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BackgroundThe gut microbiota is playing more important roles in host immune regulation than was initially expected. Since many benefits of microbes are highly strain-specific and their mechanistic details remain largely elusive, further identification of new probiotic bacteria with immunoregulatory potentials is of great interest.ResultsWe have screened our collection of probiotic lactic acid bacteria (LAB) for their efficacy in modulating host immune response. Some LAB are characterized by suppression of TNF-α induction when LAB culture supernatants are added to THP-1 cells, demonstrating the LAB’s anti-inflammatory potential. These suppressive materials were not inactivated by heat or trypsin. On the other hand, treatment of THP-1 directly with live bacterial cells identified a group of pro-inflammatory LAB, which stimulated significant production of TNF-α. Among those, we chose the Lactobacillus reuteri BM36301 as an anti-inflammatory strain and the L. reuteri BM36304 as a pro-inflammatory strain, and further studied their in vivo effects. We supplied C57BL/6 mice with these bacteria in drinking water while feeding them a standard diet for 20 weeks. Interestingly, these L. reuteri strains evoked different consequences depending on the gender of the mice. That is, males treated with anti-inflammatory BM36301 experienced less weight gain and higher testosterone level; females treated with BM36301 maintained lower serum TNF-α as well as healthy skin with active folliculogenesis and hair growth. Furthermore, while males treated with pro-inflammatory BM36304 developed higher serum levels of TNF-α and insulin, in contrast females did not experience such effects from this bacteria strain.ConclusionThe L. reuteri BM36301 was selected as an anti-inflammatory strain in vitro. It helped mice maintain healthy conditions as they aged. These findings propose the L. reuteri BM36301 as a potential probiotic strain to improve various aspects of aging issues.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s12866-016-0686-7) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

This study investigated what it means for mature gay men to be voluntary single from the perspective of both assessment and subjective experience. A convenience sample of 94 self-identified single gay men from a large midwestern city, ages 35 and over, completed a structured questionnaire that included the 15-item Adaptation to Single Status Measure. Twenty of these men also participated in semi-structured life-history interviews. Descriptive, item, and scale analyses indicated a discrepancy between the perception of oneself as "single by choice" and acceptance of and satisfaction with single status. Qualitative data indicated that voluntary singlehood is neither a salient identity nor an expression of primary control; rather, it is an idiosyncratic "narrative strategy" and a form of secondary control that preserves ego integrity. These findings are discussed with respect to their implications for the creation and maintenance of healthy, happy, single lifestyles and communities.

This study uses individual-and couple-level analyses to examine the influence of work-family demands and community resources on marital and family satisfaction within a sample of dual-earner parents with dependent children (N = 260 couples, 520 individuals). Total couple work hours were strongly negatively associated with marital satisfaction for both fathers and mothers. Work hours may be best studied as a couple-level demand, and working shorter combined hours, if possible, may be a central component of a broader adaptive strategy. Negative work-to-family spillover was negatively associated with parents' family satisfaction, but for mothers this relationship was mediated by negative affect and (marginally) by couple disagreements. Finally, fathers' neighborhood friends emerged as an important resource for both fathers and mothers, suggesting gender differences in the role of community Hostetler et al.

We applied a life course perspective to an examination of work-to-school transitions, and highlighted the individual and family-level factors that differentially shape the career pathways of men and women. We employed data from a sample of employed middle-class men and women in dual-earner couples (N=1,408 couples) to examine the relationship between returning to school and prior educational attainment, individual biographic pacing (age, timing of marriage), job history, current job conditions, psychological resources, and family demands. Results support several hypothesized gender differences in the return to school pathway. Women with the heaviest combination of work and family demands were the most likely to return, an unexpected finding that we discuss with reference to both personal and structural resources.

Widely noted demographic changes in the industrialized West, including the general aging of the population, have been accompanied by increasing academic and popular interest in the ways in which individuals experience patterns of change and continuity in their lives, from young adulthood to oldest age. This search for the meaning of personal and shared experience must be understood against a backdrop of shared cultural expectations regarding the appropriate timing and outcome of life transitions that are presumed to be integrated into a unitary and coherent experience of the self. Like stories, lives are assumed to have a beginning, a middle, and an end, with increasing complexity and a predictable, ordered plot. The experience of continuity over time, so essential for positive adjustmentFrom the Committee on Human Development, the Department of Psychiatry, and the Evelyn Hooker Center for Gay and Lesbian Mental Health. We thank our colleagues Gil Herdt and Rick Shweder and the student participants in the workshop on culture and mental health for their incisive comments regarding both the framework for studying lives and the particular issues posed by the study of the life course of gay and bisexual men and women.

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