Summary Background & aim The addition of prebiotics to infant formula modifies the composition of intestinal microflora. Aim of the study was to test the hypothesis that prebiotics reduce the ...incidence of intestinal and respiratory infections in healthy infants. Methods A prospective, randomized, placebo-controlled, open trial was performed. Healthy infants were enrolled and randomized to a formula additioned with a mixture of galacto- and fructo-oligosaccharides or to a control formula. The incidence of intestinal and respiratory tract infections and the anthropometric measures were monitored for 12 months. Results Three hundred and forty two infants (mean age 53.7 ± 32.1 days) were enrolled. The incidence of gastroenteritis was lower in the supplemented group than in the controls (0.12 ± 0.04 vs. 0.29 ± 0.05 episodes/child/12 months; p = 0.015). The number of children with more than 3 episodes tended to be lower in prebiotic group (17/60 vs. 29/65; p = 0.06). The number of children with multiple antibiotic courses/year was lower in children receiving prebiotics (24/60 vs. 43/65; p = 0.004). A transient increase in body weight was observed in children on prebiotics compared to controls during the first 6 months of follow-up. Conclusions Prebiotic administration reduce intestinal and, possibly, respiratory infections in healthy infants during the first year of age.
Background: Alcohol consumption during pregnancy, even at low doses, may damage the fetus. Pregnant women tend to underreport their alcohol consumption generating the need for sensitive and specific ...biomarkers, among which PEth has emerged due to its high specificity and possibility to be measured in both maternal and neonatal blood. The aim of this study is to systematically review the latest 20 years of literature for depicting the state of the art, the limitations, and the prospects of PEth for estimating alcohol consumption during pregnancy. Materials and methods: A systematic search, adhering to PRISMA guidelines, of the latest 20 years of literature through “MeSH” and “free-text” protocols in the databases PubMed, SCOPUS, and Web of Science, with time limits 1 January 2002–1 March 2022, was performed. The inclusion criteria were as follows: PEth used for detecting alcohol consumption during pregnancy, quantified in blood through liquid chromatography coupled to mass spectrometry, and full texts in the English language. Opinion papers, editorials, and narrative reviews were excluded. Results: Sixteen (16) papers were included in the present review (0.81% of total retrieved records). All the included records were original articles, of which there were seven prospective cohort/longitudinal studies, six cross-sectional studies, two observational-descriptive studies, and one retrospective study. All studies assayed PEth in at least one biological matrix; seven (7) studies quantified PEth in maternal blood, seven studies in newborn blood, and only two studies in both maternal and neonatal blood. In several included papers, PEth proved more sensitive than self-reports for identifying pregnant women with an active alcohol intake with the diagnostic efficiency improving with the increase of the maternal alcohol intake. Conclusions: Further studies, performed on wider and well-stratified populations, are needed to drive any definitive conclusion. PEth is a promising marker for monitoring alcohol use in pregnancy; however, at the present time, its use is still limited mainly by the absence of a globally agreed interpretative cut-off, the paucity of data regarding its specificity/sensitivity, and the lack of standardization on the diagnostic efficiency of the different isoforms.
In April 2019, a tuberculosis (TB) outbreak, likely triggered
by re-activation of a highly contagious latent tuberculosis
infection (LTBI) in a school teacher, was reported in a primary school in the ...Veneto Region (northeastern Italy). The
infection, having probably been dormant for decades, rapidly spread further to two school teachers and up to 11 pupils, a total of 13 cases of active TB that received appropriate TB treatment. Ten out of the remaining 95 school staff
members (10.5%) and 34/546 (6.2%) remaining school pupils tested positive on tuberculin skin test (TST). Moreover,
2% (2/97) of pupils attending the first year of junior secondary school within the same municipality during 2017/18
(having completed the above primary school) were also
found positive on TST. Since none of 3 school teachers or
84 pupils who completed the last year of primary school in
2017 and attended the second year of a junior secondary
school were found to be TST positive, the beginning of the
outbreak was dated from January 2018 onwards. Therefore,
active TB in the index case may have been potentially infectious and undiagnosed for about 14 months, leading to
extensive exposure of close contacts, especially students
(1). Anyone with recognized LTBI status – among school
staff or pupils – was placed on prophylaxis with isoniazid for 6 months (1).
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