Association of life's essential 8 and asthma: mediating effect of inflammation and oxidative stress.

BACKGROUND: The association of cardiovascular health (CVH) with asthma risk in U.S. adults remains unclear. This study aimed to explore the association of Life's Essential 8 (LE8), a measurement of CVH, with asthma and investigate the potential mediating effect of inflammation and oxidative stress. METHODS: The data was obtained from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) in 2005-2018. LE8 score (range 0 ∼ 100) was measured and categorized as low (<50), moderate (50 ∼ <80), and high (≥80) CVH. Survey-weighted logistic regression and restricted cubic spline model were employed to explore the association between LE8 score and asthma. Mediation analyses were conducted to identify the mediating effects of inflammation and oxidative stress biomarkers. RESULTS: This study included 10,932 participants aged ≥ 20 years, among whom 890 (8.14%) reported prevalent asthma. After adjusting for all covariates, the odd ratios (OR) for asthma were 0.67 (95% confidence interval (CI): 0.48, 0.94) in the moderate CVH group and 0.52 (95% CI: 0.34, 0.79) in the high CVH group compared with the low CVH group, respectively. The OR for asthma was 0.85 (95% CI: 0.78, 0.93) for every 10 score increase in LE8 score, and linear dose-response relationship was observed (p = 0.0642). Mediation analyses showed that inflammation and oxidative stress mediated 15.97% and 11.50% of the association between LE8 score and asthma, respectively (all p < 0.05). CONCLUSIONS: LE8 score was negatively associated with asthma, and inflammation and oxidative stress partially mediated this association. It is recommended that maintaining optimal CVH may prevent asthma.

Mining of neurological adverse events associated with valbenazine: A post-marketing analysis based on FDA adverse event reporting system.

PURPOSE: Valbenazine is commonly used to treat tardive dyskinesia, and we conducted a pharmacovigilance analysis using the Food and Drug Administration Adverse Event Reporting System (FAERS) to evaluate neurological safety signals associated with valbenazine. METHODS: Data was collected in FAERS from the second quarter of 2017 to the fourth quarter of 2023 for data cleaning. Neurological adverse event (AE) signals of valbenazine were mined by calculating reporting odds ratios (ROR), information component (IC) and empirical Bayesian geometric mean (EBGM). The serious and non-serious cases and signals were prioritized using a rating scale. RESULTS: The number of neurological AE reports where the primary suspect (PS) drug was 8981 for valbenazine. Significant AE signals were identified by the preferred term (PT) analysis for valbenazine, including somnolence (ROR 19.69), tremor (ROR 15.17), and tardive dyskinesia (ROR 236.91), among which 18 AEs were identified as new signals. Patient age (p < 0.009) and sex (p = 0.197) might be associated with an increased risk of neurological AE severity. Notably, the association between valbenazine and neurological disorders remained when stratified by sex, age, and reporter type. AE timing analysis was performed for the drug and four moderate clinical priority signals [i.e., somnolence, balance disorder, parkinsonism, and akathisia (priorities 7)], showing the same early failure type profiles. CONCLUSIONS: The increase in neurological safety signals is identified in the post-marketing research of valbenazine. Clinicians need to pay attention to not only common AEs but also be alert to new neurological AE signals when using valbenazine.

Causal effects of sleep traits on metabolic syndrome and its components: a Mendelian randomization study.

PURPOSE: Previous observational studies have suggested an association between sleep disturbance and metabolic syndrome (MetS). However, it remains unclear whether this association is causal. This study aims to investigate the causal effects of sleep-related traits on MetS using Mendelian randomization (MR). METHODS: Single-nucleotide polymorphisms strongly associated with daytime napping, insomnia, chronotype, short sleep, and long sleep were selected as genetic instruments from the corresponding genome-wide association studies (GWAS). Summary-level data for MetS were obtained from two independent GWAS datasets. Univariable and multivariable MR analyses were conducted to investigate and verify the causal effects of sleep traits on MetS. RESULTS: The univariable MR analysis demonstrated that genetically predicted daytime napping and insomnia were associated with increased risk of MetS in both discovery dataset (OR daytime napping = 1.630, 95% CI 1.273, 2.086; OR insomnia = 1.155, 95% CI 1.108, 1.204) and replication dataset (OR daytime napping = 1.325, 95% CI 1.131, 1.551; OR insomnia = 1.072, 95% CI 1.046, 1.099). For components, daytime napping was positively associated with triglycerides (beta = 0.383, 95% CI 0.160, 0.607) and waist circumference (beta = 0.383, 95% CI 0.184, 0.583). Insomnia was positively associated with hypertension (OR = 1.101, 95% CI 1.042, 1.162) and waist circumference (beta = 0.067, 95% CI 0.031, 0.104). The multivariable MR analysis indicated that the adverse effect of daytime napping and insomnia on MetS persisted after adjusting for BMI, smoking, drinking, and another sleep trait. CONCLUSION: Our study supported daytime napping and insomnia were potential causal factors for MetS characterized by central obesity, hypertension, or elevated triglycerides.

Enhanced crystallization of solution-processed perovskite using urea as an additive for large-grain MAPbI3perovskite solar cells.

Perovskite crystal quality plays an important role in perovskite solar cells, given that multiple grain boundaries and trap states in the perovskite films hamper further enhancement of solar cell efficiency. Using the solution method to prepare perovskite films with large grains and high coverage requires further improvements. Herein, we introduce Lewis base urea as an additive into the precursor of perovskite to control the crystallization dynamics, allowing for large-grain crystal growth. As a result, MAPbI3films with urea as an additive are well crystallized with large crystal grains of sizes >3µm. The large-grain perovskite is found to simultaneously improve the power-conversion efficiency (PCE) and device stability. With an optimal urea additive of 20 mol%, the PCE is significantly increased from 15.47% for the reference MAPbI3solar cell to 18.53% for the device with MAPbI3with urea as an additive. Finally, the optimized device demonstrates excellent stability and maintains 80% of the initial PCE after 60 days.