“We are beginning to recognize that a woman’s reproductive history tells a lot about her future risk of heart disease,” says first author Emily Lau, MD, MPH, cardiologist and director of the Menopause, Hormones & Cardiovascular Clinic at MGH. “Whether a woman has difficulty becoming pregnant, what happens during her pregnancies, when she transitions through menopause all influence her risk of heart disease later in life.”

Infertility affects about 1 in 5 US women and includes a spectrum of conception difficulties, but its link with heart failure has not been well-studied until recently. Partnering with the Women’s Health Initiative (WHI), which was designed in the early 1990s and queried a woman’s reproductive history, Lau and colleagues studied postmenopausal women from the WHI and examined whether infertility was associated with development of heart failure.

There are two types of heart failure: heart failure with preserved ejection fraction (HFpEF) and heart failure with reduced ejection fraction (HFrEF). Ejection fraction is a measurement related to the volume percentage of blood that is pumped from the left ventricle of the heart during each beat. An ejection fraction less than 50% is commonly viewed as abnormal or reduced.

The team found an association between infertility and overall heart failure, specifically with HFpEF, a form of heart failure that is far more common in women regardless of fertility history. Among the 38,528 postmenopausal women studied, 14% of the participants reported a history of infertility. Over a 15-year follow up period, the researchers noted that infertility was associated with 16% future risk of overall heart failure. When they examined heart failure subtypes, they found that infertility was associated with a 27% increased future risk of HFpEF.

Over the past decade, HFpEF (where the heart muscle does not relax well) as opposed to HFrEF (where the left ventricle does not pump well), has become the dominant form of heart failure in both men and women. But it remains more common in women. “It’s a challenging condition because we still do not completely understand how HFpEF develops and we do not have very good therapies to treat HFpEF,” says Lau.

“I think our findings are particularly noteworthy because heart failure with preserved ejection fraction is more prevalent in women,” says Lau. “We don’t understand why we see HFpEF more in women. Looking back in a woman’s early reproductive life may give us some clues as to why.” Of note, the team observed that the link persisted regardless of whether an individual eventually conceived or had a live birth.

The increased risk was independent of traditional cardiovascular risk factors and other infertility-related conditions. “There has been some suggestion in previous studies that women with infertility do have more cardiometabolic risk factors,” says Lau, but the team did not find that cardiometabolic risk factors explained the link between infertility with heart failure in this study. They also looked to see if other infertility-related conditions like thyroid disease, irregular menses, and early menopause explained the association between infertility and heart failure but did not evidence to support that hypothesis either.

“So it really begs the question: what are the mechanisms driving the association between infertility and heart failure,” says Lau. Is it shared risk factors, or is infertility on the causal pathway? She mentions vascular and endothelial dysfunction may be involved and plans on eventually clarifying the mechanism underlying the link between infertility and heart failure. In the future, Lau hopes to conduct a prospective study of women with an infertility history involving exercise parameters, vascular measures, and more, to solve the mystery.

“We as scientists and doctors are beginning to recognize how important a woman’s reproductive history is for their future risk of heart disease. Infertility is one of many cardiovascular risk factors, such as hypertension and high blood pressure, but reproductive history is not routinely considered as part of the cardiovascular risk assessment,” says Lau. Since people do not tend to develop heart failure until well in their 60s and beyond, and infertility is mostly experienced in the 20s, 30s, and 40s, many physicians are not thinking about the connection. “We cannot change a woman’s history of infertility, but if we know a woman has had a history of infertility, we can be more aggressive about counseling her about other modifiable risk factors including high blood pressure, high cholesterol, smoking, and beyond.”

This research was supported in part by the National Institutes of Health and American Heart Association.

Most of the excess sodium comes from processed and packaged foods, so the food industry and food scientists continuously look for ways to reduce sodium. A new paper from the University of Illinois provides a comprehensive review of scientific literature on sodium reduction strategies in food production.

“Sodium overconsumption is a huge health concern, and the FDA has recommended sodium reduction in food since the 1980s, but we haven’t succeeded yet. While the unit volume of salt in the food supply has not increased, the amount of sodium consumption has gone up, because we just consume a lot of food,” says Soo-Yeun Lee, professor in the Department of Food Science and Human Nutrition (FSHN) at U of I and co-author on the paper.

We only need around 450 milligrams (mg) of sodium per day, and the recommended maximum amount is 2,300 mg, or 1,500 mg for those at risk for hypertension. But average consumption exceeds 3,000 to 3,500 mg per day — or 50% to 100% above the upper limit. More than 70% of our sodium intake comes from processed and packaged foods, primarily cured meats, bread, cheese, and soups.

The researchers conducted a scoping review including primary studies, literature reviews, book chapters, and patents covering sodium reduction in food products. They focused on studies that included sensory data with human subjects, because palatability is essential for consumer acceptance.

“In this review, we looked at different food systems. The way you would reduce salt in a solid system, like a topical application on snack foods, such as salted peanuts or salted chips, would be very different from embedded application in semi-solid foods like cheese or bread. And in a liquid system like soup, where it is completely dissolved, it would be really different in the way we could reduce salt yet provide the palatability it gives,” Lee states.

“We’re hoping this work will provide insight into the wide variety of salt-reducing technologies that exist. This can help food companies be more informed to use different strategies than what they have been doing,” she adds.

The researchers identified five main strategies: Salt reduction, salt replacers, flavor modification, physical modification, and functional modification.

“The most obvious one is to remove salt from the recipe, and that is a key component in all of the strategies when sodium reduction is the goal,” says Aubrey Dunteman, graduate student in FSHN and lead author on the paper.

But it is not possible to completely eliminate sodium, because it has both sensory and functional properties. For example, it is used for meat preservation and to make bread dough rise.

“A lot of the studies we looked at combined more than one method, such as salt removal with salt replacers and flavor modification or salt removal and physical modification,” Dunteman says.

Many studies used salt replacers such as potassium chloride, calcium chloride, or other chloride or acid salts. However, these substitutes tend to have a bitter taste, so they are often used in combination with flavor modifications, such as umami substances or bitter blockers.

“Another method is physical modification. For example, you can encapsulate the salt crystals, which changes how the salt is dissolved in the mouth. This can alter the saltiness perception allowing for a reduction in the amount of sodium necessary to create the salty taste. You can also create an uneven distribution of the salt in a product that can further help enhance the perceived saltiness of the food product through taste contrast,” Dunteman explains.

“Finally, there is functional modification. For example, you could move away from a sodium-based preservative in cured meats, perhaps using a celery-powder preservative instead of sodium nitrate.”

Functional modification is less represented in the scoping review because this type of sodium reduction research typically does not incorporate a sensory component as a main assessment method, Dunteman notes.

If consumers want to reduce their salt intake, the best strategy is to cook your own food and limit your consumption of processed and packaged foods. You can also wean yourself off salt with practice, essentially go on a “salt diet.”

“If you’re cooking at home, you can intentionally reduce salt and you’ll appreciate the reduced saltiness perception as time goes on. People can adjust to the reduced salt level, but it’s a learning and adapting process. You can also add flavor enhancers such as herbs and spices,” Lee suggests.

“If you are a consumer of canned soup, for example, you can buy a low-sodium version and add salt. Then you can gradually modify the amount of salt you add, so you can make it palatable to your taste,” she notes.

The research was supported by the Institute for the Advancement of Food and Nutrition Sciences (IAFNS) through an ILSI North America Sodium Committee grant. IAFNS is a non-profit science organization that pools funding from industry collaborators and advances science through the in-kind and financial contributions from public and private sector participants. IAFNS had no role in the design, analysis, interpretation, or presentation of the data and results.

The findings, published in the journal Nature Communications, could help break the cycle of rapid transmission of TB, the second-leading infectious killer in the world after COVID-19, according to the World Health Organization. The disease mechanisms uncovered in the study could also provide answers about why treatments work in some patients but not others.

“These findings implicate strain differences as having an important effect on the response of lung alveolar macrophages and how tuberculosis manifests itself in the body and how it is transmitted,” said study author Padmini Salgame, associate director of the Public Health Research Institute at Rutgers New Jersey Medical School. “We also believe it will inform anyone hoping to devise more effective treatments.”

To better understand transmission and how it relates to treatment outcomes, the researchers focused on the impact these two strains of Mycobacterium tuberculosis have on the lungs. Though the strains differ slightly in their gene sequences, one is regarded as “high transmission” because it spreads easily and the second as “low transmission” because it does not infect as readily. TB bacteria are spread through the air when persons with TB disease in their lungs cough, speak or even sing.

Using strains identified in a Rutgers collaborative study with researchers at Núcleo de Doenças Infecciosas (NDI)in Brazil comparing “high transmission” and “low transmission” households of people with TB, the scientists studied the immune pathways that the pathogen triggered in the lungs of the infected mice.

In mice infected with the high transmission strain, their lungs quickly formed clumps of immune cells known as granulomas that encased the invading bacteria, stopping development of a more virulent disease. In most cases, the granulomas broke down eventually, spilling their contents. Researchers believe that if the escaped bacteria are close enough to the bronchial airway, they could be expelled into the air as infectious aerosols.

“By inducing granulomas with the potential to develop into cavitary lesions that aids bacterial escape into the airways, high transmission M. tuberculosis strains are poised for greater transmissibility,” said Salgame, who is also a professor in the Department of Medicine.

In mice infected with the low transmission strain, the invading bacteria were slow to activate the lung alveolar macrophages and ended up producing patches of inflammation within the lungs that did not allow the bacteria to escape into airways and allowed them to conglomerate and intensify the infection, Salgame said.

The discovery of the different trajectories taken by the strains gives hope to new approaches to stopping transmission and treatment.

“We have long known that some individuals with TB are more infectious than others,” Salgame said. “However, until now, the mechanisms responsible for this variability in transmission between individuals with TB have not been well understood.”

Other Rutgers authors included Arianne Lovey, Sheetal Verma, Vaishnavi Kaipilyawar and Jerrold Ellner, all at the Center for Emerging Pathogens, and Seema Husain of The Genomics Center.

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Materials provided by Rutgers University. Original written by Kitta MacPherson. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.

Digital photography is the most commonly used method of visual representation, but despite its speed and efficiency, it often fails to faithfully represent the artefact being studied. In recent years, 3-D scanning has emerged as an alternative source of high-quality visualizations, but the cost of the equipment and the time needed to produce a model are often prohibitive.

Now, a paper published in PLOS ONE presents two new methods for producing high-resolution visualizations of small artefacts, each achievable with basic software and equipment. Using expertise from fields which include archaeological science, computer graphics and video game development, the methods are designed to allow anyone to produce high-quality images and models with minimal effort and cost.

The first method, Small Object and Artefact Photography or SOAP, deals with the photographic application of modern digital techniques. The protocol guides users through small object and artefact photography from the initial set up of the equipment to the best methods for camera handling and functionality and the application of post-processing software.

The second method, High Resolution Photogrammetry or HRP, is used for the photographic capturing, digital reconstruction and three-dimensional modelling of small objects. This method aims to give a comprehensive guide for the development of high-resolution 3D models, merging well-known techniques used in academic and computer graphic fields, allowing anyone to independently produce high resolution and quantifiable models.

“These new protocols combine detailed, concise, and user-friendly workflows covering photographic acquisition and processing, thereby contributing to the replicability and reproducibility of high-quality visualizations,” says Jacopo Niccolò Cerasoni, lead author of the paper. “By clearly explaining every step of the process, including theoretical and practical considerations, these methods will allow users to produce high-quality, publishable two- and three-dimensional visualisations of their archaeological artefacts independently.”

The SOAP and HRP protocols were developed using Adobe Camera Raw, Adobe Photoshop, RawDigger, DxO Photolab, and RealityCapture and take advantage of native functions and tools that make image capture and processing easier and faster. Although most of these softwares are readily available in academic environments, SOAP and HRP can be applied to any other non-subscription based softwares with similar features. This enables researchers to use free or open-access software as well, albeit with minor changes to some of the presented steps.

Both the SOAP protocol and the HRP protocol are published openly on protocols.io.

“Because visual communication is so important to understanding past behavior, technology and culture, the ability to faithfully represent artefacts is vital for the field of archaeology,” says co-author Felipe do Nascimento Rodrigues, from the University of Exeter.

Even as new technologies revolutionize the field of archaeology, practical instruction on archaeological photography and three-dimensional reconstructions are lacking. The authors of the new paper hope to fill this gap, providing researchers, educators and enthusiasts with step-by-step instructions for creating high quality visualizations of artefacts.

Warmer temperatures brought plants — and then came even warmer temperatures, according to new model simulations published April 15 in Science Advances.

Alexander Thompson, a postdoctoral research associate in earth and planetary sciences in Arts & Sciences, updated simulations from an important climate model to reflect the role of changing vegetation as a key driver of global temperatures over the last 10,000 years.

Thompson had long been troubled by a problem with models of Earth’s atmospheric temperatures since the last ice age. Too many of these simulations showed temperatures warming consistently over time.

But climate proxy records tell a different story. Many of those sources indicate a marked peak in global temperatures that occurred between 6,000 and 9,000 years ago.

Thompson had a hunch that the models could be overlooking the role of changes in vegetation in favor of impacts from atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations or ice cover.

“Pollen records suggest a large expansion of vegetation during that time,” Thompson said.

“But previous models only show a limited amount of vegetation growth,” he said. “So, even though some of these other simulations have included dynamic vegetation, it wasn’t nearly enough of a vegetation shift to account for what the pollen records suggest.”

In reality, the changes to vegetative cover were significant.

Early in the Holocene, the current geological epoch, the Sahara Desert in Africa grew greener than today — it was more of a grassland. Other Northern Hemisphere vegetation including the coniferous and deciduous forests in the mid-latitudes and the Arctic also thrived.

Thompson took evidence from pollen records and designed a set of experiments with a climate model known as the Community Earth System Model (CESM), one of the best-regarded models in a wide-ranging class of such models. He ran simulations to account for a range of changes in vegetation that had not been previously considered.

“Expanded vegetation during the Holocene warmed the globe by as much as 1.5 degrees Fahrenheit,” Thompson said. “Our new simulations align closely with paleoclimate proxies. So this is exciting that we can point to Northern Hemisphere vegetation as one potential factor that allows us to resolve the controversial Holocene temperature conundrum.”

Understanding the scale and timing of temperature change throughout the Holocene is important because it is a period of recent history, geologically speaking. The rise of human agriculture and civilization occurred during this time, so many scientists and historians from different disciplines are interested in understanding how early and mid-Holocene climate differed from the present day.

Thompson conducted this research work as a graduate student at the University of Michigan. He is continuing his research in the laboratory of climate scientist Bronwen Konecky at Washington University.

“Overall, our study emphasizes that accounting for vegetation change is critical,” Thompson said. “Projections for future climate change are more likely to produce more trustworthy predictions if they include changes in vegetation.”

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Materials provided by Washington University in St. Louis. Original written by Talia Ogliore. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.

Inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) is characterised by a chronic inflammation of the gut mucosa that is thought to increase the risk of colon cancer. The disease often debuts before middle age with symptoms such as abdominal pain and weight loss. The cause is unknown but genetical, environmental and immunological factors are all believed to play a role. As a large group of IBD patients do not respond to available treatments, there is a great need for new knowledge about the mechanisms driving the disease.

ILCs are lymphocytes, a family of immune cells, found in the mucosa where they form part of the immune system and maintain tissue function, such as the production of mucous. Previous research has shown that ILCs change function during inflammation, making them a promising target for IBD treatment.

In the present study, the researchers isolated ILCs from the tonsils and gut tissue of patients who had undergone resection surgery or endoscopic examination. A total of 48 patients were involved in the study, 31 of whom had IBD. The ILCs were then examined in detail, both immediately after isolation and after cell culture.

The results show that a subgroup of ILCs constitute a pre-stage of mature ILCs and accumulate in the intestinal mucosa of patients with IBD. Factors in the gut environment can then influence the metabolism of the immature ILCs, stimulate increased cell division and production of cytokines, including IL-22, which helps to protect the intestinal tissue.

“The function of ILCs changes during inflammation and therefore ILCs represent a promising therapeutic target for conditions like inflammatory bowel disease,” says the study’s first author Efthymia Kokkinou, doctoral student at the Department of Medicine, Huddinge at Karolinska Institutet. “Insight into how these cells develop from immature cells into mature cells in tissue helps us understand how they influence tissue function or inflammation in mucosa and how they can be manipulated for therapeutic purposes.

The research group now hopes to study if the presence and properties of immature intestinal ILCs can predict responses to medical drugs, particularly those containing the active substances ustekinumab, infliximab and tofacitinib, which are currently used to treat Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis, two of the most common IBDs.

“These studies are important since the right choice of effective treatment can reduce both personal suffering and societal costs,” says Jenny Mjösberg, associate professor at the same department at Karolinska Institutet and the study’s senior author.

The study was mainly financed through an ERC starting grant and by the Erling-Persson Foundation, the Swedish Research Council, the Swedish Cancer Society, the Swedish Foundation for Strategic Research, the Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundation and Karolinska Institutet.

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Materials provided by Karolinska Institutet. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.