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The relationship between grip strength, 6 minute walking distance and working memory in older adults with mild cognitive impairment: an fNIRS study | BMC Geriatrics
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Proteas thump Zimbabwe to secure 328-run win in Zimbabwe Test

South African players celebrate during their Test against Zimbabwe at the Queens Sports Club in Bulawayo on July 1, 2025. — Facebook@ZimbabweCricket1992

BULAWAYO: South Africa bagged a convincing win 328-run win in the first Test against Zimbabwe after debutant Lhuan-dre Pretorius scored a record-breaking century with Corbin Bosch’s also pitching in via his all-round performance in the first fixture of the two match series.

Chasing a daunting 537-run target, the home side’s batting unit unfolded on a meagre 208 runs.

Zimbabwe resumed their pursuit from 32-1 through opener Prince Masvaure and Nick Welch (0) and got off to a worst possible start as Bosch dismissed the number three batter on the first delivery of the day.

First-innings centurion Sean Williams then joined Masvaure for a brief 32-run partnership after the early blow.

Williams dominated the stand by scoring a quickfire 26 off 18 deliveries before Bosch got him caught behind.

Zimbabwe then lost three more wickets in quick succession and consequently slipped to 82-6, needing a further 455 runs.

Following the slump, skipper Craig Ervine and Wellington Masakadza attempted to launch a recovery by putting together 83 runs for the sixth wicket.

Momentum-filled Bosch broke the crucial partnership by getting rid of Ervine, who scored 49 off 77 deliveries, laced with seven boundaries.

Masakadza, on the other hand, was involved in a meagre eight-run partnership with Vincent Masekesa (3) before being ultimately removed by Codi Yusuf.

He remained the top scorer for Zimbabwe in the run chase with 57 off 92 deliveries, featuring nine boundaries.

Zimbabwe’s number 10 Blessing Muzarabani was the other notable run-getter as he remained unbeaten with a gutsy 32 off 29 deliveries, comprising four fours and two sixes.

Bosch was the standout bowler for South Africa in the second innings, taking five wickets for 43 runs in 12 overs, followed by Yusuf with three, while Keshav Maharaj and Dewald Brevis made one scalp apiece.

For the unversed, debutant wicketkeeper batter Lhuan-dre Pretorius was adjudged the Player of the Match for his monumental 153 in the first innings, which helped South Africa pile 418-9.

In response, Zimbabwe could muster 251 despite a valiant century from Williams as Wiaan Mulder’s four-wicket haul dismantled their batting unit.

Mulder then showcased his batting prowess in the second innings and scored an anchoring century at number three, which was pivotal in helping South Africa to set a mammoth total.

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Association between the American heart association’s life’s essential 8 score and cognitive function: a cross-sectional NHANES study | BMC Geriatrics

Study population

This cross-sectional study recruited participants from NHANES 2011–2012 and 2013–2014 (https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nhanes/index.htm). NHANES is a public health survey program conducted by National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) in America. The NHANES project recruits participants using a complex, multistage probabilistic sampling design in two-year cycles. NHANES collects information from questionnaires at home, physical and laboratory examinations in mobile examination center (MEC) and telephone interviews. In this study, samples from NHANES 2011–2012 and 2013–2014 were obtained and combined because NHANES project provided the outcome of several cognitive test in these two cycles specifically. There were totally 19,931 participants in these two cycles. Our study implemented a three-stage exclusion protocol: (1) Primary exclusion of 16,530 participants based on age criterion (< 60 years), (2) subsequent removal of 478 cases with incomplete cognitive assessments or missing subjective cognitive questionnaires, followed by (3) elimination of 1,947 individuals lacking essential metrics for LE8 calculation. Finally, we get 976 eligible participants. (Supplement Fig. 5)

Measurement of LE8 score

LE8 scoring system is comprised of 8 metrics including 4 behavioral metrics (diet, physical activity frequency and duration, nicotine exposure and sleeping) and 4 biological metrics (blood lipids, blood glucose, blood pressure and BMI score) (Supplement Table 1) [7]. Total LE8 score is the average score of above 8 metrics which range from 0 to 100 with higher score indicate healthier cardiovascular condition. In our study, LE8 score was further classified by quartile into 4 groups named Q1, Q2, Q3 and Q4 with Q1 as reference category.

Table 1 Baseline characteristic of covariables according to LE8 score quartile

Of the 8 metrics, diet score was assessed according to Healthy Eating Index 2015 (HEI-2015). NHANES collects dietary data with two 24-hour recalls interviews, one is conducted in person in MEC while the other is on telephone several days later. Researchers are able to calculate the dietary intake of participants by combining 24-hour food intake files from NHANES and food patterns equivalents data from United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) (https://www.ars.usda.gov/northeast-area/beltsville-md-bhnrc/beltsville-human-nutrition-research-center/food-surveys-research-group/docs/fped-data-tables/). HEI score includes 13 components of 2 classifications: 9 adequacy components and 4 moderation components. Scoring of dietary components is based on energy density which represents the amount of food components per 1000kcal (Supplement Table 2). Self-report questionnaires from NHANES provides information about physical activity intensity, cigarette smoking behaviors, sleeping duration, diabetes history and medication usage. As for the data of BMI, blood pressure, blood lipid and hemoglobin A1c, blood samples are obtained in MEC and then processed, stored, and transported to laboratories for test. The height and weight used to calculate BMI were measured in the MCE. The full test includes three measurements of both systolic and diastolic blood pressure. When data from all three measurements were available, the average systolic and diastolic blood pressure were calculated. If the full set of three measurements was not available, the average was computed using as many measurements as were available.

Table 2 Weighted coefficients and confidence interval of LE8 score for cognitive test score

Measurement of cognitive test score and subjective cognitive performance

NHANES conducted three widely utilized [11,12,13] cognitive tests for participants aged > 60 years in the cycle of 2011–2012 and 2013–2014. First, the word learning and recall modules from the Consortium to Establish a Registry for Alzheimer’s disease (CERAD test) was conducted to assess immediate and delayed learning ability for new verbal information. The test comprises three sequential learning trials followed by delayed recall. During each trial, participants verbally articulate 10 randomly ordered unrelated words presented sequentially, followed by immediate free recall, with word sequence randomization repeated across trials to minimize order effects. A maximum score of 10 per trial is attainable based on correct item retrieval. Second, the Animal Fluency test (AFT) was performed for assessing the executive function where participants are asked to name as many animals as possible in one minute and one point is given for each named animal. Third, Digit Symbol Substitution test (DSST) was conducted which depend on the rapid processing of information, maintaining attention, and retrieving working memory. Participants are provided with a paper which contains 9 numbers with paired symbols, then they are asked to fulfill 133 boxes nearby the numbers with corresponding symbols as much as possible in 2 min. One point is given for one correct match. In this study, we calculated z-score [(individual test score – mean)/standard deviation] of immediate CERAD test, recall CERAD test, AFT test and DSST test respectively. The total cognitive test score refers to the average of above four z-scores [14]. Higher cognitive test score indicates better cognitive function. Participants who reported “being limited in any way because of difficulty remembering or because experience periods of confusion” were defined as having subjective cognitive performance. Participants were defined as having subjective cognitive performance if the participant answered “yes” to the question: “being limited in any way because of difficulty remembering or because experience periods of confusion”.

Assessment of other covariables

We included variables of demographic characteristics and health behaviors that are possibly associated with cognitive function [15], including age (continuous variables), sex (male, female), race (non-Hispanic White, non-Hispanic Black, other Hispanic, other race), education level (college graduate or above, some college or associate degree, high school/GED or less ), the ratio of family income to poverty guideline (< 1.3, 1.3–3.5, > 3.5 ) [16] and alcohol consumption (drinker, non-drinker). Alcohol drinker was defined as those who had at least 12 alcohol drinks a year [17].

Statistical analysis

NHANES selected participants with a complex multistage probabilistic sampling design thus all analysis in this study were weighted with provided weight variables: WTDRD1, SDMVPSU and SDMVSTRA. Since we combined the 2011–2012 and 2013–2014 cycle, the weights of the combined study population were calculated as 1/2* WTDRD1 (https://wwwn.cdc.gov/nchs/nhanes/tutorials/module3.aspx).

Initially, we inspected the characteristic of the study population across four quartiles of LE8 score. After examined the normality of variables’ distribution and the homogeneity of variance, continuous variables were described with mean and standard deviation [mean (SD)] and compare with Wilcoxon rank-sum test while categorized variables were described as the case amount and its percentage [n (%)] and compared with chi-squared test. Afterwards univariable regression (linear regression for cognitive test score, logistic regression for subjective cognitive performance) was conducted to select covariables that were significantly associated with cognitive performance.

Cognitive performance models

We constructed three regression models to explore the association between LE8 score and cognitive performance, both as continuous variables and categorized variables. Model 1 wasn’t adjusted. Model 2 was adjusted for age, gender, and race. Model 3 was adjusted for age, gender, race, family income, education, and alcohol consumption. We also applied restricted cubic spline (RCS) models to explore the dose-response relationship in the above three models. The 5th, 35th, 65th, and 95th percentiles of the total LE8 score distribution were chosen as the knots of the RCS curves [18]. The R² (coefficient of determination) metrics were derived from our multivariable linear regression Model3 (Supplement Fig. 6). The P– non-linear value of RCS was obtained using a likelihood ratio test (LRT) to assess whether the higher-order coefficients of RCS curve are significantly different from zero. This test was conducted using the rms package in R.

Subjective cognitive performance models

We explored the effect of individual LE8 metrics on cognitive performance in a full-adjusted multivariable regression model. In order to validate the reliability of regression model, Receiver Operating Characteristic (ROC) curves of LE8 (both categorized and continuous) were plotted (Supplement Fig. 6). To assess the predictive capacity of LE8 for subjective cognitive performance, we compared the ROC curves of LE8 in relation to cognitive test scores and subjective cognitive performance. For the ROC analysis, cognitive test score was converted into a binary variable according to the lower quartile.

Subgroup models

To identify the subpopulation that benefits most from elevating LE8 score, the study population was stratified by all the variables in Model 3. We then calculated the regression coefficients of LE8 score in different subgroups. P values for interaction were calculated using likelihood ratio tests.

Cross-validation analysis

We made stratified ten-fold cross-validation with ten independent repetitions (10 × 10 CV) on both the objective cognitive testing and subjective cognitive assessment datasets. Model performance was quantified using R², providing robust measurement of predictive consistency and variance explicability (Supplement Table 6).

All statistical tests were two-tailed and conducted with R v. 4.2.1 statistical analysis software. Adobe Illustrator v2023 was used for figure preparation. P < 0.05 was considered statistically significant.

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King Charles cancer update revealed as monarch shows ‘remarkable resilience’

Senior palace aide drops new update on King Charles’ health

A senior palace aide has dropped an update on King Charles health as he praised the monarch for still fulfilling royal duties while undergoing cancer treatment.

Even though the Buckingham Palace has kept details about the monarch’s health private, an official revealed that Charles is responding well to treatment.

At the annual Sovereign Grant briefing, James Chalmers, the monarch’s new Keeper of the Privy Purse, revealed that the King has managed to keep up with many constitutional duties, including regular meetings and state responsibilities.

“The King demonstrated remarkable resilience by undertaking a wide programme of public and state duties at home and overseas while continuing to receive treatment,” Chalmers said.

He further described the past financial year as “something of a return to normal business after the health challenges faced by members of the family in the previous fiscal year.”

“Indeed, by happenstance, the period to which this Sovereign Grant Report relates correlates almost exactly with His Majesty’s return to public-facing duties, in April of 2024,” he added.

Charles approach demonstrated “not only His Majesty’s personal commitment to duty but also the adaptability and resilience of the Royal Household in ensuring continuity of service, no matter the personal circumstances,” Chalmers further shared.

He noted how the public was very supportive of Charles and Kate Middleton, who was also diagnosed with cancer last year.

“The profound connection the royal family maintains with people across the country and indeed the world.”

“No metric can fully capture the scale of this connection,” he said, highlighting that the royal websites attracted a record 4.2 million new visitors, while the royal family’s videos reached nearly 400 million views and their social media content generated 1.3 billion impressions.

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Donald Trump threatens Japan with tariff up to 35% as deadline looms

US President Donald Trump has threatened to impose a “30% or 35%” tariff on Japan if a deal between the two countries is not reached before a deadline next week.

That would be well above the 24% tariff Japan was hit with as part of Trump’s so-called “Liberation Day” on 2 April, when he announced steep import duties on countries around the world.

The tariffs on most US trading partners, including Japan, were later lowered to 10% for 90 days to give them time to negotiate deals with Washington.

That pause is due to expire on 9 July and Trump has said he is not planning to extend the deadline.

Trump also continued to cast doubt that an agreement could be reached with Tokyo.

“We’ve dealt with Japan. I’m not sure we’re going to make a deal. I doubt it,” he told reporters aboard Air Force One on Tuesday.

Japan declined to comment on Trump’s threat to hike tariffs during a news conference on Wednesday.

“We are aware of what President Trump said, but we don’t comment on every remark made by US government officials,” the country’s Deputy Chief Cabinet Secretary Kazuhiko Aoki said.

Like many other countries, most of Japan’s exports to the US currently face a 10% levy. There is also a 25% import tax on Japanese vehicles and parts, while steel and aluminium are subject to a 50% tariff.

On Tuesday, Japan’s chief cabinet secretary Yoshimasa Hayashi said he would not make concessions that could hurt his country’s farmers to strike an agreement with Washington.

The comments came after Trump criticised countries over their trade policies towards the US, focussing on Japanese rice imports.

“To show people how spoiled Countries have become with respect to the United States of America, and I have great respect for Japan, they won’t take our RICE, and yet they have a massive rice shortage,” he wrote on his Truth Social platform.

Trump originally said he would sign 90 trade agreements during the pause on the new tariffs but since then only the UK has struck a deal with the US.

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Product showcase: Protect your data with Apricorn Aegis Secure Key 3NXC

The Apricorn Aegis Secure Key 3NXC is a 256-bit AES XTS hardware-encrypted flash drive with a USB-C connector. It is available in storage capacities ranging from 4GB to 512GB and holds FIPS 140-2 Level 3 validation. The device is OS-agnostic, meaning it can work with any device that has a USB-C port, whether it’s a phone, tablet, Windows PC, or Mac.

Apricorn Aegis Secure Key 3NXC setup

Before setting it up, the device must be connected to a powered USB port and charged for 60 minutes. When not in use, the device enters sleep mode, during which it locks itself and becomes inaccessible.

Aegis Secure Key 3NXC

PIN requirements

The Aegis Secure Key 3NXC does not come with a preset PIN. To begin using it, you must first create an Admin PIN, which must be 7 to 16 digits long. The PIN cannot be made up of only identical or sequential numbers (e.g., 123456789, 987654321, 11111111). All configuration settings, like setting a Self-Destruct PIN or Brute-Force protection, require you to enter Admin Mode.

Since the key comes preformatted in NTFS, it must be reformatted before using it on a Mac.

The Aegis Secure Key can have one Admin and one User, making a total of two working PINs.

After setting up the Admin PIN, the User PIN can be created. The User has limited access: they can view and manage data, change their own PIN, and switch between Read-Only and Read/Write modes, but they cannot change Admin settings.

Configure multiple Apricorn secure devices

For larger deployments, companies can use the Aegis Configurator application along with a USB hub authorized by Apricorn to configure multiple devices simultaneously.

If you’re using the Aegis Configurator to set up your Aegis Secure Key or any other Apricorn secure drive, first make sure the device has the “Configurable” logo on the back. Also, do not manually set up the Admin or User PINs, the Aegis Configurator will handle these steps automatically. It will only work with devices that are either in their original factory state or have been fully reset.

Speed

Help Net Security conducted a speed test using the 128GB version of the Aegis Secure Key 3NXC. All tests were done using the same computer and USB port to keep results consistent. The table below shows the average time in seconds it took to transfer different file sizes.

Aegis Secure Key 3NXC

According to official specifications, read and write speeds can reach up to 171MB/s and 160MB/s, respectively.

Advanced security features

The Aegis Secure Key 3NXC includes Brute-Force protection. By default, you are allowed up to 20 incorrect PIN attempts, but this can be reduced (in Admin Mode) to as few as 4.

The key also features a Self-Destruct mode that can be enabled or disabled only by the Admin. However, the Self-Destruct PIN can be created by either the Admin or a User. When this PIN is entered while the device is locked, the key will perform a crypto-erase, wiping all data permanently. After that, the device must be reformatted, and the self-destruct PIN becomes the new Admin PIN.

Another useful security feature is Read-Only mode. It’s especially helpful when you need to access your data in a public setting, since malware can easily attach themselves to USB drives.

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Why is David Koma showing in Berlin?

According to David Koma, his menswear line is a “selfish” project. “I wanted to have new experiences and to have something to enjoy on top of working hard,” he tells me. “It’s the first time I’ve had myself in mind as a customer, so there have been nice surprises along the way.”

Even though the London-based designer has been designing menswear for three seasons now, he’s only just felt ready to put on a menswear show — and what appears to have been the perfect opportunity presented itself. Koma is showing as part of Berlin Fashion Week (BFW) organiser Fashion Council Germany’s primary talent scheme, Berlin Contemporary, which offers a €25,000 grant to put towards a show. The invitation to show in Berlin came a few months ago through one of his PR agencies, Reference Studios, which is based in Berlin with offices in Milan, Paris and London, and has been working with Fashion Council Germany to invite buzzy designers to the schedule as part of its showcase, Intervention. GmbH and Ottolinger are also taking part.

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Ultrafast 12-minute MRI maps brain chemistry to spot disease before symptoms

A new technology that uses clinical MRI machines to image metabolic activity in the brain could give researchers and clinicians unique insight into brain function and disease, researchers at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign report. The non-invasive, high-resolution metabolic imaging of the whole brain revealed differences in metabolic activity and neurotransmitter levels among brain regions; found metabolic alterations in brain tumors; and mapped and characterized multiple sclerosis lesions — with patients only spending minutes in an MRI scanner.

Led by Zhi-Pei Liang, a professor of electrical and computer engineering and a member of the Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology at the U. of I., the team reported its findings in the journal Nature Biomedical Engineering.

“Understanding the brain, how it works and what goes wrong when it is injured or diseased is considered one of the most exciting and challenging scientific endeavors of our time,” Liang said. “MRI has played major roles in unlocking the mysteries of the brain over the past four decades. Our new technology adds another dimension to MRI’s capability for brain imaging: visualization of brain metabolism and detection of metabolic alterations associated with brain diseases.”

Conventional MRI provides high-resolution, detailed imaging of brain structures. Functional MRI maps brain activity by detecting changes in blood flow and blood oxygenation level, which are closely linked to neural activity. However, they cannot provide information on the metabolic activity in the brain, which is important for understanding function and disease, said postdoctoral researcher Yibo Zhao, the first author of the paper.

“Metabolic and physiological changes often occur before structural and functional abnormalities are visible on conventional MRI and fMRI images,” Zhao said. “Metabolic imaging, therefore, can lead to early diagnosis and intervention of brain diseases.”

Both MRI and fMRI techniques are based on magnetic resonance signals from water molecules. The new technology measures signals from brain metabolites and neurotransmitters as well as water molecules, a technique known as magnetic resonance spectroscopic imaging. These MRSI images can provide significant new insights into brain function and disease processes, and could improve sensitivity and specificity for the detection and diagnosis of brain diseases, Zhao said.

Other attempts at MRSI have been bogged down by the lengthy times required to capture the images and high levels of noise obscuring the signals from neurotransmitters. The new technique addresses both challenges.

“Our technology overcomes several long-standing technical barriers to fast high-resolution metabolic imaging by synergistically integrating ultrafast data acquisition with physics-based machine learning methods for data processing,” Liang said. With the new MRSI technology, the Illinois team cut the time required for a whole brain scan to 12 and a half minutes.

The researchers tested their MRSI technique on several populations. In healthy subjects, the researchers found and mapped varying metabolic and neurotransmitter activity across different brain regions, indicating that such activity is not universal. In patients with brain tumors, the researchers found metabolic alterations, such as elevated choline and lactate, in tumors of different grades — even when the tumors appeared identical on clinical MRI images. In subjects with multiple sclerosis, the technique detected molecular changes associated with neuroinflammatory response and reduced neuronal activity up to 70 days before changes become visible on clinical MRI images, the researchers report.

The researchers foresee potential for broad clinical use of their technique: By tracking metabolic changes over time, clinicians can assess the effectiveness of treatments for neurological conditions, Liang said. Metabolic information also can be used to tailor treatments to individual patients based on their unique metabolic profiles.

“High-resolution whole-brain metabolic imaging has significant clinical potential,” said Liang, who began his career in the lab of the late Illinois professor Paul Lauterbur, recipient of the Nobel Prize for developing MRI technology. “Paul envisioned this exciting possibility and the general approach, but it has been very difficult to achieve his dream of fast high-resolution metabolic imaging in the clinical setting.

“As healthcare is moving towards personalized, predictive and precision medicine, this high-speed, high-resolution technology can provide a timely and effective tool to address an urgent unmet need for noninvasive metabolic imaging in clinical applications.”

This work was supported by the Arnold and Mabel Beckman Foundation.

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India-Pakistan cricket rivalry set to light up UAE

UAE likely to host entire event

Broadcasters apply pressure

Political standoff nearly derailed tournament

Cricket’s biggest rivalry, bigger than ever

From playing on the pitch to analysing it from the press box, Satish has spent over three decades living and breathing sport. A cricketer-turned-journalist, he has covered three Cricket World Cups, the 2025 Champions Trophy, countless IPL seasons, F1 races, horse racing classics, and tennis in Dubai.

Cricket is his home ground, but he sees himself as an all-rounder – breaking stories, building pages, going live on podcasts, and interviewing legends across every corner of the sporting world.

Satish started on the back pages, and earned his way to the front, now leading the sports team at Gulf News, where he has spent 25 years navigating the fast-evolving game of journalism.

Whether it’s a Super-Over thriller or a behind-the-scenes story, he aims to bring insight, energy, and a fan’s heart to every piece. Because like sport, journalism is about showing up, learning every day, and giving it everything.

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Preventing obesity with an immune-altering gut microbe

The gut bacteria has potential to become a probiotic or postbiotic to treat obesity and metabolic diseases.

Credit: iStock.com/Artur Plawgo

The understudied human gut bacteria P. faecium counteracted weight gain in mice by reducing inflammation, revealing a potential new way to treat obesity.

The human gut serves as an intersection point for many processes — digesting food, absorbing nutrients, supporting immunity, and regulating metabolism — that all interact with a vital and dynamic ecosystem: the gut microbiome.

What the body absorbs depends on how the intestines — and the microbes living there — break down food, said Nicola Segata, a computational microbiologist at the University of Trento. “There is a clear link between our diet and the composition of our gut microbiome,” he said.

Yolanda Sanz first became interested in P. faecium after finding that this bacterium was increased in children with normal weight gain.

Credit: Yolanda Sanz

Researchers have found that changes in the gut microbiome are associated with increased risk of obesity. However, “what is still unclear is which are the main biomarkers or microbiome signatures that consistently are linked with obesity,” said Yolanda Sanz, a microbiologist at the Institute of Agrochemistry and Food Technology, Spanish National Research Council (IATA-CSIC).

In a study published in 2018, Sanz and her colleagues noticed that children who went on to experience excessive weight gain in a four-year period had different microbiomes prior to their weight gain than children who gained a normal amount of weight (1). During this longitudinal study, they found that the bacterial species Phascolarctobacterium faecium was enriched in children with normal weight gains compared to those who gained excessive weight. This microbe “has long been known to be a regular commensal or inhabitant of our gut microbiome, but we didn’t know much about its role, its function, [or] its significance in our gut,” said Ravinder Nagpal, a microbiologist at Florida State University.

To dig deeper into the role of this bacterium in obesity, Sanz, Segata, and their labs turned to 7,529 human metagenomic samples to document what microbes are present in the gut of people with and without obesity (2). In a new study, they reported that P. faecium is associated with non-obesity and that it acted via an innate immune pathway to counteract metabolic changes associated with obesity (3). This microbe could provide a new path to treating obesity.

To determine this bacterial species’ potential role in obesity, the researchers fed mice a high fat and sugar diet, while giving control mice a low fat and sugar diet. Without intervention, mice on the high-fat, high-sugar diet gained more weight than control mice. However, when the researchers treated these mice with P. faecium, it limited the mice’s weight and body fat increases and improved glucose clearance.

Mice on the high-fat, high-sugar diet exhibited an increased amount of pro-inflammatory macrophages in the intestines and had higher levels of intestinal type 1 innate lymphoid cells, which are cells involved in many inflammatory disorders (4). The addition of P. faecium mitigated these changes by boosting the levels of anti-inflammatory macrophages called M2 macrophages and reducing the increase in type 1 innate lymphoid cells. When the team used a small molecule inhibitor to block macrophages from adopting the M2 phenotype, P. faecium’s positive effects disappeared. These results demonstrate that P. faecium’s anti-obesogenic effect occurs by modulating the immune system.

In the future, it’s possible that P. faecium could be developed as a probiotic, said Nagpal, who was not associated with the study. He added that in the mouse model, the microbe “effectively showed promise as a therapeutic or preventative.”

A group of laboratory researchers stand outside on the grass. — Yolanda Sanz’s research group studies the role of the microbiome in nutrition and health.

Credit: Yolanda Sanz

Beyond probiotics, there’s also potential for this bacterium to act as a postbiotic, which are components released from living or dead microorganisms that have health benefits. The researchers found that both living and pasteurized P. faecium reduced the pro-inflammatory immune response associated with an obesogenic diet. Sanz explained that they still see this effect for pasteurized bacteria possibly because the immune system could be responding to a structural component of P. faecium’s cell wall. Previous work from another team found that the gut commensal Akkermansia muciniphila had an effect on metabolism and obesity whether it was alive or not (5). In particular, since P. faecium is anaerobic, Sanz added that it would be easier to develop it as a postbiotic rather than a probiotic as keeping the bacteria alive during manufacturing is challenging due to oxygen exposure.

Since the bacteria reduce inflammation, Sanz added that P. faecium has potential applications beyond metabolic disorders and in other conditions where inflammation has a role.

“The results are quite promising,” said Sanz. “We hope that, in the end, we can progress towards performing clinical trials and getting evidence from humans.”

References

Rampelli, S. et al. Pre-obese children’s dysbiotic gut microbiome and unhealthy diets may predict the development of obesity. Commun Biol 1, 222 (2018).
Pasolli, E. et al. Accessible, curated metagenomic data through ExperimentHub. Nat Methods 14, 1023–1024 (2017).
Liébana-García, R. et al. Gut commensal Phascolarctobacterium faecium retunes innate immunity to mitigate obesity and metabolic disease in mice. Nat Microbiol 10, 1310-1322 (2025).
Ebbo, M. et al. Innate lymphoid cells: major players in inflammatory diseases. Nat Rev Immunol 17, 665–678 (2017).
Plovier, H. et al. A purified membrane protein from Akkermansia muciniphila or the pasteurized bacterium improves metabolism in obese and diabetic mice. Nat Med 23, 107–113 (2017).