Genetic Susceptibility to Type 2 Diabetes, Television Viewing, and Atherosclerotic Cardiovascular Disease Risk.

Background: Type 2 diabetes (T2D) is a major risk factor for atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease (ASCVD). This study examined the interplay between watching television and T2D genetic risk for risk of ASCVD.

Methods: We included 346 916 White British individuals from UK Biobank.

Investigating the component structure of the Health of the Nation Outcomes Scales for people with Learning Disabilities (HoNOS-LD).

Background: Outcome measurement is increasingly recognised as a vital element of high-quality service provision, but practice remains variable in the field of intellectual disabilities. The Health of the National Outcome Scales for people with Learning Disabilities (HoNOS-LD) is a widely used Clinician Reported Outcome Measure in the UK and beyond. Over its 20-year lifespan, its psychometric properties have been frequently investigated.

The Aging Substantia Nigra is Characterized by ROS Accumulation Potentially Resulting in Increased Neuroinflammation and Cytoskeletal Remodeling.

Aging is a progressive and irreversible process, serving as the primary risk factor for neurodegenerative disorders. This study aims to identify the molecular mechanisms underlying physiological aging within the substantia nigra, which is primarily affected by Parkinson's disease, and to draw potential conclusions on the earliest events leading to neurodegeneration in this specific brain region. The characterization of essential stages in aging progress can enhance knowledge of the mechanisms that promote the development of Parkinson's disease.

Comparison of antibiotic provision associated with acute sore throat symptom management in community pharmacies in Wales and England: a natural policy experiment.

Background: Acute sore throat is managed in community pharmacies in England and Wales under different clinical pathways: Acute Sore Throat Pharmacy First (ASTPF) and Sore Throat Test and Treat (STTT), respectively. ASTPF launched in 2024 and allows antibiotic supply with FeverPAIN scores 4 and 5. STTT launched in 2018 and allows antibiotic supply with FeverPAIN ≥2 or Centor ≥3, if point-of-care testing confirms presence of group A Streptococcus (GAS).

Construction costs and tradeoffs in carnivorous pitcher plant leaves: towards a pitcher leaf economic spectrum.

Background: Leaf economic theory holds that physiological constraints to photosynthesis have a role in the coordinated evolution of multiple leaf traits, an idea that can be extended to carnivorous plants occupying a particular trait space that is constrained by key costs and benefits. Pitcher traps are modified leaves that may face steep photosynthetic costs: a high-volume, three-dimensional tubular structure may be less efficient than a flat lamina. While past research has investigated the photosynthetic costs of pitchers, the exact suite of constraints shaping pitcher trait variation remain under-explored-including constraints to carnivorous function.

Ultra-slow self-similar coarsening of physical fibrillar gels formed by semiflexible polymers.

Biopolymers tend to form fibrils that self-assemble into open network structures. While permanently crosslinked flexible polymers are relatively well understood, structure-property relationships of open networks and pseudo-gels formed by bundles of biopolymers are still controversial. Here we employ a generic coarse-grained bead-spring chain model incorporating semiflexibility and cohesive nonbonded interactions, that forms physical instead of chemical crosslinks.

Sociodemographic, clinical, and genetic factors associated with self-reported antidepressant response outcomes in the UK Biobank.

Background: In major depressive disorder (MDD), only ~35% achieve remission after first-line antidepressant therapy. Using UK Biobank data, we identify sociodemographic, clinical, and genetic predictors of antidepressant response through self-reported outcomes, aiming to inform personalized treatment strategies.

Methods: In UK Biobank Mental Health Questionnaire 2, participants with MDD reported whether specific antidepressants helped them.

Infraslow fluctuations of sustained attention in mood disorders.

Background: Sustained attention is integral to goal-directed tasks in everyday life. It is a demanding and effortful process prone to failure. Deficits are particularly prevalent in mood disorders.

Characterising symptomatic substates in individuals on the psychosis continuum: a hidden Markov modelling approach.

Background: To improve early intervention and personalise treatment for individuals early on the psychosis continuum, a greater understanding of symptom dynamics is required. We address this by identifying and evaluating the movement between empirically derived attenuated psychotic symptomatic substates-clusters of symptoms that occur within individuals over time.

Methods: Data came from a 90-day daily diary study evaluating attenuated psychotic and affective symptoms.

Associations of Device-Measured Physical Activity and Sedentary Time With Neural Responses to Visual Food Cues in Adults: A Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging Study.

Self-reported physical activity is associated with lower brain food cue responsiveness in reward-related regions, but relationships utilizing objective physical activity measurement tools have not been explored. This cross-sectional study examined whether device-measured moderate-to-vigorous intensity physical activity and sedentary time are related to neural responses to visual food cues using functional magnetic resonance imaging. Fifty-one healthy adults (30 men, 21 women; mean ± SD: age 26 ± 6 years; body mass index 24.

Investigating the link between sleep quality and belief in conspiracy theories.

Two studies examined the link between sleep quality and conspiracy theory beliefs, as well as the underlying mechanisms. In Study 1 ( = 540), participants with poorer sleep quality over the past month reported higher conspiracy beliefs about the 2019 Notre Dame fire when exposed to Notre Dame fire conspiracy theories compared to non-conspiracy information. Study 2 ( = 575) investigated the underlying psychological mechanisms connecting poor sleep quality with increased conspiracy beliefs and whether insomnia shows a similar pattern.

Cases of high-consequence infectious diseases identified in the UK, 1962-2023.

The management of patients with acute infectious diseases can present significant challenges, especially if the causative agent has a propensity for person-to-person transmission. In such cases, effective patient management is dependent on both rapid identification of disease and the provision of necessary medical care while adhering to suitable infection prevention and control measures to reduce the potential for onwards transmission. The UK has operated a defined system for managing patients with high-consequence infectious diseases (HCIDs) since the 1970s, when protocols were first implemented following the first descriptions of several viral haemorrhagic fever diseases, including Marburg virus disease, Lassa fever and Ebola virus disease (EVD).

Emerging PET radiotracers for vascular imaging.

Imaging plays an important role in the clinical management of patients with large-vessel vasculitis (LVV), both to confirm the diagnosis at the time of initial presentation and to identify disease relapses in individuals with established disease. The big advantage of PET imaging over other non-invasive imaging modalities is the ability to employ targeted radionuclide probes to localize and track cellular pathways, providing in vivo assessments of disease activity. While 18F-fluorodeoxyglucose (FDG) has good diagnostic accuracy for LVV, this tracer is taken up by all glucose metabolizing cells in the vessel wall and so non-specific arterial uptake that is often unrelated to inflammatory disease activity can occur in patients despite a good clinical response to treatment.

Idiopathic polyarteritis nodosa - does it still exist? Viewpoint 1: as our knowledge makes progress, idiopathic polyarteritis nodosa is fading away.

Polyarteritis nodosa (PAN) was first described in 1852 with the first widely recognised description in 1866 by Kussmaul and Meier. Since then our concepts of the condition have evolved, with recognition of the difference between polyarteritis nodosa and microscopic polyangiitis (MPA). Classification criteria for PAN remain unsatisfactory.

Emerging targeted therapies in ANCA-associated vasculitis.

Drug development in ANCA-associated vasculitis has aimed to improve on the success of the B cell depleting monoclonal antibody rituximab and exploit better understanding of inflammatory pathways. More potent B cell depletion strategies are being tested as are B cell cytokine inhibitors. The involvement of the complement system in pathogenesis is more complicated than previously thought and extends beyond C5a dysregulation and its inhibition with avacopan, broader complement inhibitors and complement regulatory agonists are potential newer therapies.

Highlights from the breakout session: optimising new treatments.

This session presented emerging realworld evidence on novel glucocorticoid (GC) sparing therapies for ANCA-associated vasculitis (AAV). It covered the first-in-class oral C5a receptor antagonist avacopan for severe granulomatosis with polyangiitis (GPA) and microscopic polyangiitis (MPA), and antiinterleukin-5 therapies in the management of eosinophilic granulomatosis with polyangiitis (EGPA). Avacopan was approved by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and European Medicines Agency (EMA) for the treatment of AAV in 2021, following the phase 3 ADVOCAT E trial comparing oral avacopan to an oral GC taper for GPA and MPA.

Highlights from the breakout session: transcriptomic approaches to the study of systemic vasculitis.

The search for targeted therapies and biomarkers for immune-mediated systemic vasculitis requires detailed understanding of molecular pathogenesis. Whilst candidate approaches have identified new opportunities for drug repurposing, they also miss novel approaches for targeting critical immunological or stromal pathways. On the other hand, bulk transcriptional profiling may fail to capture differences in cellular composition and, depending on the cell source profiled, miss important changes within inflamed vascular tissue.