2011 Approaches for organic food and feed authentication

People’s growing awareness of health, environment and animal welfare has led to an increased public interest in the quality of foods and food production systems. This in turn boosted organic production. Due to higher production costs, organic produce tends to retail at a higher price than their conventional counterparts. As a consequence of the premium price, organic produce is susceptible to fraud. Fair competition between producers and sustained consumer confidence favour organic production, and it requires regular confirmatory assessments of the identity of organic produce in addition to administrative controls. Traditional analytical strategies for guaranteeing quality and uncovering adulteration have relied on the determination of the amount of a marker compound or compounds in a material and a subsequent comparison of the value(s) obtained with those established for equivalent material. Authentication of organic produce is complex, and depends very much on the product examined. Therefore, it is unlikely to find a single marker that allows discrimination between organic and conventional produce in general. Even for a particular product, this approach is challenging. Selective fingerprinting, which involves analysis of a range of compounds which are considered potential discriminators, is the more promising approach. As these techniques result in a high number of variables the application of multivariate statistical methods greatly facilitate the evaluation of the data. In the presentation an overview on targeted single/multiple marker approaches will be provided, e.g. based on isotope ratio analysis, in addition to information on the fingerprint type of methodology. The various techniques will be illustrated with real-life examples for both food and feed

Yeast Infections after Esophagectomy:A Retrospective Analysis

Esophageal malignancy is a disease with poor prognosis. Curative therapy incorporates surgery and is burdensome with high rates of infection morbidity and mortality. The role of yeast as causative organisms of post-esophagectomy infections is poorly defined. Consequently, the benefits of specific antifungal prophylactic therapy in improving patient outcome are unclear. Therefore, this study aimed at investigating the incidence of yeast infections at the University Medical Center Groningen among 565 post-esophagectomy patients between 1991 and 2017. The results show that 7.3% of the patients developed a yeast infection after esophageal resection with significantly increased incidence among patients suffering from diabetes mellitus. For patients with yeast infections, higher Acute Physiology and Chronic Health Evaluation (APACHE) II scores, more frequent intensive care unit readmissions, prolonged hospital stays and higher mortality rates were observed. One-year survival was significantly lower for patients with a yeast infection, as well as diabetes mellitus and yeast-positive pleural effusion. We conclude that the incidence of yeast infections following esophagectomy is considerable, and that patients with diabetes mellitus are at increased risk. Furthermore, yeast infections are associated with higher complication rates and mortality. These observations encourage further prospective investigations on the possible benefits of antifungal prophylactic therapy for esophagectomy patients

Changes in enterovirus epidemiology after easing of lockdown measures

INTRODUCTION: Public health measures aimed at controlling transmission of SARS-CoV-2, otherwise known as "lockdown" measures, had profound effects on circulation of non-SARS viruses, many of which decreased to very low levels. The interrupted transmission of these viruses may have lasting effects. Some of the influenza clades seem to have disappeared during this period, a phenomenon which is described as a "funnel effect". It is currently unknown if the lockdown measures had any effect on the diversity of circulating viruses, other than influenza. Enteroviruses are especially interesting in this context, as the clinical presentation of an infection with a particular enterovirus-type may be clade-dependent.METHODS AND MATERIALS: Enteroviruses were detected in clinical materials using a 5'UTR-based detection PCR, and partial VP-1 sequences were obtained, using methods described before. All samples with EV detections from a large part of the Netherlands were included in the study. The samples originated from general practitioners, general hospitals, university hospitals and public health offices.RESULTS: Five EV-genotypes circulated in significant numbers before and after the lockdown, EV-D68, E-11, CV-A6, CV-B5 and CV-A2. All five genotypes showed decreased genetic diversity after the lockdown, and four indicate a significant number of sequences clustering together with a very high sequence homology. Moreover, children with E-11 and CV-B5 detections were significantly older after the lockdown than before.CONCLUSIONS: The reduced enterovirus transmission in the Netherlands during the pandemic, seems to have led to a decrease in genetic diversity in the five most commonly detected enterovirus serotypes.</p

Tracking Down the Cause of Necrotizing Fasciitis in a Patient with Negative Cultures

In a patient suspected of lower abdominal necrotizing fasciitis cultures remained negative, possibly because broad spectrum antibiotics had already been given before tissue for culture was obtained. 16S-23S rDNANext Generation Sequencing showed that 99.7% of bacterial DNA was of Streptococcus pyogenes. 16S-23S rDNA can replace culture for identification of bacteria, also in polymicrobial infection