Challenge of New Norms: Obesity amid COVID-19 Pandemic

@#COVID-19 pandemic aggravated the global public health system, which is already overwhelmed by the increasing statistics of comorbidities and burden due to obesity. The number of individuals with obesity and obesity-associated diseases are rising in many regions that could attribute to the growing obesogenic environment and the lockdown implemented to curb COVID-19. This review focuses on the aspects of the obesity epidemic, chronic inflammatory effects of obesity, positive outcomes of obesity interventions and the worsening effects observed in obese COVID-19 patients. The chronic inflammatory effects of obesity are apparent by the increase of pro-inflammatory signals by immune cells in the adipose tissue and reactive species populations. The reduction of antioxidants exacerbates the effects of oxidative stress on genomic and tissue levels. The public must be made aware of the importance of practising a healthier lifestyle, even more now as we are fighting the COVID-19 pandemic.

Tumour Growth Inhibition and Systemic Responses of ΔsopBΔsopDΔpipD Disrupted Salmonella Agona and Salmonella Typhimurium in Mice

@#Introduction: Bacteria had long been known to have tumour-targeting and tumour inhibition capabilities and have re-emerged into the limelight of cancer research as a possible alternative treatment for solid tumours. Conventional therapies for solid tumours are either by surgery, chemotherapy, radiotherapy, which are very invasive and non-specific to the tumours and results in various adverse effects on the patients. Bacterial Mediated Tumour Therapy often utilises attenuated bacteria as therapeutic agents to ensure reduced pathogenicity of the strains. However, this often results in lower invasiveness towards the tumours itself. In this study, we studied the tumour inhibition capabilities of Salmonella Pathogenicity Island (SPI) attenuated Salmonella Typhimurium (S. Typhimurium) and Salmonella Agona (S. Agona), specifically with attenuation of sopB, sopD, and pipD genes. Methods: Balb/c mice bearing CT26 tumours were inoculated with S. Typhimurium and S. Agona, both unattenuated and ΔsopBΔsopDΔpipD attenuated strains. Tumour volumes were monitored daily. Organs and blood were collected for plasma liver enzyme analysis and histopathology studies on testis, liver, kidneys and brain. Results: The ΔsopBΔsopDΔpipD S. Agona treated group showed improved inhibition of tumour growth with 51.11% tumour volume reduction compared to unattenuated S. Agona. The ΔsopBΔsopDΔpipD strains have also shown lesser systemic effects as observed in plasma and histopathological studies) compared to its unattenuated counterparts. Conclusion: The present study showed that ΔsopBΔsopDΔpipD S. Agona has a great potential to be utilised as tumour therapeutic agent as it exerts lesser systemic effect while having similar tumour inhibition capabilities as the well-studied S. Typhimurium strain.