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Protecting children and families from tobacco and tobacco-related NCDs in the Western Pacific: good practice examples from Malaysia, Philippines and Singapore

David AM, Mercado SP, Klein JD, Kaundan MSK, Koong HN, Garcia E

Child Care Health Dev, 2017 09;43(5):774-778.
PMID: 28480578 DOI: 10.1111/cch.12472

BACKGROUND: Non-communicable diseases (NCDs) are generally considered diseases of adulthood, but NCD risk factors like tobacco use often are taken up during childhood and adolescence, and second-hand smoke exposure affects child survival and development.
METHODS: At a regional meeting of the Asia Pacific Child and Family Health Alliance for Tobacco Control, members reviewed existing good practices of child-focused tobacco control approaches using health promotion strategies. These interventions were implemented nationally in Malaysia, the Philippines and Singapore.
RESULTS: Three good practice national examples were identified that focused on creating supportive tobacco-free environments and upgrading cessation skills among paediatricians. These country examples highlight strategic areas to protect children and families from the harms of tobacco, as part of NCD prevention and control. Training paediatricians in brief cessation advice has enabled them to address tobacco-using parents. Fully enforcing smoke-free public areas has led to an increase in smoke-free homes. The Tobacco Free Generation is a tobacco control 'endgame' strategy that taps into a social movement to deglamorize tobacco use and empower youth born in and after year 2000 to reject tobacco and nicotine addiction.
CONCLUSION: Tobacco control is pivotal in the fight against NCDs; health promotion strategies to protect children and youth from tobacco have a critical role to play in NCD prevention and control. Frontline health workers, including primary care paediatricians, need to step up and actively advocate for full implementation of the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, including tobacco tax increases and smoke-free areas, while monitoring patients and their parents for tobacco use and second-hand smoke exposure, preventing adolescent smoking uptake, and offering cessation support. A life-course approach incorporating child-focused efforts to prevent initiation of smoking and second-hand smoke exposure with measures promoting cessation among parents will offer the greatest chance of overcoming future tobacco-related NCD burden.
PROTOCOL: In-person interventions to reduce social isolation and loneliness: An evidence and gap map

Welch V, Tanjong Ghogomu E, Dowling S, Choo WY, Yunus RM, Mohd TAMT, et al.

Campbell Syst Rev, 2023 Sep;19(3):e1340.
PMID: 37361556 DOI: 10.1002/cl2.1340

This is the protocol for an evidence and gap map. The objectives are as follows: This EGM aims to map available evidence on the effects of in-person interventions to reduce social isolation and/or loneliness across all age groups in all settings.
Biodiversity of leaf litter fungi in streams along a latitudinal gradient

Seena S, Bärlocher F, Sobral O, Gessner MO, Dudgeon D, McKie BG, et al.

Sci Total Environ, 2019 Apr 15;661:306-315.
PMID: 30677678 DOI: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2019.01.122

Global patterns of biodiversity have emerged for soil microorganisms, plants and animals, and the extraordinary significance of microbial functions in ecosystems is also well established. Virtually unknown, however, are large-scale patterns of microbial diversity in freshwaters, although these aquatic ecosystems are hotspots of biodiversity and biogeochemical processes. Here we report on the first large-scale study of biodiversity of leaf-litter fungi in streams along a latitudinal gradient unravelled by Illumina sequencing. The study is based on fungal communities colonizing standardized plant litter in 19 globally distributed stream locations between 69°N and 44°S. Fungal richness suggests a hump-shaped distribution along the latitudinal gradient. Strikingly, community composition of fungi was more clearly related to thermal preferences than to biogeography. Our results suggest that identifying differences in key environmental drivers, such as temperature, among taxa and ecosystem types is critical to unravel the global patterns of aquatic fungal diversity.
Fulltext Induction of fibroblast senescence generates a non-fibrogenic myofibroblast phenotype that differentially impacts on cancer prognosis

Mellone M, Hanley CJ, Thirdborough S, Mellows T, Garcia E, Woo J, et al.

Aging (Albany NY), 2016 12 15;9(1):114-132.
PMID: 27992856 DOI: 10.18632/aging.101127

Cancer-associated fibroblasts (CAF) remain a poorly characterized, heterogeneous cell population. Here we characterized two previously described tumor-promoting CAF sub-types, smooth muscle actin (SMA)-positive myofibroblasts and senescent fibroblasts, identifying a novel link between the two. Analysis of CAF cultured ex vivo, showed that senescent CAF are predominantly SMA-positive; this was confirmed by immunochemistry in head & neck (HNSCC) and esophageal (EAC) cancers. In vitro, we found that fibroblasts induced to senesce develop molecular, ultrastructural and contractile features typical of myofibroblasts and this is dependent on canonical TGF-β signaling. Similar to TGF-β1-generated myofibroblasts, these cells secrete soluble factors that promote tumor cell motility. However, RNA-sequencing revealed significant transcriptomic differences between the two SMA-positive CAF groups, particularly in genes associated with extracellular matrix (ECM) deposition and organization, which differentially promote tumor cell invasion. Notably, second harmonic generation imaging and bioinformatic analysis of SMA-positive human HNSCC and EAC showed that collagen fiber organization correlates with poor prognosis, indicating that heterogeneity within the SMA-positive CAF population differentially impacts on survival. These results show that non-fibrogenic, SMA-positive myofibroblasts can be directly generated through induction of fibroblast senescence and suggest that senescence and myofibroblast differentiation are closely linked processes.