Associations of alcohol intake with subclinical carotid atherosclerosis in 22,000 Chinese adults.

BACKGROUND AND AIMS: We investigated the causal relevance of alcohol intake with measures of carotid artery thickness and atherosclerosis in Chinese adults. METHODS: The study included 22,384 adults from the China Kadoorie Biobank, with self-reported alcohol use at baseline and resurvey, carotid artery ultrasound measurements, and genotyping data for ALDH2-rs671 and ADH1B-rs1229984. Associations of carotid intima media thickness (cIMT), any carotid plaque, and total plaque burden (derived from plaque number and size) with self-reported (conventional analyses) and genotype-predicted mean alcohol intake (Mendelian randomization) were assessed using linear and logistic regression models. RESULTS: Overall 34.2% men and 2.1% women drank alcohol regularly at baseline. Mean cIMT was 0.70 mm in men and 0.64 mm in women, with 39.1% and 26.5% having carotid plaque, respectively. Among men, cIMT was not associated with self-reported or genotype-predicted mean alcohol intake. The risk of plaque increased significantly with self-reported intake among current drinkers (odds ratio 1.42 [95% CI 1.14-1.76] per 280 g/week), with directionally consistent findings with genotype-predicted mean intake (1.21 [0.99-1.49]). Higher alcohol intake was significantly associated with higher carotid plaque burden in both conventional (0.19 [0.10-0.28] mm higher per 280 g/week) and genetic analyses (0.09 [0.02-0.17]). Genetic findings in women suggested the association of genotype-predicted alcohol with carotid plaque burden in men was likely to due to alcohol itself, rather than pleiotropic genotypic effects. CONCLUSIONS: Higher alcohol intake was associated with a higher carotid plaque burden, but not with cIMT, providing support for a potential causal association of alcohol intake with carotid atherosclerosis.

The edible Lactobacillus paracasei X11 with Konjac glucomannan promotes intestinal motility in zebrafish.

BACKGROUND: Constipation is a gastrointestinal symptom with high incidence rate and large number of patients. It is becoming one of the urgent medical problems. Poor intestinal motility is one of the important causes of constipation. Current drug treatments for constipation are associated with many side effects; thus, it is necessary to study more effective treatment methods and potential mechanism. METHODS: A zebrafish model of intestinal motility obstruction was established by loperamide hydrochloride to evaluate the effect of probiotic, food ingredients, and combination on intestinal peristalsis according to intestinal peristalsis frequency counts. The gastrointestinal survival ability of the best probiotics was evaluated by surface hydrophobicity, self-aggregation, acid and bile salt tolerance, and gastrointestinal transit tolerance. Interactions between probiotics and food ingredients were studied in vivo and in vitro. The expression of 5-HT was detected by ELISA and fluorescence immunoassay, and 5-HT related genes were detected by RT-PCR. KEY RESULTS: We obtained the probiotics, food ingredients, and combination that effectively promoted intestinal peristalsis, X11 and YRL577, P. persica and KGM, KGM + X11, respectively. Both KGM and P. persica promoted colonization of probiotics in vivo. KGM + X11 could effectively promote the increase in 5-HT synthesis in zebrafish via up-regulating gene expression of TPH-1, TPH-2, and 5-HTR and down-regulating gene expression of SERT. The specific in-depth mechanism needs further study. CONCLUSIONS AND INFERENCES: The combinations of KGM with X11 effectively promoted intestinal peristalsis. We provide a theoretical basis for new modalities that can promote intestinal peristalsis and alleviate constipation.

Lactobacillus casei YRL577 combined with plant extracts reduce markers of non-alcoholic fatty liver disease in mice.

Probiotics and plant extracts are considered to prevent the development of non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD). The present study explores the effects of using both probiotics and plant extracts on NAFLD. The present study evaluated the effects of plant extracts on lipid droplet accumulation and the growth of probiotics in vitro. A C57BL/6 mouse model was used to examine the effects of probiotics and plant extracts on NAFLD. Body weight and food intake were measured. The levels of serum lipids, oxidative stress and the liver injury index were determined using commercial kits. Haematoxylin and eosin staining, GC and real-time PCR were also used for analysis. The results revealed that administration of Lactobacillus casei YRL577 and L. paracasei X11 with resveratrol (RES) or tea polyphenols (TP) significantly reduced the levels of total cholesterol, TAG and LDL-cholesterol and increased the level of the HDL-cholesterol. The groups of L. casei YRL577 with RES and TP also regulated the liver structure, oxidative stress and injury. Furthermore, L. casei YRL577 with TP exhibited a more positive effect towards improving the NAFLD and increased the concentrations of the butyric acid than other three combined groups. L. casei YRL577 with TP up-regulated the mRNA levels of the farnesoid X receptor and fibroblast growth factor 15 and decreased the mRNA levels of the apical Na-dependent bile acid transporter. These findings showed that L. casei YRL577 + TP-modified genes in the intestinal bile acid pathway improved markers of NAFLD.

Multilayer films of layered double hydroxide/polyaniline and their ammonia sensing behavior.

This paper reports the fabrication of layered double hydroxide (LDH)/conductive polymer multilayer films by alternate assembly of exfoliated ZnAl-LDH nanosheets and polyaniline (PANI) on silicon wafer substrates using the layer-by-layer (LBL) deposition technology. UV-vis absorption spectroscopy indicates a stepwise and regular growth of the (LDH/PANI)n multilayer films upon increasing deposition cycles. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and atomic force microscopy (AFM) demonstrate that the surfaces of the films are microscopy smooth and uniform with a thickness of 2 nm per bilayer. Furthermore, the resulting (LDH/PANI)n multilayer films possess high selectively response to ammonia at room temperature. The presence of LDH nanosheets plays a critical role on the gas sensing for the pure PANI film has very low response to ammonia. The LBL assembly process based on LDH combines the conducting polymer and nano-inorganic material, which provides opportunities to develop new inorganic-organic films for gas sensing.