This narrative review comprehensively examines the impact of oxidative stress on military personnel, highlighting the crucial role of physical exercise and tailored diets, particularly the ketogenic diet, in minimizing this stress. Through a meticulous analysis of the recent literature, the study emphasizes how regular physical exercise not only enhances cardiovascular, cognitive, and musculoskeletal health but is also essential in neutralizing the effects of oxidative stress, thereby improving endurance and performance during long-term missions. Furthermore, the implementation of the ketogenic diet provides an efficient and consistent energy source through ketone bodies, tailored to the specific energy requirements of military activities, and significantly contributes to the reduction in reactive oxygen species production, thus protecting against cellular deterioration under extreme stress. The study also underlines the importance of integrating advanced technologies, such as wearable devices and smart sensors that allow for the precise and real-time monitoring of oxidative stress and physiological responses, thus facilitating the customization of training and nutritional regimes. Observations from this review emphasize significant variability among individuals in responses to oxidative stress, highlighting the need for a personalized approach in formulating intervention strategies. It is crucial to develop and implement well-monitored, personalized supplementation protocols to ensure that each member of the military personnel receives a regimen tailored to their specific needs, thereby maximizing the effectiveness of measures to combat oxidative stress. This analysis makes a valuable contribution to the specialized literature, proposing a detailed framework for addressing oxidative stress in the armed forces and opening new directions for future research with the aim of optimizing clinical practices and improving the health and performance of military personnel under stress and specific challenges of the military field.

Background: This study examines the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on abdominal trauma management by comparing pre-pandemic (17 February 2018–26 February 2020) and pandemic periods (27 February 2020–7 March 2022). Methods: Analyzing data from 118 patients at the Emergency County Clinical Hospital of Craiova, we identified significant shifts in clinical practices affecting patient outcomes. Results: During the pandemic, a moderate increase in surgical interventions for specific abdominal traumas indicated the effective adaptation of the medical system. Prioritizing critical cases and deferring non-urgent procedures optimized limited resources. Demographic and clinical factors—including age, sex, body mass index (BMI), and red cell distribution width (RDW)—significantly influenced the hospitalization duration and recovery outcomes. Gender disparities in mortality lessened during the pandemic, possibly due to standardized interventions and the physiological effects of SARS-CoV-2. The link between occupation and obesity highlighted how work environments impact trauma severity, especially as lifestyle changes affect BMI. While age remained a major predictor of mortality, its influence slightly decreased, potentially due to improved protocols for elderly patients. RDW emerged as an important prognostic marker for disease severity and mortality risk. Conclusions: Employing advanced co-occurrence analysis enhanced with machine learning, we uncovered complex relationships between clinical and demographic variables often overlooked by traditional methods. This innovative approach provided deeper insights into the collective impact of various factors on patient outcomes. Our findings demonstrate the healthcare system’s rapid adaptations during the pandemic and offer critical insights for optimizing medical strategies and developing personalized interventions in global crises.

Post-cholecystectomy non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD), now encompassed within metabolic dysfunction-associated steatotic liver disease (MASLD), is increasingly linked to persistent disruption of bile acid kinetics and gut–liver axis signaling after gallbladder removal. Continuous bile delivery to the intestine reshapes the bile acid pool, perturbs FXR–FGF19/TGR5 pathways, remodels gut microbiota, and compromises epithelial barrier integrity, collectively promoting portal endotoxemia, chronic hepatic inflammation, and fibrogenic remodeling. Hydrogel-based biomaterials offer a mechanistically aligned therapeutic platform for this setting because they enable localized, sustained, and stimuli-responsive interventions at intestinal or hepatic sites. Functional hydrogels can sequester excess bile acids, protect and deliver probiotics/prebiotics/postbiotics, reinforce mucosal barrier function, and provide controlled release of anti-inflammatory or antifibrotic agents with reduced systemic exposure. In this review, we map emerging hydrogel strategies relevant to post-cholecystectomy NAFLD across four pathogenic nodes, bile acid dysregulation, dysbiosis, inflammation, and fibrosis, and highlight design principles (polymer chemistry, charge/hydrophobicity balance, mucoadhesion, and pH/redox/enzyme responsiveness) that enable targeted modulation of the gut–liver axis. Finally, we identify key translational gaps, including the lack of post-cholecystectomy-specific experimental models and standardized outcome measures integrating bile acid profiling, microbiome readouts, and hepatic histology. Hydrogel technologies represent a promising route toward localized and multimodal therapy in metabolic liver disease, warranting focused preclinical validation and clinical development.

Background/Objectives: The health of military personnel in modern operational settings is critical for sustaining defense readiness. Extended exposure to extreme conditions can cause oxidative stress and systemic inflammation, potentially affecting performance. To address this problem, we developed an innovative diagnostic tool, the Post-Mission Integrated Risk Index (IIRPM), which integrates hematologic markers with key clinical variables. A novel aspect of the approach is the incorporation of ΔNLR, thus quantifying the change in the neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio measured before and after deployment, thereby providing a sensitive indicator of the inflammatory impact of operational stress. Methods: In this retrospective study, we analyzed comprehensive clinical and biological data from 443 military personnel over a ten-year period, with measurements taken before and after missions. We applied robust statistical techniques, including paired t-tests and Pearson correlation analyses, to assess variations in hematologic and metabolic parameters. Data segmentation was performed using Gaussian mixture models, and the predictive performance of the resulting model was validated with a multi-layer perceptron (MLP) neural network. Results: The analysis revealed significant post-mission increases in both the baseline NLR and ΔNLR, accompanied by notable shifts in metabolic markers. Data segmentation identified three distinct profiles: a reference profile characterized by stable immunologic parameters, an acute inflammatory response profile, and a proinflammatory metabolic profile marked by elevated cholesterol levels and higher mean age. Remarkably, the MLP model achieved 100% accuracy on the test set, with an average cross-validation accuracy of 97%. Conclusions: The IIRPM—which incorporates ΔNLR, age, mission duration, and cholesterol levels—offers a novel strategy to assess inflammatory risk among military personnel, thus facilitating personalized preventive interventions. Further validation in multicenter and longitudinal studies is anticipated to consolidate the clinical utility of this tool, ultimately fostering a more adaptive approach in military medicine to address the complex challenges of modern operational theaters.