Alcoholic Beverage Preference and Dietary Habits in Elderly across Europe: Analyses within the Consortium on Health and Ageing: Network of Cohorts in Europe and the United States (CHANCES) Project

INTRODUCTION: The differential associations of beer, wine, and spirit consumption on cardiovascular risk found in observational studies may be confounded by diet. We described and compared dietary intake and diet quality according to alcoholic beverage preference in European elderly.

METHODS: From the Consortium on Health and Ageing: Network of Cohorts in Europe and the United States (CHANCES), seven European cohorts were included, i.e. four sub-cohorts from EPIC-Elderly, the SENECA Study, the Zutphen Elderly Study, and the Rotterdam Study. Harmonized data of 29,423 elderly participants from 14 European countries were analyzed. Baseline data on consumption of beer, wine, and spirits, and dietary intake were collected with questionnaires. Diet quality was assessed using the Healthy Diet Indicator (HDI). Intakes and scores across categories of alcoholic beverage preference (beer, wine, spirit, no preference, non-consumers) were adjusted for age, sex, socio-economic status, self-reported prevalent diseases, and lifestyle factors. Cohort-specific mean intakes and scores were calculated as well as weighted means combining all cohorts.

RESULTS: In 5 of 7 cohorts, persons with a wine preference formed the largest group. After multivariate adjustment, persons with a wine preference tended to have a higher HDI score and intake of healthy foods in most cohorts, but differences were small. The weighted estimates of all cohorts combined revealed that non-consumers had the highest fruit and vegetable intake, followed by wine consumers. Non-consumers and persons with no specific preference had a higher HDI score, spirit consumers the lowest. However, overall diet quality as measured by HDI did not differ greatly across alcoholic beverage preference categories.

DISCUSSION: This study using harmonized data from ~30,000 elderly from 14 European countries showed that, after multivariate adjustment, dietary habits and diet quality did not differ greatly according to alcoholic beverage preference.

Enzyme-induced Aggregation of Plasmonic Nanoparticles for the Development of Label-free and Ultrasensitive Detection of Bacterial DNA

Sensitive detection of pathogens is critical to ensure the safety of food supplies and to prevent bacterial disease infection and outbreak at the first onset. While conventional techniques such as cell culture, ELISA, PCR, etc. have been used as the predominant detection workhorses, they are however limited by either time-consuming procedure, complicated sample pre-treatment, expensive analysis and operation, or inability to be implemented at point-of-care testing. Here, we present our recently developed assay exploiting enzyme-induced aggregation of plasmonic gold nanoparticles (AuNPs) for label-free and ultrasensitive detection of bacterial DNA. In the experiments, AuNPs are first functionalized with specific, single-stranded RNA probes so that they exhibit high stability in solution even under high electrolytic condition thus exhibiting red color. When bacterial DNA is present in a sample, a DNA-RNA heteroduplex will be formed and subsequently prone to the RNase H cleavage on the RNA probe, allowing the DNA to liberate and hybridize with another RNA strand. This continuously happens until all of the RNA strands are cleaved, leaving the nanoparticles ‘unprotected’. The addition of NaCl will cause the ‘unprotected’ nanoparticles to aggregate, initiating a colour change from red to blue. The reaction is performed in a multi-well plate format, and the distinct colour signal can be discriminated by naked eye or simple optical spectroscopy. As a result, bacterial DNA as low as pM could be unambiguously detected, suggesting that the enzyme-induced aggregation of AuNPs assay is very easy to perform and sensitive, it will significantly benefit to development of fast and ultrasensitive methods that can be used for disease detection and diagnosis.

Endonuclease Controlled Aggregation of Gold Nanoparticles for the Ultrasensitive Detection of Pathogenic Bacterial DNA

The development of an ultrasensitive biosensor for the low-cost and on-site detection of pathogenic DNA could transform detection capabilities within food safety, environmental monitoring and clinical diagnosis. Herein, we present an innovative approach exploiting endonuclease-controlled aggregation of plasmonic gold nanoparticles (AuNPs) for label-free and ultrasensitive detection of bacterial DNA. The method utilizes RNA-functionalized AuNPs which form DNA-RNA heteroduplex structures through specific hybridization with target DNA. Once formed, the DNA-RNA heteroduplex is susceptible to RNAse H enzymatic cleavage of the RNA probe, allowing the target DNA to liberate and hybridize with another RNA probe. This continuously happens until all of the RNA probes are cleaved, leaving the nanoparticles unprotected and thus aggregated upon exposure to a high electrolytic medium. The assay is ultrasensitive, allowing the detection of target DNA at femtomolar level by simple spectroscopic analysis (40.7 fM and 2.45 fM as measured by UV-vis and dynamic light scattering (DLS), respectively). The target DNA spiked food matrix (chicken meat) is also successfully detected at a concentration of 1.2 pM (by UV-vis) or 18.0 fM (by DLS). In addition to the ultra-high sensitivity, the total analysis time of the assay is less than 3 hours, thus demonstrating its practicality for food analysis.