Medical Bulletin 26/July/2023

Here are the top medical news for the day:

Double risk of fatal heart attack in heat wave & high pollution days

The combination of soaring heat and smothering fine particulate pollution may double the risk of heart attack death, according to a new study of more than 202,000 heart attack deaths in China. To examine the impact of extreme temperatures with and without high levels of fine particulate pollution, the researchers analyzed 202,678 heart attack deaths between 2015-2020 that occurred in Jiangsu province, a region with four distinct seasons and a wide range of temperatures and fine particulate pollution levels.

Compared with control days, the risk of a fatal heart attack was observed at the following levels:

18% higher during ­2-day heat waves with heat indexes at or above the 90th percentile increasing with temperature and duration, and was 74% higher during 4-day heat waves with heat indexes at or above the 97.5th percentile

Reference: Circulation, DOI 10.1161/CIRCULATIONAHA.122.063504 

Snacking health impact depends on what and when you eat

Snacking is becoming increasingly popular, with more than 70% of people reporting they snack at least twice a day. In a new study involving more than 1,000 people, researchers examined whether snacking affects health and if the quality of snack foods matters.

Using data from just over 1,000 people in the United Kingdom who participated in the ZOE PREDICT 1 study, the researchers examined the relationship between snacking quantity, quality, and timing with blood fats and insulin levels, which are both indicators of cardiometabolic health.

The analysis showed that snacking on higher quality foods — foods that contain significant amounts of nutrients relative to the calories they provide — was associated with better blood fat and insulin responses. The researchers also observed that late-evening snacking, which lengthens eating windows and shortens the overnight fasting period, was associated with unfavorable blood glucose and lipid levels. There was no association between snacking frequency, calories consumed, and food quantity with any of the health measures analyzed

Reference: Kate Bermingham, et al, AMERICAN SOCIETY FOR NUTRITION

Possibility of designing better vaccines?

A new paper in Biology Methods & Protocols, shows it may be possible to design vaccines that will induce a stronger immune response to infecting pathogens, such as the virus causing COVID-19. In this study, the authors proposed and tested a new bioinformatic approach and tool that allows researchers to select parts of proteins that will elicit a strong immune response. Vaccines developed based on this approach would provide better protection from diseases.

To avoid recognition by a host’s T cells, parasitic organisms eliminate all unnecessary peptides from their proteins. In particular, they mutate these peptides to mimic those present in the proteins of their host species

In this study, the researchers tested a critical prediction of peptide mimicry theory: they investigated whether they could predict the ability of a parasite’s proteins to provoke an immune response based on the content of peptides absent in their host’s bodies.

Reference: “Exposing and Exploiting Host-Parasite Arms Race Clues in SARS-CoV-2: A Principally New Method for Improved T-cell Immunogenicity Prediction, https://academic.oup.com/biomethods/article-lookup/doi/10.1093/biomethods/bpad011