Posts

Effects of gut flora revisited

The intestine is covered with a plethora of microorganisms , collectively termed gut microbiota, that are thought to play an important role in regulating the metabolism and shaping the immune system. Many studies have shown that dysbiotic bacteria can cause disease. However, these studies generally follow a similar protocol that may impact on the outcome: They transfer dysbiotic bacteria to axenic mice that do not have any microbiota. For example, axenic mice that receive microbiota from the gut of obese mice would increase their total body fat, indicating that microbiota play a causative role in the development of obesity. Serino and his colleagues now took a different approach to addressing the role of microbiota. The researchers reasoned that axenic mice are ill-equipped to deal with dysbiotic microbiota. Their gut barrier is impaired, favoring an uncontrolled spread of bacteria throughout the body. In addition, their immune system is not well developed. Thus, instead of using ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Agriculture, dietary changes, and adaptations in fat metabolism from ancient to modern Europeans

Now, evolutionary biologists are weighing in based on the increasing power of DNA analyses to explore how changes in diet over eons have caused human adaptations to genes regulating fat metabolism . Nestled on the long arm of chromosome 11, two essential genes serve as key traffic police in the synthesis of vital fatty acids. These genes, called fatty acid desaturase 1 and 2 (FADS1 and 2), change dietary fat into components necessary for the heart, brain and muscle. They assist in the conversion of short-chain omega-3 and omega-6 poly-unsaturated fatty acids (PUFAs) to long-chain PUFAs. Scientists have recently shown that FADS genes are frequent targets of natural selection in humans. Before modern humans moved out of Africa, roughly 85,000 years ago, natural selection targeted variants in these genes presumably associated with changes in diet. After people moved out of Africa and encountered new environments, selection again targeted the FADS genes for humans to better adapt t...
Post a Comment
Location: United States
Read more

Fat cells step in to help liver during fasting

Image
This can be a UT Southwestern examine decided that the metabolite uridine helps the physique regulate glucose. This graphic depicts how the physique's fats cell-liver-uridine axis works to keep up vitality stability. Credit score: UT Southwestern How do mammals preserve two biologically essential metabolites in stability throughout instances when they're feeding, sleeping, and fasting? The reply might require rewriting some textbooks. In a examine revealed in  Science , UT Southwestern Medical Middle researchers report that fats cells "have the liver's again," so to talk, to keep up tight regulation of glucose (blood sugar) and uridine, a metabolite the physique makes use of in a variety of basic processes corresponding to constructing RNA molecules, correctly making proteins, and storing glucose as vitality reserves. Their examine might have implications for a number of illnesses, together with diabe...
Post a Comment
Location: United States
Read more

New role for immune cells in preventing diabetes and hypertension

Image
Immune cells that are diminished in quantity by weight problems could possibly be a brand new goal to deal with ailments comparable to sort 2 diabetes and hypertension that have an effect on obese folks, based on a collaborative research between the College of Manchester, Lund College and the College of Salford. Credit score: The College of Manchester Immune cells that are diminished in quantity by weight problems could possibly be a brand new goal to deal with ailments comparable to sort 2 diabetes and hypertension that have an effect on obese folks, based on a collaborative research between The College of Manchester, Lund College and the College of Salford. In a research revealed within the journal  Scientific Studies , the researchers from immunology and cardiovascular backgrounds investigated a sort of immune cell known as eosinophils. Eosinophils are current in a layer of fats tissue known as the perivascular adipos...
Post a Comment
Location: United States
Read more

Women, particularly minorities, do not meet nutrition guidelines shortly before pregnancy

Image
This infographic explains findings from a Pitt Public Well being research on diet simply earlier than being pregnant. Credit score: Nicole Santo/UPMC Black, Hispanic and less-educated girls devour a much less nutritious food plan than their well-educated, white counterparts within the weeks main as much as their first being pregnant, in accordance with the one large-scale evaluation of preconception adherence to nationwide dietary tips. The research, printed within the  Journal of the Academy of Vitamin and Dietetics  and led by the College of Pittsburgh Graduate Faculty of Public Well being, additionally discovered that, whereas inequalities exist, not one of the girls in any racial and socioeconomic group evaluated achieved suggestions set forth by the Dietary Tips for People. Wholesome maternal diets have been linked to diminished dangers of preterm beginning, fetal development restriction, preeclampsia and mater...
Post a Comment
Location: United States
Read more

Indigenous South American group has healthiest arteries of all populations yet studied, providing clues to healthy lifestyle

Image
Village within the Amazon rain forest (inventory picture). Credit score: © waldorf27 / Fotolia The Tsimane individuals -- a forager-horticulturalist inhabitants of the Bolivian Amazon -- have the bottom reported ranges of vascular growing old for any inhabitants, with coronary atherosclerosis (hardening of the arteries) being 5 instances much less frequent than within the US, in accordance with a examine revealed in The Lancet and being offered on the American School of Cardiology convention. The researchers suggest that the lack of subsistence diets and existence in up to date society may very well be classed as a brand new danger issue for coronary heart illness. The principle danger components are age, smoking, excessive ldl cholesterol, hypertension, bodily inactivity, weight problems and diabetes. "Our examine reveals that the Tsimane indigenous South People have the bottom prevalence of coronary atherosclerosis of an...
Post a Comment
Location: United States
Read more

Healthy weight gain in infants

"Growth is a sign of nutritional intake and development, an insight into health," says Jillian Trabulsi, associate professor of nutrition and a registered dietitian. "Infant nutrition is a critical starting point." With nearly 10 percent of infants considered "high weight for length," Trabulsi is interested in how to help all infants achieve a healthy weight as they enter childhood, starting with their intake during those first few months of life. While the benefits of breastfeeding are well known -- breastfed babies tend to be better protected against rapid weight gain and obesity, among other things -- the reality is that 60 percent of American infants are exposed to infant formula by four months of age either as a sole source of nutrition or in combination with breastmilk. Trabulsi's research therefore examines infant formula and how their various compositions affect energy balance, weight gain and growth. Already, she and her collaborator, ...
Post a Comment
Location: United States
Read more