Search

(1) Background: Maternal diet and alcohol consumption can influence both maternal and infant's gut microbiota. These relationships are still not examined in the Chinese population. The purpose of this study was to explore the effect of alcohol consumption and maternal diet during pregnancy on maternal and infant's gut microbiota. (2) Methods: Twenty-nine mother-child dyads were enrolled in central China. Fecal samples of mothers during late pregnancy and of newborns within 48 h were collected. The V3-V4 regions of 16S rRNA sequences were analyzed. A self-administrated questionnaire about simple diet frequency in the past week was completed by mothers before childbirth. The demographic information was finished by mothers at 24 h after childbirth. (3) Results: Among these 29 mothers, 10 mothers reported alcohol consumption during pregnancy. The PCoA (β-diversity) showed significant difference in maternal gut microbiota between the alcohol consumption group vs. the non-alcohol consumption group (abund-Jaccard, r = 0.2, p = 0.006). The same phenomenon was observed in newborns (unweighted-UniFrac full tree, r = 0.174, p = 0.031). Maternal alcohol consumption frequency showed positive associations with maternal Phascolarctobacterium ( p = 0.032) and Blautia ( p = 0.019); maternal Faecalibacterium ( p = 0.013) was negatively correlated with frequency of alcohol consumption. As for newborns, a positive relationship showed between Megamonas ( p = 0.035) and newborns with maternal alcohol consumption. The diet was not associated with both maternal and infant's gut microbiota. (4) Conclusions: Maternal alcohol consumption during pregnancy influenced the gut microbiota on both mothers and the newborns. Future research is needed to explore these relationships in a lager birth cohort. Understanding the long-term effect of alcohol consumption on maternal and newborns' gut microbiota is needed.

Objectives: Peripheral leucocyte telomere length has been suggested to be inversely associated with hypertension risk. Both telomere length and hypertension risk can be modified by certain dietary factors, such as fruit and vegetables. This study was to examine the potential effect of these dietary factors on the association between telomere length and hypertension risk., Study Design: A community-based case-control study., Participants: 271 hypertensive patients and 455 normotensive controls aged 40-70 years and living in Yinzhou, Zhejiang Province, China., Outcome Measures: Peripheral leucocyte relative telomere length (RTL) was measured using quantitative real-time PCR. Dietary intake was assessed by a brief semiquantitative food frequency questionnaire. The association between RTL and hypertension risk was analysed using logistic regression, and the modulatory effect of dietary intake on RTL-related hypertension risk was analysed using likelihood ratio tests., Results: Among controls, longer age-adjusted RTL was associated with higher vegetable intake (p=0.01). Individuals with longer age-adjusted RTL (based on median value) were 30% less likely to have hypertension (OR=0.70, 95% CI 0.52 to 0.96; p=0.03). The observed RTL-hypertension relationship appeared to be modified by vegetable intake-longer RTL was significantly associated with lower hypertension risk only in those with greater vegetable consumption (OR=0.28, 95% CI 0.14 to 0.57; p<0.001), but not in those with lower vegetable intake (P-interaction=0.008)., Conclusions: Certain dietary factors might modify telomere-related hypertension risk., (Published by the BMJ Publishing Group Limited. For permission to use (where not already granted under a licence) please go to http://www.bmj.com/company/products-services/rights-and-licensing/)

Background and objective: Several studies have been conducted to examine the association between aldehyde dehydrogenase 2 family (ALDH2) rs671 polymorphism and essential hypertension (EH). However, the results remain inconsistent. This study aimed to clarify the association between ALDH2 rs671 polymorphism and EH susceptibility. Methods: One thousand and ninety-four cases and 1236 controls who were ethnic Han Chinese were collected for this population-based case-control study. A meta-analysis was performed to calculate the pooled odds ratio and 95% confidence interval, using allele contrast, dominant, recessive, and co-dominant models using fixed or random-effect models. Results: Significant differences were observed between EH cases and controls at the level of both genotype (χ2 = 6.656, P<0.05) and alleles (χ2 = 6.314, P<0.05). An additional meta-analysis using 4204 cases and 5435 controls established that rs671 was significantly associated with EH (P<0.00001). Conclusion: The results of our case-control study and meta-analysis showed that there is a significant association between ALDH2 rs671 polymorphism and EH susceptibility. In addition, the results of the breakdown analysis by gender suggest a male-specific association between the ALDH2 rs671 polymorphism and EH. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]