The effectiveness of mobile app usage in facilitating weight loss: An observational study.

Aim: With increasing rates of global obesity and associated health issues, there is an ever-increasing need for weight management solutions to be more accessible. Mobile applications offer accessible support systems and have the potential to offer a viable and effective weight management solution as an alternative to traditional healthcare models. Objective: To evaluate the effectiveness of the SIMPLE mobile application for time-restricted eating in achieving weight loss (WL). Methods: User data were analyzed between January 2021 and January 2023. In-app activity was calculated as the proportion of active days over 12, 26 and 52 weeks. A day is considered active if it contains at least one in-app action (e.g., logging weight, food, fasting, or physical activity). Users were categorized into four in-app activity levels: inactive (in-app activity <33%), medium activity (33%-66%), high activity (66%-99%), and maximal activity (100%). Weight change among in-app activity groups was assessed at 12, 26, and 52 weeks. Results: Out of 53,482 users, a positive association was found between the use of the SIMPLE app and WL. Active app users lost more weight than their less active counterparts. Active users had a median WL of 4.20%, 5.04%, and 3.86% at 12, 26, and 52 weeks, respectively. A larger percentage of active users-up to 50.26%-achieved clinically significant WL (≥5%) when compared to inactive users. A dose-response relationship between WL and app usage was found after adjusting for gender, age, and initial Body Mass Index; a 10% increase in app activity correlated with increased WL by 0.43, 0.66 and 0.69 kg at 12, 26, and 52 weeks, respectively. Conclusions: The study demonstrates that the SIMPLE app enables effective WL directly associated with the level of app engagement. Mobile health applications offer an accessible and effective weight management solution and should be considered when supporting adults to lose weight.

A Role of Variance in Interferon Genes to Disease Severity in COVID-19 Patients.

The rapid rise and global consequences of the novel coronavirus disease 19 (COVID-19) have again brought the focus of the scientific community on the possible host factors involved in patient response and outcome to exposure to the virus. The disease severity remains highly unpredictable, and individuals with none of the aforementioned risk factors may still develop severe COVID-19. It was shown that genotype-related factors like an ABO Blood Group affect COVID-19 severity, and the risk of infection with SARS-CoV-2 was higher for patients with blood type A and lower for patients with blood type O. Currently it is not clear which specific genes are associated with COVID-19 severity. The comparative analysis of COVID-19 and other viral infections allows us to predict that the variants within the interferon pathway genes may serve as markers of the magnitude of immune response to specific pathogens. In particular, various members of Class III interferons (lambda) are reviewed in detail.

Reference values for intake of six types of soluble and insoluble fibre in healthy UK inhabitants based on the UK Biobank data.

OBJECTIVE: To obtain a set of reference values for the intake of different types of dietary fibre in a healthy UK population. DESIGN: This descriptive cross-sectional study used the UK Biobank data to estimate the dietary patterns of healthy individuals. Data on fibre content in different foods were used to calculate the reference values which were then calibrated using real-world data on total fibre intake. SETTING: UK Biobank is a prospective cohort study of over 500 000 individuals from across the United Kingdom with the participants aged between 40 and 69 years. PARTICIPANTS: UK Biobank contains information on over 500 000 participants. This study was performed using the data on 19 990 individuals (6941 men, 13 049 women) who passed stringent quality control and filtering procedures and had reported above-zero intake of the analysed foods. RESULTS: A set of reference values for the intake of six different types of soluble and insoluble fibres (cellulose, hemicelluloses, pectin and lignin), including the corresponding totals, was developed and calibrated using real-world data. CONCLUSIONS: To our knowledge, this is the first study to establish specific reference values for the intake of different types of dietary fibre. It is well known that effects exerted by different types of fibre both directly and through modulation of microbiota are numerous. Conceivably, a deficit or excess intake of specific types of dietary fibre may detrimentally affect human health. Filling this knowledge gap opens new avenues for research in discussion in studies of nutrition and microbiota and offers valuable tools for practitioners worldwide.

Prolonged prothrombin time as an early prognostic indicator of severe acute respiratory distress syndrome in patients with COVID-19 related pneumonia.

BACKGROUND: Clinical observations demonstrated that COVID-19 related pneumonia is often accompanied by hematological and coagulation abnormalities including lymphopenia, thrombocytopenia, and prolonged prothrombin time. The evaluation of laboratory findings including coagulation and inflammation parameters may represent a promising approach for early determination of COVID-19 severity. METHODS AND MATERIALS: In the present study, we aimed to identify laboratory parameters present upon admission in patients with COVID-19 related viral pneumonia and associated with an early in-hospital development of refractory respiratory failure or severe acute respiratory distress syndrome requiring treatment in an intensive care unit. We investigated differences in the C-reactive protein (CRP) and fibrinogen levels, prothrombin time (PT) and international normalized ratio (INR) between COVID-19 patients who had been transferred to an ICU within two weeks after admission (n = 82) and COVID-19 patients with stable course of the disease (n = 74). RESULTS: Multiple comparisons showed statistically significantly prolonged PT on admission in ICU-transferred COVID-19 patients (14.15 sec, median, CI 95% 13.4 ÷ 14.9) compared to the stable COVID-19 patients (13.25 sec, median, CI 95% 12.9 ÷ 13.6) (p-value = .0005). CRP levels upon admission were statistically significantly higher in ICU-transferred COVID-19 patients (132 mg/L, median, CI95% 113 ÷ 159) compared to the stable COVID-19 patients (51 mg/L, median, CI95% 33 ÷ 72) (p-value < .0001). On-admission fibrinogen and INR levels did not statistically significantly differ between ICU-transferred COVID-19 patients and stable COVID-19 patients. CONCLUSION: We suggest that CRP and PT levels present on admission in COVID-19 patients may be used as early prognostic markers of severe pneumonia requiring transfer to ICU.

A comparison of BeadChip and WGS genotyping outputs using partial validation by sanger sequencing.

BACKGROUND: Head-to-head comparison of BeadChip and WGS/WES genotyping techniques for their precision is far from straightforward. A tool for validation of high-throughput genotyping calls such as Sanger sequencing is neither scalable nor practical for large-scale DNA processing. Here we report a cross-validation analysis of genotyping calls obtained via Illumina GSA BeadChip and WGS (Illumina HiSeq X Ten) techniques. RESULTS: When compared to each other, the average precision and accuracy of BeadChip and WGS genotyping techniques exceeded 0.991 and 0.997, respectively. The average fraction of discordant variants for both platforms was found to be 0.639%. A sliding window approach was utilized to explore genomic regions not exceeding 500 bp encompassing a maximal amount of discordant variants for further validation by Sanger sequencing. Notably, 12 variants out of 26 located within eight identified regions were consistently discordant in related calls made by WGS and BeadChip. When Sanger sequenced, a total of 16 of these genotypes were successfully resolved, indicating that a precision of WGS and BeadChip genotyping for this genotype subset was at 0.81 and 0.5, respectively, with accuracy values of 0.87 and 0.61. CONCLUSIONS: We conclude that WGS genotype calling exhibits higher overall precision within the selected variety of discordantly genotyped variants, though the amount of validated variants remained insufficient.