Metabolically Healthy and Unhealthy Obese Phenotypes among Arabs and South Asians:Prevalence and Relationship with Cardiometabolic Indicators

Obesity is a public health crisis in Kuwait. However, not all obese individuals are metabolically unhealthy (MuHO) given the link between obesity and future cardiovascular events. We assessed the prevalence of the metabolically healthy obese (MHO) phenotype and its relationship with high sensitivity C-reactive protein (hs-CRP), serum alanine aminotransferase (ALT), and insulin resistance (HOMA-IR) in Arab and South Asian ethnic groups in Kuwait. The national cross-sectional survey of diabetes and obesity in Kuwait adults aged 18–60 years were analysed. The harmonised definition of metabolic syndrome was used to classify metabolic health. Multinomial logistic regression analysis was used to model the relationship between the MHO and MuHO phenotypes and hs-CRP, ALT and HOMA-IR levels. Overall, the prevalence of MHO for body mass index (BMI)- and waist circumference (WC)-defined obesity was 30.8% and 56.0%, respectively; it was greater in women (60.4% and 61.8%, respectively) than men (39.6% and 38.2%, respectively). Prevalence rates were also lower for South Asians than for Arabs. The MHO phenotype had hs-CRP values above 3 µg/mL for each age group category. Men compared to women, and South Asians compared to Arabs had a lower relative risk for the MHO group relative to the MuHO group. This study shows there is high prevalence of MHO in Kuwait

Clocking Auger Electrons

Intense X-ray free-electron lasers (XFELs) can rapidly excite matter, leaving it in inherently unstable states that decay on femtosecond timescales. As the relaxation occurs primarily via Auger emission, excited state observations are constrained by Auger decay. In situ measurement of this process is therefore crucial, yet it has thus far remained elusive at XFELs due to inherent timing and phase jitter, which can be orders of magnitude larger than the timescale of Auger decay. Here, we develop a new approach termed self-referenced attosecond streaking, based upon simultaneous measurements of streaked photo- and Auger electrons. Our technique enables sub-femtosecond resolution in spite of jitter. We exploit this method to make the first XFEL time-domain measurement of the Auger decay lifetime in atomic neon, and, by using a fully quantum-mechanical description, retrieve a lifetime of $2.2^{ + 0.2}_{ - 0.3}$ fs for the KLL decay channel. Importantly, our technique can be generalised to permit the extension of attosecond time-resolved experiments to all current and future FEL facilities.Comment: Main text: 20 pages, 3 figures. Supplementary information: 17 pages, 6 figure

Seafood in Food Security: a call for bridging the terrestrial-aquatic divide

The contribution of seafood to global food security is being increasingly highlighted in policy. However, the extent to which such claims are supported in the current food security literature is unclear. This review assesses the extent to which seafood is represented in the recent food security literature, both individually and from a food systems perspective, in combination with terrestrially-based production systems. The results demonstrate that seafood remains under-researched compared to the role of terrestrial animal and plant production in food security. Furthermore, seafood and terrestrial production remain siloed, with very few papers addressing the combined contribution or relations between terrestrial and aquatic systems. We conclude that far more attention is needed to the specific and relative role of seafood in global food security and call for the integration of seafood in a wider interdisciplinary approach to global food system research

Histone deacetylases suppress cgg repeat-induced neurodegeneration via transcriptional silencing in models of Fragile X Tremor Ataxia Syndrome

Fragile X Tremor Ataxia Syndrome (FXTAS) is a common inherited neurodegenerative disorder caused by expansion of a CGG trinucleotide repeat in the 59UTR of the fragile X syndrome (FXS) gene, FMR1. The expanded CGG repeat is thought to induce toxicity as RNA, and in FXTAS patients mRNA levels for FMR1 are markedly increased. Despite the critical role of FMR1 mRNA in disease pathogenesis, the basis for the increase in FMR1 mRNA expression is unknown. Here we show that overexpressing any of three histone deacetylases (HDACs 3, 6, or 11) suppresses CGG repeat-induced neurodegeneration in a Drosophila model of FXTAS. This suppression results from selective transcriptional repression of the CGG repeat-containing transgene. These findings led us to evaluate the acetylation state of histones at the human FMR1 locus. In patient-derived lymphoblasts and fibroblasts, we determined by chromatin immunoprecipitation that there is increased acetylation of histones at the FMR1 locus in pre-mutation carriers compared to control or FXS derived cell lines. These epigenetic changes correlate with elevated FMR1 mRNA expression in pre-mutation cell lines. Consistent with this finding, histone acetyltransferase (HAT) inhibitors repress FMR1 mRNA expression to control levels in pre-mutation carrier cell lines and extend lifespan in CGG repeat-expressing Drosophila. These findings support a disease model whereby the CGG repeat expansion in FXTAS promotes chromatin remodeling in cis, which in turn increases expression of the toxic FMR1 mRNA. Moreover, these results provide proof of principle that HAT inhibitors or HDAC activators might be used to selectively repress transcription at the FMR1 locus.open293

Seafood in Food Security: A Call for Bridging the Terrestrial-Aquatic Divide

The contribution of seafood to global food security is being increasingly highlighted in policy. However, the extent to which such claims are supported in the current food security literature is unclear. This review assesses the extent to which seafood is represented in the recent food security literature, both individually and from a food systems perspective, in combination with terrestrially-based production systems. The results demonstrate that seafood remains under-researched compared to the role of terrestrial animal and plant production in food security. Furthermore, seafood and terrestrial production remain siloed, with very few papers addressing the combined contribution or relations between terrestrial and aquatic systems. We conclude that far more attention is needed to the specific and relative role of seafood in global food security and call for the integration of seafood in a wider interdisciplinary approach to global food system research

Cytochrome P450 in Pharmacogenetics: An Update

cited By 1Interindividual variability in drug disposition is a major cause of lack of efficacy and adverse effects of drug therapies. The majority of hepatically cleared drugs are metabolized by cytochrome P450 (CYP) enzymes, mainly in families CYP1, CYP2, and CYP3. Genes encoding these enzymes are highly variable with allele distribution showing considerable differences between populations. Genetic variability of especially CYP2C9, CYP2C19, CYP2D6, and CYP3A5 is known to have clear clinical impact on drugs that are metabolized by these enzymes. CYP1A2, CYP2A6, CYP2B6, CYP2C8, and CYP3A4 all show variability that affects pharmacokinetics of drugs as well, but so far the evidence regarding their clinical implications is not as conclusive. In this review, we provide an up-to-date summary of the pharmacogenetics of the major human drug-metabolizing CYP enzymes, focusing on clinically significant examples. © 2018 Elsevier Inc.Peer reviewe

A biominősítés hatása a fogyasztók érzékelésére és attitűdjére csokoládék esetén

The time–energy information of ultrashort X-ray free-electron laser pulses generated by the Linac Coherent Light Source is measured with attosecond resolution via angular streaking of neon 1s photoelectrons. The X-ray pulses promote electrons from the neon core level into an ionization continuum, where they are dressed with the electric field of a circularly polarized infrared laser. This induces characteristic modulations of the resulting photoelectron energy and angular distribution. From these modu- lations we recover the single-shot attosecond intensity structure and chirp of arbitrary X-ray pulses based on self-amplified spontaneous emission, which have eluded direct measurement so far. We characterize individual attosecond pulses, including their instantaneous frequency, and identify double pulses with well-defined delays and spectral properties, thus paving the way for X-ray pump/X-ray probe attosecond free-electron laser science