Iron mobilisation pattern in the airway epithelium: tipping the immune balance in asthma.

Iron in the asthma airway epithelium https://bit.ly/3WApNiv.

Association of atopic diseases with atrial fibrillation risk: A systematic review and meta-analysis.

Background: Atopic diseases and atrial fibrillation (AF) seem to share an underlying inflammatory pathology. To date, some population-based studies have explored the relationship between the two. We aimed to conduct a meta-analysis to examine the role of atopic condition in AF risk. Methods: All relevant observational studies in PubMed and EMBASE databases up to November 2021 were searched. In RevMan 5.3, we used random-effects or fixed-effects models to pool the effect sizes of hazard ratio (HR), odds ratio (OR) and their corresponding 95% confidence intervals (95% CI). In addition, I2 and Cochran Q test were used to evaluate the heterogeneity. Results: A total of 2488 records were retrieved. After screening according to the predetermined criteria, 6 cohort studies and 2 case-control studies were included in this meta-analysis. Herein, the meta-analysis of 6 cohort studies suggested that atopic diseases potentially increased the AF risk with the pooled HR of 1.26 (95%CI,1.14-1.39), while the pooled effect size (OR, 1.04; 95%CI,0.74-1.46) of 2 case-control studies was not statistically significant. Based on the types of atopic diseases, further subgroup analyses of 6 cohort studies revealed that asthma, allergic rhinitis, and atopic dermatitis all potentially increased the risk of subsequent AF with the pooled HR of 1.41 (n = 4; 95%CI, 1.25-1.58), 1.12 (n = 1; 95%CI,1.10-1.14) and 1.06 (n = 3; 95%CI, 1.01-1.12), respectively. Conclusion: This meta-analysis demonstrated that patients with atopic diseases have a higher risk of developing AF, particularly those with asthma.

Effects and safety of metformin in patients with concurrent diabetes mellitus and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease: a systematic review and meta-analysis.

Aim: This study aimed to investigate the effects and safety of metformin in patients with concurrent diabetes mellitus (DM) and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). Methods: PubMed, Embase, Web of Science, the China National Knowledge, and Cochrane Database were searched to find studies that examined the effects and safety of metformin in patients with concurrent DM and COPD. We conducted a meta-analysis with a risk ratio (RR) and assessed the quality of included studies and pooled evidence. Results: Eight studies were involved. Metformin was associated with lower risk of COPD-related hospitalizations (RR: 0.72, 95% CI: 0.53-0.98; I2= 89%) and all-cause mortality (RR: 0.60, 95% CI: 0.36-1.01, I2= 69%) in patients with concurrent DM and COPD, but did not increase the risk of hyperlactatemia (RR: 1.14, 95% CI: 0.92-1.41, I2 = 8%). Conclusions: Metformin use is associated with lower risk of COPD-related hospitalizations and risk of all-cause mortality without increasing the risk of hyperlactatemia. Considerations should be given to conduct more high-quality randomized trials involving larger samples.

Type 1 diabetes and asthma: a systematic review and meta-analysis of observational studies.

PURPOSE: Type 1 diabetes (T1D) and asthma are both the top concurrent non-communicable diseases in the world, and the existence of a relationship between the two is an area of debate. METHODS: All eligible observational studies in PubMed and EMBASE databases from inception to August 2021 were searched for data extraction and analysis. The pooled odds ratio (OR) with corresponding 95% confidence intervals (95% CI) was evaluated using fixed-effects or random-effects models in RevMan 5.3, and I2 and Cochran Q tests were used to assess the heterogeneity. RESULTS: 22 studies with 25,578 T1D and 3,330,901 non-T1D were included in this meta-analysis. After data analysis, there seems to be no apparent connectivity between asthma and T1D as the crude OR (cOR) was 1.07 (95%CI, 0.93-1.23). Nevertheless, after limiting the meta-analysis to 6 studies with adjusted OR (aOR) available, the results suggested a positive association between T1D and asthma (aOR, 1.15; 95%CI, 1.06-1.25). Corresponding with this, a meta-analysis of cohort studies also found a positive association between T1D and asthma with the pooled cOR of 1.27 (95% CI, 1.09-1.49) and aOR of 1.15 (95%CI, 1.05-1.26). Further analysis of 7 studies in which the diagnosis of asthma precedes T1D onset revealed that asthma patients are at increased risk of subsequent T1D with the pooled cOR of 1.23 (95%CI, 1.04-1.44) and aOR of 1.58 (95% CI, 1.11-2.24). CONCLUSION: Our meta-analysis suggests a possible association between T1D and asthma, and patients who were previously diagnosed with asthma carried higher odds of developing T1D.

A novel wrist rehabilitation exoskeleton using 3D-printed multi-segment mechanism.

Wrist rehabilitation exoskeleton can effectively assist wrist recovery from stroke. However, current wrist rehabilitation devices have shortcomings such as heavy weight, uncertain motion trajectory, etc. This paper proposes a wrist rehabilitation robot driven by 3D-printed multi-segment mechanism to realize wrist rehabilitation in three degrees of freedom. We conducted three tests including bearing force, rehabilitation trajectory, range of motion tests. The results prove this exoskeleton can provide enough force and torque, and it can achieve larger range of motion within the same motor displacement, that makes it more compact and lighter in hardware and less expensive in cost. Moreover, its motion trajectory can be controlled and stable, that makes it more applicable for real application in human rehabilitation.Clinical Relevance- Stroke is the leading cause of hemiplegia, and this symptom usually degrades patients' living standard and flexibility. This device can offer patients stable wrist rehabilitation training in three degrees of freedom with compact and lightweight characteristics.

An Attention-Controlled Hand Exoskeleton for the Rehabilitation of Finger Extension and Flexion Using a Rigid-Soft Combined Mechanism.

Hand rehabilitation exoskeletons are in need of improving key features such as simplicity, compactness, bi-directional actuation, low cost, portability, safe human-robotic interaction, and intuitive control. This article presents a brain-controlled hand exoskeleton based on a multi-segment mechanism driven by a steel spring. Active rehabilitation training is realized using a threshold of the attention value measured by an electroencephalography (EEG) sensor as a brain-controlled switch for the hand exoskeleton. We present a prototype implementation of this rigid-soft combined multi-segment mechanism with active training and provide a preliminary evaluation. The experimental results showed that the proposed mechanism could generate enough range of motion with a single input by distributing an actuated linear motion into the rotational motions of finger joints during finger flexion/extension. The average attention value in the experiment of concentration with visual guidance was significantly higher than that in the experiment without visual guidance. The feasibility of the attention-based control with visual guidance was proven with an overall exoskeleton actuation success rate of 95.54% (14 human subjects). In the exoskeleton actuation experiment using the general threshold, it performed just as good as using the customized thresholds; therefore, a general threshold of the attention value can be set for a certain group of users in hand exoskeleton activation.