RSL receive: Up to $350k GAM, MLS SuperDraft pick, sell-on%
CF Montréal have acquired defender Bode Hidalgo from Real Salt Lake, the clubs announced Thursday.
In exchange for Hidalgo, RSL receive $200,000 in 2025 General Allocation Money (GAM) and Montréal’s second-round pick in the 2026 MLS SuperDraft. RSL could receive up to $150k in additional GAM if certain incentives are met. They also maintain a sell-on fee.
“We are pleased to welcome Bode to our organization,” said Luca Saputo, Montréal’s senior director of recruitment and sports methodology. “His profile and versatility provide us with additional options for our back line.”
Hidalgo has spent his entire professional career at RSL, originally signing as a homegrown player in 2021 after featuring extensively for affiliate side Real Monarchs. The 23-year-old has accrued 90 appearances across all competitions for the Claret-and-Cobalt, scoring one goal and recording four assists.
“We want to sincerely thank Bode for his commitment and contributions to our club,” said RSL sporting director Kurt Schmid. “From his early days in our academy to earning his place as a first-team contributor, Bode has grown tremendously as a player and as a professional.
“His hard work, dedication, and character have left a lasting impact on our organization, and we are proud of the role we played in his development. We wish him nothing but success in this next chapter of his career.”
Hidalgo joins Efraín Morales (trade from Atlanta United) and Matty Longstaff (trade from Toronto FC) as intra-league arrivals for Montréal during the MLS Secondary Transfer Window.
Meanwhile, Hidalgo departs RSL shortly after they acquired US international right back DeAndre Yedlin from FC Cincinnati.
READ MORE: MLS Transfer Tracker presented by Avant
Newly discovered origami designs that unfold in one singular motion could have practical uses in space technology.
Rather than unfolding in stages — each of which allows possible failure points — “bloom” origami patterns seamlessly expand from a flat disc to a larger three-dimensional shape resembling a flower, researchers at Brigham Young University in the US found. After deriving a mathematical explanation for the effect, they also found the principles held with materials of different thickness like plastic or acrylic.
Bloom patterns could prove useful in designing orbital structures like space telescopes or solar panels because they do not “necessarily have to do one thing after another” to achieve “maximum deployment,” thereby minimizing accidents, a materials expert told New Scientist.
A large Finnish cohort study reveals that subtle shifts in maternal and infant gut bacteria could signal a higher risk of respiratory infections in babies, pointing to new avenues for prevention in early life.
Study: The association of maternal and infant early gut microbiota with respiratory infections in infants. Image Credit: New Africa / Shutterstock
In a recent article published in the journal Pediatric Research, researchers in Finland studied whether gut microbiota composition in mothers and young infants is linked to the risk of developing a respiratory tract infection (RTI) during the first six months of the infant’s life.
They found that infants with RTIs had differences in the relative abundance of specific bacterial taxa compared with those without, while overall alpha and beta diversity remained similar. Microbial communities in mothers also showed differences.
Background
RTIs are common in infancy. Healthy, full-term infants in high-income countries experience four to ten episodes in their first year. These infections affect infants’ well-being and have social and economic consequences. They can increase parental stress and cause missed work.
Interest is growing in how early gut microbiota might influence RTI susceptibility. Animal studies suggest gut microbes shape respiratory immunity. However, human study findings remain inconsistent.
Some research links low microbial diversity and reduced beneficial gut bacteria with higher risks of wheezing and asthma in childhood. Important bacteria include Bifidobacterium, Faecalibacterium, Ruminococcus, and Roseburia.
However, much less is known about direct associations between gut microbiota and RTIs in infancy, largely because longitudinal studies with standardized infection tracking and early-life stool sampling are limited.
Most previous studies have focused on later outcomes, such as asthma, rather than acute RTIs in early life. Furthermore, maternal microbiota, which may influence the infant gut microbiome, has rarely been examined.
About the study
Researchers hypothesized that early infant gut microbiota, along with maternal microbiota, could be associated with the occurrence of RTIs during the first six months of life. They used a nested case-control analysis that included healthy full-term non-twin Finnish infants with birth weights of at least 2.5 kg.
RTI cases were defined as infants who developed upper RTI with fever, otitis media, or lower RTI during the first six months of life. Families recorded infection symptoms and medical visits in an online diary weekly during the first four months and biweekly until seven months, allowing precise tracking of RTIs.
Fecal samples were collected from mothers around their due date and from infants at three and six weeks of age. Samples were frozen immediately at home and later processed for DNA extraction and 16S rRNA gene sequencing to characterize microbiota composition.
Of 1052 infants in the Helsinki cohort, 189 developed RTIs within six months. Microbiota data were available for 178 infants and 136 mothers in the RTI group, and for 143 infants and 125 mothers in the control group, totaling 461 infant and 261 maternal samples.
Analyses compared microbial diversity (alpha and beta) and the relative abundance of bacterial taxa between groups. Sensitivity analyses excluded infants with infections prior to stool sampling and matched cases and controls by relevant factors (season of birth, sex, and delivery mode).
Key findings
Among 178 infants who developed an RTI within the first six months and 143 controls, the median RTI duration was 11 days. Most cases were upper RTIs with fever (49%) or otitis media (47%), while only 4% were lower RTIs.
About 30% of RTI cases occurred within the first three months, most commonly otitis media. Over half of the affected infants visited a doctor, and 14% required emergency care, whereas far fewer controls had medical visits.
In maternal microbiota, overall diversity and richness did not differ between groups, but mothers of infants with RTIs had higher abundances of Citrobacter, Enterobacter, and Enterococcus, while Clostridium was lower. These bacteria were described by the authors as opportunistic pathogens, suggesting that maternal microbial instability could play a role in shaping infant risk.
For infants, overall microbial composition at 3 and 6 weeks was similar between groups. However, at three weeks, those who later developed RTIs showed higher levels of several bacterial families (such as Rikenellaceae, Prevotellaceae, and Verrucomicrobiaceae) and genera, including Alistipes, Akkermansia, Faecalibacterium, Peptoniphilus, and Serratia. The higher abundance of Faecalibacterium was notable because previous studies had often linked lower levels of this genus to respiratory problems, highlighting a potential contradiction with earlier findings.
At six weeks, Prevotellaceae remained elevated in infants who developed RTIs within three months, while reduced Anaerostipes, another butyrate producer, was observed. Anaerostipes depletion may alter lactate and butyrate metabolism, with possible downstream effects on immune function.
Sensitivity analyses confirmed these findings, showing consistent associations with higher abundances of butyrate-producing genera (Pseudobutyrivibrio, Faecalibacterium, and Roseburia), and Proteus, and lower Veillonella and Anaerostipes in infants who developed RTIs.
Comparison between mothers of infants who developed a respiratory tract infection episode (RTI) in the first 6 months of life and mothers of randomly selected infants with no such infection episode. PCoA plots based on Bray-Curtis dissimilarities of the samples, showing the richness of the microbiota as background (a). Clusters are shown by circles, which were drawn based on the standard deviations of the data points in each category of the samples (a). The comparisons are between mothers of infants who developed an RTI in the first 6 months of life and mothers of infants remaining healthy (p = 0.39). Clustered stacked column graphs demonstrate microbiota differences at the family level (b). The comparisons are between mothers of infants who developed an RTI in the first 6 months of life (YES) and mothers of infants remaining healthy (NO).
Conclusions
In conclusion, maternal and early infant gut microbiota composition may influence early susceptibility to RTIs, highlighting potential targets for preventive interventions in future studies. The authors emphasized these are associations, not proof of causation, and that the analysis was exploratory with a false discovery rate (FDR) threshold of 0.1. They further proposed that the early appearance of adult-type butyrate producers, such as Faecalibacterium and Roseburia, could represent a “premature gut microbiota maturation” that predisposes infants to infection.
The strengths of this analysis include the large, longitudinal birth cohort, systematic parental reporting of mild RTIs, and analysis of both infant and maternal samples. However, limitations involve the relatively homogenous, high-income population, universal breastfeeding, and restriction to healthy, full-term infants, limiting generalizability.
Note
Some microbial associations (e.g., with Faecalibacterium, Roseburia, and Pseudobutyrivibrio) were most evident in sensitivity analyses that excluded infants with early infections and matched controls by perinatal factors. These were not always present in the main unmatched analysis. Readers should interpret these findings as exploratory associations rather than consistent causal signals.
Journal reference:
The association of maternal and infant early gut microbiota with respiratory infections in infants. Hyvönen, S., Saarikivi, A., Mälkönen, J., Solasaari, T., Korpela, K., de Vos, W.M., Salonen, A., Ruuska-Loewald, T., Kolho, K. Pediatric Research (2025). DOI: 10.1038/s41390-025-04326-0, https://www.nature.com/articles/s41390-025-04326-0
BELGRADE (Serbia) – Slovenia have officially confirmed their 12-man roster for the upcoming FIBA EuroBasket 2025, headlined by none other than one of the competition’s brightest stars, Luka Doncic.
Head coach Aleksander Sekulic finalized the squad right after the tough 34-point defeat to Serbia in Belgrade, which concluded their preparation campaign ahead of the tournament.
SLOVENIA’S ROSTER FOR FIBA EUROBASKET 2025
Luka Doncic, Gregor Hrovat, Robert Jurkovic, Martin Krampelj, Edo Muric, Aleksej Nikolic, Alen Omic, Mark Padjen, Klemen Prepelic, Rok Radovic, Leon Stergar, Luka Scuka
The FIBA EuroBasket 2017 champions had a tough preparation for the most-awaited event of the summer, winning only one friendly game out of six.
They lost twice to Germany to begin their preparation tour, and then suffered defeats to Lithuania, Latvia, and ultimately Serbia. Their only win came against Great Britain.
Who is playing at FIBA EuroBasket 2025?
Roster tracker: Who is playing at FIBA EuroBasket 2025?
Tracker: Preparation games for FIBA EuroBasket 2025
It has been a difficult summer for the Slovenian national team, which will place their hopes on one of the best basketball players on the planet, answering to Luka Doncic’s name.
The Dragons will play the Group Phase in Katowice, alongside Poland, France, Israel, Belgium, and Iceland in Group D.
They will begin their campaign against Poland on August 28 at 20:30 CET. That will be a rematch of the Semi-Finals at FIBA EuroBasket 2022.
Microsoft has started testing another handheld-friendly addition to its Xbox app, allowing PC gamers to quickly install and launch third-party apps like browsers, gaming utilities, and even rival storefronts. A new “My apps” feature is being tested in the Xbox app for Windows 11, and it looks like another way to avoid having to launch the main Microsoft Store or hunt for downloads online if you’re on a gaming PC.
“My apps is a new tab within the Xbox PC app’s library that allows players to locate, view, and download third-party applications and most commonly used storefronts,” explains Devin Dhaliwal, a product manager for Xbox experiences. “By consolidating gaming apps in one location, this feature supports the new aggregated gaming library, making it more straightforward to find, download, and launch games from multiple locations.”
Microsoft has already been adding Steam, Battle.net, Ubisoft Connect, and other PC games into to a unified library inside its Xbox app, but this my apps view will be useful on a handheld PC where you want to avoid using the Windows desktop interface as much as possible. “My apps enables players on an ROG Xbox Ally or other Windows 11 handhelds to more easily navigate between applications from the Xbox full screen experience,” says Dhaliwal.
I’ve briefly tested the My apps view today and it lists Battle.net, Chrome, and GOG Galaxy. I have Chrome and Battle.net installed, so it simply launches these apps, but with GOG Galaxy it tries to download and install the app all within the Xbox UI. I say try because it failed to install during my testing, but this is a beta so there are bound to be bugs.
FilmOut, San Diego’s LGBTQ+ film festival, turns 25 this year. So the time seemed right to remind people how it all started.
Origin story: From thesis to festival
FilmOut has its roots at San Diego State University and a student named Joe Ferrelli.
“So the festival started when I was at San Diego State doing my master’s,” Ferrelli explained. “I decided to do this festival as a thesis project. There was no queer film festival in San Diego at the time. I found out that the last time that there was something was in 1984, and it was put on by the Men’s Center and it was at the Ken. My thesis was about identifying a queer sensibility in otherwise unqueer films, if you will. Things like Terence Davies, the first time I saw his ‘Distant Voices, Still Lives,’ I knew that he was a gay filmmaker, even though there was nothing about the film that was gay. So I decided to explore this a little bit and went back through a history of queer films. And as I was doing this, I decided that it would be a good time to start a film festival.”
The first year was at the Ken Cinema in 1999, then it moved to the Museum of Photographic Arts for its second year. Then Ferrelli left San Diego and, after a short hiatus, Michael McQuiggan took on the role of program director.
“The first few years were rocky,” Ferrelli admitted. “It was hit and miss. Crowds were very small, and the films to pick from were very few compared to what Michael gets now. But I just hoped that it would become something that could feature LGBTQ+ representation in films. I didn’t want to focus on only those kinds of films. So I looked at the works of directors that I knew were gay but that didn’t make outwardly gay films, people like Terence Davies. And that got me thinking that there was this underlying queer sensibility, especially in the time when you had the Hays Code, where you couldn’t talk about homosexuality. So filmmakers would have to work to get their ideas across to like-minded people. The first year of the festival, I also showed some gay silent films.”
One of the things I love about the festival is that foundation Ferrelli laid, embracing a queer sensibility that went beyond the LGBTQ+ films focused primarily on identity and activism. That meant audiences could find a diverse array of genre films, which were rare in the early years of the festival.
Celebrating 25 years of FilmOut
McQuiggan confessed to being exhausted on the eve of the festival as he dealt with projection issues involving digital DCP formats.
“I can’t believe the last 21 years since I’ve been involved with FilmOut, and here we are at this milestone event,” McQuiggan said. “I think we’re selling tickets better than we ever have. I don’t know if the 25th anniversary has anything to do with it, but we’ve already made more in ticket sales than we did all of last year.”
Two posters from the archives: the first from the year it was branded as OutFest, and the second from 2005, when it returned to the name FilmOut.
Before working with FilmOut, McQuiggan had volunteered for OutFest up in Los Angeles. Then he worked with OutFest as it briefly tried its hand at running an LGBTQ+ festival in San Diego. That’s where he met Ferrelli. Then McQuiggan, Ferrelli and Krista Page relaunched the festival in 2004 as FilmOut.
McQuiggan, who has a passion for genre films, noted: “Joe has probably more taste than I do as far as quality cinema. But that was how it all began.”
But McQuiggan keeps Ferrelli’s love for films with a queer sensibility alive in the festival programming, especially in the monthly screenings, where he can indulge in his passion for genre cinema.
This year’s film lineup
The festival opens tonight with a Brazilian rom-com musical called “The Best Friend.” But the lighthearted tone of the film contrasts with the reality of running a film festival in today’s tense political climate.
“We had every intention of bringing the director and the two lead actors in from Brazil,” McQuiggan said. “But with the current political situation between the United States and Brazil, there’s a concern with them as far as maybe being denied entry. For them to fly 21 hours here and maybe not be allowed to come into the country or be detained or whatever, it was a little bit tricky. So we decided not to. But the opening night short film called ‘Mean Goals,’ the entire cast is coming for that.”
The festival also boasts the world premiere of “Exit Interviews,” about a man (played by Tuc Watkins of “Desperate Housewives”) who decides to make a documentary about all his exes and why they left him.
“It’s a world premiere, and they’re all coming, so we’re excited,” McQuiggan said. “Then ‘Plainclothes’ is the Russell Tovey film (best known as the werewolf George Sand in the BBC’s “Being Human”) that is the hot ticket on the festival circuit. That’s on Saturday. And closing night I was really surprised that I was able to get the film ‘Twinless’, a big hit at Sundance. I think that’s the film that’s probably going to take a lot of awards home.”
Spotlight on short films
In addition to feature films, FilmOut showcases a number of short films. There is a late-morning block of shorts on Saturday and then a short paired with each feature. Filmmakers often use short films as calling cards or proof of concept that they hope will lead to a feature film or other employment. But there is also a particular craft and art to the short-film format.
Aaron Lovett’s “DemonBoy” will screen at FilmOut 2025.
L.A. filmmaker Aaron Lovett describes his short “DemonBoy” as “a film about isolation at its core. It’s an erotic thriller. It’s a supernatural thriller. But I made it thinking about the experience of desiring intimacy and connection in the digital age and how difficult that is, especially as a queer person living in Los Angeles. So it touches on some deep themes, but in the package of a pretty short thriller. At its core, my film is a horror movie because horror movies are often a way to find catharsis out of something about the human experience that’s distressing.”
There’s also a horror element to Jonathan Hammond’s very funny “Fireflies in the Dusk,” which he calls “a time travel, Victorian, romance, parody, slasher film.”
“I have a deep love of the movie ‘A Room with a View,’ and I was also raised by a mother who worships the movie ‘Somewhere in Time,’ which I never really warmed up to,” Hammond explained. “My nature is someone who likes to make fun of things that I love and don’t love. And I just have this need to make something that is different and to give people a story that becomes unexpected.”
And “Fireflies in the Dusk” does take some unexpected turns and boasts an appearance by Drew Droege. There are also surprises to be found in Aaron Immediato’s “The Last Story on Earth.”
“I’ve been wanting to do a sci-fi alien invasion short film for a while now with a queer twist. So ’The Last Story on Earth’ is very much what I’ve been calling my sci-fi love letter to drag queens, and drag artists,” Immediato said. “It is very much a creative response to the attacks that drag story hours and drag storytimes have gotten from folks around the country and around the world. I’ve felt that these attacks — especially targeting drag artists, focusing on them somehow not being safe for kids — has been especially offensive to me as a queer person who wishes when I was a kid, I would have been able to attend a drag story hour.”
Beth’s Recommended Viewing
“Pooja Sir” (Friday, 1 p.m.) “State of Firsts” (Friday, 3 p.m.) “Heart of the Man” (Friday, 9:30 p.m.) paired with “Strangers on a Beach” LGBTQ+ Shorts (Saturday, 11 a.m.) “Plainclothes” (Saturday, 7:30 p.m.) “Who Wants to Marry an Astronaut?” (Saturday, 9:30 p.m.) “Sauna” (Sunday, 1:30 p.m.) paired with “DemonBoy” “Four Mothers” (Sunday, 3:30 p.m.) paired with “Fireflies in the Dusk” “#300 Letters” (Sunday, 5:30 p.m.) “Twinless” (Sunday, 7:30 p.m.)
Immediato noted that filmmakers often work in silos, especially during editing. So it is great to be able to show a film at a festival and sit with an audience to see how a film actually plays. Hammond, who recently won the Comic-Con International Independent Film Festival Award for Best Humor/Comedy Film, loves watching his films with an audience.
“Watching my movies — and particularly this movie, which has a twist — and you can hear an audible gasp, it makes me giddy,” Hammond said. “But watching people, hearing people laugh, and then just that gasp, you know you have your hooks into them. As a filmmaker, it’s like a cookie. It’s delicious.”
Hammond has roots in San Diego and has been attending the festival for two decades, with “Fireflies in the Dusk” being his fourth film screened there.
“FilmOut means a huge, tremendous amount to me,” Hammond noted. “Michael McQuiggan has been so supportive of me as well as San Diego filmmakers. The second film I played, the viewing was like a filmmaker’s dream. People were laughing when they were supposed to laugh and they were scared when they were supposed to be scared. The people sitting next to me said, ‘That was so good.’ And the lineup was incredible. So to have your film in those kinds of (screenings), but also have that reaction, in a way, it’s tattooed on my brain, and I’ve been chasing that dragon ever since. And it’s really one of the things that gave me a confidence to continue following my dream of becoming a filmmaker. And again, I just can’t overstate how meaningful, impactful Michael McQuiggan’s support of me and of the local filmmakers has been.”
Drag queen Pickle plays Lady Pixie Dust in “The Last Story on Earth” (2024).
Panel: Queer joy on screen
Saturday at 4 p.m., FilmOut will host a panel called Queer Joy on Screen, led by actor-writer-producer Ben Bauer.
For Hammond, “Queer joy is absolutely an act of rebellion because, to be blunt, the current administration is doing everything they can to subvert and take away the joy. They’re trying to literally make illegal who you are. So I think by being joyful and being proud of who you are is counter to everything they stand for.”
Lovett added, “I think joy is a tough word because sometimes it can be hard to be joyful, depending on what’s going on. I think if you’re a person who’s aware and seeing things and thinking critically, I think it can be really hard to be joyful. But I think there’s something to say for having space for all the different ranges of human emotion, all of which are very valid at a time like this. And I think to ignore or relegate joy to the sidelines and say, well, we don’t have time or space for that right now, I think is a mistake. I think it’s a huge tragedy. And I think it’s so important to find joy, which sounds like a cliché, but I think is actually true. And I think that makes it so much more powerful in a dark moment.”
Immediato said, “Queer folks have always been under attacks, and we always will be. Elections come and go, leaders, politicians come and go, this fight will never end. There will always be fights and struggles for equality in this country and around the world. We need to see joy and we need to see pain and sorrow.”
But McQuiggan noted that he likes to try to steer the festival clear of overt political messaging.
“It is challenging,” McQuiggan said. “I just want people to come to be entertained. And I’m gearing away from a lot of the films that were really in your face, aggressive to deal with the current political climate. But I want people just to come in to get away from that for at least four days and just come and enjoy cinema. That’s what my goal is.
“And it’s interesting. I’m not sure what the future for FilmOut is going to hold after this year. I did some research the other day, and there are only 171 LGBTQ film festivals left. I think when we started this, there were like 700. It’s changing. I don’t know how we’re going to evolve. We need to completely reassess the entire organization to see what we can do to stay relevant. That’s what’s going to happen after this festival. We’ll see.”
Still, just having the festival can feel political.
“Having a festival like this in this particular time, just showing up, I believe, is a political act,” Hammond said. “I think just being yourself and supporting your community is beyond important. I think just being who you are and being a part of your community and letting yourself be seen and your voice heard, it’s subversive right now given the nature of the administration. So I encourage everyone to show up and support.”
Lovett agreed, “I think right now it’s incredibly important to appreciate whatever opportunities we have to share queer work, to be in community with queer people, to engage in the culture in a way that acknowledges the current political climate, while also just making space to exist — I don’t think there’s any other option. And I think at this point, queer people have to continue to do what they’ve been doing, even if right now it feels like it might not be working. I think it’s also important to not let that completely disrupt or stop queer existence and queer life and what it means to be queer and to make queer art and to share it with people, not only other queer people, but straight people and cis people as well. I think that’s more important probably now maybe than it’s ever been in recent history.”
For 25 years, FilmOut has played a role not just in the LGBTQ+ community but also in the broader film community.
It makes Ferrelli proud.
“Seeing what Michael has done with it — Michael and company — it’s just been wonderful. It’s just been an amazing thing. I could never imagine it would have (lasted) this long or been this successful,” Ferrelli said.
FilmOut kicks off Thuresday at The Nat with “The Best Friend” and then moves to the Museum of Photographic Arts for Friday through Sunday. Check out the full lineup.
Patients with alopecia areata (AA) face an increased risk of developing cardiovascular disease, a new meta-analysis found.1 The findings add weight to the theory that there is an underappreciated interplay between AA and cardiovascular disease. The new analysis was published in Frontiers in Immunology.
AA has already been linked with several comorbidities, including inflammatory and gastrointestinal diseases, the study authors noted. Previous research has suggested that there might likewise be an association between cardiovascular disease and AA.
The authors performed a systematic review and meta-analysis of studies examining cardiovascular disease and alopecia areata. | Image credit: Thirakun – stock.adobe.com
A 2021 study showed significant associations between cardiovascular, atherosclerosis, and immune pathways and Severity of Alopecia Tool (SALT) scores in patients with AA.2 A subsequent study showed that levels of a key atherosclerosis biomarker were higher in patients with more severe AA.3
Still, the authors said the mechanistic links between AA and cardiovascular disease are not well understood.1 Moreover, they said the issue of a relationship between AA and cardiovascular disease remains controversial.
In an effort to clarify the issue, the authors performed a systematic review and meta-analysis of studies examining cardiovascular disease and AA. They searched 4 academic databases looking for studies on the relationship between AA and cardiovascular disease. They found a total of 5 studies, which together represented 238,270 patients with AA from three countries.
The investigators found that patients with AA were indeed at a higher risk of cardiovascular disease, with an odds ratio of 1.71 for cardiovascular disease (95% CI, 1.0-2.92; P < .01) compared with controls without AA.
However, they found that the correlation was complicated; it depended heavily on the AA subtype. The data showed that patients with alopecia totalis or alopecia universalis had a substantially higher risk of cardiovascular disease (OR, 3.80; 95% CI, 1.65-8.73; P < .01). However, the data failed to show a correlation between patch-type AA and cardiovascular disease, nor with ischemic stroke or myocardial infarction.
The investigators said they believe their study is the first meta-analysis to systematically study links between AA and cardiovascular disease. They said the findings underscore the benefits of early intervention in AA.
“Given the higher immune alterations of AA scalp and the correlation between its clinical severity and biomarkers of immune and cardiovascular dysregulation, early systemic treatments are highly recommended in patients with significant AA involvement,” they wrote.
The authors cited several possible reasons for the associations. They noted that both AA and cardiovascular disease share common immunological mechanisms and that immune dysregulation in follicular air epithelium beyond the scalp may contribute to circulatory abnormalities in patients. Additionally, they noted that CD8+ T cells play a key role in both AA and cardiovascular disease.
Still, the authors said there is a limited number of published studies on such associations, so they said additional research is needed. They also noted that the available studies were based on patients from the United States, Taiwan, and Korea, and so they may not be representative of all patients. In addition, they noted that the diagnosis of different types of AA is reliant upon the judgment of dermatologists, and thus there may be subjective variability in subtype classification.
Still, the authors concluded the analysis supports the idea that people with AA are at an elevated risk of cardiovascular disease, even if the exact mechanisms and nuances of the association remain unclear.
References
1. Lu J, Cao X, Feng Y, Yu Y, Lu Y. Association between alopecia areata and cardiovascular disease: a systematic review and meta-analysis. Front Immunol. Published August 6, 2025. doi:10.3389/fimmu.2025.1643709.
2. Glickman JW, Dubin C, Renert-Yuval Y, et al. Cross-sectional study of blood biomarkers of patients with moderate to severe alopecia areata reveals systemic immune and cardiovascular biomarker dysregulation. J Am Acad Dermatol. 2021;84(2):370-380. doi:10.1016/j.jaad.2020.04.138
3. Waśkiel-Burnat A, Niemczyk A, Blicharz L, et al. Chemokine C-C motif ligand 7 (CCL7), a biomarker of atherosclerosis, is associated with the severity of alopecia areata: a preliminary study. J Clin Med. 2021;10(22):5418. doi:10.3390/jcm10225418
