Augmented surveillance of antimicrobial resistance with high-throughput robotics detects transnational flow of fluoroquinolone-resistant Escherichia coli strain into poultry.

Background: Food animal AMR surveillance programs assess only small numbers of Escherichia coli (from 100 to 600 per animal class) nationally each year, severely limiting the evaluation of public health risk(s). Here we demonstrate an affordable approach for early detection of emerging resistance on a broad scale that can also accurately characterize spatial and temporal changes in resistance.

Methods: Caecal samples (n = 295) obtained from 10 meat poultry were screened using high-throughput robotics.

Genomic profiling of Pasteurella multocida isolated from feedlot cases of bovine respiratory disease.

Pasteurella multocida causes a range of diseases in many host species throughout the world, including bovine respiratory disease (BRD) which is predominantly seen in feedlot cattle. This study assessed genetic diversity among 139 P. multocida isolates obtained from post-mortem lung swabs of BRD-affected feedlot cattle in four Australian states: New South Wales, Queensland, South Australia, and Victoria during 2014-2019.

Antimicrobial Resistance of and Genomic Insights into Pasteurella multocida Strains Isolated from Australian Pigs.

Infection with Pasteurella multocida represents a significant economic threat to Australian pig producers, yet our knowledge of its antimicrobial susceptibilities is lagging, and genomic characterization of P. multocida strains associated with porcine lower respiratory disease is internationally scarce. This study utilized high-throughput robotics to phenotypically and genetically characterize an industry-wide collection of 252 clinical P.

Diversity detected in commensals at host and farm level reveals implications for national antimicrobial resistance surveillance programmes.

Background: A key component to control of antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is the surveillance of food animals. Currently, national programmes test only limited isolates per animal species per year, an approach tacitly assuming that heterogeneity of AMR across animal populations is negligible. If the latter assumption is incorrect then the risk to humans from AMR in the food chain is underestimated.

Robotic Antimicrobial Susceptibility Platform (RASP): a next-generation approach to One Health surveillance of antimicrobial resistance.

Background: Surveillance of antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is critical to reducing its wide-reaching impact. Its reliance on sample size invites solutions to longstanding constraints regarding scalability. A robotic platform (RASP) was developed for high-throughput AMR surveillance in accordance with internationally recognized standards (CLSI and ISO 20776-1:2019) and validated through a series of experiments.

Emergence of Fluoroquinolone-Resistant and among Australian Chickens in the Absence of Fluoroquinolone Use.

In a structured survey of all major chicken-meat producers in Australia, we investigated the antimicrobial resistance (AMR) and genomic characteristics of ( = 108) and ( = 96) from cecal samples of chickens at slaughter ( = 200). The majority of the (63%) and (86.5%) samples were susceptible to all antimicrobials.

Resistance to critically important antimicrobials in Australian silver gulls (Chroicocephalus novaehollandiae) and evidence of anthropogenic origins.

Objectives: Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) to critically important antimicrobials (CIAs) amongst Gram-negative bacteria can feasibly be transferred amongst wildlife, humans and domestic animals. This study investigated the ecology, epidemiology and origins of CIA-resistant Escherichia coli carried by Australian silver gulls (Chroicocephalus novaehollandiae), a gregarious avian wildlife species that is a common inhabitant of coastal areas with high levels of human contact.

Methods: Sampling locations were widely dispersed around the perimeter of the Australian continent, with sites separated by up to 3500 km.

Examination of Australian Streptococcus suis isolates from clinically affected pigs in a global context and the genomic characterisation of ST1 as a predictor of virulence.

Streptococcus suis is a major zoonotic pathogen that causes severe disease in both humans and pigs. Australia's pig herd has been quarantined for over 30 years, however S. suis remains a significant cause of disease.

Behind the scenes of doctors' nutritional advice: the infrastructure of nutrition information that is used in practice.

Though this sixth Heelsum meeting has concentrated on over- and under-nutrition, GPs in their work look after patients with a wide range of diseases that may be helped by different dietary managements (van Weel C. Morbidity in family medicine: the potential for individual nutritional counselling, an analysis from the Nijmegen Continuous Morbidity Registration. Am J Clin Nutr 1997; 65 (suppl 6): 1928s-32s).

Cerebrovascular disease in 48 countries: secular trends in mortality 1950-2005.

Background: Cerebrovascular disease (stroke) is the second most common cause of death and among the top five causes of morbidity in many developed and developing countries. The aim of this study was to investigate patterns of increase and decrease in stroke mortality in 48 different countries.

Methods: The mortality curves of stroke for 48 countries that had reliable data and met other selection criteria were examined using age standardised death rates for 35-74 years from the WHO.

Coronary heart disease epidemics: not all the same.

Background: Coronary heart disease (CHD) was an important epidemic in many developed countries in the 20th century and there is concern because the epidemic has affected Eastern Europe, Russia and Central Asia and is starting to affect developing countries.

Methods: The epidemic curves of CHD mortality for 55 countries, which had reliable data and met other selection criteria, were examined using age-standardised death rates 35-74 years from the World Health Organization. Annual male mortality rates for individual countries from 1950 to 2003 were plotted and a table and a graph used to classify countries by magnitude, pattern and timing of its CHD epidemic.

Dietary approaches that delay age-related diseases.

Reducing food intake in lower animals such as the rat decreases body weight, retards many aging processes, delays the onset of most diseases of old age, and prolongs life. A number of clinical trials of food restriction in healthy adult human subjects running over 2-15 years show significant reductions in body weight, blood cholesterol, blood glucose, and blood pressure, which are risk factors for the development of cardiovascular disease and diabetes. Lifestyle interventions that lower energy balance by reducing body weight such as physical exercise can also delay the development of diabetes and cardiovascular disease.

Some problems with Cochrane reviews of diet and chronic disease.

The sum of evidence-based nutrition has to be more than a Cochrane-type meta-analysis of randomised controlled trials (RCTs). Most of the evidence base in nutrition is observational, especially cohort studies. RCTs of diet change through to disease outcome are uncommon and the change has usually been addition or removal of only a single food component.

The A2 milk case: a critical review.

This review outlines a hypothesis that A1 one of the common variants of beta-casein, a major protein in cows milk could facilitate the immunological processes that lead to type I diabetes (DM-I). It was subsequently suggested that A1 beta-casein may also be a risk factor for coronary heart disease (CHD), based on between-country correlations of CHD mortality with estimated national consumption of A1 beta-casein in a selected number of developed countries. A company, A2 Corporation was set up in New Zealand in the late 1990s to test cows and market milk in several countries with only the A2 variant of beta-casein, which appeared not to have the disadvantages of A1 beta-casein.