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Background: Hypertension is a major risk factor for cardiovascular disease and requires long-term health treatment and ongoing monitoring to the extent that traditional management approaches may be limited in providing. Adopting appropriate digital tools like mobile health technology (mHealth) could be an effective strategy for improving the control and management of this public health burden. This pilot studyevaluated the feasibility of the AHOMKA care model at two tertiary hospitals in Ghana. Outcome measures were changes in systolic (SBP) and diastolic (DBP) blood pressure model acceptance by patients and health care providers.Objective: This study sought to assess the overall pattern of home blood pressure self-monitoring among participants from two teaching hospitals in southern Ghana, using mHealth.Methods: Participants attending two (2) cardiology clinics were recruited for this mixed-method pilot study over a period of eight (8) weeks. Following a longitudinal single-group approach, we conducted structured interviews at the baseline and end-line and used exports of the AHOMKA mHealth application, in-depth interviews and focus group discussions with patients and healthcare providers. Repeated measuresanalysis of variance was adopted to assess differences in SBP and DBP between baseline and end line.Results: This pilot study involved 27 participants with a mean of 50.4 ± 11.0 years-approximately 1:1 male-female participation. Mean SBP decreased by 11.6 mm Hg (95% CI = 15.0 to -8.2), from an average of 138.6 mmHg at baseline to 126.2 mmHg at endline. Average DBP was also significantly reduced by 3.0 mmHg (95% CI = -5.5 to -0.5), from an average of 87.0 mmHg at baseline to 83.0 mmHg at endline. Patients and healthcare providers were satisfied and optimistic about the AHOMKA care model.Conclusion: The encouraging trend in BP outcomes and high response rate from this pilot study provides evidence for further investigation involving the assessment of the effectiveness of the AHOMKA care model while culturally adapting the model to the Ghanaian context. In the spectrum of hypertension interventions, AHOMKA has the potential to ease the burden on the public health system 

ABSTRACT Acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) is an often fatal critical illness where lung epithelial injury leads to intrapulmonary fluid accumulation. ARDS became widespread during the COVID-19 pandemic, motivating a renewed effort to understand the complex etiology of this disease. Rigorous prior work has implicated lung endothelial and epithelial injury in response to an insult such as bacterial infection; however, the impact of microorganisms found in other organs on ARDS remains unclear. Here, we use a combination of gnotobiotic mice, cell culture experiments, and re-analyses of a large metabolomics dataset from ARDS patients to reveal that gut bacteria impact lung cellular respiration by releasing metabolites that alter mitochondrial activity in lung epithelium. Colonization of germ-free mice with a complex gut microbiota stimulated lung mitochondrial gene expression. A single human gut bacterial species,Bifidobacterium adolescentis,was sufficient to replicate this effect, leading to a significant increase in mitochondrial membrane potential in lung epithelial cells. We then used genome sequencing and mass spectrometry to confirm thatB. adolescentisproducesL-lactate, which was sufficient to increase mitochondrial activity in lung epithelial cells. Finally, we found that serum lactate was significantly associated with disease severity in patients with ARDS from the Early Assessment of Renal and Lung Injury (EARLI) cohort. Together, these results emphasize the importance of more broadly characterizing the microbial etiology of ARDS and other lung diseases given the ability of gut bacterial metabolites to remotely control lung cellular respiration. Our discovery of a single bacteria-metabolite pair provides aproof-of-conceptfor systematically testing other microbial metabolites and a mechanistic biomarker that could be pursued in future clinical studies. Furthermore, our work adds to the growing literature linking the microbiome to mitochondrial function, raising intriguing questions as to the bidirectional communication between our endo- and ecto-symbionts. 

We reviewed the status of the Mottled Rabbitfish (Siganus fuscescens Houttuyn, 1782) as a major fishery product in Negros Oriental, including threats from microplastic pollution and overfishing. This species is often marketed as either fresh or dried “danggit”. Out of a total of 300 fish samples from four areas in Negros Oriental province, 91 (30%) of S. fuscescens ingested microplastics; the highest ingestion (39%) was observed in Dumaguete, a densely populated city. We also assessed the reproductive biology parameters of this species and compared them with the data gathered in 1979, roughly 40 years ago. The samples from Bais and Dumaguete had reduced sizes at sexual maturity and fecundity, suggesting negative effects from prolonged overexploitation. We therefore urge more studies on other parts of Negros Island and even elsewhere in the country, to determine the potential health hazards from microplastic pollution and the current threat to the sustainability of the siganid or “danggit” fishery.