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Insights into the associations between the gut microbiome, its metabolites and heart failure

Heart failure (HF) is the end stage of most cardiovascular diseases and remains a significant health problem globally. We aimed to assess whether patients with left ventricular ejection fraction ≤45% had alterations in both the gut microbiome profile and production of associated metabolites when compared to a healthy cohort.

Preterm lung disease: not just for neonatologists

Improvements in neonatal critical care have resulted in more people than ever reaching adulthood after being born prematurely. At the same time, it is becoming clearer that preterm birth can increase the risk of respiratory disease throughout a person’s lifetime. Awareness that a patient was born preterm can enable early specialist assessment and intervention when there is any concern about lung health. 

Preterm birth and exercise capacity: what do we currently know?

The long-term cardiopulmonary outcomes following preterm birth during the surfactant era remain unclear. Respiratory symptoms, particularly exertional symptoms, are common in preterm children. Therefore, cardiopulmonary exercise testing may provide insights into the pathophysiology driving exertional respiratory symptoms in those born preterm. This review aims to outline the current knowledge of cardiopulmonary exercise testing in the assessment of children born preterm in the surfactant era.

European Respiratory Society/American Thoracic Society technical statement: standardisation of the measurement of lung volumes, 2023 update

This document updates the 2005 European Respiratory Society (ERS) and American Thoracic Society (ATS) technical standard for the measurement of lung volumes. The 2005 document integrated the recommendations of an ATS/ERS task force with those from an earlier National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute workshop that led to the publication of background papers between 1995 and 1999 and a consensus workshop report with more in-depth descriptions and discussion.

Lower infant mortality, higher household size, and more access to contraception reduce fertility in low- and middle-income nations

Although average contraceptive use has increased globally in recent decades, an estimated 222 million (26%) of women of child-bearing age worldwide face an unmet need for family planning-defined as a discrepancy between fertility preferences and contraception practice, or failing to translate desires to avoid pregnancy into preventative behaviours and practices.