The association between energy-adjusted dietary inflammatory index and physical activity with sleep quality: a cross-sectional study.

BACKGROUND: The study aimed to assess the independent and interactive association of energy-adjusted dietary inflammatory index (E-DII) and physical activity (PA) with sleep quality. METHOD: A cross-sectional study was conducted on the 2466 participants (60% women). A 116-item food frequency questionnaire (FFQ) was applied to calculate E-DII, the International Physical Activity Questionnaire (IPAQ) long form for PA, and the Pittsburgh sleep quality index (PSQI) to assess sleep quality were collected via interview. Multivariate logistic regression was applied to assess independent and interactive associations of E-DII and PA with sleep quality. RESULT: No significant association was observed between E-DII and sleep quality (OR: 0.96, 95% CI: 0.92_1.01). Also, there was no significant association between the levels of PA and sleep quality. Women had 70% increased odds for poor sleep quality (OR: 1.7, 95% CI: 1.39_2.09) compared with men. No interactive association was observed between E-DII and PA levels with sleep quality. CONCLUSION: No significant association was observed between E-DII and PA levels with sleep quality. The study indicates a gender difference in sleep quality. Future prospective studies are required to confirm these findings.

Sugar sweetened beverages, natural fruit juices, and cancer: what we know and what still needs to be assessed.

Cancer is known as one of the leading causes of death in the world. In addition to early mortality, cancer is associated with disability in affected patients. Among environmental risk factors, special attention has been paid to the role of dietary factors. In recent decades, the consumption of sugar-sweetened beverages (SSBs) and natural fruit juices has increased. Several studies have assessed the effects of these beverages on human health and found that a higher intake of SSBs is associated with a greater risk of obesity, diabetes, cardiovascular diseases, hypertension, and non-alcoholic fatty liver disease. However, current evidence for cancer incidence and mortality is not conclusive. In the current review, we concluded that SSBs intake might be positively associated with cancer incidence/mortality through their increasing effects on obesity, inflammatory biomarkers, serum levels of insulin-like growth factor-I (IGF-I), and advanced glycation end-products. Such a positive association was also seen for natural fruit juices. However, types of natural fruit juices were not considered in most previous studies. In addition, some types of cancer including brain, lung, and renal cancers were not assessed in relation to SSBs and natural fruit juices. Therefore, further studies are needed in this regard.

Magnetic particle targeting for diagnosis and therapy of lung cancers.

Over the past decade, the growing interest in targeted lung cancer therapy has guided researchers toward the cutting edge of controlled drug delivery, particularly magnetic particle targeting. Targeting of tissues by magnetic particles has tackled several limitations of traditional drug delivery methods for both cancer detection (e.g., using magnetic resonance imaging) and therapy. Delivery of magnetic particles offers the key advantage of high efficiency in the local deposition of drugs in the target tissue with the least harmful effect on other healthy tissues. This review first overviews clinical aspects of lung morphology and pathogenesis as well as clinical features of lung cancer. It is followed by reviewing the advances in using magnetic particles for diagnosis and therapy of lung cancers: (i) a combination of magnetic particle targeting with MRI imaging for diagnosis and screening of lung cancers, (ii) magnetic drug targeting (MDT) through either intravenous injection and pulmonary delivery for lung cancer therapy, and (iii) computational simulations that models new and effective approaches for magnetic particle drug delivery to the lung, all supporting improved lung cancer treatment. The review further discusses future opportunities to improve the clinical performance of MDT for diagnosis and treatment of lung cancer and highlights clinical therapy application of the MDT as a new horizon to cure with minimal side effects a wide variety of lung diseases and possibly other acute respiratory syndromes (COVID-19, MERS, and SARS).

A new approach to design an efficient micropost array for enhanced direct-current insulator-based dielectrophoretic trapping.

Direct-current insulator-based dielectrophoresis (DC-iDEP) is a well-known technique that benefits from the electric field gradients generated by an array of insulating posts to separate or trap biological particles. The aim of this study is to provide a first geometrical relationship of the post array that independent of the particles and/or medium, maximizes the trapping. A novel figure of merit is proposed to maximize the particle trapping in the post array while minimizing the required voltage, with a similar footprint and channel thickness. Different post array models with the variation of transversal distance (10 to 60 µm), longitudinal distance (10 to 80 µm), and post radius (10 to 150 µm) were analyzed using COMSOL Multiphysics finite element software. The obtained results indicated that a post radius of 40 µm larger than the transversal distance between posts could enhance the trapping condition between 56 % (for a transversal distance of 10 µm) and 341 % (for a transversal distance of 60 µm). For the validation of the numerical results, several microchannels with embedded post arrays were manufactured in polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) and the particle trapping patterns of 6-µm-diameter polystyrene particles were measured experimentally. The experiments confirm the same trends as pointed out by the numerical analysis. The results show that this new figure of merit and geometrical relationship can be used to reduce the required electric field to achieve effective particle trapping and, therefore, avoid the negative effects of Joule heating in cells or viable particles. The main advantage of these results is that they depend only on the geometry of the micropost array and are valid for trapping different particles suspended in different media. Graphical abstract Analysis to maximize the particle trapping in the post array while minimizing the required voltage. I. Microfluidic channel design and experimental setup II. Numerical and experimental results. III. Maximum trapping value.