Supplementation of dietary fiber has been proved to be an effective strategy to prevent and relieve inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) through gut microbiota modulation. However, more attention has ...been paid to the efficacy of soluble dietary fiber than that of insoluble dietary fiber (IDF). In the present study, we investigated whether IDF from barley leaf (BLIDF) can inhibit gut inflammation via modulating the intestinal microbiota in DSS-induced colitis mice. The mice were fed 1.52% BLIDF-supplemented diet for 28 days. Results demonstrated that feeding BLIDF markedly mitigated DSS-induced acute colitis symptoms and down-regulated IL-6, TNF-α, and IL-1β levels in the colon and serum of colitis mice. BLIDF supplementation effectively reduced the abundance of
and increased the abundance of
,
, and
. Importantly, the anti-colitis effects of BLIDF were abolished when the intestinal microbiota was depleted by antibiotics. Furthermore, the targeted microbiota-derived metabolites analysis suggested that BLIDF feeding can reverse the DSS-induced decline of short-chain fatty acids and secondary bile acids in mice feces. Finally, BLIDF supplementation elevated the expression of occludin and mucin2, and decreased the expression of claudin-1 in colons of DSS-treated mice. Overall, our observations suggest that BLIDF exerts anti-inflammatory effects via modulating the intestinal microbiota composition and increasing the production of microbiota-derived metabolites.
Cardiovascular disease (CVD) remains the first cause of mortality globally. Diet plays a fundamental role in cardiovascular health and is closely linked to the development of CVD. Numerous human ...studies have provided evidence on the relationship between diet and CVD. By discussing the available findings on the dietary components that potentially influence CVD progression and prevention, this review attempted to provide the current state of evidence on healthy dietary choices for CVD. We focus on the effects of individual macronutrients, whole food products, and dietary patterns on the risks of CVD, and the data from population-based trials, observational studies, and meta-analyses are summarized. Unhealthy dietary habits, such as high intake of saturated fatty acids, sugar-sweetened beverages, red meat, and processed meat as well as high salt intake are associated with the increased risk of CVD. Conversely, increased consumption of plant-based components such as dietary fiber, nuts, fruits, and vegetables is shown to be effective in reducing CVD risk factors. The Mediterranean diet appears to be one of the most evidence-based dietary patterns beneficial for CVD prevention. However, there is still great debate regarding whether the supplementation of vitamins and minerals confers cardioprotective benefits. This review provides new insights into the role of dietary factors that are harmful or protective in CVD, which can be adopted for improved cardiovascular health.
As a medicinal and edible plant, Chinese yam (CY) can promote the enrichment of intestinal probiotics. Mucilage polysaccharides, diosgenin and taxifolin are the dominant components of CY. The purpose ...of this study was to investigate whether the impact of Chinese yam on gut microbiome structure and metabolism is attributable to its components. In the in vitro gastrointestinal digestion and colon fermentation system, the changes in gut microbiota composition and function were determined by 16S rRNA sequencing, and the levels of bacterial metabolites including short-chain fatty acids (SCFAs) and indole-like metabolites were detected by gas chromatography and an enzyme-linked immunoassay. The results show that CY, mucilage polysaccharides, diosgenin and taxifolin could increase the microbial diversity index. Furthermore, probiotics including
and
were significantly increased, while harmful bacteria such as
and
declined. CY could increase the production of SCFAs including acetic acid and butyric acid. Of note, CY and diosgenin displayed similar impacts on enhancing the abundance of
and promoting the production of indole-3-lactic acid and lactic acid. These findings provide evidence supporting Chinese yam as a natural food to regulate intestinal health. Diosgenin as a component of CY contributes mostly to the impact on regulating intestinal flora.
Two broadband dual-polarized band-notched crossed dipole antennas based on the grounded coplanar waveguide (GCPW) filter for 2G/3G/4G/5G base station are proposed in this paper. Two antennas with two ...and three radiation nulls are displayed to demonstrate the design innovation. Firstly, a wideband crossed dipole antenna with GCPW feed structure is designed, and its coverage frequency is 1.7-3.6 GHz. Then, a compact GCPW second-order hybrid bandstop filter is designed using defected ground structure (DGS) and defected microstrip structure (DMS). The DGS-DMS filter are embedded inside the antenna radiator to achieve the stopband covering 2.9-3.1 GHz with only one dielectric substrate. At last, a miniaturized GCPW third-order DGS-DMS highly selective bandstop filter is integrated in wideband antenna to realize the stopband of 2.87-3.17 GHz. The proposed band-notched antenna uses only one substrate. Compared with the antenna using second-order filter, the antenna using third-order filter has one more radiation null, wider stopband of 2.87-3.17 GHz and higher selectivity.
High hydrostatic pressure (HHP) is a non-thermal pasteurization technology for the enhancement of food products' safety and quality. The components of tomato juice can be affected by HHP processing. ...Little is known about the effects of HHP-processed tomato juice on the gut microbiome and metabolism. Here, we performed high-throughput sequencing and metabolomics profiling to determine the critical differences in gut microbiota structure and metabolic profiles in mice administered with HHP-processed tomato juice. Tomato juice administration significantly increased the gut bacterial alpha diversity and the relative abundance of Bacteroides. The mice administered with HHP-processed tomato juice were characterized by the enrichment of Bacteroidetes,
, and
compared with those administered with HTST-processed tomato juice. Moreover, HHP-processed tomato juice promoted SCFA levels, which were positively correlated with the enriched
. Our results show that HHP-processed tomato juice may drive healthy gut microbes and metabolites.
Inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) has become a global public health challenge. Our previous study showed that barley leaf (BL) significantly reduces
(CR)-induced colitis, but its mechanism remains ...elusive. Thus, in this study, we used non-targeted metabolomics techniques to search for potentially effective metabolites. Our results demonstrated that dietary supplementation with BL significantly enriched arginine and that arginine intervention significantly ameliorated CR-induced colitis symptoms such as reduced body weight, shortened colon, wrinkled cecum, and swollen colon wall in mice; in addition, arginine intervention dramatically ameliorated CR-induced histopathological damage to the colon. The gut microbial diversity analysis showed that arginine intervention significantly decreased the relative abundance of CR and significantly increased the relative abundance of
,
,
, and
, which modified the CR-induced intestinal flora disorder. Notably, arginine showed a dose-dependent effect on the improvement of colitis caused by CR.
Acrylamide (AA), a known neurotoxin, has been considered to be a probable human carcinogen. The discovery of AA in many common foods in 2002 has caused worldwide attention and led to numerous ...research efforts on the metabolism of AA.
By collecting research literatures related to metabolism of AA, the present review not only summarized the major metabolic pathways and enzymes of AA, but also compared the interindividual and the interspecies differences of AA metabolism among humans, rats and mice. Moreover, the application of the metabolites as biomarkers for the AA exposure assessment in human population was also discussed.
The interindividual differences of AA metabolism may be attributed to the activity and/or genetic polymorphisms of metabolic enzymes in individuals with different gender, age, smoking and alcohol status. Moreover, the metabolism of AA in humans may be more prone to the phase II conjugation with glutathione (GSH) than the phase I conversion of AA to glycidamide (GA) when compared with rats and mice. Both the hemoglobin (Hb) adducts and urinary mercapturic acid (MA) metabolites have been successfully used as biomarkers for the risk assessment of AA and new metabolic biomarkers are being developed.
The genotoxic risk from AA may be determined by the balance between the phase I P450 2E1 (CYP2E1)-dependent toxification pathway to form genotoxic GA and the phase II GSH-conjugated detoxification pathway to form MA metabolite. Understanding the metabolism of AA in the body is helpful for developing effective intervention strategies to mitigate its toxicity.
The incidence and prevalence of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) have been increasing globally and progressively in recent decades. Barley leaf (BL) is a nutritional supplement that is shown to have ...health-promoting effects on intestinal homeostasis. Our previous study demonstrated that BL could significantly attenuate Citrobacter rodentium (CR)-induced colitis, but whether it exerts a prophylactic or therapeutic effect remains elusive. In this study, we supplemented BL before or during CR infestation to investigate which way BL acts. The results showed that BL supplementation prior to infection significantly reduced the disease activity index (DAI) score, weight loss, colon shortening, colonic wall swelling, and transmissible murine colonic hyperplasia. It significantly reduced the amount of CR in the feces and also markedly inhibited the extraintestinal transmission of CR. Meanwhile, it significantly reduced the levels and expression of tumor necrosis factor-alpha (TNF-α), interferon-gamma (IFNγ), and interleukin-1β (IL1β). In addition, pretreatment with BL improved CR-induced gut microbiota dysbiosis by reducing the content of Proteobacteria, while increasing the content of Lactobacillus. In contrast, the effect of BL supplementation during infestation on the improvement of CR-induced colitis was not as good as that of pretreatment with BL. In conclusion, BL protects against CR-caused colitis in a preventive manner.
A compact low-profile differential filtering microstrip patch antenna with high selectivity and deep rejection using single-layer substrate is proposed. The presented antenna mainly consists of the ...quasi-H-shaped patch (QHSP) and the meandering quasi-T-shaped resonator (QTSR) which is composed of two open-end meandering arms in opposite direction and an inset coupling structure. To the best of our knowledge, a novel differential feeding structure is adopted for the first time that a pair of differential inset coupling feeding structures are placed in opposite direction to drive the QHSP with insetting-capacitive-coupling, simultaneously. Its equivalent lumped circuit is further analyzed to study the characteristics. In the point of views of filter and antenna design, the meandering QTSR not only acts as the first stage of resonator, but also a feed structure, and the QHSP can be treated as the last order of resonator as well as the radiator. A prototype of the proposed antenna is designed, analyzed, simulated and measured. Two controllable radiation nulls (RNs) locate at the both sides of the passband, a sharp skirt selectivity with the sideband roll-off rates of 667/182 dB/GHz and out-of-band suppressions of −40.1/−39 dB in lower and upper stopbands are achieved, respectively. The measured flat realized gain can be obtained in the passband with the average gain more than 6 dBi and the low cross-polarization level can be achieved. The dimension of the proposed antenna is only <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">0.361\lambda _{0} \times 0.426\lambda _{0} \times 0.013\lambda _{0} </tex-math></inline-formula>. Good agreement between the simulated and measured results is obtained, which verifies the proposed antenna with the differential feeding structure has excellent performance only using single layer low profile substrate. The proposed antenna is a good candidate for WLAN and power harvest application.
This paper presents a mechanical reliability study of 3-dB waveguide hybrid couplers in submillimeter and terahertz bands. To show the necessity of improving the mechanical properties of the ...coupler’s branch in submillimeter and terahertz bands, a comprehensive study regarding the displacement of hybrid branch variation with varying width-length ratio and height-length ratio has been completed. In addition, a modified 3-dB waveguide hybrid coupler is designed and presented. Compared with the traditional branch structure, the proposed hybrid consists of a modified middle branch with circular cutouts at the top and bottom on both sides instead of the traditional rectangle branch, which increases the branch size and improves its mechanical reliability while achieving the same performance. Simulation results show that the deformation of the modified hybrid branch is 22% less than those of other traditional structure designs under the same stress. In practice, a vibration experiment is set up to verify the mechanical reliability of hybrid couplers. Measurement results show that the experiment deteriorates the coupling performance. Experimental results verify that the performance of the novel structure coupler is better than that of a traditional structure branch hybrid coupler under the same electrical properties.
PDF
