The effect of motivational lung age feedback on short-term quit rates in smokers seeking intensive group treatment: A randomized controlled pilot study.

Background: A brief "Lung Age" feedback intervention has shown promise for personalizing the health impact of smoking and promoting cessation in unselected smokers. Now that many healthcare organizations provide face-to-face cessation services, it is reasonable to ask whether such motivational feedback of lung function tests might improve treatment compliance and cessation rates in smokers wanting to quit. This study assessed effects of baseline motivational spirometry-based "Lung Age" feedback on treatment compliance and tobacco abstinence at 28-day follow-up.

DNA methylation changes in the placenta are associated with fetal manganese exposure.

Adequate micronutrient intake, including manganese (Mn), is important for fetal development. Both Mn deficiencies and excess exposures are associated with later-life disease, and Mn accumulates in the placenta. Placental functional alterations may alter fetal programming and lifelong health, and we hypothesized that prenatal exposures to Mn may alter placental function through epigenetic mechanisms.

Placental DNA Methylation Related to Both Infant Toenail Mercury and Adverse Neurobehavioral Outcomes.

Background: Prenatal mercury (Hg) exposure is associated with adverse child neurobehavioral outcomes. Because Hg can interfere with placental functioning and cross the placenta to target the fetal brain, prenatal Hg exposure can inhibit fetal growth and development directly and indirectly.

Objectives: We examined potential associations between prenatal Hg exposure assessed through infant toenail Hg, placental DNA methylation changes, and newborn neurobehavioral outcomes.

Epigenetic patterns in successful weight loss maintainers: a pilot study.

DNA methylation changes occur in animal models of calorie restriction, simulating human dieting, and in human subjects undergoing behavioral weight loss interventions. This suggests that obese (OB) individuals may possess unique epigenetic patterns that may vary with weight loss. Here, we examine whether methylation patterns in leukocytes differ in individuals who lost sufficient weight to go from OB to normal weight (NW; successful weight loss maintainers; SWLMs) vs currently OB or NW individuals.

Novel DNA methylation targets in oral rinse samples predict survival of patients with oral squamous cell carcinoma.

Objectives: The objective of this study was to identify novel survival-associated biomarkers in oral rinse samples collected from patients with oral squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC).

Materials And Methods: We screened for putative survival-associated markers using publicly available methylation array data from 88 OSCC tumors. Cox models were then fit to methylation array data restricted to these putative loci in oral rinse samples of 82 OSCC patients from greater Boston.

Placental DNA methylation alterations associated with maternal tobacco smoking at the RUNX3 gene are also associated with gestational age.

Aims: The developmental origins of health and disease hypothesis states that later-life disease may be influenced by the quality of the in utero environment. Environmental toxicants can have detrimental effects on fetal development, potentially through effects on placental development and function. Maternal smoking during pregnancy is associated with low birth weight, preterm birth and other complications, and exposure to cigarette smoke in utero has been linked to gross pathologic and molecular changes to the placenta, including differential DNA methylation in placental tissue.