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Lüdtke L, Ittermann T, Großjohann R, Jürgens C, Völzke H, Tost F, Stahl A. Risk Factors of Age-Related Macular Degeneration in a Population-Based Study: Results from SHIP-TREND-1 (Study of Health in Pomerania-TREND-1). Med Sci Monit 2024; 30:e943140. [PMID: 38702879 PMCID: PMC11078065 DOI: 10.12659/msm.943140] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/09/2023] [Accepted: 02/05/2024] [Indexed: 05/06/2024] Open
Abstract
BACKGROUND Age-related macular degeneration (AMD) is the most common cause of visual impairment in the elderly population in industrialized countries. The Study of Health in Pomerania (SHIP) with its cohort SHIP-TREND was designed to investigate risk factors and clinical disorders in the general population of northeast Germany. This work focused on the first follow-up of SHIP-TREND and determined associated modifiable risk factors of AMD. Modifying risk factors is important to slow the progression of early AMD as there is currently no treatment for the late stage of geographic atrophy. Understanding AMD-associated risk factors also plays an important role in the development of therapeutic concepts. MATERIAL AND METHODS Between 2016 and 2019, data were collected from a total of 2507 initially randomly selected subjects from the general population aged 28 to 89 years. Non-mydriatic fundus photography of the right eye was performed in 2489 subjects. Grading of AMD was performed using the Rotterdam classification system. RESULTS We included 1418 gradable fundus photographs in the analysis. The risk of AMD changes increased with age and was positively correlated with HDL cholesterol, fT3, and low educational level. In men, BMI and cigarette smoking were also positively associated with AMD changes. CONCLUSIONS This study emphasizes the consideration of various metabolic pathways for the development of therapeutic concepts.
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Affiliation(s)
- Lisa Lüdtke
- Department of Ophthalmology, University Medicine Greifswald, Greifswald, Germany
| | - Till Ittermann
- Institute for Community Medicine, University Medicine Greifswald, Greifswald, Germany
| | - Rico Großjohann
- Department of Ophthalmology, University Medicine Greifswald, Greifswald, Germany
| | - Clemens Jürgens
- Institute for Community Medicine, University Medicine Greifswald, Greifswald, Germany
| | - Henry Völzke
- Institute for Community Medicine, University Medicine Greifswald, Greifswald, Germany
| | - Frank Tost
- Department of Ophthalmology, University Medicine Greifswald, Greifswald, Germany
| | - Andreas Stahl
- Department of Ophthalmology, University Medicine Greifswald, Greifswald, Germany
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Park JW, Piknova B, Tunau-Spencer KJ, Thomas SM, Cai H, Walter PJ, Jenkins A, Hellinga D, Parver LM, Schechter AN. Dietary Nitrate Metabolism in Porcine Ocular Tissues Determined Using 15N-Labeled Sodium Nitrate Supplementation. Nutrients 2024; 16:1154. [PMID: 38674845 PMCID: PMC11054199 DOI: 10.3390/nu16081154] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/19/2024] [Revised: 04/11/2024] [Accepted: 04/12/2024] [Indexed: 04/28/2024] Open
Abstract
Nitrate (NO3-) obtained from the diet is converted to nitrite (NO2-) and subsequently to nitric oxide (NO) within the body. Previously, we showed that porcine eye components contain substantial amounts of nitrate and nitrite that are similar to those in blood. Notably, cornea and sclera exhibited the capability to reduce nitrate to nitrite. To gain deeper insights into nitrate metabolism in porcine eyes, our current study involved feeding pigs either NaCl or Na15NO3 and assessing the levels of total and 15N-labeled NO3-/NO2- in various ocular tissues. Three hours after Na15NO3 ingestion, a marked increase in 15NO3- and 15NO2- was observed in all parts of the eye; in particular, the aqueous and vitreous humor showed a high 15NO3- enrichment (77.5 and 74.5%, respectively), similar to that of plasma (77.1%) and showed an even higher 15NO2- enrichment (39.9 and 35.3%, respectively) than that of plasma (19.8%). The total amounts of NO3- and NO2- exhibited patterns consistent with those observed in 15N analysis. Next, to investigate whether nitrate or nitrite accumulate proportionally after multiple nitrate treatments, we measured nitrate and nitrite contents after supplementing pigs with Na15NO3 for five consecutive days. In both 15N-labeled and total nitrate and nitrite analysis, we did not observe further accumulation of these ions after multiple treatments, compared to a single treatment. These findings suggest that dietary nitrate supplementation exerts a significant influence on nitrate and nitrite levels and potentially NO levels in the eye and opens up the possibility for the therapeutic use of dietary nitrate/nitrite to enhance or restore NO levels in ocular tissues.
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Affiliation(s)
- Ji Won Park
- Molecular Medicine Branch, National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases, Bethesda, MD 20892, USA; (J.W.P.); (B.P.); (K.J.T.-S.); (S.M.T.)
- Molecular Medicine Branch, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD 20892, USA
| | - Barbora Piknova
- Molecular Medicine Branch, National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases, Bethesda, MD 20892, USA; (J.W.P.); (B.P.); (K.J.T.-S.); (S.M.T.)
- Molecular Medicine Branch, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD 20892, USA
| | - Khalid J. Tunau-Spencer
- Molecular Medicine Branch, National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases, Bethesda, MD 20892, USA; (J.W.P.); (B.P.); (K.J.T.-S.); (S.M.T.)
- Molecular Medicine Branch, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD 20892, USA
| | - Samantha M. Thomas
- Molecular Medicine Branch, National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases, Bethesda, MD 20892, USA; (J.W.P.); (B.P.); (K.J.T.-S.); (S.M.T.)
- Molecular Medicine Branch, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD 20892, USA
| | - Hongyi Cai
- Clinical Mass Spectrometry Core, National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases, Bethesda, MD 20892, USA; (H.C.); (P.J.W.)
- Clinical Mass Spectrometry Core, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD 20892, USA
| | - Peter J. Walter
- Clinical Mass Spectrometry Core, National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases, Bethesda, MD 20892, USA; (H.C.); (P.J.W.)
- Clinical Mass Spectrometry Core, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD 20892, USA
| | - Audrey Jenkins
- MedStar Health Research Institute, Washington, DC 20010, USA; (A.J.); (D.H.)
| | - David Hellinga
- MedStar Health Research Institute, Washington, DC 20010, USA; (A.J.); (D.H.)
| | - Leonard M. Parver
- Department of Ophthalmology, Medstar Georgetown University Hospital, Washington, DC 20007, USA
| | - Alan N. Schechter
- Molecular Medicine Branch, National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases, Bethesda, MD 20892, USA; (J.W.P.); (B.P.); (K.J.T.-S.); (S.M.T.)
- Molecular Medicine Branch, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD 20892, USA
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Jacaruso L. Insights into the nutritional prevention of macular degeneration based on a comparative topic modeling approach. PeerJ Comput Sci 2024; 10:e1940. [PMID: 38660183 PMCID: PMC11042009 DOI: 10.7717/peerj-cs.1940] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/22/2023] [Accepted: 02/22/2024] [Indexed: 04/26/2024]
Abstract
Topic modeling and text mining are subsets of natural language processing (NLP) with relevance for conducting meta-analysis (MA) and systematic review (SR). For evidence synthesis, the above NLP methods are conventionally used for topic-specific literature searches or extracting values from reports to automate essential phases of SR and MA. Instead, this work proposes a comparative topic modeling approach to analyze reports of contradictory results on the same general research question. Specifically, the objective is to identify topics exhibiting distinct associations with significant results for an outcome of interest by ranking them according to their proportional occurrence in (and consistency of distribution across) reports of significant effects. Macular degeneration (MD) is a disease that affects millions of people annually, causing vision loss. Augmenting evidence synthesis to provide insight into MD prevention is therefore of central interest in this article. The proposed method was tested on broad-scope studies addressing whether supplemental nutritional compounds significantly benefit macular degeneration. Six compounds were identified as having a particular association with reports of significant results for benefiting MD. Four of these were further supported in terms of effectiveness upon conducting a follow-up literature search for validation (omega-3 fatty acids, copper, zeaxanthin, and nitrates). The two not supported by the follow-up literature search (niacin and molybdenum) also had scores in the lowest range under the proposed scoring system. Results therefore suggest that the proposed method's score for a given topic may be a viable proxy for its degree of association with the outcome of interest, and can be helpful in the systematic search for potentially causal relationships. Further, the compounds identified by the proposed method were not simultaneously captured as salient topics by state-of-the-art topic models that leverage document and word embeddings (Top2Vec) and transformer models (BERTopic). These results underpin the proposed method's potential to add specificity in understanding effects from broad-scope reports, elucidate topics of interest for future research, and guide evidence synthesis in a scalable way. All of this is accomplished while yielding valuable and actionable insights into the prevention of MD.
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Affiliation(s)
- Lucas Jacaruso
- University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA, United States of America
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Pinaffi-Langley ACDC, Dajani RM, Prater MC, Nguyen HVM, Vrancken K, Hays FA, Hord NG. Dietary Nitrate from Plant Foods: A Conditionally Essential Nutrient for Cardiovascular Health. Adv Nutr 2024; 15:100158. [PMID: 38008359 PMCID: PMC10776916 DOI: 10.1016/j.advnut.2023.100158] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/30/2023] [Revised: 11/14/2023] [Accepted: 11/21/2023] [Indexed: 11/28/2023] Open
Abstract
Under specific conditions, such as catabolic stress or systemic inflammation, endogenous nutrient production becomes insufficient and exogenous supplementation (for example, through dietary intake) is required. Herein, we propose consideration of a dietary nitrate from plant foods as a conditionally essential nutrient for cardiovascular health based on its role in nitric oxide homeostasis. Nitrate derived from plant foods may function as a conditionally essential nutrient, whereas nitrate obtained from other dietary sources, such as drinking water and cured/processed meats, warrants separate consideration because of the associated health risks. We have surveyed the literature and summarized epidemiological evidence regarding the effect of dietary nitrate on cardiovascular disease and risk factors. Meta-analyses and population-based observational studies have consistently demonstrated an inverse association of dietary nitrate with blood pressure and cardiovascular disease outcomes. Considering the available evidence, we suggest 2 different approaches to providing dietary guidance on nitrate from plant-based dietary sources as a nutrient: the Dietary Reference Intakes developed by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, and the dietary guidelines evaluated by the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics. Ultimately, this proposal underscores the need for food-based dietary guidelines to capture the complex and context-dependent relationships between nutrients, particularly dietary nitrate, and health.
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Affiliation(s)
- Ana Clara da C Pinaffi-Langley
- Department of Nutritional Sciences, College of Allied Health, University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center, Oklahoma City, OK, United States
| | - Rosa M Dajani
- Nutrition and Food Services, San Francisco Health, University of California, San Francisco, CA, United States
| | - M Catherine Prater
- Department of Foods and Nutrition, Dawson Hall, University of Georgia, Athens, GA, United States
| | - Hoang Van M Nguyen
- Department of Nutritional Sciences, College of Allied Health, University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center, Oklahoma City, OK, United States
| | | | - Franklin A Hays
- Department of Nutritional Sciences, College of Allied Health, University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center, Oklahoma City, OK, United States
| | - Norman G Hord
- Department of Nutritional Sciences, College of Allied Health, University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center, Oklahoma City, OK, United States; Department of Nutritional Sciences, College of Education and Human Sciences, Oklahoma State University, Stillwater, OK, United States.
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Larsen M. Nitrates and Age-Related Macular Degeneration. JAMA Ophthalmol 2023; 141:139. [PMID: 36547987 DOI: 10.1001/jamaophthalmol.2022.5625] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 12/24/2022]
Affiliation(s)
- Michael Larsen
- Department of Ophthalmology, Rigshospitalet, Glostrup, Denmark.,Faculty of Health and Medical Sciences, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark
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