Search

We aimed to investigate the association between baseline levels of total serum glutathione (tGSH) and rate of chronic disease accumulation over time. The study population (n = 2,596) was derived from a population-based longitudinal study on ≥60-year-olds living in Stockholm. Participants were clinically assessed at baseline, 3- and 6-year follow-ups. Multimorbidity was measured as the number of chronic conditions from a previously built list of 60 diseases. Linear mixed models were applied to analyze the association between baseline tGSH levels and the rate of multimorbidity development over 6 years. We found that at baseline, participants with ≥4 diseases had lower tGSH levels than participants with no chronic conditions (3.3 vs 3.6 µmol/L; p < .001). At follow-up, baseline levels of tGSH were inversely associated with the rate of multimorbidity development (β * time: -0.044, p < .001) after adjusting for age, sex, education, levels of serum creatinine, C-reactive protein, albumin, body mass index, smoking, and time of dropout or death. In conclusion, serum levels of tGSH are inversely associated with multimorbidity development; the association exists above and beyond the link between tGSH and specific chronic conditions. Our findings support the hypothesis that tGSH is a biomarker of multisystem dysregulation that eventually leads to multimorbidity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) are believed to be the small-size tail of the interstellar carbonaceous dust grain population. Their vibrational emission is the most widely accepted source of the aromatic near-infrared features, and their rotational radiation is a likely explanation for the dust-correlated anomalous microwave emission (AME). Yet, no individual interstellar PAH molecule has been identified to date. It was recently recognized that quasi-symmetric planar PAHs ought to have a well identifiable comb-like rotational spectrum, and suggested to search for them in spectroscopic data with matched-filtering techniques. We report the results of the first such search, carried out with the Green Bank Telescope, and targeting the star-forming region IC 348 in the Perseus molecular cloud, a known source of AME. Our observations amounted to 16.75 h and spanned a 3-GHz-wide band extending from 23.3 to 26.3 GHz. Using frequency switching, we achieved a sensitivity of 0.4 mJy per 0.4 MHz channel (1s). The non-detection of comb-like spectra allowed us to set upper bounds on the abundance of specific quasi-symmetric PAH molecules (specified uniquely by their moments of inertia) of approximately 0.1 per cent of the total PAH abundance. This bound generically applies to PAHs with approximately 15-100 carbon atoms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]