Publications by authors named "J Beales"
This article explores civilian responses to the British army's blood donor recruitment campaign in wartime Britain, revealing it to be an underexplored medium for the examination of the contribution of women to Britain's war effort. However, despite extensive gender-targeted propaganda, it reveals evidence of a significant disparity between levels of volunteering to donate and actual donation throughout the war. Wartime donor behaviour was influenced by perceptions of personal or familial risk, with donor recruitment propaganda emphasising kinship ties to those in military service and promoting blood donation as a mutual insurance policy.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFDietary flavanols are known for disease preventative properties but are often poorly absorbed. Gut microbiome flavanol metabolites are more bioavailable and may exert protective activities. Using metabolite mixtures extracted from the urine of rats supplemented with flavanols and treated with or without antibiotics, we investigated their effects on INS-1 832/13 β-cell glucose stimulated insulin secretion (GSIS) capacity.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFArticle Synopsis
- The study investigates how decitabine affects patients with myelodysplastic syndrome and acute myeloid leukemia, specifically looking at the molecular changes in their bone marrow during treatment.
- Using advanced genomic techniques, the researchers found that decitabine leads to a global, temporary decrease in DNA methylation, which triggers specific cellular pathways and alters gene expression after 10 days of therapy.
- Interestingly, while some gene expressions normalized or changed upon treatment relapse, the expected clinical outcomes were not directly linked to these molecular changes due to the small sample size and variability among patients.
Serum accumulation of the gut microbial metabolite trimethylamine N-oxide (TMAO) is associated with high caloric intake and type 2 diabetes (T2D). Impaired pancreatic β-cell function is a hallmark of diet-induced T2D, which is linked to hyperglycemia and hyperlipidemia. While TMAO production via the gut microbiome-liver axis is well defined, its molecular effects on metabolic tissues are unclear, since studies in various tissues show deleterious and beneficial TMAO effects.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Age at onset of multiple sclerosis (MS) is an objective, influential predictor of the evolution of MS independent of disease duration.
Objectives: Determine the influence of MS genetic predisposition on age of onset.
Methods: We conducted a comprehensive investigation of MS risk variants and age at onset in 3495 non-Latinx white individuals, including for combinations of alleles and quintiles of an unweighted genetic risk score (GRS) for 198 of 200 autosomal MS risk variants that reside outside the major histocompatibility complex.