BackgroundThe association between sarcopenia and cardiovascular disease (CVD) in elderly people has not been adequately assessed. The aim of this study was to investigate whether CVD is more prevalent in subjects with sarcopenia independent of other well-established cardiovascular risk factors in older Korean adults.MethodThis study utilized the representative Korean population data from the Korea National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (KNHANES) which was conducted in 2009. Subjects older than 65 years of age with appendicular skeletal muscle mass (ASM) determined by dual energy X-ray absorptiometry were selected. The prevalence of sarcopenia in the older Korean adults was investigated, and it was determined whether sarcopenia is associated with CVD independent of other well-known risk factors.Results1,578 subjects aged 65 years and older with the data for ASM were selected, and the overall prevalence of sarcopenia was 30.3% in men and 29.3% in women. Most of the risk factors for CVD such as age, waist circumference, body mass index, fasting plasma glucose and total cholesterol showed significant negative correlations with the ratio between appendicular skeletal muscle mass and body weight. Multiple logistic regression analysis demonstrated that sarcopenia was associated with CVD independent of other well-documented risk factors, renal function and medications (OR, 1.768; 95% CI, 1.075–2.909, P = 0.025).ConclusionsSarcopenia was associated with the presence of CVD independent of other cardiovascular risk factors after adjusting renal function and medications.

No abstract

Dental caries is a biofilm-dependent oral disease and Streptococcus mutans is the known primary etiologic agent of dental caries that initiates biofilm formation on tooth surfaces. Although some Lactobacillus strains inhibit biofilm formation of oral pathogenic bacteria, the molecular mechanisms by which lactobacilli inhibit bacterial biofilm formation are not clearly understood. In this study, we demonstrated that Lactobacillus plantarum lipoteichoic acid (Lp.LTA) inhibited the biofilm formation of S. mutans on polystyrene plates, hydroxyapatite discs, and dentin slices without affecting the bacterial growth. Lp.LTA interferes with sucrose decomposition of S. mutans required for the production of exopolysaccharide, which is a main component of biofilm. Lp.LTA also attenuated the biding of fluorescein isothiocyanate-conjugated dextran to S. mutans, which is known to have a high affinity to exopolysaccharide on S. mutans. Dealanylated Lp.LTA did not inhibit biofilm formation of S. mutans implying that D-alanine moieties in the Lp.LTA structure were crucial for inhibition. Collectively, these results suggest that Lp.LTA attenuates S. mutans biofilm formation and could be used to develop effective anticaries agents.

Probiotics in livestock feed supplements are considered a replacement for antibiotics that enhance gastrointestinal immunity. Although bacterial cell wall components have been proposed to be associated with probiotic function, little evidence demonstrates that they are responsible for probiotic functions in livestock. The present study demonstrated that lipoteichoic acid (LTA) of Lactobacillus plantarum (Lp.LTA) confers anti-inflammatory responses in porcine intestinal epithelial cell line, IPEC-J2. A synthetic analog of viral double-stranded RNA, poly I:C, dose-dependently induced IL-8 production at the mRNA and protein levels in IPEC-J2 cells. Lp.LTA, but not lipoprotein or peptidoglycan from L. plantarum, exclusively suppressed poly I:C-induced IL-8 production. Compared with LTAs from other probiotic Lactobacillus strains including L. delbrueckii, L. sakei, and L. rhamnosus GG, Lp.LTA had higher potential to suppress poly I:C-induced IL-8 production. Dealanylated or deacylated Lp.LTA did not suppress poly I:C-induced IL-8 production, suggesting that D-alanine and lipid moieties in the Lp.LTA structure were responsible for the inhibition. Furthermore, Lp.LTA attenuated the phosphorylation of ERK and p38 kinase as well as the activation of NF-κB, resulting in decreased IL-8 production. Taken together, these results suggest that Lp.LTA acts as an effector molecule to inhibit viral pathogen-induced inflammatory responses in porcine intestinal epithelial cells.