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Do Gut Bacteria Rule Our Minds?

 

 In an Ecosystem Within Us, Microbes Evolved to Sway Food Choices       

 

          By Jeffrey Norris on August 15, 2014

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It sounds like science fiction, but it seems that bacteria within us – which outnumber our own cells about 100-fold – may very well be affecting both our cravings and moods to get us to eat what they want, and often are driving us toward obesity.

In an article published this week in the journal BioEssays, researchers from UC San Francisco, Arizona State University and University of New Mexico concluded from a review of the recent scientific literature that microbes influence human eating behavior and dietary choices to favor consumption of the particular nutrients they grow best on, rather than simply passively living off whatever nutrients we choose to send their way.

A Power Struggle Inside the Gut

Bacterial species vary in the nutrients they need. Some prefer fat, and others sugar, for instance. But they not only vie with each other for food and to retain a niche within their ecosystem – our digestive tracts – they also often have different aims than we do when it comes to our own actions, according to senior author Athena Aktipis, PhD, co-founder of the Center for Evolution and Cancer with the Helen Diller Family Comprehensive Cancer Center at UCSF.

Are we at the mercy of our gut bacteria? The above image illustrates how microbes can "pull our strings," driving us to crave foods that give them the nutrients they need, including fat and sugar.

While it is unclear exactly how this occurs, the authors believe this diverse community of microbes, collectively known as the gut microbiome, may influence our decisions by releasing signaling molecules into our gut. Because the gut is linked to the immune system, the endocrine system and the nervous system, those signals could influence our physiologic and behavioral responses.

“Bacteria within the gut are manipulative,” said Carlo Maley, PhD, director of the UCSF Center for Evolution and Cancer and corresponding author on the paper. “There is a diversity of interests represented in the microbiome, some aligned with our own dietary goals, and others not.”

Fortunately, it’s a two-way street. We can influence the compatibility of these microscopic, single-celled houseguests by deliberating altering what we ingest, Maley said, with measurable changes in the microbiome within 24 hours of diet change.

“Our diets have a huge impact on microbial populations in the gut,” Maley said. “It’s a whole ecosystem, and it’s evolving on the time scale of minutes.”

There are even specialized bacteria that digest seaweed, found in humans in Japan, where seaweed is popular in the diet.

The Connection Between Digestive Tract and Brain

Research suggests that gut bacteria may be affecting our eating decisions in part by acting through the vagus nerve, which connects 100 million nerve cells from the digestive tract to the base of the brain.

Athena Aktipis, PhD

Carlo Maley, PhD

“Microbes have the capacity to manipulate behavior and mood through altering the neural signals in the vagus nerve, changing taste receptors, producing toxins to make us feel bad, and releasing chemical rewards to make us feel good,” said Aktipis, who is currently in the Arizona State University Department of Psychology.

In mice, certain strains of bacteria increase anxious behavior. In humans, one clinical trial found that drinking a probiotic containing Lactobacillus casei improved mood in those who were feeling the lowest.

Maley, Aktipis and first author Joe Alcock, MD, from the Department of Emergency Medicine at the University of New Mexico, proposed further research to test the sway microbes hold over us. For example, would transplantation into the gut of the bacteria requiring a nutrient from seaweed lead the human host to eat more seaweed?

The speed with which the microbiome can change may be encouraging to those who seek to improve health by altering microbial populations. This may be accomplished through food and supplement choices, by ingesting specific bacterial species in the form of probiotics, or by killing targeted species with antibiotics. Optimizing the balance of power among bacterial species in our gut might allow us to lead less obese and healthier lives, according to the authors.

“Because microbiota are easily manipulatable by prebiotics, probiotics, antibiotics, fecal transplants, and dietary changes, altering our microbiota offers a tractable approach to otherwise intractable problems of obesity and unhealthy eating,” the authors wrote.

Implications for Obesity, Diabetes and even Cancer

The authors met and first discussed the ideas in the BioEssays paper at a summer school conference on evolutionary medicine two years ago.

Aktipis, who is an evolutionary biologist and a psychologist, was drawn to the opportunity to investigate the complex interaction of the different fitness interests of microbes and their hosts and how those play out in our daily lives. Maley, a computer scientist and evolutionary biologist, had established a career studying how tumor cells arise from normal cells and evolve over time through natural selection within the body as cancer progresses.

In fact, the evolution of tumors and of bacterial communities are linked, points out Aktipis, who said some of the bacteria that normally live within us cause stomach cancer and perhaps other cancers.

“Targeting the microbiome could open up possibilities for preventing a variety of disease from obesity and diabetes to cancers of the gastro-intestinal tract. We are only beginning to scratch the surface of the importance of the microbiome for human health,” she said.

The co-authors’ BioEssays study was funded by the National Institutes of Health, the American Cancer Society, the Bonnie D. Addario Lung Cancer Foundation and the Institute for Advanced Study, in Berlin.

UC San Francisco (UCSF), now celebrating the 150^th anniversary of its founding, is a leading university dedicated to promoting health worldwide through advanced biomedical research, graduate-level education in the life sciences and health professions, and excellence in patient care. It includes top-ranked graduate schools of dentistry, medicine, nursing and pharmacy, a graduate division with nationally renowned programs in basic, biomedical, translational and population sciences, as well as a preeminent biomedical research enterprise and two top-ranked hospitals, UCSF Medical Center and UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospital San Francisco.

Diets rich in antioxidant resveratrol fail to reduce deaths, heart disease or cancer

But don't put down the Chianti yet: As-yet-unknown compounds in such foods may still be conferring health benefits, researchers say

A study of Italians who consume a diet rich in resveratrol — the compound found in red wine, dark chocolate and berries — finds they live no longer than and are just as likely to develop cardiovascular disease or cancer as those who eat or drink smaller amounts of the antioxidant.

"The story of resveratrol turns out to be another case where you get a lot of hype about health benefits that doesn't stand the test of time," says Richard D. Semba, M.D., M.P.H., a professor of ophthalmology at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and leader of the study described May 12 in JAMA Internal Medicine. "The thinking was that certain foods are good for you because they contain resveratrol. We didn't find that at all."

Despite the negative results, Semba says, studies have shown that consumption of red wine, dark chocolate and berries does reduce inflammation in some people and still appears to protect the heart. "It's just that the benefits, if they are there, must come from other polyphenols or substances found in those foodstuffs," he says. "These are complex foods, and all we really know from our study is that the benefits are probably not due to resveratrol."

The new study did not include people taking resveratrol supplements, though few studies thus far have found benefits associated with them.

Semba is part of an international team of researchers that for 15 years has studied the effects of aging in a group of people who live in the Chianti region of Italy. For the current study, the researchers analyzed 24 hours of urine samples from 783 people over the age of 65 for metabolites of resveratrol. After accounting for such factors as age and gender, the people with the highest concentration of resveratrol metabolites were no less likely to have died of any cause than those with no resveratrol found in their urine. The concentration of resveratrol was not associated with inflammatory markers, cardiovascular disease or cancer rates.

Semba and his colleagues used advanced mass spectrometry to analyze the urine samples.

The study participants make up a random group of people living in Tuscany where supplement use is uncommon and consumption of red wine — a specialty of the region — is the norm. The study participants were not on any prescribed diet.

Resveratrol is also found in relatively large amounts in grapes, peanuts and certain Asiatic plant roots. Excitement over its health benefits followed studies documenting anti-inflammatory effects in lower organisms and increased lifespan in mice fed a high-calorie diet rich in the compound.

The so-called "French paradox," in which a low incidence of coronary heart disease occurs in the presence of a high dietary intake of cholesterol and saturated fat in France, has been attributed to the regular consumption of resveratrol and other polyphenols found in red wine.

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Kai Sun, M.S., a Johns Hopkins statistician, worked on the research. Researchers from the National Institutes of Health's National Institute on Aging (NIA), the New England Research Institutes, the University of Barcelona in Spain, the Catalan Institute of Oncology in Spain, Azienda Sanitaria in Italy and the Instituto Nazionale di Ripose e Cura per Anziani V.E.II.-Instituto di Recovero e Cura a Carattere Scientifico in Italy also contributed to the study.

The work was supported by grants from the NIA (R01 AG027012), the National Institutes of Health's National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute (R01 HL094507), the Italian Ministry of Health, the Spanish government and the NIA Intramural Research Program.

Johns Hopkins Medicine (JHM), headquartered in Baltimore, Maryland, is a $6.7 billion integrated global health enterprise and one of the leading health care systems in the United States. JHM unites physicians and scientists of the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine with the organizations, health professionals and facilities of The Johns Hopkins Hospital and Health System. JHM's vision, "Together, we will deliver the promise of medicine," is supported by its mission to improve the health of the community and the world by setting the standard of excellence in medical education, research and clinical care. Diverse and inclusive, JHM educates medical students, scientists, health care professionals and the public; conducts biomedical research; and provides patient-centered medicine to prevent, diagnose and treat human illness. JHM operates six academic and community hospitals, four suburban health care and surgery centers, and more than 30 primary health care outpatient sites. The Johns Hopkins Hospital, opened in 1889, was ranked number one in the nation for 21 years in a row by U.S. News & World Report.

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Popular blood type diet (Eat Right for Your Type) debunked

 

Researchers from the University of Toronto (U of T) have found that the theory behind the popular blood type diet--which claims an individual's nutritional needs vary by blood type--is not valid. The findings are published this week in PLoS One.

"Based on the data of 1,455 study participants, we found no evidence to support the 'blood-type' diet theory," said the senior author of the study, Dr. Ahmed El-Sohemy, Associate Professor and Canada Research Chair in Nutrigenomics at the U of T.

"The way an individual responds to any one of these diets has absolutely nothing to do with their blood type and has everything to do with their ability to stick to a sensible vegetarian or low-carbohydrate diet," said El-Sohemy.

Researchers found that the associations they observed between each of the four blood-type (A, B, AB, O) diets and the markers of health are independent of the person's blood type.

The 'blood-type' diet was popularized in the book Eat Right for Your Type, written by naturopath Peter D'Adamo. The theory behind the diet is that the ABO blood type should match the dietary habits of our ancestors and people with different blood types process food differently. According to the theory, individuals adhering to a diet specific to one's blood type can improve health and decrease risk of chronic illness such as cardiovascular disease. The book was a New York Times best-seller that has been translated into 52 languages and sold over 7 million copies.

The U of T researchers took an existing population of mostly young and healthy adults who provided detailed information about their usual diets and provided fasting blood that was used to isolate DNA to determine their ABO blood type and the level of cardiometabolic risk factors, such as insulin, cholesterol and triglycerides. Diet scores were calculated based on the food items listed in Eat Right for Your Type to determine relative adherence to each of the four 'blood-type' diets.

El-Sohemy says that a previous lack of scientific evidence doesn't mean the diets didn't work. "There was just no evidence, one way or the other. It was an intriguing hypothesis so we felt we should put it to the test. We can now be confident in saying that the blood type diet hypothesis is false." Last year, a comprehensive review published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition found no evidence to support the 'blood-type' diet and called for properly designed scientific studies to address it.

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Food processors beware: Salmonella biofilms incredibly resistant to powerful disinfectants

 

		IMAGE:   This image shows photos of biofilms on surfaces at low magnification (300)   and high magnification (3000) using electron microscope. Click here for more information.

Once Salmonella bacteria get into a food processing facility and have an opportunity to form a biofilm on surfaces, it is likely to be extraordinarily difficult, if not impossible, to kill it, according to research published ahead of print in the journal Applied and Environmental Microbiology.

Researchers from National University of Ireland, Galway conducted a study in which they attempted to kill Salmonella biofilms on a variety of hard surfaces, using three types of disinfectant.

"We found that it was not possible to kill the Salmonella cells using any of the three disinfectants, if the biofilm was allowed to grow for seven days before the disinfectant was applied," says Mary Corcoran, a researcher on the study. Even soaking the biofilms in disinfectant for an hour and a half failed to kill them

The impetus for the study was a European outbreak in which 160 people in 10 countries became ill with gastroenteritis (vomiting and diarrhea) from the Agona serotype of Salmonella, says Corcoran. That outbreak was traced to meat from a major food-processing facility.

"It seems that Salmonella Agona entered into the environment in the part of the facility where meat that was already cooked was being handled, and it had survived and contaminated the cooked meat," says Corcoran. "We were interested in determining if this particular Salmonella, that caused the outbreak, might have something special about it that makes it better at surviving in the environment of a food processing facility. Was it better at forming a dense biofilm or was it more resistant to disinfectants than other Salmonella?"

The research uncovered nothing special about that specific strain.

"We found that all of the types of Salmonella we looked at were able to adopt the specialized biofilm lifestyle on all of the surfaces we looked at, including glass, stainless steel, glazed tile, and plastic, and that the biofilm of Salmonella gets more dense over time, and becomes more firmly attached to the surface," she says.

Corcoran warns that food processing facilities must take strict care to keep Salmonella out of the clean areas where cooked foods get further processing and packaged

"People need to question whether disinfectants that are promoted as killing various types of bacteria are really as effective in real life situations where biofilms can form as they are claimed to be based on experiments that do not use biofilms. A lot of the time, the disinfectant may add very little, if anything, to good cleaning and appropriate food handling practices," says Corcoran. "There is a need for more research to define better methods for killing Salmonella biofilms."

In the US, an estimated million-plus cases of Salmonella occur annually, with 23,000 hospitalizations and 450 fatalities reported each year, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

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A copy of the manuscript can be found online at http://bit.ly/asmtip0114e. The final version of the article is scheduled for the February 2014 issue of Applied and Environmental Microbiology.

Applied and Environmental Microbiology is a publication of the American Society for Microbiology (ASM). The ASM is the largest single life science society, composed of over 39,000 scientists and health professionals. Its mission is to advance the microbiological sciences as a vehicle for understanding life processes and to apply and communicate this knowledge for the improvement of health and environmental and economic well-being worldwide.

 

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2014-01/asfm-fpb011514.php

PUBLIC RELEASE DATE:

15-Jan-2014
Contact: Jim Sliwa [email protected] 202-942-9297 American Society for Microbiology

A decline in creativity? It depends on how you look

                 

          

Research in recent years has suggested that young Americans might be less creative now than in decades past, even while their intelligence — as measured by IQ tests — continues to rise.

But new research from the University of Washington Information School and Harvard University, closely studying 20 years of student creative writing and visual artworks, hints that the dynamics of creativity may not break down as simply as that.

Instead, it may be that some aspects of creativity — such as those employed in visual arts — are gently rising over the years, while other aspects, such as the nuances of creative writing, could be declining.

The paper will be published in Creativity Research Journal in January 2014. The lead author is Emily Weinstein, a doctoral student in the Harvard Graduate School of Education.

Katie Davis, UW assistant professor, and fellow researchers studied 354 examples of visual art and 50 examples of creative writing by teenagers published between 1990 and 2011. The question they pursued, Davis said, was “How have the style, content and form of adolescents’ art-making and creative writing changed over the last 20 years?”

The artwork came from a monthly magazine for teens, the writing from a similar annual publication featuring student fiction. The researchers analyzed and coded the works, blind as to year, looking for trends over that time.

The review of student visual art showed an increase in the sophistication and complexity both in the designs and the subject matter over the years. The pieces, Davis said, seemed “more finished, and fuller, with backgrounds more fully rendered, suggesting greater complexity.” Standard pen-and-ink illustrations grew less common over the period studied, while a broader range of mixed media work was represented.

Conversely, the review of student writing showed the young authors adhering more to “conventional writing practices” and a trend toward less play with genre, more mundane narratives and simpler language over the two decades studied.

Still, Davis said, it’s too simple to just say creativity increased in one area and decreased in another over the years.

“There really isn’t a standard set of agreed-upon criteria to measure something as complex and subjective as creativity,” she said. “But there are markers of creativity — like complexity and risk-taking and breaking away from the standard mold — that appear to have changed.”

The researchers also note that the period of study was a time of great innovation in digital art, with new tools for creative production and boundless examples of fine art a mere click or two away, serving to inform and inspire the students in their own work.

Davis said that while previous research has typically studied creativity in a lab setting, this work examined student creative work in a more “naturalistic” setting, where it is found in everyday life.

She added that with data from such a naturalistic setting, researchers cede a degree of control over the characteristics of the sample being studied, and the findings cannot safely be generalized to all American youth.

“It remains an open question as to whether the entire U.S. has seen a decline in literary creativity and a parallel increase in visual creativity among its youth over the last 20 years,” Davis said. “Because society — indeed any society — depends on the creativity of its citizens to flourish, this is a question that warrants serious attention in future creativity research.”

The paper’s other co-authors are Zachary Clark and Donna DiBartolomeo, former graduate students at Harvard.

The findings are also discussed in Davis’ recent book with Howard Gardner, “The App Generation.” The research was funded by the James and Judith K. Dimon Foundation.

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For more information or a copy of the paper, contact Davis at 206-221-7741 or [email protected]; or Weinstein at 914-420-1454, or [email protected]

40 years of federal nutrition research fatally flawed

University of South Carolina study shows flaws in NHANES
data

Four decades of nutrition research funded by the Centers for Disease Control
and Prevention (CDC) may be invalid because the method used to collect the data
was seriously flawed, according to a new study by the Arnold School of Public
Health at the University of South Carolina.

The study, led by Arnold School exercise scientist and epidemiologist Edward
Archer, has demonstrated significant limitations in the measurement protocols
used in the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES). The
findings, published in PLOS ONE (The Public Library of Science), reveal that a
majority of the nutrition data collected by the NHANES are not "physiologically
credible," Archer said.

These results suggest that without valid population-level data, speculations
regarding the role of energy intake in the rise in the prevalence of obesity are
without empirical support, he said.

The NHANES is the most comprehensive compilation of data on the health of
children and adults in the United States. The survey combines interviews of
self-reported food and beverage consumption over 24 hours and physical
examinations to assess the health and nutritional status of the US population.
Conducted by the CDC and the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the NHANES is the
primary source of data used by researchers studying the impact of nutrition and
diet on health.

The study examined data from 28,993 men and 34,369 women, 20 to 74 years old,
from NHANES I (1971 – 1974) through NHANES (2009 – 2010), and looked at the
caloric intake of the participants and their energy expenditure, predicted by
height, weight, age and sex. The results show that -- based on the self-reported
recall of food and beverages -- the vast majority of the NHANES data "are
physiologically implausible, and therefore invalid," Archer said.

In other words, the "calories in" reported by participants and the "calories
out," don't add up and it would be impossible to survive on most of the reported
energy intakes. This misreporting of energy intake varied among participants,
and was greatest in obese men and women who underreported their intake by an
average 25 percent and 41 percent (i.e., 716 and 856 Calories per-day
respectively).

"Throughout its history, the NHANES survey has failed to provide accurate
estimates of the habitual caloric consumption of the U.S. population," Archer
said. "Although improvements were made to the NHANES measurement protocol after
1980, there was little improvement to the validity of U.S. nutritional
surveillance."

These limitations "suggest that the ability to estimate population trends in
caloric intake and generate public policy relevant to diet-health relationships
is extremely limited," said Archer, who conducted the study with colleagues at
the Arnold School.

"The nation's major surveillance tool for studying the relationships between
nutrition and health is not valid. It is time to stop spending tens of millions
of health research dollars collecting invalid data and find more accurate
measures," he said.

 

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To access the current study, please visit: http://dx.plos.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0076632.

 

 

 

New evidence for epigenetic effects of diet in healthy ageing

6 December, 2012

New research in human volunteers has shown that molecular changes to our genes, known as epigenetic marks, are driven mainly by ageing but are also affected by what we eat.

The study showed that whilst age had the biggest effects on these molecular changes, selenium and vitamin D status reduced the accumulation of epigenetic changes, and high blood folate and obesity increased them. These findings support the idea that healthy ageing is affected by what we eat.

Dr Nigel Belshaw

Researchers from the Institute of Food Research led by Dr Nigel Belshaw, working with Prof John Mathers and colleagues from Newcastle University, examined the cells lining the gut wall from volunteers attending colonoscopy clinic. The Institute of Food Research is strategically funded the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council and this study was also funded by the Food Standards Agency.

The study volunteers were free from cancer or inflammatory bowel disease and consumed their usual diet without any supplements. The researchers looked for specific epigenetic modifications of the volunteers’ genes that have been associated with the earliest signs of the onset of bowel cancer – an age-related disease. These epigenetic marks, known as DNA methylation, do not alter the genetic code but affect whether the genes are turned on or off. These methylation marks are transmitted when cells divide, and some have been associated with the development of cancer.

The investigators studied the relationship between the occurrence of these epigenetic marks at genes known to be affected in cancer, and factors including the volunteers’ age, sex, body size and the levels of some nutrients in the volunteers’ blood. The biggest influence on gene methylation was age. This fits with the fact that the biggest risk factor for bowel cancer is age, with risk increasing exponentially over 50 years old.

The findings, published in the journal Aging Cell, showed that men tended to have a higher frequency of these epigenetic changes than women, which is consistent with men being at a greater risk of bowel cancer. Volunteers with higher vitamin D status tended to show lower levels of methylation, and a similar effect was observed for selenium status. Again, this is consistent with the known links between higher vitamin D and selenium and reduced bowel cancer risk.

The B vitamin folate is essential for health, but in this study, high folate status was associated with increased levels of epigenetic changes linked with bowel cancer.   These findings are consistent with some epidemiological studies suggesting that excessive folate intakes may increase risk in some people.  The results of this study showing an association between folate status and epigenetic changes linked to cancer, together with those from another recent study by Nigel Belshaw’s group showing that, in cells grown in the laboratory, they could be induced by exposure to high levels of folic acid, emphasise the need for further research on optimal folate status in humans.  The researchers intend to investigate the mechanism for the effect of folate on DNA methylation in a follow-up study.

Obesity is also a risk factor for bowel cancer. This study found relationships between body size (height, weight and waist circumference) and epigenetic changes. How excess body weight induces these epigenetic changes, and the consequences for gut health, are currently being investigated at IFR and in Newcastle University.

In summary, the results of this study support the hypothesis that ageing affects the epigenetic status of some genes and that these effects can be modulated by diet and body fatness.

Reference:

Nutritional factors and gender influence age-related DNA methylation in the human rectal mucosa, Aging Cell, doi: 10.1111/acel.12030

For more information on this, please see the article written by Nigel Belshaw and Ian Johnson on the Gut Health and Food Safety blog.

For more information on cancer and epigenetics, see:

Johnson IT, Belshaw NJ  (2008) Environment, diet and CpG island methylation: epigenetic signals in gastrointestinal neoplasia. Food Chem Toxicol. 2008 Apr;46(4):1346-59. Epub 2007 PMID:17976883

Baylin SB, Jones PA: (2011) A decade of exploring the cancer epigenome – biological and translational implications. Nat Rev Cancer 11, 726-34

Contacts:

IFR Press Office:

Andrew Chapple, 01603 251490, [email protected]

Are Carbohydrates Killing You

 

 

Newswise — When it comes to feeding a body well, we’ve all been told we need proteins, fats and carbohydrates. For years, many of those we trust for health information have told us that the foundation of our diet should primarily consist of carbohydrates, namely, grains, breads and pastas.

Yet, according to boomer-generation brother and sister authors Dian Griesel, Ph.D. and Tom Griesel, there is plenty of scientific literature that proves there is no actual requirement for carbohydrates. More so, they claim that this flaw in established dietary thinking is the reason that every well-known diet to date continues to contribute to our growing obesity epidemic.

In their new book, TurboCharged: Accelerate Your Fat Burning Metabolism, Get Lean Fast and Leave Diet and Exercise Rules in the Dust (BSH, 2011), the Griesel’s point out that our bodies are perfectly capable of manufacturing any glucose we might need from a combination of protein and fat in the diet.

Dian Griesel, who has spent the past 15 years working with drug development companies states, “The rise of modern diseases, cancer, cardiovascular disease, diabetes, hypertension, high triglycerides, obesity and hypoglycemia to name a few, are the end result of too many grains and refined carbohydrates in our daily diets.”

Elaborating on the issue Tom Griesel says, “The fact that refined carbohydrates are so often a manufactured product made with fats and often trans fats, unnaturally high amounts of dietary omega-6 fatty acids from vegetable and manufactured oils, a cornucopia of artificial chemicals and additives makes these packaged items more detrimental to our health.”

It is a well-known fact that packaged carbohydrate food items are the highest profit items in a grocery store, consequently, they are allotted the most space. The result of this according to Tom is “We are bombarded by manufacturers whose interests lie in shelf-life and profits, not our health.”

Manufacturers would like us to believe that all carbs are created equal. Unequivocally, say the Griesels, they are not. “The overall carbohydrate message has been a big part of the carbohydrate conundrum,” Dian says.

“Lumping these grain based and refined products in the same category as nutrition packed fruits and vegetables, that are loaded with vitamins, minerals and ample water to aid in transportation along with healthy fiber is a crime.”
Their conclusion: Refined carbohydrates are creating an ill and obese population. Get your carb cravings fulfilled with plenty of succulent, fresh, raw fruits.

TurboCharged is now available on Amazon: www.amazon.com/dp/1936705001

For more information about the book and authors Dian and Tom Griesel, please visit: www.turbocharged.us.com

Chinese scientists announce GM cows to produce 'human milk'

  (hat tip to Steve Kutz)

SCIENTISTS PREDICT STRONG THIRST FOR 'HUMAN MILK'

SOURCE: China Daily, China

AUTHOR:

URL: http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/90001/90776/90882/7326680.html

DATE: 22.03.2011

SUMMARY: "Genetically modified dairy products that are similar to human milk will appear on the Chinese market in two years, an expert in biotechnology has predicted. Li Ning, a scientist from the Chinese Academy of Engineering and director of the State Key Laboratories for AgroBiotechnology at China Agricultural University, said [...] Chinese scientists have successfully created a herd of more than 200 cows that is capable of producing milk that contains the characteristics of human milk."

_______

SCIENTISTS PREDICT STRONG THIRST FOR 'HUMAN MILK'

Genetically modified (GM) dairy products that are similar to human milk will appear on the Chinese market in two years, an expert in biotechnology has predicted.

Li Ning, a scientist from the Chinese Academy of Engineering and director of the State Key Laboratories for AgroBiotechnology at China Agricultural University, said progress in the field is well under way.

Li said Chinese scientists have successfully created a herd of more than 200 cows that is capable of producing milk that contains the characteristics of human milk.

He said the technology is at the cutting edge worldwide and will ensure "healthy protein contained in human milk is affordable for ordinary consumers".

Photos depicting the GM cows were on display at an exhibition, held between March 7 and 14 in Beijing, that showcased China's major technological achievements during the period of the 11th Five-Year Plan (2006-2010).

"In ancient China, only the emperor and the empress could drink human milk throughout their lives, which was believed to be the height of opulence," Li said. "Why not make that kind of milk more available for ordinary people?"

Human milk contains two kinds of nutrition that can help improve the immune systems and the central nervous systems of children. The components are not available in milk produced by goats or cows.

Li said the scientific world had not previously found a way to mass-produce those ingredients. The GM milk will be as safe to drink as that of the ordinary cows, he added.

The Ministry of Agriculture issued bio-safety examination certificates for the GM herd in March 2010, giving the scientific team a 22-month period during which the technology can be tested in laboratories.

The ministry will then evaluate the results of the tests before deciding whether to allow the milk to be sold.

"The milk tastes stronger than normal milk," Li said. "Within 10 years, people will be able to pick up these human-milk-like products at the supermarket."

Xue Dayuan, chief expert with the Ministry of Environmental Protection, said the government will carry out a series of tests on the transferred gene and the method of transplanting it before the genetically modified cows and their milk are declared safe.

There has been a good deal of opposition to GM technology in the United States and Canada, according to Fang Lifeng, a campaigner for Greenpeace China's food and agriculture project.

Xinhua contributed to this story.

Scientists suggest that cancer is purely man-made

 

 

Cancer is a modern, man-made disease caused by environmental factors such as pollution and diet, a study by University of Manchester scientists has strongly suggested. 

The study of remains and literature from ancient Egypt and Greece and earlier periods – carried out at Manchester’s KNH Centre for Biomedical Egyptology and published in Nature Reviews Cancer – includes the first histological diagnosis of cancer in an Egyptian mummy.

Finding only one case of the disease in the investigation of hundreds of Egyptian mummies, with few references to cancer in literary evidence, proves that cancer was extremely rare in antiquity. The disease rate has risen massively since the Industrial Revolution, in particular childhood cancer – proving that the rise is not simply due to people living longer.

Professor Rosalie David, at the Faculty of Life Sciences, said: “In industrialised societies, cancer is second only to cardiovascular disease as a cause of death. But in ancient times, it was extremely rare. There is nothing in the natural environment that can cause cancer. So it has to be a man-made disease, down to pollution and changes to our diet and lifestyle.”

She added: “The important thing about our study is that it gives a historical perspective to this disease. We can make very clear statements on the cancer rates in societies because we have a full overview. We have looked at millennia, not one hundred years, and have masses of data.”

The data includes the first ever histological diagnosis of cancer in an Egyptian mummy by Professor Michael Zimmerman, a visiting Professor at the KNH Centre, who is based at the Villanova University in the US. He diagnosed rectal cancer in an unnamed mummy, an ‘ordinary’ person who had lived in the Dakhleh Oasis during the Ptolemaic period (200-400 CE).

Professor Zimmerman said: “In an ancient society lacking surgical intervention, evidence of cancer should remain in all cases. The virtual absence of malignancies in mummies must be interpreted as indicating their rarity in antiquity, indicating that cancer causing factors are limited to societies affected by modern industrialization”.

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The team studied both mummified remains and literary evidence for ancient Egypt but only literary evidence for ancient Greece as there are no remains for this period, as well as medical studies of human and animal remains from earlier periods, going back to the age of the dinosaurs.

Evidence of cancer in animal fossils, non-human primates and early humans is scarce – a few dozen, mostly disputed, examples in animal fossils, although a metastatic cancer of unknown primary origin has been reported in an Edmontosaurus fossil while another study lists a number of possible neoplasms in fossil remains. Various malignancies have been reported in non-human primates but do not include many of the cancers most commonly identified in modern adult humans.

It has been suggested that the short life span of individuals in antiquity precluded the development of cancer. Although this statistical construct is true, individuals in ancient Egypt and Greece did live long enough to develop such diseases as atherosclerosis, Paget's disease of bone, and osteoporosis, and, in modern populations, bone tumours primarily affect the young.

Another explanation for the lack of tumours in ancient remains is that tumours might not be well preserved. Dr. Zimmerman has performed experimental studies indicating that mummification preserves the features of malignancy and that tumours should actually be better preserved than normal tissues. In spite of this finding, hundreds of mummies from all areas of the world have been examined and there are still only two publications showing microscopic confirmation of cancer. Radiological surveys of mummies from the Cairo Museum and museums in Europe have also failed to reveal evidence of cancer.

As the team moved through the ages, it was not until the 17th century that they found descriptions of operations for breast and other cancers and the first reports in scientific literature of distinctive tumours have only occurred in the past 200 years, such as scrotal cancer in chimney sweeps in 1775, nasal cancer in snuff users in 1761 and Hodgkin’s disease in 1832.

Professor David – who was invited to present her paper to UK Cancer Czar Professor Mike Richards and other oncologists at this year’s UK Association of Cancer Registries and National Cancer Intelligence Network conference – said: “Where there are cases of cancer in ancient Egyptian remains, we are not sure what caused them. They did heat their homes with fires, which gave off smoke, and temples burned incense, but sometimes illnesses are just thrown up.”

She added: “The ancient Egyptian data offers both physical and literary evidence, giving a unique opportunity to look at the diseases they had and the treatments they tried. They were the fathers of pharmacology so some treatments did work

“They were very inventive and some treatments thought of as magical were genuine therapeutic remedies. For example, celery was used to treat rheumatism back then and is being investigated today. Their surgery and the binding of fractures were excellent because they knew their anatomy: there was no taboo on working with human bodies because of mummification. They were very hands on and it gave them a different mindset to working with bodies than the Greeks, who had to come to Alexandria to study medicine.”

She concluded: “Yet again extensive ancient Egyptian data, along with other data from across the millennia, has given modern society a clear message – cancer is man-made and something that we can and should address.”

More information: A copy of the paper ‘Cancer: an old disease, a new disease or something in between?’ is available at http://www.nature. … nrc2914.html

Provided by University of Manchester

http://www.physorg.com/news/2010-10-scientists-cancer-purely-man-made.html