Double duty: Gut’s immune system helps regulate food processing, too

 

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Yale : The small intestine is ground zero for survival of animals. It is responsible for absorbing the nutrients crucial to life and it wards off toxic chemicals and life-threatening bacteria.In a new study published March 18 in the journal Science, Yale researchers report the critical role played by the gut’s immune system in these key processes. The immune system, they found, not only defends against pathogens but regulates which nutrients are taken in.

How eating less can slow the aging process

Brigham Young: There’s a multi-billion-dollar industry devoted to products that fight signs of aging, but moisturizers only go skin deep. Aging occurs deeper — at a cellular level — and scientists have found that eating less can slow this cellular process. Recent research published in Molecular & Cellular Proteomics offers one glimpse into how cutting calories impacts aging inside a cell. The researchers found that when ribosomes — the cell’s protein makers — slow down, the aging process slows too. The decreased speed lowers production but gives ribosomes extra time to repair themselves.

Graphic Warning Labels Linked to Reduced Sugary Drink Purchases

APS: Warning labels that include photos linking sugary drink consumption with obesity, type 2 diabetes, and tooth decay may reduce purchases of the drinks, according to research published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science. In a field study conducted in a hospital cafeteria, researchers found that graphic warning labels reduced sugary beverage purchases by 14.8%, while text warning labels and calorie labels had no effect.

Daily egg consumption may reduce cardiovascular disease

BMJ: People who consume an egg a day could significantly reduce their risk of cardiovascular diseases compared with eating no eggs, suggests a study carried out in China, published in the journal Heart. Cardiovascular disease (CVD) is the leading cause of death and disability worldwide, including China, mostly due to ischaemic heart disease and stroke (including both haemorrhagic and ischaemic stroke).

Odours stimulate brain activity even without functional sense of smell

Wageningen: Despite a diminished or even fully lost sense of smell, the brain continues to react to olfactory stimulation. This was shown in research by the Smell and Taste Centre among 48 patients with a smell disorder. The study indicates that various brain networks respond to odours, not just the olfactory areas in the brain. The research findings were published in the specialist journal Human Brain Mapping. The research results show that various areas in the brain cooperate as a network to sense odours. Besides the olfactory networks, the brain regions involved in sniffing are also active when odours are present in the nose. When sniffing pure air, brain activity occurs in the olfactory regions even without there being any odours in the nose.

Study explores carbohydrates’ impact on head, neck cancers

Illinois: Consuming high amounts of carbohydrates and various forms of sugar during the year prior to treatment for head and neck cancer may increase patients’ risks of cancer recurrence and mortality, a new study reports. However, eating moderate amounts of fats and starchy foods such as whole grains, potatoes and legumes after treatment could have protective benefits, reducing patients’ risks of disease recurrence and death, said lead author Anna E. Arthur, a professor of food science and human nutrition at the University of Illinois.

Autism not linked to eating fish during pregnancy – large new study

The Conversation: Eating fish while you’re pregnant does not increase the chance that your child will be autistic or have autistic traits, our latest study shows. In fact, our study suggests that fish may be beneficial for the development of a healthy nervous system. A possible link between mercury exposure and autism has been the subject of much debate over the years. In pregnancy, mercury travels in the mother’s blood through the placenta and into the foetus, where it acts as a toxin, affecting the development of the foetal nervous system.

Why breakfast may be key to trimming your belly

Mayo Clinic: If you're wanting to lose pounds and your belly, breakfast may be your best friend.
"For reasons that we don't quite understand yet, eating breakfast  seems to be a marker of, No. 1, less likelihood of having gained weight recently, and, No. 2, ... a smaller belly circumference and less visceral fat," Dr. Virend Somers, a Mayo Clinic cardiologist, says.

Eating out increases exposure to harmful phthalates

Berkeley: A new study has found that people who ate more fast food were exposed to higher levels of potentially harmful chemicals known as phthalates than people who ate more home-cooked meals.
Lead author Julia Varshavsky, who did the research while she was a grad student at the UC Berkeley School of Public Health and is now a post doc in reproductive health and the environment at UCSF, studied data from the 10,253 participants in a national survey. They were asked to recall what they ate and where their food came from in the previous 24 hours. The researchers analyzed the links between what people ate and the levels of phthalate breakdown products found in their urine.

Regular nut intake linked to lower risk of heart rhythm irregularity (atrial fibrillation)

BMJ: Eating several servings of nuts every week may help lower the risk of developing the heart rhythm irregularity, atrial fibrillation, also known as heart flutter, finds research published online in the journal Heart. This level of consumption may also lessen the risk of developing heart failure, although the findings are less consistent, the research indicates.

Researcher Finds Calorie Restriction May Reduce Oxidative Stress

Georgia: Reducing the calories healthy adults consume — without causing malnutrition — may also reduce oxidative stress, and in turn prevent aging, according to a recent study led by a researcher from the School of Public Health at Georgia State University. The study measured chemical signs of wear and tear on the body over time, known as oxidative stress, and found that over two years subjects who reduced their caloric intake by approximately 12 percent showed fewer chemical signs of oxidative stress than subjects who did not.

Study ranks which production attributes are most important to consumers when buying beef, chicken, milk, and eggs

Illinois: Consumers are increasingly interested in how their food is produced and look for claims such as no growth hormones, no GMOs, no antibiotics, etc. on their food products. Many studies have focused on consumers’ willingness to pay for individual food attributes, but have not ranked which production attributes consumers say are most important to them. In a U of I study, the “no growth hormones” attribute was prioritized as most important and “organic” as the least important. For products like poultry, the USDA forbids the use of hormones, meaning consumers may not be well informed about production claims

Scientifically designed fasting diet lowers risks for major diseases

USC: What if you could lose weight and reduce your risk of life-threatening disease without any changes in what you eat — other than a five-day special diet once every few months? That’s what happened for 71 adults placed on three cycles of a low-calorie, “fasting-mimicking” diet. The phase II trial, conducted by researchers at the USC Leonard Davis School of Gerontology, demonstrated a host of benefits from the regimen. The diet reduced cardiovascular risk factors, including blood pressure and signs of inflammation (measured by C-reactive protein levels), as well as fasting glucose and reduced levels of IGF-1, a hormone that affects metabolism. It also shrank waistlines and resulted in weight loss, both in total body fat and trunk fat, but not in muscle mass.

Fasting-mimicking diet may reverse diabetes

USC: A diet designed to imitate the effects of fasting appears to reverse diabetes, a new USC-led study shows. The fasting-like diet promotes the growth of new insulin-producing pancreatic cells that reduce symptoms of Type 1 and Type 2 diabetes in mice, according to the study on mice and human cells led by Valter Longo, director of the Longevity Institute at the USC Leonard Davis School of Gerontology.

DASH ranked Best Diet Overall for seventh year in a row

NIH: For the seventh year in a row, U.S. News and World Report ranked the NIH-developed DASH Diet “best overall” diet. With its focus on vegetables, fruits, whole grains, low-fat dairy, and lean proteins, the diet also ranked as the best for diabetes and healthy eating, and tied as the best for heart disease prevention.

Fruit and veg-rich diet linked to much lower risk of chronic lung disease

BMJ: A diet rich in fruit and vegetables is linked to a significantly lower risk of developing chronic lung disease (COPD) in former and current smokers, finds research published online in the journal Thorax. Each additional daily serving was associated with a 4-8% lower risk, the findings show. COPD, short for chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, is an umbrella term for respiratory conditions that narrow the airways, which include bronchitis and emphysema.

Fact or fiction – is sugar addictive?

TheConversation: Some of us can definitely say we have a sweet tooth. Whether it’s cakes, chocolates, cookies, lollies or soft drinks, our world is filled with intensely pleasurable sweet treats. Sometimes eating these foods is just too hard to resist. As a nation, Australians consume, on average, 60 grams (14 teaspoons) of table sugar (sucrose) a day. Excessive consumption of sugar is a major contributor to the increasing rates of obesity in both Australia and globally. Eating sugary foods can become ingrained into our lifestyles and routines. That spoonful of sugar makes your coffee taste better and dessert can feel like the best part of dinner. If you’ve ever tried to cut back on sugar, you may have realised how incredibly difficult it is. For some people it may seem downright impossible. This leads to the question: can you be addicted to sugar?

Eating together is more fulfilling: the french model

Flinders: Making food the core of people’s daily routine need not breed a nation of fatties, says Professor Claude Fischler, a Visiting International Research Fellow at Flinders School of Health Sciences. Collective engagement at regular mealtimes not only encourages more attention to food preparation, but can create a more balanced diet and health outcomes, Professor Fischler says. “Compared to the US, where people eat when they want to and perhaps don’t spend as much time considering what they eat, the French have made food preparation a more intrinsic part of their daily lives,” says Professor Fischler, a social scientist (sociology and anthropology) who is a senior investigator at the French Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, or French National Science Centre in Paris.

Unlocking the Heart-Protective Benefits of Soy

Pittsburgh: A product of digesting a micronutrient found in soy may hold the key to why some people seem to derive a heart-protective benefit from eating soy foods, while others do not, a University of Pittsburgh Graduate School of Public Health-led study discovered.Japanese men who are able to produce equol—a substance made by some types of “good” gut bacteria when they metabolize isoflavones (micronutrients found in dietary soy)—have lower levels of a risk factor for heart disease than their counterparts who cannot produce it, according to the research published in the British Journal of Nutrition.  

Father’s diet impacts on son’s ability to reproduce: study finds

Melbourne: New research involving Monash University biologists has debunked the view that males just pass on genetic material and not much else to their offspring. Instead, it found a father’s diet can affect their son’s ability to out-compete a rival's sperm after mating. The study sought to understand if the nutritional history of fathers had an effect on their sons. Experiments were carried out in the fruit fly, which shares many similar pathways and characteristics with human genes. One of the lead authors of the study, Dr Susanne Zajitschek from the School of Biological Sciences, said the study highlighted the importance of the paternal environment on future generations, even a long time before offspring were produced.