.
Dr. Benny explained that the researchers have seen, to this point, more than 700 mother/infant pairs in whom the mother tested positive for COVID in Jackson hospital.
Most who tested positive for COVID were asymptomatic and most of the mothers and infants left the hospital without complications.
“However, (these) two babies had a very unusual clinical picture,” Dr. Benny said.
Those infants were born to mothers who became COVID positive in the second trimester and delivered a few weeks later.
Seizures started on day 1 of life
The babies began to seize from the first day of life. They had profound low tone (hypotonia) in their clinical exam, Dr. Benny explained.
“We had absolutely no good explanation for the early seizures and the degree of brain injury we saw,” Dr. Duara said.
Dr. Benny said that as their bodies grew, they had very small head circumference. Unlike some babies born with the Zika virus, these babies were not microcephalic at birth. Brain imaging on the two babies indicated significant brain atrophy, and neurodevelopment exams showed significant delay.
Discussions began with the center’s multidisciplinary team including neurologists, pathologists, neuroradiologists, and obstetricians who cared for both the mothers and the babies.
The experts examined the placentas and found some characteristic COVID changes and presence of the COVID virus. This was accompanied by increased markers for inflammation and a severe reduction in a hormone critical for placental health and brain development.
Examining the infant’s autopsy findings further raised suspicions of maternal transmission, something that had not been documented before.
Coauthor Ali G. Saad, MD, pediatric and perinatal pathology director at Miami, said, “I have seen literally thousands of brains in autopsies over the last 14 years, and this was the most dramatic case of leukoencephalopathy or loss of white matter in a patient with no significant reason. That’s what triggered the investigation.”
Mothers had very different presentations
Coauthor Michael J. Paidas, MD, with the department of obstetrics, gynecology, and reproductive sciences at Miami, pointed out that the circumstances of the two mothers, who were in their 20s, were very different.
One mother delivered at 32 weeks and had a very severe COVID presentation and spent a month in the intensive care unit. The team decided to deliver the child to save the mother, Dr. Paidas said.
In contrast, the other mother had asymptomatic COVID infection in the second trimester and delivered at full term.
He said one of the early suspicions in the babies’ presentations was hypoxic ischemic encephalopathy. “But it wasn’t lack of blood flow to the placenta that caused this,” he said. “As best we can tell, it was the viral infection.”
Instances are rare
The researchers emphasized that these instances are rare and have not been seen before or since the period of this study to their knowledge.
Dr. Duara said, “This is something we want to alert the medical community to more than the general public. We do not want the lay public to be panicked. We’re trying to understand what made these two pregnancies different, so we can direct research towards protecting vulnerable babies.”
Previous data have indicated a relatively benign status in infants who test negative for the COVID virus after birth. Dr. Benny added that COVID vaccination has been found safe in pregnancy and both vaccination and breastfeeding can help passage of antibodies to the infant and help protect the baby. Because these cases happened in the early days of the pandemic, no vaccines were available.
Dr. Paidas received funding from BioIncept to study hypoxic-ischemic encephalopathy with Preimplantation Factor, is a scientific advisory board member, and has stock options. Dr. Paidas and coauthor Dr. Jayakumar are coinventors of SPIKENET, University of Miami, patent pending 2023. The other authors have no conflicts of interest to disclose.
, according to a study published online today in Pediatrics .
One of the infants died at 13 months and the other remained in hospice care at time of manuscript submission.
Lead author Merline Benny, MD, with the division of neonatology, department of pediatrics at University of Miami, and colleagues briefed reporters today ahead of the release.
“This is a first,” said senior author Shahnaz Duara, MD, medical director of the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit at Holtz Children’s Hospital, Miami, explaining it is the first study to confirm cross-placental SARS-CoV-2 transmission leading to brain injury in a newborn.
Both infants negative for the virus at birth
The two infants were admitted in the early days of the pandemic in the Delta wave to the neonatal ICU at Holtz Children’s Hospital at University of Miami/Jackson Memorial Medical Center.
Both infants tested negative for the virus at birth, but had significantly elevated SARS-CoV-2 antibodies in their blood, indicating that either antibodies crossed the placenta, or the virus crossed and the immune response was the baby’s.
Dr. Benny explained that the researchers have seen, to this point, more than 700 mother/infant pairs in whom the mother tested positive for COVID in Jackson hospital.
Most who tested positive for COVID were asymptomatic and most of the mothers and infants left the hospital without complications.
“However, (these) two babies had a very unusual clinical picture,” Dr. Benny said.
Those infants were born to mothers who became COVID positive in the second trimester and delivered a few weeks later.
Seizures started on day 1 of life
The babies began to seize from the first day of life. They had profound low tone (hypotonia) in their clinical exam, Dr. Benny explained.
“We had absolutely no good explanation for the early seizures and the degree of brain injury we saw,” Dr. Duara said.
Dr. Benny said that as their bodies grew, they had very small head circumference. Unlike some babies born with the Zika virus, these babies were not microcephalic at birth. Brain imaging on the two babies indicated significant brain atrophy, and neurodevelopment exams showed significant delay.
Discussions began with the center’s multidisciplinary team including neurologists, pathologists, neuroradiologists, and obstetricians who cared for both the mothers and the babies.
The experts examined the placentas and found some characteristic COVID changes and presence of the COVID virus. This was accompanied by increased markers for inflammation and a severe reduction in a hormone critical for placental health and brain development.
Examining the infant’s autopsy findings further raised suspicions of maternal transmission, something that had not been documented before.
Coauthor Ali G. Saad, MD, pediatric and perinatal pathology director at Miami, said, “I have seen literally thousands of brains in autopsies over the last 14 years, and this was the most dramatic case of leukoencephalopathy or loss of white matter in a patient with no significant reason. That’s what triggered the investigation.”
Mothers had very different presentations
Coauthor Michael J. Paidas, MD, with the department of obstetrics, gynecology, and reproductive sciences at Miami, pointed out that the circumstances of the two mothers, who were in their 20s, were very different.
One mother delivered at 32 weeks and had a very severe COVID presentation and spent a month in the intensive care unit. The team decided to deliver the child to save the mother, Dr. Paidas said.
In contrast, the other mother had asymptomatic COVID infection in the second trimester and delivered at full term.
He said one of the early suspicions in the babies’ presentations was hypoxic ischemic encephalopathy. “But it wasn’t lack of blood flow to the placenta that caused this,” he said. “As best we can tell, it was the viral infection.”
Instances are rare
The researchers emphasized that these instances are rare and have not been seen before or since the period of this study to their knowledge.
Dr. Duara said, “This is something we want to alert the medical community to more than the general public. We do not want the lay public to be panicked. We’re trying to understand what made these two pregnancies different, so we can direct research towards protecting vulnerable babies.”
Previous data have indicated a relatively benign status in infants who test negative for the COVID virus after birth. Dr. Benny added that COVID vaccination has been found safe in pregnancy and both vaccination and breastfeeding can help passage of antibodies to the infant and help protect the baby. Because these cases happened in the early days of the pandemic, no vaccines were available.
Dr. Paidas received funding from BioIncept to study hypoxic-ischemic encephalopathy with Preimplantation Factor, is a scientific advisory board member, and has stock options. Dr. Paidas and coauthor Dr. Jayakumar are coinventors of SPIKENET, University of Miami, patent pending 2023. The other authors have no conflicts of interest to disclose.
FROM PEDIATRICS
Infant and maternal weight gain together amplify obesity risk
Rapid weight gain (RWG) in infants and the mother’s prepregnancy overweight have a synergistic effect in increasing the odds that a child will develop overweight or obesity, new research suggests.
Findings were published online in Pediatrics.
Each factor has independently been associated with higher risk of childhood obesity but whether the two factors together exacerbate the risk has not been well studied, according to the authors led by Stephanie Gilley, MD, PhD, department of pediatrics, section of nutrition, University of Colorado at Denver, Aurora.
“Pediatric providers should monitor infants for RWG, especially in the context of maternal obesity, to reduce future risk of obesity,” the authors conclude.
Dr. Gilley’s team studied mother-infant dyads (n = 414) from the Healthy Start Study, an observational prebirth cohort. RWG was defined as a weight-for-age z score increase of at least 0.67 from birth to 3-7 months.
They found that RWG boosted the link between prepregnancy body mass index (ppBMI) and BMI z score, especially in female infants. Females exposed to both maternal obesity with RWG had an average BMI at the 94th percentile (1.50 increase in childhood BMI z score) “nearly at the cutoff for classification of obesity,” compared with those exposed to normal ppBMI with no RWG, who had an average childhood BMI at the 51st percentile.
“Currently, our nutrition recommendations as pediatricians are that all children are fed the same, essentially, after they’re born. We don’t have different growth parameters or different trajectories or targets for children who may have had different in utero exposures,” Dr. Gilley said.
Do some children need more monitoring for RWG?
Though we can’t necessarily draw conclusions from this one study, she says, the findings raise the question of whether children who were exposed in utero to obesity should be monitored for RWG more closely.
Lydia Shook, MD, Mass General Brigham maternal-fetal specialist and codirector of the Diabetes in Pregnancy Program at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, said she was struck by the finding in this study that with female infants, but not males, RWG significantly modified the association between ppBMI and early childhood BMI z scores.
“It’s an interesting finding and should be followed up with larger cohorts,” she said, noting that some previous studies have shown males are more vulnerable to maternal obesity and RWG.
“[Often] when we stratify by sex, you really need larger groups to be able to see the differences well,” Dr. Shook said.
She said she also found it interesting that when the researchers adjusted for breastfeeding status or caloric intake in childhood, the findings did not substantially change.
“That’s something that would warrant further investigation in an observational study or controlled trial,” Dr. Shook said.
Preventing rapid weight gain
The authors note that they did not consider possible interventions for preventing RGW in the study, although there are many, Dr. Gilley said.
Dr. Gilley also noted that a limitation of this study is that the population studied was primarily White.
Recent studies have shown the benefits of responsive parenting (RP) interventions, including a large study in 2022 geared toward Black families to teach better infant sleep practices as a way to prevent rapid weight gain.
That study, which tested the SAAF intervention, (Strong African American Families) found that “RP infants were nearly half as likely to experience upward crossing of two major weight-for-age percentile lines (14.1%), compared with control infants (24.2%); P = .09; odds ratio, 0.52; 95% confidence interval, 0.24-1.12.”
Along with sleep interventions, Dr. Gilley said, some researchers are studying the effects on RWG of better paternal engagement, or more involvement with the Women, Infants, and Children program, particularly with lower-income families.
Other studies have looked at breastfeeding vs. formula feeding – “but there have been mixed results there” – and responsive feeding practices, such as teaching families to recognize when a baby is full.
Dr. Gilley said she hopes this work will help broaden the thinking when it comes to infant weight gain.
“We spend a lot of time thinking about babies who are not growing fast enough and very little time thinking about babies who are growing too fast,” she said, “especially in those first 4-6 months of life.”
Dr. Gilley points to a study that illustrates that point. Pesch et al. concluded in a 2021 study based on interviews that pediatricians “are uncertain about the concept, definition, management, and long-term risks of rapid infant weight gain.”
Authors and Dr. Gilley declare no relevant financial relationships.
Rapid weight gain (RWG) in infants and the mother’s prepregnancy overweight have a synergistic effect in increasing the odds that a child will develop overweight or obesity, new research suggests.
Findings were published online in Pediatrics.
Each factor has independently been associated with higher risk of childhood obesity but whether the two factors together exacerbate the risk has not been well studied, according to the authors led by Stephanie Gilley, MD, PhD, department of pediatrics, section of nutrition, University of Colorado at Denver, Aurora.
“Pediatric providers should monitor infants for RWG, especially in the context of maternal obesity, to reduce future risk of obesity,” the authors conclude.
Dr. Gilley’s team studied mother-infant dyads (n = 414) from the Healthy Start Study, an observational prebirth cohort. RWG was defined as a weight-for-age z score increase of at least 0.67 from birth to 3-7 months.
They found that RWG boosted the link between prepregnancy body mass index (ppBMI) and BMI z score, especially in female infants. Females exposed to both maternal obesity with RWG had an average BMI at the 94th percentile (1.50 increase in childhood BMI z score) “nearly at the cutoff for classification of obesity,” compared with those exposed to normal ppBMI with no RWG, who had an average childhood BMI at the 51st percentile.
“Currently, our nutrition recommendations as pediatricians are that all children are fed the same, essentially, after they’re born. We don’t have different growth parameters or different trajectories or targets for children who may have had different in utero exposures,” Dr. Gilley said.
Do some children need more monitoring for RWG?
Though we can’t necessarily draw conclusions from this one study, she says, the findings raise the question of whether children who were exposed in utero to obesity should be monitored for RWG more closely.
Lydia Shook, MD, Mass General Brigham maternal-fetal specialist and codirector of the Diabetes in Pregnancy Program at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, said she was struck by the finding in this study that with female infants, but not males, RWG significantly modified the association between ppBMI and early childhood BMI z scores.
“It’s an interesting finding and should be followed up with larger cohorts,” she said, noting that some previous studies have shown males are more vulnerable to maternal obesity and RWG.
“[Often] when we stratify by sex, you really need larger groups to be able to see the differences well,” Dr. Shook said.
She said she also found it interesting that when the researchers adjusted for breastfeeding status or caloric intake in childhood, the findings did not substantially change.
“That’s something that would warrant further investigation in an observational study or controlled trial,” Dr. Shook said.
Preventing rapid weight gain
The authors note that they did not consider possible interventions for preventing RGW in the study, although there are many, Dr. Gilley said.
Dr. Gilley also noted that a limitation of this study is that the population studied was primarily White.
Recent studies have shown the benefits of responsive parenting (RP) interventions, including a large study in 2022 geared toward Black families to teach better infant sleep practices as a way to prevent rapid weight gain.
That study, which tested the SAAF intervention, (Strong African American Families) found that “RP infants were nearly half as likely to experience upward crossing of two major weight-for-age percentile lines (14.1%), compared with control infants (24.2%); P = .09; odds ratio, 0.52; 95% confidence interval, 0.24-1.12.”
Along with sleep interventions, Dr. Gilley said, some researchers are studying the effects on RWG of better paternal engagement, or more involvement with the Women, Infants, and Children program, particularly with lower-income families.
Other studies have looked at breastfeeding vs. formula feeding – “but there have been mixed results there” – and responsive feeding practices, such as teaching families to recognize when a baby is full.
Dr. Gilley said she hopes this work will help broaden the thinking when it comes to infant weight gain.
“We spend a lot of time thinking about babies who are not growing fast enough and very little time thinking about babies who are growing too fast,” she said, “especially in those first 4-6 months of life.”
Dr. Gilley points to a study that illustrates that point. Pesch et al. concluded in a 2021 study based on interviews that pediatricians “are uncertain about the concept, definition, management, and long-term risks of rapid infant weight gain.”
Authors and Dr. Gilley declare no relevant financial relationships.
Rapid weight gain (RWG) in infants and the mother’s prepregnancy overweight have a synergistic effect in increasing the odds that a child will develop overweight or obesity, new research suggests.
Findings were published online in Pediatrics.
Each factor has independently been associated with higher risk of childhood obesity but whether the two factors together exacerbate the risk has not been well studied, according to the authors led by Stephanie Gilley, MD, PhD, department of pediatrics, section of nutrition, University of Colorado at Denver, Aurora.
“Pediatric providers should monitor infants for RWG, especially in the context of maternal obesity, to reduce future risk of obesity,” the authors conclude.
Dr. Gilley’s team studied mother-infant dyads (n = 414) from the Healthy Start Study, an observational prebirth cohort. RWG was defined as a weight-for-age z score increase of at least 0.67 from birth to 3-7 months.
They found that RWG boosted the link between prepregnancy body mass index (ppBMI) and BMI z score, especially in female infants. Females exposed to both maternal obesity with RWG had an average BMI at the 94th percentile (1.50 increase in childhood BMI z score) “nearly at the cutoff for classification of obesity,” compared with those exposed to normal ppBMI with no RWG, who had an average childhood BMI at the 51st percentile.
“Currently, our nutrition recommendations as pediatricians are that all children are fed the same, essentially, after they’re born. We don’t have different growth parameters or different trajectories or targets for children who may have had different in utero exposures,” Dr. Gilley said.
Do some children need more monitoring for RWG?
Though we can’t necessarily draw conclusions from this one study, she says, the findings raise the question of whether children who were exposed in utero to obesity should be monitored for RWG more closely.
Lydia Shook, MD, Mass General Brigham maternal-fetal specialist and codirector of the Diabetes in Pregnancy Program at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, said she was struck by the finding in this study that with female infants, but not males, RWG significantly modified the association between ppBMI and early childhood BMI z scores.
“It’s an interesting finding and should be followed up with larger cohorts,” she said, noting that some previous studies have shown males are more vulnerable to maternal obesity and RWG.
“[Often] when we stratify by sex, you really need larger groups to be able to see the differences well,” Dr. Shook said.
She said she also found it interesting that when the researchers adjusted for breastfeeding status or caloric intake in childhood, the findings did not substantially change.
“That’s something that would warrant further investigation in an observational study or controlled trial,” Dr. Shook said.
Preventing rapid weight gain
The authors note that they did not consider possible interventions for preventing RGW in the study, although there are many, Dr. Gilley said.
Dr. Gilley also noted that a limitation of this study is that the population studied was primarily White.
Recent studies have shown the benefits of responsive parenting (RP) interventions, including a large study in 2022 geared toward Black families to teach better infant sleep practices as a way to prevent rapid weight gain.
That study, which tested the SAAF intervention, (Strong African American Families) found that “RP infants were nearly half as likely to experience upward crossing of two major weight-for-age percentile lines (14.1%), compared with control infants (24.2%); P = .09; odds ratio, 0.52; 95% confidence interval, 0.24-1.12.”
Along with sleep interventions, Dr. Gilley said, some researchers are studying the effects on RWG of better paternal engagement, or more involvement with the Women, Infants, and Children program, particularly with lower-income families.
Other studies have looked at breastfeeding vs. formula feeding – “but there have been mixed results there” – and responsive feeding practices, such as teaching families to recognize when a baby is full.
Dr. Gilley said she hopes this work will help broaden the thinking when it comes to infant weight gain.
“We spend a lot of time thinking about babies who are not growing fast enough and very little time thinking about babies who are growing too fast,” she said, “especially in those first 4-6 months of life.”
Dr. Gilley points to a study that illustrates that point. Pesch et al. concluded in a 2021 study based on interviews that pediatricians “are uncertain about the concept, definition, management, and long-term risks of rapid infant weight gain.”
Authors and Dr. Gilley declare no relevant financial relationships.
FROM PEDIATRICS