Knowledge Update

​London, Oct 18 (IANS) Pregnant women who are dissatisfied in their relationship may be at an increased risk of developing infectious diseases, which may in turn, also affect their children, researchers have found.

The risk of pregnant women with the lowest satisfaction in their relationship becoming ill is more than twice than those who are satisfied.

"The study does not prove that the first thing leads to the second. But those who report that they are dissatisfied in their relationship more often report illnesses during pregnancy. Their children are also reported ill more often during their first year," said Roger Ekeberg Henriksen from the University of Bergen in Norway.

"Infections during pregnancy may lead to complications and diseases later in life, Henriksen said, adding "dissatisfaction with your partner during pregnancy should be considered a risk factor for reproductive health." 

Relationship researchers have been usually interested in psychological factors such as depression and life quality. But social isolation and loneliness can also directly affect the physiology.

During stressed condition our immune system may be given lower priority, and we thus become less resistant towards infectious diseases from bacteria and viruses, the researchers said.

"If we look at brain research and other research on physiological mechanisms, we see that having a partner who is predictable and supportive may be decisive for our ability to handle stress. On the opposite side, stress responses may occur with the absence of social support," Henriksen stated.

In the study, Henriksen looked at the occurrence of eight different infectious diseases, from the common cold to stomach flu and inflammation of the ear. 

With children up to six months, the occurrence of all eight infections was higher when the mothers were dissatisfied in their relationship.

"If there's a lot of stress in your life and you have few good relations, this should be given particular attention. It might be a good idea to talk to your midwife or your general practitioner about this," Henriksen suggested.

For the study, the team collected data from the Norwegian Mother and Child Cohort Study (MoBa) -- a health study on mothers and their children since 1999. The study of pregnant women's infectious diseases includes more than 67,000 women. The study of children's infectious diseases includes nearly 91,000 women and more than 100,000 children.

​London, Oct 18 (IANS) Higher body mass index (BMI) in women before pregnancy can lead to shorter telomere length -- a biomarker for biological age -- in their newborns, according to a study.

Telomeres are structures at the ends of chromosomes which are vital in maintaining the stability of a person's genome as they protect chromosomes from degradation. 

"Compared with newborns of mothers with a normal BMI, newborns of women with obesity are older on a molecular level, because shortened telomere lengths mean that their cells have shorter lifespans," said Tim Nawrot, Professor at Hasselt University in Belgium. 

Telomere length, which is measured by the number of DNA base pairs they occupy, is directly linked to the number of times a cell can divide in its lifetime. 

Thus, longer telomeres allow cells to divide more often, providing a link between telomere length and biological age. 

Telomere length in adults has been associated with age-related diseases such as cardiovascular disease, Type 2 diabetes and increased mortality.

In the study, the research team found that for each one-point increase in the mothers' BMI, telomeres in the babies were about 50 base pairs shorter. 

According to the researchers, this 50 base pair shortening of telomere length is equivalent to the length that people normally lose in 1.1 - 1.6 years of adult life, which may increase the risk of chronic diseases in adulthood.

"Our results add to the growing body of evidence that high maternal BMI impacts foetal programming, which could lead to altered foetal development and later life diseases," Nawrot said. 

"So maintaining a healthy BMI during a woman's reproductive age may promote molecular longevity in the offspring," he added.

For the study, published in the journal BMC Medicine, the team involved 743 mothers, who were 17 to 44 years of age, and their newborn babies. 

​Sydney, Oct 18 (IANS) Researchers from University of Adelaide have developed a world's first optical sensor that can detect vitamin B12 in diluted human blood - a novel step towards developing a low-cost and portable deficiency test.

Vitamin B12 deficiency is associated with an increased risk of dementia and Alzheimer's disease.

Such a device would enable the tracking of vitamin B12 levels in high-risk patients and early intervention can help overcome the limitations of current testing methods which are time-consuming and costly.

"Vitamin B12 deficiency has been shown to be a potential modifiable risk factor for dementia and Alzheimer's disease and is associated with cognitive decline," said Dr Georgios Tsiminis, Research Fellow at University of Adelaide.

Older adults are particularly at risk of B12 deficiency due to age-related reduction in absorbing vitamin B12 received through their diet.

"Our sensor is an early step towards a point-of-care solution for measuring and tracking B12 in healthy ageing adults. This would allow doctors to monitor B12 levels and intervene as soon as B12 deficiency was detected," Dr Tsiminis added.

The sensor is still at proof-of-concept stage but, with development, has wide-reaching potential applications.

The optical sensor measurement of B12 in human blood takes less than a minute and requires minimum preparation.

This is the first demonstration of vitamin B12 being measured in human blood serum without the need for a full laboratory test.

The sensor uses an optical measuring technique called Raman spectroscopy which produces a unique optical fingerprint of a target molecule, in this case vitamin B12.

"Our method provides a realistic basis for a system that is portable, cost-effective, and affords rapid results, along the lines of the pin-prick test for diabetes," Dr Tsiminis noted in a statement.

The research by scientists in the ARC Centre of Excellence for Nanoscale BioPhotonics (CNBP), the Institute for Photonics and Advanced Sensing, and the Schools of Physical Sciences and Medicine was presented at an international biophotonics conference in Adelaide last weekend.

​London, Oct 17 (IANS) Researchers from University of Cambridge said they are developing a new imaging technique with the aim of detecting and characterising early cancerous changes in the gastrointestinal (GI) tract.

The technique involves using a standard endoscopy system with a novel set of camera filters, increasing the number of colours that can be visualised during endoscopy and potentially improving the ability to detect abnormal cells in the lining of the gut.

"In traditional endoscopy, we use white light and detectors that replicate our eyes, which detect light in red, green and blue colour channels. We are now developing an approach called 'hyperspectral imaging', which will increase the number of colour channels that can be visualised from three to over 50," explained Sarah Bohndiek from University of Cambridge.

"Since cell changes associated with the development of cancer lead to colour changes in the tissues, we believe that hyperspectral imaging could help us to improve the specificity of lesion identification because we can use these colours to identify abnormal tissues," Bohndiek added.

Hyperspectral imaging (HSI) collects and processes information from across the electromagnetic spectrum. 

In contrast to the human eye, which sees colour primarily in three bands (red, green and blue), spectral imaging divides the colour spectrum into many more bands and can be extended beyond the visible range of light. 

The images obtained by hyperspectral imaging can provide information about the physiology and chemical composition of human tissues, and the technique is emerging as having great potential for non-invasive diagnosis and image-guided surgery.

"Hyperspectral imaging is a powerful tool that can reveal the chemical composition of human tissues and together with different fluorescent dyes, can identify a range of biological processes," Bohndiek pointed out. 

"The technique has many potential applications within cancer diagnostics, with exciting developments already reported in the detection of Barrett's oesophagus, which is a precancerous condition in some people," Bohndiek noted.

The technique was presented at UEG Week 2016 in Vienna, Austria.

​San Francisco, Oct 17 (IANS) US' Stanford University is moving ahead with its goal that 50 per cent of its electricity will be powered by a new solar plant now in the final stages of construction.

With one of the largest campuses in the country, the private research university in northern California announced the Stanford Solar Generating Station project last year. The plant, in Kern county of southern California, is scheduled to be functional by the end of November, Xinhua news agency reported on Monday.

After a testing period, according to a news release from Stanford, the plant located on a site of 242 acres, or nearly 1 sq.km, in the high desert region about 300 miles, or 483 km, southeast of Stanford is expected to be providing power to the 125-year-old school on a regular basis by the end of 2016.

Built for Stanford by the northern Californian solar company SunPower Corp., the plant's construction began in January 2016. The solar panels have now been installed, and work is proceeding on wiring and completing the system. When finished, the plant will draw on more than 150,000 solar panels and produce a peak 67 megawatts of power.

While several Stanford building complexes already feature solar panels, under the Stanford Energy System Innovations (SESI), which includes a heat recovery system completed last year for the heating and cooling of campus buildings, 16 additional campus buildings are being outfitted with solar panels and the work is expected to be complete later this fall, so that they provide an additional five megawatts of power for the school.

We have been engaged in a major effort to make Stanford one of the most energy-efficient universities in the world, and this expansion of our solar resources will make a dramatic difference," Joseph Stagner, executive director of sustainability and energy management at Stanford said on Sunday. 

"Clean, renewable energy will become the dominant part of Stanford's energy mix, and its proportion in that mix will continue to grow over time."

The solar plant and the campus rooftop panels will produce 53 per cent of Stanford's electricity. The university will purchase the remaining 47 per cent from the California electricity grid, of which 25 per cent currently comes from renewable power sources including solar, wind and geothermal, and 50 per cent will be renewable by 2030 under state law.

In total, once its solar projects are complete by year's end, Stanford said it would be getting 65 per cent of its power from renewable sources. 

Dubai, Oct 16 (IANS) Chinese ICT giant Huawei on Sunday said Dubai is the smartest city in the Gulf region in relation to strategy and execution.

The emirate of Dubai has emerged number one in a Smart City Index that examined the smart city campaigns across 10 Gulf Arab cities, Xinhua news agency cited the company as saying.

The Gulf emirate stood out for its "strategic vision coupled with a clear understanding of the practical requirements to deliver on its vision", said Huawei and research firm Navigant which conducted the study.

"While we realise that each city is different and has its own smart city needs, we valued the strategic impact of the governments' vision and even more important how effectively a government of a city or emirate executes that strategy," Safder Nazir, an executive at Huawei Middle East in Dubai, said.

The Smart Dubai roadmap has targeted the delivery of 1,000 services by next year across 100 initiatives, said Huawei.

As of September this year, it had documented more than 500 current and planned smart services and initiatives, of which 150 have been completed, it added.

Eric Woods, research director at Navigant Consulting, said: "Dubai stands out in this Navigant Research ranking as a leader among cities for its strategic vision and ambitious implementation programme."

Dubai's neighbour Abu Dhabi, the capital of the United Arab Emirates, and Doha, the capital of Qatar, were contenders in the smart city index. Kuwait city ranked 10th and therefore last.

The five-day fair hosts 4,000 exhibiting companies and expects 100,000 trade visitors from 150 countries, according to the organiser Dubai World Trade Centre.

​Sydney, Oct 16 (IANS) Using a new probability model, Australian mental health researchers have made a promising breakthrough in the early detection of the risk of psychosis -- a mental disorder characterised by a disconnection from reality.

The new model could lead to appropriate treatments to prevent psychotic episodes from occurring, the study said.

The new model has shown 70 per cent accuracy in predicting patients who are at greatest risk of developing psychosis.

The model combines medical history, the latest bedside clinical assessment, and biomarkers of fatty acids to determine a patient's risk of psychosis, the researchers observed. 

"Fatty acids such as omega-3 and nervonic acid are critical for the normal functioning of the brain, and low levels have been associated with the development of psychosis in high-risk groups," said lead author Scott Clark from the University of Adelaide in Australia.

In the probability model, fatty acid levels provided improved accuracy of prediction when patients were at intermediate risk following clinical assessment, the authors noted.

"Of those patients who are considered to be 'ultra-high risk', only about 30 per cent of them go on to experience a psychotic episode in the long-term," Clark added.

Currently all patients in the ultra-high risk group are considered to have a similar chance of a future psychotic episode, however we have been able to identify high, intermediate and low-risk groups.

"The new model may help clinicians to decide when a patient's risk of psychosis outweighs any side effects of treatment," Clark said.

The study was published in the journal Translational Psychiatry. 

​New York, Oct 16 (IANS) Activating the oestrogen -- the primary female sex hormone -- receptor-beta protein with a chemical has the potential to increase metabolism as well as help reduce obesity, say researchers including one of Indian-origin.

The findings showed that the activation of a chemical called beta-LGND2 by the oestrogen receptor-beta can help reduce obesity and metabolic diseases in mice by converting bad fat (white fat) into good fat (brown fat). 

This is significant as brown fat increases metabolism and may facilitate weight loss, the researchers said.

"Although there is a general misperception that obesity is not a life-threatening condition, obesity is the underlying cause for several diseases that could result in mortality," said Ramesh Narayanan, a researcher at the University of Tennessee in the US. 

"Safe and effective treatment for obesity is highly needed, and targeting oestrogen receptor-beta might be one of the strategies to safely combat obesity," Narayanan added.

To make their discovery, Narayanan and colleagues used three groups of mice. 

One group was fed with normal rodent diet, while two groups were fed with high-fat diet to make them obese. One of the two high-fat diet-fed groups was treated with beta-LGND2. 

The beta-LGND2-treated mice were significantly leaner than the other mice fed on high-fat diet and they also had higher body temperature and oxygen consumption, indicating higher metabolism rate. 

The research was published online in The FASEB Journal.

​London, Oct 15 (IANS) Researchers have found that a substance - the coenzyme NAD+ -- can both help extend life and postpone the onset of the ageing processes.

The researches also believe that the new findings, published in the journal Cell Metabolism, will be able to help prevent neurodegenerative illnesses such as Alzheimer's and Parkinson's disease.

Even though the researchers have only examined the effect of the substance on model organisms and not administered the substance to patients, they expect to see the same effect in humans, as the cell repair mechanisms are universal for the cells of all living organisms. 

"We were surprised to see that adding NAD+ postponed both the aging processes of the cells and extended life in worms and in a mouse model," said one of the researchers Vilhelm Bohr, Professor at Centre for Healthy Aging, University of Copenhagen in Denmark.

Previous research has shown that a main process in ageing is the capacity of the cells to keep our genes, our DNA, more or less intact. However, changes in the cells' power stations, the mitochondria, also affect aging processes. 

In this study the international team of researchers from University of Copenhagen and the National Institute of Health in the US showed that the substance NAD+ bridges the gap between two main aging theories -- repairs to the DNA and poor functioning mitochondria. 

The researchers have bred mice and roundworm with the illness Ataxia telangiectasia, A-T, for the purpose of the study. 

In these patients the part of the brain that is responsible for coordination gradually degenerates, DNA repairs are lacking, and they experience other symptoms characteristic of early aging.

The study also indicated that damage to the DNA can result in poor functioning mitochondria, and that this can lead to increasing neurodegeneration in A-T patients. 

Adding the substance NAD+ can stop the damage to the mitochondria, the study showed.

"We know from previous studies that a drop in the level of NAD+ results in metabolism errors, neurodegeneration and aging, but the underlying mechanisms remain unclear to us. Our new study stresses that the substance NAD+ plays a main role both in maintaining the health of the cells' power stations and in their capacity for repairing the genes," Bohr said.

​Kigali (Rwanda), Oct 15 (IANS) Over 150 countries struck a landmark deal on Saturday to reduce the emissions of powerful greenhouse gases, in a move that could prevent up to 0.5 degrees Celsius of global warming by the end of this century.

The amendment to the Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer endorsed in Kigali is the single largest contribution the world has made towards keeping the global temperature rise "well below" 2 degrees Celsius, a target agreed at the Paris climate conference in 2015.

"Last year in Paris, we promised to keep the world safe from the worst effects of climate change. Today, we are following through on that promise," said UN Environment chief Erik Solheim.

"This is about much more than the ozone layer and HFCs. It is a clear statement by all world leaders that the green transformation... is irreversible and unstoppable. It shows the best investments... in clean, efficient technologies," Solheim said.

Commonly used in refrigeration and air-conditioning as substitutes for ozone-depleting substances, HFCs (hydrofluorocarbons) are currently the world's fastest growing greenhouse gases.

HFCs emissions are increasing by up to 10 per cent each year. They are also one of the most powerful gases, trapping thousands of times more heat in the earth's atmosphere than carbon dioxide (CO2).

"The faster we act, the lower the financial costs will be, and the lighter the environmental burden on our children," said President of Rwanda Paul Kagame.

"That begins with a clear signal that change is coming and it is coming soon. In due course, new innovations and products will allow us to phase out HFCs even faster, and at lower cost," Kagame said.

The rapid growth of HFCs in recent years has been driven by a growing demand for cooling, particularly in developing countries with a fast-expanding middle class and hot climates.

The amendment, named the Kigali Amendment, provides for exemptions for countries with high ambient temperatures to phase out HFCs at a slower pace.

"It is not often you get a chance to have a 0.5 degrees Celsius reduction by taking one single step together as countries -- each doing different things perhaps at different times, but getting the job done," said US Secretary of State John Kerry.

"If we continue to remember the high stakes for every country on earth, the global transition to a clean energy economy is going to accelerate," Kerry said.

Following seven years of negotiations, the 197 Montreal Protocol parties reached a compromise, under which developed countries will start to phase down HFCs by 2019.

As per the amendment, the A2 (developed) countries have agreed to a baseline of 2011-2013 with cuts in HFCs beginning in 2019. In fact, the US, the European Union and other countries have already started.

Whereas A5 (developing) countries have agreed to two sub-groups with two different baselines.

A5 Group 2 includes India, Pakistan, Iran and Iraq -- with a baseline of 2024 -2026 and a freeze date of 2028 (two years earlier than India had originally proposed).

China, Brazil, South Africa, Argentina and more than 100 other developing countries committed to freeze their HFC production and use by 2024.

The baseline year determines the level at which the HFC consumption in countries are capped.

By the late 2040s, all countries are expected to consume no more than 15-20 per cent of their respective baselines, says the UN Environment Programme (UNEP).

At the four-day long 28th meeting of the Parties to the 1989 Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer that ended Saturday, the countries also agreed to provide adequate financing for HFCs reduction, the cost of which is estimated at billions of dollars globally.

The exact amount of additional funding will be agreed at the next Meeting of the Parties in Montreal in 2017, said the UNEP.

Grants for research and development of affordable alternatives to hydrofluorocarbons will be the most immediate priority.

"In the original proposal we have no freeze year (for HFCs) but on October 14 we clarified that we can have freeze at 2030," India's lead negotiator, Joint Secretary in the Ministry of Environment and Forests Manoj Kumar Singh told IANS.

In the second round of talks between Indian Environment Minister Anil Madhav Dave and Kerry on Friday, the freezing year was advanced to 2028 with a condition that there would be a review of technology somewhere around 2023 or 2024, Singh said.

"If India finds that the refrigeration sector is growing at much faster rate and it cannot accommodate within the available refrigerant, then India would be free to go to 2030 as freeze year," he added.

Singh said the review would be done by the Technology and Economic Assessment Panel under the Montreal Protocol.

"But it will be mutually agreed upon by India and other parties. Without India, no one can unilaterally decide what is the growth rate which will trigger that mechanism," he said.

For smooth transition to developing new technologies indigenously, there is a huge financial burden on India -- both for the industry and the consumers.

Alternatives to HFCs currently being explored include substances that do not deplete the ozone layer and have a smaller impact on the climate, such as ammonia or carbon dioxide.

Super-efficient, cost-effective cooling technologies are also being developed, which can help protect the climate both through reducing HFCs emissions and by using less energy.

The Kigali Amendment comes only days after two other climate action milestones: sealing the international deal to curb emissions from aviation and achieving the critical mass of ratifications for the Paris climate accord to enter into force