Dietary Fats, Reducing Concussion in Football, Biomedical Award

 

Children's Hospital of Philadelphia researchers discovered which dietary fats are linked to a more severe form of asthma, and they shared results of the first study to explore new safety equipment to reduce concussion in professional football. Also in this week's News, an investigator is recognized for his contributions to mitochondrial genetics.

Dietary Fats Linked to More Severe Form of Asthma

Researchers at CHOP linked specific dietary components as possible triggers for neutrophilic asthma, which is triggered by microbial and bacterial proteins and is more difficult to treat than allergic asthma. These preclinical findings from the Division of Allergy and Immunology and the Division of Pulmonary and Sleep Medicine challenge the current understanding that obesity is a primary cause, suggesting existing treatments could be modified to help reduce lung inflammation.

"We were observing neutrophilic asthma in children who weren't obese, which is why we suspected there might be another mechanism," said senior study author David Hill, MD, PhD, an attending physician with the Division of Allergy and Immunology. "What we found in both preclinical work and studies in children was that diets containing certain saturated long chain fatty acids can cause neutrophilic asthma independent from obesity."

Dr. Hill and his colleagues studied white blood cells that coordinate immune function during inflammation, called lung macrophages. In a preclinical model on a high-fat diet, they observed lung macrophages accumulating a saturated long chain fatty acid — stearic acid — that worsened airway inflammation without causing obesity.

Researchers suppressed inflammatory activity using oleic acid, a monounsaturated long chain fatty acid, and blocked increased levels of inflammatory cytokine IL-1β or inhibiting the protein IRE1⍺.

The study appears in Science Translational Medicine.

Learn more in this CHOP news release.

Padded Caps Could Help to Reduce Concussion Among Professional Football Players

The use of a soft shell helmet cover engineered for impact reduction in the National Football League (NFL) is associated with a decrease in concussions, according to a first-of-its-kind study to analyze concussion rates among players who did and did not wear the add-on protective equipment.

Working with the National Football League Players Association (NFLPA) and NFL Engineering Committee, Minds Matter Concussion Program Co-Director, Kristy Arbogast, PhD, was an author of the findings on the use of these soft shell helmet covers to reduce concussions in the American Journal of Sports Medicine.

"By continuing to support research at the professional level, we are confident that these findings will strengthen our knowledge and allow us to improve upon existing knowledge of head impacts in the sport of football," Dr. Arbogast said in her Research in Action post. "[This will] provide even more guidance to young players to maximize their safety during practice and games."

They found a 53% decrease in preseason concussions when comparing the years when players wore the protective equipment (2022-2023) to the years they did not (2018-2021). They note that this decrease cannot be completely attributed to the use of soft shell helmet covers themselves.

Steven C. Beering Award Recognizes Founder of Mitochondrial Genetics

The Indiana University (IU) School of Medicine selected Douglas Wallace, PhD, Director of the Center for Mitochondrial and Epigenomic Medicine at CHOP, to receive the Steven C. Beering Award, which honors internationally recognized individuals for their outstanding research contributions to advancing biomedical or clinical science.

Dr. Wallace was chosen for this groundbreaking work in mitochondrial genetics over the last four decades. Some of his findings include discovering that mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) is inherited exclusively from mothers and linking mtDNA to a wide range of metabolic and degenerative diseases.

As the award winner, Dr. Wallace gave a presentation titled, "Mitochondrial Medicine: The New Biomedical Reality," Aug. 25 at Indiana University.

ICYMI

Catch up on our headlines from our Aug. 22 In The News:

• Cancer Center Physician Receives Grant for Research in T-cell Malignancy Risk Stratification
• Researchers Discover Genetic Disorder Common in Old Order Amish
• CHOP Helps Lead Newly Established Palliative Care Research Consortium

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