Urbanization associates with restricted gut microbiome diversity and delayed maturation in infants.

Alterations of the microbiome are linked to increasingly common diseases such as obesity, allergy, and inflammatory bowel disease. Post-industrial lifestyles are thought to contribute to the gut microbiome alterations that cause or aggravate these diseases. Comparing communities across the industrialization spectrum can reveal associations between gut microbiome alterations and lifestyle and health, and help pinpoint which specific aspect of the post-industrial lifestyle is linked to microbiome alterations. Here, we compare the gut microbiomes of 60 mother and infant pairs from rural and urban areas of Senegal over two time points. We find that urban mothers, who were more frequently overweight, had different gut microbiome compositions than rural mothers, showing an expansion of Lachnospiraceae and Enterobacter. Urban infants, on the other hand, showed a delayed gut microbiome maturation and a higher susceptibility to infectious diseases. Thus, we identify new microbiome features associated with industrialization, whose association with disease may be further investigated.

[Experiment of self blood pressure measurement at home in haemodialysis patients in a hospital unit]. / Expérience de l'automesure tensionnelle à domicile chez des patients hémodialysés dans une unité hospitalière.

We analyzed, by home blood pressure (BP) self-measurement and conventional predialytic measurement of BP, a cohort of haemodialysis patients in two hospital units between 2008 and 2010. All patients who already own a BP self-measurement device were included in this study. BP was recorded by the two methods for one week. The number of patients with a validated self-measurement device was 69 of 350 (21%) and 60 patients were included in analyses. These patients were divided into 23 (38%) permanent uncontrolled hypertensive (elevated BP at home and in hospital), 13 (22%) masked hypertensive (normal BP in hospital and elevated at home), eight (13%) white coat hypertensive (elevated BP in hospital and normal at home), and 16 (27%) permanent controlled normotensive (normal BP in hospital and at home). Patient compliance with all the self BP measurements was 95%. We did not find in this cohort the factors associated with masked hypertension in the general population such as being male, smoking and high body mass index. These results obtained in an in-hospital dialysis unit should be extrapolated with caution to all haemodialysis patients. However it is, to our knowledge, the first study on home BP self-measurement published in patients undergoing haemodialysis in France. A significant proportion of patients have masked hypertension. This should alert clinicians because of the poor cardiovascular prognosis associated with masked hypertension.