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Background: In the United States, Black adults have the highest prevalence of obesity and hypertension, increasing their risk of morbidity and mortality. Caregivers of persons with dementia are also at increased risk of morbidity and mortality due to the demands of providing care. Thus, Black caregivers—who are the second largest group of caregivers of persons with dementia in the United States—have the highest risks for poor health outcomes among all caregivers. However, the physiological changes associated with multiple chronic conditions in Black caregivers are poorly understood. Objectives: In this study, metabolomics were compared to the metabolic profiles of Black caregivers with obesity, with or without hypertension. Our goal was to identify metabolites and metabolic pathways that could be targeted to reduce obesity and hypertension rates in this group. Methods: High-resolution, untargeted metabolomic assays were performed on plasma samples from 26 self-identified Black caregivers with obesity, 18 of whom had hypertension. Logistic regression and pathway analyses were employed to identify metabolites and metabolic pathways differentiating caregivers with obesity only and caregivers with both obesity and hypertension. Results: Key metabolic pathways discriminating caregivers with obesity only and caregivers with obesity and hypertension were butanoate and glutamate metabolism, fatty acid activation/biosynthesis, and the carnitine shuttle pathway. Metabolites related to glutamate metabolism in the butanoate metabolism pathway were more abundant in caregivers with hypertension, while metabolites identified as butyric acid/butanoate and R-(3)-hydroxybutanoate were less abundant. Caregivers with hypertension also had lower levels of several unsaturated fatty acids. Discussion: In Black caregivers with obesity, multiple metabolic features and pathways differentiated among caregivers with and without hypertension. If confirmed in future studies, these findings would support ongoing clinical monitoring and culturally tailored interventions focused on nutrition (particularly polyunsaturated fats and animal protein), exercise, and stress management to reduce the risk of hypertension in Black caregivers with obesity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: There is a dearth of research inclusive of African American adults living with obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) despite differences in symptom presentations compared to non-Hispanic White patient populations. Less is known regarding the potential effect of comorbidities, including hypertension, on commonly reported symptoms, such as fatigue, and their association with inflammatory biomarkers. Objective: This longitudinal pilot study aimed to characterize fatigue symptom presentations among African American adults newly diagnosed with OSA and discern peripheral blood analytes linked to symptoms while accounting for co-occurring hypertension. Methods: African American adults newly diagnosed with OSA with and without co-occurring hypertension were approached by study staff and recruited following their diagnostic visit with sleep medicine clinicians at two health systems and followed over 6 months after commencing continuous positive airway pressure treatment. Patient-Reported Outcomes Measurement Information System Fatigue surveys and plasma were collected every 3 months from 29 participants. Mixed-effects models examined changes in fatigue symptom presentations over time while accounting for plasma-based analytes and hypertension status. Results: Despite higher fatigue symptom severity upon diagnosis, participants with co-occurring hypertension reported greater improvements in fatigue scores after commencing continuous positive airway pressure treatment for up to 6 months than those without hypertension. Inverse correlations were observed between fatigue scores, C-reactive protein, matrix metalloproteinase-8, and osteoprotegerin analyte levels among participants with/without hypertension. Across all participants, changes in interleukin-6 were associated with changes in fatigue scores in the first 3 months after diagnosis. Discussion: Findings indicate that hypertension is linked to increased fatigue upon diagnosis of OSA in this sample of African American adults. Fatigue in persons with hypertension improved after treatment in this sample. These hypothesis-generating findings can inform future interventional studies aimed at improving fatigue among persons with OSA while leveraging markers linked to fatigue symptom severity as potential objective markers of improvements. Further research on the role of inflammatory markers, such as IL-6, on fatigue symptom presentations is warranted in persons with OSA. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background/Objectives: Metabolomics provides insights into the biological underpinnings of disease development and treatment. This systematic review investigated the impact of acupuncture on metabolite levels and associated metabolic pathways using a metabolomic approach. Methods: Five databases (i.e., PubMed, Embase, Scopus, CINAHL, and Cochrane Central) were searched using terms such as "acupuncture" and "metabolites" to retrieve relevant journal articles published through January 2024. Studies utilizing mass spectrometry or nuclear magnetic resonance were included. Risk of bias was evaluated using the Cochrane Risk of Bias tool and the Newcastle–Ottawa scale. Metabolic pathway analysis was conducted using MetaboAnalyst 6.0 to identify common significant pathways affected by acupuncture. Additionally, subgroup pathway enrichment analysis identified metabolites significantly altered in more than two studies. Results: Among 4019 articles, 22 studies met inclusion criteria, examining changes in metabolomic biomarkers before and after acupuncture for various diseases and symptoms. A total of 226 metabolites showed significant changes, with 14 common metabolites altered in more than two studies (glutamine, androsterone glucuronide, choline, citric acid, decanoylcarnitine, estrone, glutathione, glycine, hypoxanthine, lactic acid, pyruvic acid, serine, proline, and sn-glycero-3-phosphocholine). Common pathways affected by acupuncture were glycine, serine, and threonine metabolism, glutathione metabolism, arginine biosynthesis, and glyoxylate and dicarboxylate metabolism. Conclusions: This review provides insights of the metabolomic mechanisms underlying acupuncture, highlighting its impact on specific metabolic pathways. Recognizing these changes can enhance acupuncture's effectiveness and support the development of personalized treatments. The findings underscore metabolomics as a valuable tool for understanding and optimizing acupuncture for various diseases and symptoms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Simple Summary: There is a need to identify new translational prognostic biomarkers in head and neck cancer. Metabolomics, the study of small molecules resulting from cellular metabolism, is an emerging and promising field regarding head and neck cancer. We performed metabolomics on patients' blood prior to treatment and found that it can divide patients into high-risk and low-risk groups based on their cancer progression and survival. We believe our study provides compelling results to consider metabolomics as a translational prognostic biomarker and that it may offer novel information for patient risk stratification. With continued research, we hope to gain a fuller understanding of how metabolomics may aid in the early detection, prognosis, treatment monitoring, and targeted therapies of head and neck cancer. There is growing evidence that the metabolism is deeply intertwined with head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC) progression and survival but little is known about circulating metabolite patterns and their clinical potential. We performed unsupervised hierarchical clustering of 209 HNSCC patients via pre-treatment plasma metabolomics to identify metabolic subtypes. We annotated the subtypes via pathway enrichment analysis and investigated their association with overall and progression-free survival. We stratified the survival analyses by smoking history. High-resolution metabolomics extracted 186 laboratory-confirmed metabolites. The optimal model created two patient clusters, of subtypes A and B, corresponding to 41% and 59% of the study population, respectively. Fatty acid biosynthesis, acetyl-CoA transport, arginine and proline, as well as the galactose metabolism pathways differentiated the subtypes. Relative to subtype B, subtype A patients experienced significantly worse overall and progression-free survival but only among ever-smokers. The estimated three-year overall survival was 61% for subtype A and 86% for subtype B; log-rank p = 0.001. The association with survival was independent of HPV status and other HNSCC risk factors (adjusted hazard ratio = 3.58, 95% CI: 1.46, 8.78). Our findings suggest that a non-invasive metabolomic biomarker would add crucial information to clinical risk stratification and raise translational research questions about testing such a biomarker in clinical trials. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Idiopathic Parkinson's disease (iPD) is a movement disorder characterized by the degeneration of dopaminergic neurons and aggregation of the protein α‐synuclein. Patients with iPD vary in age of symptom onset, rate of progression, severity of motor and non‐motor symptoms, and extent of central and peripheral inflammation. Genetic and environmental factors are believed to act synergistically in iPD pathogenesis. We propose that environmental factors (pesticides and infections) increase the risk for iPD via the immune system and that the role of PD risk genes in immune cells is worthy of investigation. This review highlights the major PD‐relevant genes expressed in immune cells and key environmental factors that activate immune cells and, alone or in combination with other factors, may contribute to iPD pathogenesis. By reviewing these interactions, we seek to enable the future development of immunomodulatory approaches to prevent or delay onset of iPD. © 2020 International Parkinson and Movement Disorder Society [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]