The athletic gut microbiota

The microorganisms in the gastrointestinal tract play a significant role in nutrient uptake, vitamin synthesis, energy harvest, inflammatory modulation, and host immune response, collectively contributing to human health. Important factors such as age, birth method, antibiotic use, and diet have been established as formative factors that shape the gut microbiota. Yet, less described is the role that exercise plays, particularly how associated factors and stressors, such as sport/exercise-specific diet, environment, and their interactions, may influence the gut microbiota. In particular, high-level athletes offer remarkable physiology and metabolism (including muscular strength/power, aerobic capacity, energy expenditure, and heat production) compared to sedentary individuals, and provide unique insight in gut microbiota research. In addition, the gut microbiota with its ability to harvest energy, modulate the immune system, and influence gastrointestinal health, likely plays an important role in athlete health, wellbeing, and sports performance. Therefore, understanding the mechanisms in which the gut microbiota could play in the role of influencing athletic performance is of considerable interest to athletes who work to improve their results in competition as well as reduce recovery time during training. Ultimately this research is expected to extend beyond athletics as understanding optimal fitness has applications for overall health and wellness in larger communities. Therefore, the purpose of this narrative review is to summarize current knowledge of the athletic gut microbiota and the factors that shape it. Exercise, associated dietary factors, and the athletic classification promote a more "health-associated" gut microbiota. Such features include a higher abundance of health-promoting bacterial species, increased microbial diversity, functional metabolic capacity, and microbial-associated metabolites, stimulation of bacterial abundance that can modulate mucosal immunity, and improved gastrointestinal barrier function

The effects of long-term saturated fat enriched diets on the brain lipidome

The brain is highly enriched in lipids, where they influence neurotransmission, synaptic plasticity and inflammation. Non-pathological modulation of the brain lipidome has not been previously reported and few studies have investigated the interplay between plasma lipid homeostasis relative to cerebral lipids. This study explored whether changes in plasma lipids induced by chronic consumption of a well-tolerated diet enriched in saturated fatty acids (SFA) was associated with parallel changes in cerebral lipid homeostasis. Male C57Bl/6 mice were fed regular chow or the SFA diet for six months. Plasma, hippocampus (HPF) and cerebral cortex (CTX) lipids were analysed by LC-ESI-MS/MS. A total of 348 lipid species were determined, comprising 25 lipid classes. The general abundance of HPF and CTX lipids was comparable in SFA fed mice versus controls, despite substantial differences in plasma lipid-class abundance. However, significant differences in 50 specific lipid species were identified as a consequence of SFA treatment, restricted to phosphatidylcholine (PC), phosphatidylethanolamine (PE), alkyl-PC, alkenyl-PC, alkyl-PE, alkenyl-PE, cholesterol ester (CE), diacylglycerol (DG), phosphatidylinositol (PI) and phosphatidylserine (PS) classes. Partial least squares regression of the HPF/CTX lipidome versus plasma lipidome revealed the plasma lipidome could account for a substantial proportion of variation. The findings demonstrate that cerebral abundance of specific lipid species is strongly associated with plasma lipid homeostasis

The athletic gut microbiota.

The microorganisms in the gastrointestinal tract play a significant role in nutrient uptake, vitamin synthesis, energy harvest, inflammatory modulation, and host immune response, collectively contributing to human health. Important factors such as age, birth method, antibiotic use, and diet have been established as formative factors that shape the gut microbiota. Yet, less described is the role that exercise plays, particularly how associated factors and stressors, such as sport/exercise-specific diet, environment, and their interactions, may influence the gut microbiota. In particular, high-level athletes offer remarkable physiology and metabolism (including muscular strength/power, aerobic capacity, energy expenditure, and heat production) compared to sedentary individuals, and provide unique insight in gut microbiota research. In addition, the gut microbiota with its ability to harvest energy, modulate the immune system, and influence gastrointestinal health, likely plays an important role in athlete health, wellbeing, and sports performance. Therefore, understanding the mechanisms in which the gut microbiota could play in the role of influencing athletic performance is of considerable interest to athletes who work to improve their results in competition as well as reduce recovery time during training. Ultimately this research is expected to extend beyond athletics as understanding optimal fitness has applications for overall health and wellness in larger communities. Therefore, the purpose of this narrative review is to summarize current knowledge of the athletic gut microbiota and the factors that shape it. Exercise, associated dietary factors, and the athletic classification promote a more "health-associated" gut microbiota. Such features include a higher abundance of health-promoting bacterial species, increased microbial diversity, functional metabolic capacity, and microbial-associated metabolites, stimulation of bacterial abundance that can modulate mucosal immunity, and improved gastrointestinal barrier function

Applying artificial intelligence to disease staging: Deep learning for improved staging of diabetic retinopathy

Disease staging involves the assessment of disease severity or progression and is used for treatment selection. In diabetic retinopathy, disease staging using a wide area is more desirable than that using a limited area. We investigated if deep learning artificial intelligence (AI) could be used to grade diabetic retinopathy and determine treatment and prognosis.The retrospective study analyzed 9,939 posterior pole photographs of 2,740 patients with diabetes. Nonmydriatic 45° field color fundus photographs were taken of four fields in each eye annually at Jichi Medical University between May 2011 and June 2015. A modified fully randomly initialized GoogLeNet deep learning neural network was trained on 95% of the photographs using manual modified Davis grading of three additional adjacent photographs. We graded 4,709 of the 9,939 posterior pole fundus photographs using real prognoses. In addition, 95% of the photographs were learned by the modified GoogLeNet. Main outcome measures were prevalence and bias-adjusted Fleiss' kappa (PABAK) of AI staging of the remaining 5% of the photographs.The PABAK to modified Davis grading was 0.64 (accuracy, 81%; correct answer in 402 of 496 photographs). The PABAK to real prognosis grading was 0.37 (accuracy, 96%).We propose a novel AI disease-staging system for grading diabetic retinopathy that involves a retinal area not typically visualized on fundoscopy and another AI that directly suggests treatments and determines prognoses

Bortezomib Downregulates MGMT Expression in T98G Glioblastoma Cells

The efficacy of treatment for glioblastoma multiforme is currently limited by the development of resistance, particularly, but not exclusively, due to the expression of the DNA repair enzyme O6-methylguanine methyltransferase (MGMT) in a significant proportion of astrocytic tumors. MGMT is post-translationally regulated by the 26S proteasome, a multi-subunit organelle responsible for degradation of misfolded cellular proteins. The boronic acid dipeptide bortezomib is the first and only proteasome inhibitor in clinical use so far, and has been reported as a strategy to restrict growth and promote apoptosis of glioblastoma cells. In this study we investigated the effect of bortezomib on MGMT expression in T98G cells, looking for an effect on the nuclear factor kappa B (NF kappa B) pathway, which is a major player in MGMT regulation and is also under tight control by the ubiquitin-proteasome system. Administration of bortezomib led to a significant reduction of T98G cell viability and induction of DNA fragmentation. These effects coincided with reduced expression of MGMT transcript levels, and a decrease in cellular amount and I kappa B alpha-mediated, proteasomal activity-dependent nuclear translocation of NF kappa B. In addition, bortezomib-induced phosphorylation of the translation initiation factor 2alpha (eIF2 alpha) was in parallel with translational repression of MGMT. Taken together, these results suggest a novel role for bortezomib as a potent MGMT inhibitor and support its ongoing testing as a chemosensitizer in glioblastoma