Toxicity of mercury to hybridoma TA7 cells

Environmental mercury and mercury compound contamination has increased dramatically since the industrial revolution. This paper describes the toxic effects of mercury on a culture of hybridoma TA7 cells, which produce antibodies against the A-subunit of viskumin. Cells were cultivated on 96- well flat-bottomed plates with RPMI-1640 medium supplemented with 10% fetal calf serum at 37°C in 5% CO2/95% air. The cells were exposed to 0.1nM/l- 10μM/l Hg2(NO3)2·2H2O (mercury nitrate) during the exponential growth phase. Toxicity was assessed by using the colorimetric MTT (tetrazolium) assay after exposure for 48 hours. Cell growth and cell survival were evaluated by using percentage indices of cellular content in exposed cells when compared to non-exposed control cells. The concentrations of the no- effect level, the lowest observed effect level and the the highest toxic effect level were registered. The toxic effects of the mercury compound on the hybridoma cells occurred between 0.1μM/l and 10μM/l.Peer reviewe

Multistage signal-interactive nanoparticles improve tumor targeting through efficient nanoparticle-cell communications

Supramolecular & Biomaterials Chemistr

Use of Repeated Blood Pressure and Cholesterol Measurements to Improve Cardiovascular Disease Risk Prediction: An Individual-Participant-Data Meta-Analysis

The added value of incorporating information from repeated blood pressure and cholesterol measurements to predict cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk has not been rigorously assessed. We used data on 191,445 adults from the Emerging Risk Factors Collaboration (38 cohorts from 17 countries with data encompassing 1962-2014) with more than 1 million measurements of systolic blood pressure, total cholesterol, and high-density lipoprotein cholesterol. Over a median 12 years of follow-up, 21,170 CVD events occurred. Risk prediction models using cumulative mean values of repeated measurements and summary measures from longitudinal modeling of the repeated measurements were compared with models using measurements from a single time point. Risk discrimination (Cindex) and net reclassification were calculated, and changes in C-indices were meta-analyzed across studies. Compared with the single-time-point model, the cumulative means and longitudinal models increased the C-index by 0.0040 (95% confidence interval (CI): 0.0023, 0.0057) and 0.0023 (95% CI: 0.0005, 0.0042), respectively. Reclassification was also improved in both models; compared with the single-time-point model, overall net reclassification improvements were 0.0369 (95% CI: 0.0303, 0.0436) for the cumulative-means model and 0.0177 (95% CI: 0.0110, 0.0243) for the longitudinal model. In conclusion, incorporating repeated measurements of blood pressure and cholesterol into CVD risk prediction models slightly improves risk prediction

Repositioning of the global epicentre of non-optimal cholesterol

High blood cholesterol is typically considered a feature of wealthy western countries1,2. However, dietary and behavioural determinants of blood cholesterol are changing rapidly throughout the world3 and countries are using lipid-lowering medications at varying rates. These changes can have distinct effects on the levels of high-density lipoprotein (HDL) cholesterol and non-HDL cholesterol, which have different effects on human health4,5. However, the trends of HDL and non-HDL cholesterol levels over time have not been previously reported in a global analysis. Here we pooled 1,127 population-based studies that measured blood lipids in 102.6 million individuals aged 18 years and older to estimate trends from 1980 to 2018 in mean total, non-HDL and HDL cholesterol levels for 200 countries. Globally, there was little change in total or non-HDL cholesterol from 1980 to 2018. This was a net effect of increases in low- and middle-income countries, especially in east and southeast Asia, and decreases in high-income western countries, especially those in northwestern Europe, and in central and eastern Europe. As a result, countries with the highest level of non-HDL cholesterol—which is a marker of cardiovascular risk—changed from those in western Europe such as Belgium, Finland, Greenland, Iceland, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland and Malta in 1980 to those in Asia and the Pacific, such as Tokelau, Malaysia, The Philippines and Thailand. In 2017, high non-HDL cholesterol was responsible for an estimated 3.9 million (95% credible interval 3.7 million–4.2 million) worldwide deaths, half of which occurred in east, southeast and south Asia. The global repositioning of lipid-related risk, with non-optimal cholesterol shifting from a distinct feature of high-income countries in northwestern Europe, north America and Australasia to one that affects countries in east and southeast Asia and Oceania should motivate the use of population-based policies and personal interventions to improve nutrition and enhance access to treatment throughout the world.</p

A century of trends in adult human height

Being taller is associated with enhanced longevity, and higher education and earnings. We reanalysed 1472 population-based studies, with measurement of height on more than 18.6 million participants to estimate mean height for people born between 1896 and 1996 in 200 countries. The largest gain in adult height over the past century has occurred in South Korean women and Iranian men, who became 20.2 cm (95% credible interval 17.5-22.7) and 16.5 cm (13.3-19.7) taller, respectively. In contrast, there was little change in adult height in some sub-Saharan African countries and in South Asia over the century of analysis. The tallest people over these 100 years are men born in the Netherlands in the last quarter of 20th century, whose average heights surpassed 182.5 cm, and the shortest were women born in Guatemala in 1896 (140.3 cm; 135.8-144.8). The height differential between the tallest and shortest populations was 19-20 cm a century ago, and has remained the same for women and increased for men a century later despite substantial changes in the ranking of countries

Repositioning of the global epicentre of non-optimal cholesterol

High blood cholesterol is typically considered a feature of wealthy western countries1,2. However, dietary and behavioural determinants of blood cholesterol are changing rapidly throughout the world3 and countries are using lipid-lowering medications at varying rates. These changes can have distinct effects on the levels of high-density lipoprotein (HDL) cholesterol and non-HDL cholesterol, which have different effects on human health4,5. However, the trends of HDL and non-HDL cholesterol levels over time have not been previously reported in a global analysis. Here we pooled 1,127 population-based studies that measured blood lipids in 102.6 million individuals aged 18 years and older to estimate trends from 1980 to 2018 in mean total, non-HDL and HDL cholesterol levels for 200 countries. Globally, there was little change in total or non-HDL cholesterol from 1980 to 2018. This was a net effect of increases in low- and middle-income countries, especially in east and southeast Asia, and decreases in high-income western countries, especially those in northwestern Europe, and in central and eastern Europe. As a result, countries with the highest level of non-HDL cholesterol�which is a marker of cardiovascular risk�changed from those in western Europe such as Belgium, Finland, Greenland, Iceland, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland and Malta in 1980 to those in Asia and the Pacific, such as Tokelau, Malaysia, The Philippines and Thailand. In 2017, high non-HDL cholesterol was responsible for an estimated 3.9 million (95 credible interval 3.7 million�4.2 million) worldwide deaths, half of which occurred in east, southeast and south Asia. The global repositioning of lipid-related risk, with non-optimal cholesterol shifting from a distinct feature of high-income countries in northwestern Europe, north America and Australasia to one that affects countries in east and southeast Asia and Oceania should motivate the use of population-based policies and personal interventions to improve nutrition and enhance access to treatment throughout the world. © 2020, The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Limited

Rising rural body-mass index is the main driver of the global obesity epidemic in adults

Body-mass index (BMI) has increased steadily in most countries in parallel with a rise in the proportion of the population who live in cities 1,2 . This has led to a widely reported view that urbanization is one of the most important drivers of the global rise in obesity 3�6 . Here we use 2,009 population-based studies, with measurements of height and weight in more than 112 million adults, to report national, regional and global trends in mean BMI segregated by place of residence (a rural or urban area) from 1985 to 2017. We show that, contrary to the dominant paradigm, more than 55 of the global rise in mean BMI from 1985 to 2017�and more than 80 in some low- and middle-income regions�was due to increases in BMI in rural areas. This large contribution stems from the fact that, with the exception of women in sub-Saharan Africa, BMI is increasing at the same rate or faster in rural areas than in cities in low- and middle-income regions. These trends have in turn resulted in a closing�and in some countries reversal�of the gap in BMI between urban and rural areas in low- and middle-income countries, especially for women. In high-income and industrialized countries, we noted a persistently higher rural BMI, especially for women. There is an urgent need for an integrated approach to rural nutrition that enhances financial and physical access to healthy foods, to avoid replacing the rural undernutrition disadvantage in poor countries with a more general malnutrition disadvantage that entails excessive consumption of low-quality calories. © 2019, The Author(s)

Natural antioxidants and anticarcinogens in nutrition, health and disease

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