Protein and amino acid metabolism in COPD: new insights using stable tracer methodology

Older adults with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) generally suffer not only from pulmonary symptoms, but also from other physical complaints such as muscle weakness and impaired physical functioning due to loss of muscle mass, among other things. Proteins are important building stones of the body, particularly the muscles. They are made up of amino acids and are constantly being broken down and rebuilt. The daily protein intake through food helps to maintain muscle. This dissertation examines the process of building up and breaking down proteins and the balance between these (the overall build-up or breakdown) as well as the metabolism of individual amino acids in patients with COPD. It is shown that the high-value milk proteins of whey and casein after bolus intake are equally suitable in terms of composition to stimulate the overall build-up of body proteins in patients with COPD with low muscle mass. It is also shown that in patients with COPD who are clinically stable metabolic changes occur in several individual amino acids, a certain range of disturbances being typical of muscle weakness. These results can contribute to the development of nutritional interventions in patients with COPD in order to maintain muscle mass

Hydrolyzed casein and whey protein meals comparably stimulate net whole-body protein synthesis in COPD patients with nutritional depletion without an additional effect of leucine co-ingestion

Photograph of a scene at Fort Cobb Lake State Park

Omega-3 polyunsaturated fatty acid supplementation improves postabsorptive and prandial protein metabolism in patients with Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease: a Randomized Clinical Trial

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Reduced automatic approach tendencies towards task-relevant and task-irrelevant food pictures in Anorexia Nervosa

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES: Anorexia Nervosa (AN) patients are characterized by an excessive restriction of their food-intake. Prior research using an Affective Simon Task (AST) with food as a task-irrelevant feature, provided evidence for the view that AN patients' ability to refrain from food is facilitated by reduced automatic approach tendencies towards food. However, because food was task-irrelevant (i.e., participants had to base their reaction on the perspective of the picture and not on its content), the findings may in fact reflect a relatively strong ability to ignore the content of the food stimuli rather than weakened approach towards food per se. Therefore, this study also included a Stimulus Response Compatibility (SRC) task with food as task-relevant feature that could not be ignored, because the required response depended on the [food vs non-food] content of the pictures. METHODS: AN spectrum patients (n = 63), and a comparison group of adolescents without eating pathology (n = 57) completed both a SRC task with food as task-relevant feature, and an Affective Simon Task AST with food as task-irrelevant feature. RESULTS: AN patients showed reduced approach tendencies for high caloric food. Only the SRC uniquely predicted the presence of AN. LIMITATIONS: Comparison between tasks was hampered because the SRC only included high caloric food stimuli, whereas the AST included high and low caloric food stimuli. CONCLUSION: Patients with AN are characterized by weakened automatic approach of high caloric food. This might 'help' restrict their food-intake even in a condition of starvation

Developing adaptive secondary mirror concepts for the APF and W.M. Keck Observatory based on HVR technology

International audienc

Precision Medicine for More Oxygen (P4O2)—Study Design and First Results of the Long COVID-19 Extension

Introduction: The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has led to the death of almost 7 million people, however, with a cumulative incidence of 0.76 billion, most people survive COVID-19. Several studies indicate that the acute phase of COVID-19 may be followed by persistent symptoms including fatigue, dyspnea, headache, musculoskeletal symptoms, and pulmonary functional-and radiological abnormalities. However, the impact of COVID-19 on long-term health outcomes remains to be elucidated. Aims: The Precision Medicine for more Oxygen (P4O2) consortium COVID-19 extension aims to identify long COVID patients that are at risk for developing chronic lung disease and furthermore, to identify treatable traits and innovative personalized therapeutic strategies for prevention and treatment. This study aims to describe the study design and first results of the P4O2 COVID-19 cohort. Methods: The P4O2 COVID-19 study is a prospective multicenter cohort study that includes nested personalized counseling intervention trial. Patients, aged 40–65 years, were recruited from outpatient post-COVID clinics from five hospitals in The Netherlands. During study visits at 3–6 and 12–18 months post-COVID-19, data from medical records, pulmonary function tests, chest computed tomography scans and biological samples were collected and questionnaires were administered. Furthermore, exposome data was collected at the patient’s home and state-of-the-art imaging techniques as well as multi-omics analyses will be performed on collected data. Results: 95 long COVID patients were enrolled between May 2021 and September 2022. The current study showed persistence of clinical symptoms and signs of pulmonary function test/radiological abnormalities in post-COVID patients at 3–6 months post-COVID. The most commonly reported symptoms included respiratory symptoms (78.9%), neurological symptoms (68.4%) and fatigue (67.4%). Female sex and infection with the Delta, compared with the Beta, SARS-CoV-2 variant were significantly associated with more persisting symptom categories. Conclusions: The P4O2 COVID-19 study contributes to our understanding of the long-term health impacts of COVID-19. Furthermore, P4O2 COVID-19 can lead to the identification of different phenotypes of long COVID patients, for example those that are at risk for developing chronic lung disease. Understanding the mechanisms behind the different phenotypes and identifying these patients at an early stage can help to develop and optimize prevention and treatment strategies.</p