Management of mycetoma and laboratory diagnosis of its etiological agents need to be improved and better implemented in endemic regions. Optimized therapeutic approaches and more detailed epidemiological data are urgently needed. It is vital to initiate multicenter collaborations on national and international levels to develop consensus clinical score sheets and state-of-the-art treatment regimens for mycetoma patients.

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The gut microbiota is often affected by the dietary and lifestyle habits of the host, resulting in a better efficacy that favors energy harvesting from the consumed food. Our objective was to characterize the composition of gut microbiota in adult Saudis and investigate possible association with lifestyle and dietary practices. Feces from 104 Saudi volunteers (48% males) were tested for microbiota by sequencing the V3-V4 region of bacterial 16S ribosomal RNA (rRNA). For all participants, data were collected related to their lifestyle habits and dietary practices. The relative abundance (RA) of Fusobacteria was significantly higher in normal weight Saudis (P = 0.005, false discovery rate-FDR = 0.014). Individuals who consumed more coffee presented marginally significant more RA of Fusobacteria (P = 0.02, FDR = 0.20) in their gut microbiota compared to those reporting low or no coffee intake, but the RA of Fusobacteria was significantly higher in smokers compared to nonsmokers (P = 0.009, FDR = 0.027). The RA of Fusobacteria was also significantly higher in those reporting daily consumption of bread (P = 0.005, FDR = 0.015). At the species level, the gut microbiota of people who consumed coffee was dominated by Bacteroides thetaiotaomicron followed by Phascolarctobacterium faecium and Eubacterium rectale. Similarly, the gut microbiota of smokers was also enriched by B. thetaiotaomicron and Lactobacillus amylovorus. Smoking cessation, bread and coffee consumption induce changes in the intestinal microbial composition of Saudis.

Corrosion of iron in sodium chloride (3.5% wt) solutions and its inhibition by ethanedihydrazide (EH) have been reported. Electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS), cyclic potentiodynamic polarization (CPP), and change of current with time at −475 mV (Ag/AgCl) measurements were employed in this study. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and energy-dispersive X-ray (EDX) techniques were utilized to report surface morphology and elemental analysis, respectively. The presence of 5 × 10–5 M EH was found to inhibit the corrosion of iron, and the effect of inhibition profoundly increased with an increase in EH concentration up to 1 × 10–4 M and further to 5 × 10–4 M. The low values of corrosion current and high corrosion resistance, which were obtained from the EIS, CPP, and change of current with time experiments, affirmed the adequacy of EH as a corrosion inhibitor for iron. Surface investigations demonstrated that the chloride solution without EH molecules causes severe corrosion, while the coexistence of EH within the chloride solution greatly minimizes the acuteness of chloride, particularly pitting corrosion.