Intermittent fasting positively modulates human gut microbial diversity and ameliorates blood lipid profile.

Aim: The aim was to evaluate the impact of intermittent fasting (IF) on human body mass index (BMI) and serum lipid profile thorough constructive rectification of gut microbiota. Methods and results: Fourteen healthy women and thirty-one men were included in the study. Their blood and fecal samples were collected before and at the end of the study. Blood parameters, anthropometric values, and gut microbiology were noted to investigate the impact of intermittent fasting (IF) on human gut microbiota and physiology. Our data revealed that IF reduces the body weight and improves blood lipid profile, such as increasing high-density lipoprotein (HDL) and decreasing total cholesterol, triglycerides, and low- and very low-density lipoprotein levels. IF also decreases culturable aerobic bacterial count and increased fungal count. It was also found that the gut metagenome is altered considerably after IF. The human fecal bacterial diversity exhibited significant changes in decreased overall bacterial population, increased bacterial diversity (alpha diversity), and promoted evenness within the bacterial population at the species level. Anti-inflammatory bacteria Lactobacillus and Bifidobacterium were favorably increased, while pathogenic bacteria were decreased. Conclusion: Collectively, these results indicated that IF could improve lipid profile and body weight in humans, and the potential mechanisms might be via regulating gut microbiota. Significance and impact of the study: We demonstrated for the first time that IF improved body weight and blood lipid profile, indicating that IF could mitigate gut microbiota in humans.

A Single-Channel Wireless EEG Headset Enabled Neural Activities Analysis for Mental Healthcare Applications.

Electroencephalography (EEG) is a technique of Electrophysiology used in a wide variety of scientific studies and applications. Inadequately, many commercial devices that are available and used worldwide for EEG monitoring are expensive that costs up to thousands of dollars. Over the past few years, because of advancements in technology, different cost-effective EEG recording devices have been made. One such device is a non-invasive single electrode commercial EEG headset called MindWave 002 (MW2), created by NeuroSky Inc that cost less than 100 USD. This work contributes in four distinct ways, first, how mental states such as a focused and relaxed can be identified based on EEG signals recorded by inexpensive MW2 is demonstrated for accurate information extraction. Second, MW2 is considered because apart from cost, the user's comfort level is enhanced due to non-invasive operation, low power consumption, portable small size, and a minimal number of detecting locations of MW2. Third, 2 situations were created to stimulate focus and relaxation states. Prior to analysis, the acquired brain signals were pre-processed to discard artefacts and noise, and band-pass filtering was performed for delta, theta, alpha, beta, and gamma wave extraction. Fourth, analysis of the shapes and nature of extracted waves was performed with power spectral density (PSD), mean amplitude values, and other parameters in LabVIEW. Finally, with comprehensive experiments, the mean values of the focused and relaxed signal EEG signals were found to be 30.23 µV and 15.330 µV respectively. Similarly, average PSD values showed an increase in theta wave value and a decrease in beta wave value related to the focus and relaxed state, respectively. We also analyzed the involuntary and intentional number of blinks recorded by the MW2 device. Our study can be used to check mental health wellness and could provide psychological treatment effects by training the mind to quickly enter a relaxed state and improve the person's ability to focus. In addition, this study can open new avenues for neurofeedback and brain control applications. Supplementary Information: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s11277-022-09731-w.

Fasting induced kisspeptin signaling suppression is regulated by glutamate mediated cues in adult male rhesus macaque (Macaca mulatta).

Kisspeptin signaling is suppressed by short term fasting. It has been reported that hypothalamic Kiss1 and Kiss1r mRNA expression decreased after 48h of fasting in male rhesus monkey. But the mechanism involved in the reduction of kisspeptin signaling after 48h of fasting is unknown. Recent studies have suggested the role of afferent excitatory and inhibitory pathways in the regulation of kisspeptin neurons. Therefore, this study was designed to observe the changes in the glutamate and GABA signaling during fed and 48h fasting states by performing immunofluorescence to examine the interaction of kisspeptin neurons with NR1 subunit of NMDA receptors and by performing SYBR green qRT-PCR to measure and quantify the levels of Kiss1, Kiss1r, NR1 and GAD67 mRNA in the POA and MBH of adult male rhesus macaque (Macaca mulatta) during 48h of fasting (n=2) and fed ad libitum (n=2). Plasma testosterone (p<0.05) and blood glucose levels were significantly (p<0.001) decreased after short term fasting. Our results clearly showed that expression of hypothalamic Kiss1, Kiss1r and NR1 mRNA was significantly (p<0.05) reduced in adult male rhesus monkeys which were fasted for 48h as compared to those which were fed ad libitum. There was no clear difference in the GAD67 mRNA contents between the two groups. Number of kisspeptin neurons and the interactions of kisspeptin neurons with NR1 were significantly (p<0.05) reduced after 48h fasting. These observations suggest that decreased kisspeptin signaling during fasting may occur due to reduction in glutamatergic inputs to kisspeptin neurons. Our results also suggest that fasting induced suppression of kisspeptin signaling is not mediated through GABAergic neurons.

Diagnostically untypable hepatitis C virus variants: it is time to resolve the problem.

Pakistan is a low income country with more than 10 million hepatitis C virus (HCV) infections and the burden is on continuous raise. Accurate viral genotyping is very critical for proper treatment of the infected individuals as the sustained virological response of the standard antiviral interferon therapy is genotype dependent. We observed at our diagnostic center that 15.6% of HCV patient's samples were not genotype-able by using Ohno et al method. The genotyped samples showed that 3a (68.3%) is the major prevalent genotype in Pakistan followed by 2a (10.3%), 3b (2.6%), 1b (1.5%), 2b (1.2%) and 1a (0.5%). Presence of large number of untypable HCV variants in the current study highlights an important issue of health care setup in Pakistan. Untypable HCV cases create difficulties in treatment of these patients. The problem of routine diagnostics setup of Pakistan should be addressed on priority basis to facilitate the medical professionals in patient's treatment and to help in achieving the maximum sustained virological response.