Publications by authors named "Jessica Fetterman"

Introduction: Swisher Sweets, a leading brand of little cigars and cigarillos in the United States, switched its Twitter account to protected status, limiting access to its tweets. This study examines how the protected status of Swisher Sweets tweets influences post engagement, aiming to inform regulatory strategies for branded tobacco promotions on social media.

Method: Using natural language processing, we predicted the demographics of individuals replying to Swisher Sweets' public and protected tweets.

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Article Synopsis
  • Smokeless oral nicotine products are addictive and can negatively impact cardiovascular health, particularly in individuals with pre-existing heart or cerebrovascular conditions, and can also increase the risk of oral cancer depending on their chemical composition.
  • The market for these products has rapidly expanded since the last American Heart Association policy, particularly with the rise of tobacco-free oral nicotine pouches, but their health effects remain unstudied.
  • There is a need for strong public policies to help end tobacco addiction, focusing on preventing initiation and promoting cessation through established treatment options.
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The coordinate regulation of metabolism and epigenetics to establish cell state-specific gene expression patterns during lineage progression is a central aspect of cell differentiation, but the factors that regulate this elaborate interplay are not well-defined. The imprinted Dlk1-Dio3 noncoding RNA (ncRNA) cluster has been associated with metabolism in various progenitor cells, suggesting it functions as a regulator of metabolism and cell state. Here, we directly demonstrate that the Dlk1-Dio3 ncRNA cluster coordinates mitochondrial respiration and chromatin structure to maintain proper cell state.

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Purpose: The objective of this study was to evaluate the effect of message frames (gain vs. loss) and sources (formal expert: a health-care professional vs. informal expert: an individual who successfully quit vaping) on the persuasiveness of TikTok videos among youth who currently use e-cigarettes.

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Mitochondrial diseases are the result of pathogenic variants in genes involved in the diverse functions of the mitochondrion. A comprehensive list of mitochondrial genes is needed to improve gene prioritization in the diagnosis of mitochondrial diseases and development of therapeutics that modulate mitochondrial function. MitoCarta is an experimentally derived catalog of proteins localized to mitochondria.

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  • Synthetic nicotine in e-cigarettes is often marketed towards youth through social media, exploiting regulatory gaps and appealing flavors.
  • A study analyzed 25 brands over 14 months to assess compliance with FDA health warning requirements on Instagram ads and their impact on user engagement.
  • Results showed only 13% of posts met FDA requirements, and posts with warnings received significantly fewer comments, suggesting that effective health warnings might deter engagement.
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This study examined how message themes, frames, and sources in vaping cessation videos on TikTok influenced positive (i.e. likes, shares, positive comments regarding quitting vaping) and negative video engagement (i.

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  • Cigarette smoking is known to alter DNA methylation at the AHRR gene, but this study investigates whether non-cigarette tobacco use, like pipe and cigar smoking, also affects AHRR methylation and health outcomes.
  • Data from four cohorts (1985-2002) revealed that exclusive non-cigarette tobacco users had lower AHRR methylation compared to those who smoked cigarettes, with non-cigarette users showing less dramatic effects.
  • The results indicate that lower AHRR methylation in non-cigarette tobacco users is linked to worse respiratory symptoms and higher mortality rates, suggesting AHRR methylation could be a marker for health risks among these smokers.
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This systematic review evaluates health messaging strategies for the prevention and cessation of e-cigarette use among youth and young adults. Health messaging strategies were defined as the strategic process of developing messages with the intent to shape, reinforce, or change recipients' health attitudes and behaviors. McGuire's Communication/Persuasion Model guided the analysis of the messaging strategies, focusing on the model's five communication inputs (i.

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  • Mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) variants can lead to various diseases, and a specific variant allele frequency (VAF) level must be reached to trigger biochemical defects, known as the biochemical threshold.
  • The study reviewed 76 publications on how VAF impacts oxidative phosphorylation (OXPHOS) activities across different human tissues, revealing inconsistencies and suggesting the threshold could be less than the commonly cited >60% VAF.
  • Analysis revealed that while some cases with similar VAF levels showed varying biochemical activity, more research is needed to clarify the biochemical thresholds for specific mtDNA variants in related cell types.
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Objective: To evaluate whether frequent social media use and liking/following tobacco brand accounts was associated with increased risk of tobacco and polytobacco initiation over approximately 1-year follow-up among youth with no prior tobacco use.

Methods: Associations between measures of social media engagement (daily social media use and liking/following tobacco brands) and tobacco initiation risk were examined using data from Waves 2 and 3 (2014-2015) of the US Population Assessment for Tobacco and Health study. Separate log-binomial models, accounting for missing data via multiple imputation and using propensity score adjustment to address confounding, estimated the adjusted relative risk (aRR) of any tobacco initiation and poly-use (2 + products) initiation at 1-year follow-up.

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Objective: A systematic review was conducted to evaluate the use patterns, health perceptions, and cardiopulmonary health effects of cigars.

Data Sources: PubMed and Google Scholar were searched for peer-reviewed articles published between June 2014 and February 2021. Search keywords included cigars, cigarillos, little cigars, and cardiopulmonary health outcomes.

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Background: Leigh syndrome, an inherited neurometabolic disorder, is estimated to be the most common pediatric manifestation of mitochondrial disease. No treatments are currently available for Leigh syndrome due to many hurdles in drug discovery efforts. Leigh syndrome causal variants span over 110 different genes and likely lead to both unique and shared biochemical alterations, often resulting in overlapping phenotypic features.

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Vaping and electronic cigarette (e-cigarette) use have grown exponentially in the past decade, particularly among youth and young adults. Cigarette smoking is a risk factor for both cardiovascular and pulmonary disease. Because of their more limited ingredients and the absence of combustion, e-cigarettes and vaping products are often touted as safer alternative and potential tobacco-cessation products.

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  • Deep neural networks were used to analyze ECGs to estimate ECG-age, which predicts health outcomes, and researchers examined its relevance in a long-term study involving FHS participants.
  • The study found that a gap between chronological age and ECG-age (Δage) significantly correlated with increased risks of death and various cardiovascular issues over an average follow-up of 17 years.
  • Specifically, every 10-year increase in Δage resulted in higher risks of all-cause mortality, atrial fibrillation, myocardial infarction, and heart failure, indicating that both accelerated and decelerated aging can impact health outcomes significantly.
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  • The American Heart Association's "ideal cardiovascular health" (CVH) framework identifies modifiable risk factors to lower the risk of cardiovascular disease (CVD), and metabolomics can reveal connections between these factors and CVD development.
  • A study involving 3,056 adults showed that CVH scores were linked to various metabolites that were also associated with the risk of atrial fibrillation (AF) and heart failure (HF), emphasizing that certain metabolites mediate this connection.
  • Specifically, three metabolites significantly mediated the link between CVH scores and AF, while seven metabolites partially mediated the association with HF, highlighting important metabolic pathways involved in cardiovascular health.
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Menthol cigarettes have had a profound adverse effect on public health. On 1 June 2020, Massachusetts became the first state to ban the sale of menthol cigarettes. We explored how perceptions of the ban and smoking behaviors changed over time among a group of 27 individuals who smoked menthol cigarettes at our safety-net hospital.

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Nuclear-mitochondrial DNA segments (NUMTs) are mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) fragments that have been inserted into the nuclear genome. Some NUMTs are common within the human population but most NUMTs are rare and specific to individuals. NUMTs range in size from 24 base pairs to encompassing nearly the entire mtDNA and are found throughout the nuclear genome.

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  • The study investigates how Instagram influencers promote little cigars and cigarillos (LCCs) and whether they include health warnings in their posts.
  • Using a new computer vision algorithm, researchers found that only 8.2% of influencer posts featured health warnings, which are necessary under FDA regulations.
  • Posts with health warnings received significantly less engagement, indicated by fewer likes and comments, highlighting the need for stricter health warning requirements for social media promotions.
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Pod-based electronic (e-) cigarettes more efficiently deliver nicotine using a protonated formulation. The cardiovascular effects associated with these devices are poorly understood. We evaluated whether pod-based e-liquids and their individual components impair endothelial cell function.

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  • Mitochondrial dysfunction is a key factor in cardiomyopathies and heart failure, but the specific mechanisms behind these issues are not well understood, especially how they affect energy production and overall metabolism.
  • Heart failure is characterized by inadequate energy (ATP) production due to oxidative phosphorylation problems, but it's crucial to look beyond just ATP levels to understand broader metabolic disruptions.
  • The concept of a "mitochondrial ecosystem" illustrates how interconnected mitochondrial pathways and functions affect heart health, emphasizing the need for a comprehensive approach to study and develop treatments for heart failure.
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  • The study investigates how chronic e-cigarette use affects circulating angiogenic cells (CACs), which are important for vascular health and repair.
  • Researchers analyzed 324 healthy participants aged 21-45, categorizing them into four groups based on their tobacco usage: never users, e-cigarette only users, combustible cigarette only users, and dual users.
  • Results show that dual users of e-cigarettes and combustible cigarettes had the highest levels of CACs related to vascular injury, while sole e-cigarette users also displayed elevated levels related to ongoing systemic harm, indicating that CACs could serve as useful biomarkers for assessing the impact of tobacco on vascular health.
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  • The study aimed to create a systematic protocol for dissecting and preserving human hearts to improve biobanking for cardiovascular research, expanding on previous transcriptomics work.
  • Current cardiac biobanks are limited, mostly housing biopsy tissues, which makes it hard to link full organ conditions with clinical data.
  • Findings showed that RNA and metabolite stability were maintained for up to 12 hours after death, indicating the potential for high-quality multiomics data essential for understanding human cardiovascular disease (CVD).
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