1.
Association of Dietary Micronutrient Intake with Pulmonary Tuberculosis Treatment Failure Rate: ACohort Study.
Xiong, K, Wang, J, Zhang, J, Hao, H, Wang, Q, Cai, J, Ma, A
Nutrients. 2020;(9)
Abstract
Malnutrition is associated with an increased risk of pulmonary tuberculosis (PTB) treatment failure. Currently, there is no effective adjunctive nutritional therapy. The current objective is to investigate the association of dietary micronutrient intake with PTB treatment outcome.A cohort study including 1834 PTB patients was conducted in Linyi, China. The dietary micronutrient intake was assessed through a three-day 24 h dietary recall questionnaire. The treatment outcome was assessed by combinations of sputum smear and computerized tomography results. A multivariate binary regression model was used to assess the associations. The final model was adjusted for potential confounding factors. A low intake of vitamin C (adjusted OR (95% CI): 1.80 (1.07, 3.04), Ptrend = 0.02) and Zn (adjusted OR (95% CI): 2.52 (1.25, 5.08), Ptrend = 0.02) was associated with a high treatment failure rate. In addition, a low intake of vitamin C and Mn was associated with a severe tuberculosis symptom, as indicated by a high TB score. A supplementation of vitamin C and Zn may be beneficial in PTB treatment. Previous meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials (RCTs) reported a null effect of Zn supplementation on PTB treatment. The effect of vitamin C supplementation should be investigated by RCTs.
2.
Sex-Specific Differences in Cognitive Abilities Associated with Childhood Cadmium and Manganese Exposures in School-Age Children: a Prospective Cohort Study.
Zhou, T, Guo, J, Zhang, J, Xiao, H, Qi, X, Wu, C, Chang, X, Zhang, Y, Liu, Q, Zhou, Z
Biological trace element research. 2020;(1):89-99
Abstract
To examine sex-specific associations of neonatal and childhood exposure to eight trace elements with cognitive abilities of school-age children. The association between exposure and effects was assessed among 296 school-age children from a population-based birth cohort study, who had manganese (Mn), cadmium (Cd), and lead (Pb) exposure measured in cord blood and chromium (Cr), manganese, cobalt (Co), copper (Cu), arsenic (As), selenium (Se), cadmium, and lead exposure quantified in spot urine. Cognitive abilities were assessed using the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children-Chinese Revised (WISC-CR). Generalized linear models were performed to analyze associations of intelligence quotient (IQ) with trace element concentrations in cord blood and urinary trace element levels. General linear models were used to evaluate association between exposure fluctuation and children's IQ. Urinary Cd concentrations were negatively associated with full-scale IQ (β = - 3.469, 95% confidence interval (CI) - 6.291, - 0.647; p = 0.016) and performance IQ (β = - 4.012, 95% CI - 7.088, - 0.936; p = 0.011) in girls; however, neonatal Cd exposure expressed as Cd concentrations in cord blood was in inverse associations with verbal IQ (β = - 2.590, 95% CI - 4.570, - 0.609; p = 0.010) only in boys. Positive association between urinary Mn concentrations and performance IQ (β = 1.305, 95% CI 0.035, 2.575; p = 0.044) of children was observed, especially in girls. In addition, inverse association of urinary Cu concentrations with verbal IQ (β = - 2.200, 95% CI - 4.360, - 0.039; p = 0.046) was only found in boys. Childhood Cd exposure may adversely affect cognitive abilities, while Mn exposure may beneficially modify cognitive abilities of school-age children, particularly in girls.
3.
Manganese-mefenamic acid complexes exhibit high lipoxygenase inhibitory activity.
Feng, J, Du, X, Liu, H, Sui, X, Zhang, C, Tang, Y, Zhang, J
Dalton transactions (Cambridge, England : 2003). 2014;(28):10930-9
Abstract
The coordination of non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) to metal ions could improve the pharmaceutical efficacy of NSAIDs due to the unique characteristics of metal complexes. However, the structures of many metal-NSAID complexes are not well characterized; the functional mechanism and pharmaceutical effect of these complexes thus are not fully understood. In this work, three manganese-mefenamic acid (Mn-mef) complexes were synthesized and structurally characterized, and their pharmaceutical effect was investigated. We found that the three Mn-mef complexes exhibit higher lipoxygenase (LOX-1) inhibitory activity (IC50 values are 16.79, 38.63 and 28.06 μM, respectively) than the parent ligand mefenamic acid (78.67 μM). More importantly, the high inhibitory activity of the Mn-mef complexes is closely related to their spatial arrangements, which determine their interaction with LOX-1. Computer docking of the Mn-mef complexes with the LOX-1 confirms the experimental results: smaller Mn-mef complexes tend to bind competitively to LOX-1 at the substrate binding site, which is also analogous to the binding of the ligand mefenamic acid, while the bulky metal complexes inhibit the enzyme activity un-competitively. In addition, the Mn-mef complexes exhibit higher anti-oxidant activity than the ligand mefenamic acid. The higher anti-oxidant activity of the Mn-mef complexes apparently originated from the manganese centre of the complexes. We thus conclude that Mn-mef complexes enhance the anti-inflammatory activity of mefenamic acid by increasing their activity via changing their interaction mode with the enzymes, and/or by improving their anti-oxidant ability using metal ions. This work provides experimental evidence that with the unique spatial arrangements, metal-NSAID complexes could interact with the target enzymes more specifically and efficiently, which is superior to their parent NSAID ligand.