Although it is known that variation in the aldehyde dehydrogenase 2 (ALDH2) gene family influences the East Asian alcohol flushing response, knowledge about other genetic variants that affect ...flushing symptoms is limited.
We performed a genome-wide association study meta-analysis and heritability analysis of alcohol flushing in 15,105 males of East Asian ancestry (Koreans and Chinese) to identify genetic associations with alcohol flushing. We also evaluated whether self-reported flushing can be used as an instrumental variable for alcohol intake.
We identified variants in the region of ALDH2 strongly associated with alcohol flushing, replicating previous studies conducted in East Asian populations. Additionally, we identified variants in the alcohol dehydrogenase 1B (ADH1B) gene region associated with alcohol flushing. Several novel variants were identified after adjustment for the lead variants (ALDH2-rs671 and ADH1B-rs1229984), which need to be confirmed in larger studies. The estimated SNP-heritability on the liability scale was 13% (S.E. = 4%) for flushing, but the heritability estimate decreased to 6% (S.E. = 4%) when the effects of the lead variants were controlled for. Genetic instrumentation of higher alcohol intake using these variants recapitulated known associations of alcohol intake with hypertension. Using self-reported alcohol flushing as an instrument gave a similar association pattern of higher alcohol intake and cardiovascular disease-related traits (e.g. stroke).
This study confirms that ALDH2-rs671 and ADH1B-rs1229984 are associated with alcohol flushing in East Asian populations. Our findings also suggest that self-reported alcohol flushing can be used as an instrumental variable in future studies of alcohol consumption.
Radium is widely used to estimate flushing time, submarine groundwater discharge (SGD), and submarine fresh groundwater discharge (SFGD), however there are important sources of uncertainty in current ...methods. Here an improved method is proposed, incorporating all radium quartet information to estimate flushing time, SFGD, SGD, and associated nutrient fluxes during wet and dry seasons in Laizhou Bay, China. Both SGD and SFGD in dry season are comparable to that in wet season, likely due to higher groundwater hydraulic gradients resulting from higher groundwater table and lower mean sea level in dry season. Estimated dry and wet season SFGD are of the same order of magnitude as the annually-averaged Yellow River discharge, highlighting SFGD's importance to the bay environment. Nutrient inputs into Laizhou Bay were estimated for the wet season, suggesting that SGD-derived nutrients are indeed important and significant for coastal environments compared to local river discharge estimates.
•Using radium quartet for simultaneous estimation of flushing time, SGD and SFGD•Both SGD and SFGD in dry season are comparable to that in wet season in Laizhou Bay.•Effects of RSGD were taken into account for calculating SGD driven nutrient fluxes.•SGD-derived nutrients are significantly higher than those from the Yellow River.
The objective of this study was to evaluate the health-related quality of life (HRQL) burden of patients with neuroendocrine tumor (NET) and associations with demographic and clinical factors.
...Patients with NET were invited to participate in an online, anonymous survey consisting of 2 standardized HRQL measures, SF-36 and PROMIS-29, and a set of demographic and disease-related questions. General linear models were used to evaluate the associations between HRQL and demographic and clinical characteristics.
A total of 663 patients participated. These patients with NET demonstrated worse HRQL scores compared to the general population and to a sample of mixed cancer patients and survivors. Patients with current NET (tumor not surgically removed or came back after surgery), carcinoid syndrome, or an increased number of bowel movements or flushing episodes experience worsened HRQL compared to patients with NET without those characteristics after adjustment for other clinical and demographic variables.
Patients with NET reported worse HRQL scores compared to the general population. NET-related symptoms such as diarrhea and flushing were associated with reduced quality of life in this cross-sectional study. Optimal management of NET and carcinoid syndrome may significantly improve HRQL among patients with NETs.
Transient rip currents, episodic offshore flows from the surf zone to the inner shelf, present a recreational beach hazard and exchange material across the nearshore ocean. The magnitude and offshore ...extent of transient rip‐current‐induced exchange and its relative importance to other inner shelf exchange processes are poorly understood. Here 120 model simulations with random, normally incident, directionally spread waves spanning a range of beach slopes and wave conditions show that the transient rip current exchange velocity is self‐similar. The nondimensional exchange velocity, surf zone flushing time, and cross‐shore decay length scale are scaled by beach slope and wave properties, depending strongly on wave directional spread. Transient rip‐current‐driven exchange can be compared to other cross‐shelf exchange processes. For example, transient rip‐current‐driven exchange is stronger than wave‐induced Stokes‐drift‐driven exchange up to six surf zone widths from shore.
Key Points
Cross‐shore exchange velocity due to transient rip currents is self‐similar
The exchange velocity profile is scaled by incident waves and beach slope
Transient rip current exchange exceeds Stokes drift up to six surf zone widths
Recreational activities in nature have increased considerably in recent decades. Human disturbance may trigger similar trade‐offs in birds that the natural risk of predation generates on productivity ...through parental investment decisions. To estimate how the impact of human presence affects breeding birds on Mediterranean beaches, the behaviour of incubating Kentish Plovers Charadrius alexandrinus was studied in relation to the approach of people, vehicles and dogs. Observational data were collected and control experiments were performed with a standardized stimulus. The response variability of birds in the decision to flush from the nest was studied depending on the type of beach user, the location of the disturbance event and thermal stress. Walkers, when accompanied by dogs, flushed plovers 93.8% of the time when walking through dunes and 80.0% of the time when walking on paths, whereas pedestrians alone flushed plovers 47.6% of the time when in dunes and only 12.9% of the time when on paths. Lone dogs triggered a flushing response 100% of the time when they roamed the dunes and 50% on the shore. The number of users in each disturbance event did not affect the flushing behaviour. Nest return times were shorter on disturbed beaches, suggesting habituation to the human disturbance stimulus. The ambient temperature for the nests in which plovers flushed was lower and nest return time decreased proportionally with ambient temperature, both suggesting that habituation to the human disturbance stimulus encourages relaxation of the trade‐off between escape behaviour to avoid predation risk and the effects of thermal stress on unattended eggs. Females flushed more frequently (57.1%) than males (32.0%), suggesting that they may perceive risk differently. Establishing buffers between nesting areas and people may help birds habituate to the predictable and non‐lethal stimulus of human presence, facilitating coexistence between conservation and recreation.
Climate warming has substantially advanced spring leaf flushing, but winter chilling and photoperiod co‐determine the leaf flushing process in ways that vary among species. As a result, the ...interspecific differences in spring phenology (IDSP) are expected to change with climate warming, which may, in turn, induce negative or positive ecological consequences. However, the temporal change of IDSP at large spatiotemporal scales remains unclear. In this study, we analyzed long‐term in‐situ observations (1951–2016) of six, coexisting temperate tree species from 305 sites across Central Europe and found that phenological ranking did not change when comparing the rapidly warming period 1984–2016 to the marginally warming period 1951–1983. However, the advance of leaf flushing was significantly larger in early‐flushing species EFS (6.7 ± 0.3 days) than in late‐flushing species LFS (5.9 ± 0.2 days) between the two periods, indicating extended IDSP. This IDSP extension could not be explained by differences in temperature sensitivity between EFS and LFS; however, climatic warming‐induced heat accumulation effects on leaf flushing, which were linked to a greater heat requirement and higher photoperiod sensitivity in LFS, drove the shifts in IDSP. Continued climate warming is expected to further extend IDSP across temperate trees, with associated implications for ecosystem function.
Directly derived from long‐term in situ observations (1951–2016) of six coexisting, common temperate tree species across Central Europe, we found that the period between leaf flushing dates of early‐flushing (EFS) and of late‐flushing species (LFS) increased significantly, mainly due to a greater advancement of leaf flushing dates in EFS than in LFS. The potential underlying mechanism was likely a greater heat requirement and higher photoperiod sensitivity in LFS than in EFS. These results imply further increasing differences in spring phenology among temperate tree species under sustained warming, with potentially important implications for ecosystem structure and function.
Estuaries and coastal waters are sensitive to ecological degradation but receive some of the highest levels of pollutants. One impact of these pollutants is increased greenhouse gas generation, which ...is significant, but difficult to estimate due to high variability and data paucity. This paper investigates key controls on methane (CH4) and nitrous oxide (N2O) in the urban, mesotidal, stratified Clyde estuary, Scotland, between January 2020 and October 2022. Measurements covered the estuary longitudinally, through tidal cycles and across the river-estuary transition. Dissolved CH4 and N2O were always supersaturated relative to air exhibiting strong spatial and temporal variability. Estuary surface freshwater layer CH4 concentrations were positively correlated with turbidity and exceeded 5.4 μmol l−1. Lower saline layer CH4 concentrations exceeded 10.8 μmol l−1 and were highest after freshwater flushing events. The CH4 concentrations decreased exponentially with salinity persistence (time since last freshwater flushing event), reducing by 50% after 10 days of continuously saline water. Salinity persistence likely provides a tipping point between the dominance of different microbial communities. Considering the persistence of saline conditions can explain much of the previously reported variability in estuarine CH4. In the surface freshwater layer, N2O exceeded 0.15 μmol l−1, while in the lower saline layer N2O exceeded 0.21 μmol l−1, despite lower dissolved nitrogen, increasing the N2O per unit available nitrogen. There was a significant inverse exponential correlation (R2 = 0.96) between N2O and dissolved oxygen in the lower layer, with low oxygen driving elevated N2O concentrations. This study provides unique insights into the conditions that generate CH4 and N2O in a stratified urban-impacted estuary.
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•CH4 decreased exponentially with salinity persistence (50% after 10 days).•CH4 concentrations were reinviorgated by freshwater flushing events.•Low dissolved oxygen exponentially increased N2O concentrations.•Nutrients, flushing and stratification all contributed to low dissolved oxygen.
Rosacea has been reported less frequently among individuals with skin of color than in those with white skin, but rosacea is not a rare disease in this population. In fact, rosacea might be ...underreported and underdiagnosed in populations with skin of color because of the difficulty of discerning erythema and telangiectasia in dark skin. The susceptibility of persons with highly pigmented skin to dermatologic conditions like rosacea, whose triggers include sun exposure, is probably underestimated. Many people with skin of color who have rosacea might experience delayed diagnosis, leading to inappropriate or inadequate treatment; greater morbidity; and uncontrolled, progressive disease with disfiguring manifestations, including phymatous rosacea. In this article, we review the epidemiology of rosacea in skin of color and highlight variations in the clinical presentation of rosacea across the diverse spectrum of patient populations affected. We present strategies to aid in the timely diagnosis and effective treatment of rosacea in patients with skin of color, with an aim of promoting increased awareness of rosacea in these patients and reducing disparities in the management of their disease.
Abstract The inflow of CSF into perivascular spaces (PVS) in the brain is crucial for clearing waste molecules. Inefficiency in PVS flow leads to neurodegeneration. Failure of PVS flushing is ...associated with CSF flow impairment in the intracranial hydrodynamic condition of CSF hypo-pulsatility. However, enlarged PVS (ePVS), a finding indicative of PVS flow dysfunction, is also present in patients with derangement of CSF dynamics characterized by CSF hyper-pulsatility, which increases CSF flow. Intriguingly, two opposite intracranial hydrodynamic conditions would lead to the same result of impairing the PVS flushing. To investigate this issue, we assessed the subsistence of a dysfunctional interplay between CSF and PVS flows and, if the case, the mechanisms preventing a hyper-pulsatile brain from providing an effective PVS flushing. We analyzed the association between phase contrast MRI aqueductal CSF stroke volume (aqSV), a proxy of CSF pulsatility, and the burden of ePVS in chronic adult hydrocephalus, a disease involving a broad spectrum of intracranial hydrodynamics disturbances. In the 147 (85 males, 62 females) patients, the age at diagnosis ranged between 28 and 88 years (median 73 years). Ninety-seven patients had tri-ventriculomegaly and 50 tetra-ventriculomegaly. According to the extent of ePVS, 113 patients had a high ePVS burden, while 34 had a low ePVS burden. aqSV, which ranged between 0 and 562 μL (median 86 μL), was increased with respect to healthy subjects. Patients presenting with less ePVS burden had higher aqSV ( p < 0.002, corrected for the multiple comparisons) than those with higher ePVS burden. The present study confirmed the association between CSF dynamics and PVS flow disturbances and demonstrated this association in intracranial hyper-pulsatility. Further studies should investigate the association between PVS flow failure and CSF hypo- and hyper-pulsatility as responsible/co-responsible for glymphatic failure in other neurodegenerative diseases, particularly in diseases in which CSF disturbances can be corrected, as in chronic adult hydrocephalus.
In Small Island Developing States (SIDS), water pollution is not monitored or assessed frequently enough to fully understand the processes, impacts of water quality issues and what solutions are ...available This study investigated flushing time in Erakor lagoon and Port Vila Bay, Vanuatu using a numerical model developed in Delft3D. Microbial contamination by Escherichia coli was detected in multiple locations in the lagoon system with counts exceeding thresholds related to human health concerns. Modelling demonstrated a poor flushing time overall with a further decrease as the influence of waves and wind increased, especially in Vila Bay. Sea level rise resulted in an increase in flushing time downstream of the lagoon near the open sea, while with a decrease upstream and in Vila Bay. Based on these results, we recommend long-term continuous monitoring and identification of higher risks areas to prioritise decisions around wastewater management.
•Erakor Lagoon and Vila Bay have both high residence times.•Erakor lagoon is highly influenced by the waves, sea levels and the tidal flow.•Sampling revealed E. coli exceeding human health thresholds in Erakor lagoon.•Monitoring on a real-time would increase the capacity building.•The flushing time in Vila Bay is influenced by the wind but not by the dredging.
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