Year: 2021

Categories : Diet and NutritionTags :

High-carb and High-fat Diets Compared

On By ModernMedia

Plant-based diets high in carbohydrates and meat-centred diets high in fats have become increasingly popular in recent years, and a new small, tightly controlled study has investigated their effects.

A myriad of health benefits ascribed to plant-based diets, while high-fat, low-carb diets have been proposed as a way to counteract overweight and diabetes risk. But there has been little understanding on how exactly the two diets compare, given that they restrict either fats or carbohydrates.

The answers to these questions were sought by a team at the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK).”High-fat foods have been thought to result in excess calorie intake because they have many calories per bite. Alternatively, high-carb foods can cause large swings in blood glucose and insulin that may increase hunger and lead to overeating,” said the study’s lead author, NIDDK Senior Investigator Kevin Hall, PhD. “Our study was designed to determine whether high-carb or high-fat diets result in greater calorie intake.”

The study took 11 male and 9 female non-diabetic participants and housed them in a facility for four weeks. For two weeks, they were served either a low-fat, high-carb, plant-based diet or a low-carb, high-fat meat-based diet. They were then changed to the other diet for the next two weeks. The food was minimally processed, contained equivalent amounts of non-starchy vegetables and participants were allowed snacks and to eat as much as they wanted.

The participants ate 550 to 700 fewer calories per day than when they ate the low-carb diet. Despite this difference, participants reported no hunger, and the same level of fullness and satisfaction with both diets. The participants lost weight on both diets, but more so on the low-fat diet.

“Despite eating food with an abundance of high glycemic carbohydrates that resulted in pronounced swings in blood glucose and insulin, people eating the plant-based, low-fat diet showed a significant reduction in calorie intake and loss of body fat, which challenges the idea that high-carb diets per se lead people to overeat. On the other hand, the animal-based, low-carb diet did not result in weight gain despite being high in fat,” Hall said.

The results add to a growing body of evidence that shows that diet is much more complex than just total calories. Hall’s previous research found that participants who ate highly processed food let to overeating and weight gain compared to a minimally processed carbs and fat-matched diet.

In this case, however, there were benefits observed in both diets.

“Interestingly, our findings suggest benefits to both diets, at least in the short-term. While the low-fat, plant-based diet helps curb appetite, the animal-based, low-carb diet resulted in lower and more steady insulin and glucose levels,” Hall commented. “We don’t yet know if these differences would be sustained over the long term.”

However, weight loss was not a goal of the study, and that may have influenced participants’ eating behaviours and the outcome of the study. The inpatient setting of the study also controlled what foods were available, unlike daily life where a variety of options, costs, preparation and availability concerns influence food choices. 

Source: Medical Xpress

Categories : COVIDTags :

WHO Warns of ‘Catastrophic Failure’ over COVID Vaccination

On By ModernMedia

The World Health Organization head, Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, has warned that the world faces a “catastrophic moral failure” because of unequal access to COVID vaccines. 

He said that 49 wealthier states had conducted 39 million vaccinations between them, but one poor country had only 25 doses.

To date, the US, China, India, Russia and the UK have all developed vaccines, and mostly prioritised their own populations to receive them – although the German company BioNTech developed theirs in collaboration with Pfizer, and even so, the EU failed to secure vaccines sufficiently in advance. 

Dr Tedros spoke to an executive board session of the WHO, saying: “I need to be blunt: the world is on the brink of a catastrophic moral failure – and the price of this failure will be paid with lives and livelihoods in the world’s poorest countries.”

He warned that a selfish approach to vaccination would lead to hoarding and rising prices.

“Ultimately, these actions will only prolong the pandemic, the restrictions needed to contain it, and human and economic suffering,” he added.

Calling on nations to accelerate their progress, he said: “My challenge to all member states is to ensure that by the time World Health Day arrives on 7 April, Covid-19 vaccines are being administered in every country, as a symbol of hope for overcoming both the pandemic and the inequalities that lie at the root of so many global health challenges.” 

Thus far, 180 countries have signed on to the Covax initiative, which aims to negotiate as a bloc for lower vaccine prices. The initiative aims to distribute vaccines to low- and middle income countries, 92 of which will have their vaccines paid for by the initiative. Dr Tedros said that two billion doses had been secured, with an option of a billion more, with the first doses delivered by February.

UK Health Secretary Matt Hancock said in a reaction to Dr Tedros’ warnings that, “The UK is the world’s biggest supporter, financial supporter, of the global programme to ensure access to vaccines in all countries in the world.”

The UK has contributed £548m ($734m) to the Covax initiative. Canada drew criticism after it was revealed that, due to vaccine hoarding, the 70 poorest countries would only be able to vaccinate 10% of their population, while Canada had secured enough vaccines for five times its population of nearly 38 million. However, these vaccines are “hypothetical” according to Karina Gould, Canada’s minister of international development. Canada is also contributing $380 million to Covax. Furthermore, discussions are reportedly under way for South Africa to secure some of the vaccines allocated to Canada.

Source: BBC News

Categories : Exercise PaediatricsTags :

Coordination in Children Does Not Predict Aerobic Fitness

On By ModernMedia

Even though clumsy children find it hard to perform as well in sports that require a lot of coordination, they are no less aerobically fit than their more agile peers.

This finding comes from a new study from the Faculty of Sport and Health Sciences of the University of Jyväskylä and the Institute of Biomedicine of the University of Eastern Finland. The general view is that children who have poor motor coordination tend to be overweight and have a low level of aerobic fitness – but this turns out not to be the case.

The study participants consisted of 332 children aged 7 to 11 years, with the study’s aim being to explore the association between aerobic fitness, body fat content, and motor skills. A maximum bicycle ergometer test was used to measure aerobic fitness and bioimpedance and DXA devices measured body composition. Common methods were used to gauge motor skills.

Eero Haapala, PhD, Faculty of Sport and Health Sciences, University of Jyväskylä, said: “Our study clearly demonstrated that aerobic fitness is not linked to motor skills when body composition is properly taken into account.”

She added: “Also, aerobic fitness was not strongly associated with overweight or obesity. Therefore, it seems that the role of poor aerobic fitness as a risk factor for poor motor skills and excess body weight has been strongly exaggerated.”

Earlier studies had shown that varied physical exercise can develop motor skills, regardless of body weight or aerobic fitness, and that less sedentary behaviour and more exercise protects against becoming overweight.

“The key message of our study is that even a child who is unfit can be motorically adept and the heart of a clumsier kid can be as fit as her or his more skilful peer,” Haapala concluded. “In addition, high levels of varied physical activity and reduced sedentary behaviour are central to the development of motor skills and the prevention of excess weight gain since childhood.”

Source: News-Medical.Net

Journal information: Haapala, EA, Gao, Y, Lintu, N, et al. Associations between cardiorespiratory fitness, motor competence, and adiposity in children. Transl Sports Med. 2021; 4: 56– 64. https://doi.org/10.1002/tsm2.198

Categories : AntibioticsTags :

Single Water Molecule Is the Key to Macrolide Resistance

On By ModernMedia

High resolution molecular structures produced by researchers at the University of Illinois Chicago show that the effectiveness of the macrolides class of antibiotics – and bacterial resistance to it – depends on interaction with a single water molecule. 

Macrolides have a broad spectrum of use against most gram-positive bacteria and are a widely used treatment  for a variety of infections. Clarithromycin, for example, is used as a mainstay treatment for respiratory infections. Due to antibiotic overuse, antibiotic resistance has emerged Macrolides interrupt protein biosynthesis in the ribosomes of pathogenic bacteria, and are one of the most successful classes of antibiotics to use this mechanism of action. The macrolides accomplish this by entering the cell and binding to the bacteria’s ribosomes, preventing them from manufacturing and releasing new proteins. As a result of the halt in protein synthesis, the bacteria can no longer grow or replicate. However, mutations came about that rendered the bacteria resistant.

Seeking to understand how the bacteria came about their resistance, the researchers learned how to capture images of the ribosome and the macrolide invading it. The researchers discovered that precisely one water molecule was required for the antibiotic to bind to the ribosome.

Corresponding author Yury Polikanov, associate professor of biological sciences at UIC, said: “We compared the hi-res structures of the ribosomes from sensitive and resistant bacteria and noticed that a water molecule that is needed for the tight antibiotic binding was not present in the ribosomes from the drug-resistant bugs. In the ribosomes from the drug-resistant bacteria, there was simply no room for this water molecule.”

The mutation that conferred macrolide resistance adds a pair of methyl groups to where the macrolide molecule normally binds to the ribosome, and the water molecule instead disrupts the binding.  

“We are very much excited by this discovery,” Polikanov said. “Because we now know how exactly macrolide antibiotics interact with their target, the ribosome. This discovery is important because it will inform and facilitate the development of new antibiotics that do not need this water molecule for binding. There is a huge demand for such drugs that are able to kill even those bacteria that became resistant to the currently used drugs.”

Source: News-Medical.Net

Journal information: Svetlov, M.S., Syroegin, E.A., Aleksandrova, E.V. et al. Structure of Erm-modified 70S ribosome reveals the mechanism of macrolide resistance. Nat Chem Biol (2021). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41589-020-00715-0

Categories : CancerTags :

Alcohol Linked to A High Proportion of Cancers

On By ModernMedia

A new study shows that cancer is attributable to a significant proportion of cancer cases across the United States.

It is well known that alcohol is linked to cancers, but the state-level data shows for first time the impact of different levels of alcohol consumption and its cancer effects. This is also concerning for South Africa as the country has high rates of alcohol use, consuming 5 billion litres of alcohol annually, around 9 to 10 litres of pure alcohol for each individual (and likely more if sorghum beer is counted).

From data spanning 2013 to 2016, the percentage of cancer cases that are linked to alcohol ranged from a high of 6.7% in Delaware to a low of 2.9% in Utah. Following this pattern, Delaware also had the highest proportion of alcohol-related cancer deaths (4.5%) and Utah had the lowest (1.9%).
Farhad Islami, MD, PhD, and a team at the American Cancer Society, said: “This information is important for prioritising state-level cancer prevention and control efforts to reduce alcohol consumption and the burden of alcohol-related cancers.”

Alcohol use was more tightly linked to certain cancers: the proportion of oral cavity/pharyngeal cancer cases attributable to alcohol ranged from 36% in Utah to 62.5% in Delaware and was over 45% in all but five US states.

The majority of cases and deaths from the examined cancer types were found more in men, reflecting men’s higher consumption of alcohol.

Overall, alcohol was attributable to 8% of all cancer cases and 3.2% of cancer deaths. The American Cancer Society’s guideline for Diet and Physical Activity for Cancer Prevention states that it is best to abstain from alcohol entirely, and if not to limit drinks to 2 per day for men and 1 per day for women.

Source: Science Daily

Journal information: Ann Goding Sauer, Stacey A. Fedewa, Priti Bandi, Adair K. Minihan, Michal Stoklosa, Jeffrey Drope, Susan M. Gapstur, Ahmedin Jemal, Farhad Islami. Proportion of cancer cases and deaths attributable to alcohol consumption by US state, 2013-2016. Cancer Epidemiology, 2021; 71: 101893 DOI: 10.1016/j.canep.2021.101893

Categories : COVIDTags :

SA Experts Confirm That COVID Variant is More Contagious

On By ModernMedia

A panel of South African experts confirmed on Monday that the SA strain of COVID is 50% more transmissible than previous strains.

Collecting data from the main infection clusters around the country, the experts came to the conclusion that while more contagious, the new variant is not more lethal. 

“There is no evidence the new COVID variant is more severe than the original variant,” said epidemiologist Professor Salim Abdool Karim, co-chair of the Ministry of Health’s scientific committee.

However, the SA healthy system has been strained by the sheer number of cases. Concerns over more transmissible variants have prompted the UK government to switch to administering the first dose of two-dose vaccines such as the one from Pfizer, and leaving an extended period before a second dose is administered, even though protection will wane over time.

Another panel member, Dr Waasila Jassat, said that although hospital admissions had increased, the overall death rate had not, supporting the case for the variant not being more lethal.

The spread of the variant in December prompted the government to reinstate its lockdown. It also resulted in many countries banning flights from South Africa in a bid to stem the variant. Prof Karim said that it was not yet known if current vaccines would protect against the SA variant, although studies were underway.

Another panel member, virologist Professor Alex Sigal stated: “The world has underestimated this virus.” He added that it was evolving and adapting to humans.

The experts also urged that it should not be referred to as the “South African variant”. The variant could have turned up anywhere in the world, and it was only thanks to the country’s excellent genomic surveillance that it was picked up at all, they said.

Source: Medical Xpress

Categories : COVID Diseases, Syndromes and ConditionsTags :

Nearly a Third of COVID Patients Are Readmitted to Hospital

On By ModernMedia

According to a study reported by The Telegraph, almost a third of COVID patients are readmitted to hospital later. The new study, still on the MedRxiv preprint server and not yet peer reviewed, was conducted by Leicester University and the Office for National Statistics (ONS).

Approximately 1 in 10 people who are infected with COVID go on to develop long COVID symptoms, which include breathlessness, excessive fatigue and muscle aches. This appears to be causing hospital readmissions – and deaths.

The study looked at 47 780 individuals with a primary diagnosis of COVID who had a hospital visit between 1 January 2020 and 31 August 2020, and a COVID-negative control group admitted over the same period. The mean follow-up time was 140 days for those with a COVID diagnosis, and during this team 29.4% were readmitted and 12.3% died. The study also found a higher risk in those under 70 and of ethnic minority groups in the UK, most notably in respiratory diseases.

Study author Kamlesh Khunti, professor of primary care diabetes and vascular medicine at Leicester University, said: “This is the largest study of people discharged from hospital after being admitted with Covid.

“People seem to be going home, getting long-term effects, coming back in and dying. We see nearly 30 per cent have been readmitted, and that’s a lot of people. The numbers are so large.”The message here is we really need to prepare for long Covid. It’s a mammoth task to follow up with these patients and the NHS is really pushed at the moment, but some sort of monitoring needs to be arranged.”

One finding which surprised the team was that many patients went back in and had a new diagnosis, such as liver, heart or kidney conditions, as well as diabetes. This means, according to Prof Khunti, that it is important for patients to receive follow-up and protective therapies such as statins or aspirin, adding: “We don’t know if it’s because Covid destroyed the beta cells which make insulin and you get Type 1 diabetes, or whether it causes insulin resistance, and you develop Type 2, but we are seeing these surprising new diagnoses of diabetes.”

Source: Yahoo News

Categories : Diseases, Syndromes and Conditions Gastrointestinal Immune SystemTags :

Taurine Boosts Microbiotic Defences in the Gut

On By ModernMedia

A new study has discovered that taurine has a role in triggering the gut’s microbiota to identify and destroy invading bacteria, such as Klebsiella pneumoniae, a bacteria commonly found in the gut and responsible for a variety of infections.

It is already known that gut microbiota can protect against infection, but it is not well understood how they accomplish this. A better of understanding of how they confer protection will aid the development of replacements for current antibiotic drugs, which currently harm gut microbiota and whose effectiveness is waning.

Taurine is a complementary (non-essential amino acid, involved in helping break down fats and is present in bile acid. Most taurine is produced by the body but some is also required in the diet. Certain seafoods, seaweed, poultry and beef are good sources of taurine.

The scientists believed that the taurine helped prevent against bacterial colonisation by producing hydrogen sulphide, but during their research they also discovered that a single infection was sufficient to prepare the gut microbiota to resist a second infection. The liver and gallbladder which produce and store bile acids, can develop long-term protection against infection.

While investigating further, the researchers discovered a particular type of bacteria, Deltaproteobacteria, which protected the gut against colonisation by infectious bacteria and which was activated by taurine. Taurine fed to mice in drinking water helped to shield against infection by boosting the function of the protective bacteria, but those fed bismuth subsalicylate (a common over-the-counter diarrhoea treatment), the infection protection diminished, because bismuth suppresses hydrogen sulphide production in the gut.

Source: News-Medical.Net

Categories : Ageing Neurodegenerative DiseasesTags :

Parkinson’s Disease Spotted in Advance with Health Checkup

On By ModernMedia

A study by the University of Nagoya has shown that general health checkups may be effective at spotting early signs of Parkinson’s disease (PD) in advance.

Specifically, the prodromal stage shows sex differences, with the markers for males being decreased cholesterol and haematocrit (the percentage of red blood cells in blood) levels, while in females it is increased blood pressure. PD is the second most common disease affecting the nervous system after Alzheimer’s disease, is caused by a deficiency in the neurotransmitter dopamine. By the stage where sufferers experience motor symptoms such as tremors, stiffness, bradykinesia (slowness of movement), more than half of all dopaminergic neurons have been lost. Postural instability occurs in the late stage. Several processes have been implicated in PD, such as mitochondrial dysfunction, defective protein clearance mechanisms, and neuroinflammation, but it is not clear how these factors interact.

Prior studies have shown that non-motor symptoms including constipation, rapid eye movement sleep behaviour disorder, impairment of sense of smell, and depression, emerge in patients with PD 10 to 20 years before the onset of motor symptoms – meaning that PD may be detectable in advance with other measures.

“If we can detect biological changes in the patients’ bodies well before the onset of the motor symptoms, we can start medical treatments in an early stage,” said Prof Masahisa Katsuno of the Graduate School of Medicine at Nagoya University.

The team used health checkup data from 22 male and 23 female patients with PD, dating to before they were diagnosed with the disease. They supplemented this with data from 60 male and 60 female healthy individuals who had checkup data for at least four years.The checkup data was compared between healthy individuals and PD patients to establish a baseline, and then were examined for longitudinal changes prior to the onset of PD. They found that in the premotor stage, blood pressure increased in females, while in males total and low-density cholesterol levels and haematocrit decreased.

“In this study, we found that blood pressure, haematocrit, and serum cholesterol levels are potential biomarkers of Parkinson’s disease before the onset of its motor symptoms,” said Prof Katsuno. “This finding indicates that general health checkups can help detect early signs of developing Parkinson’s disease.”  Based on the findings, the team is now working to identify individuals at risk of developing PD in an attempt to forestall the development of their disease.

Source: Medical Xpress

Journal information: Katsunori Yokoi et al. Longitudinal analysis of premotor anthropometric and serological markers of Parkinson’s disease, Scientific Reports (2020). DOI: 10.1038/s41598-020-77415-1

Categories : Cardiovascular DiseaseTags :

Religiosity-based Stress Linked to Cardiovascular Risk in South Asians

On By ModernMedia

In a new study, the Study on Stress, Spirituality and Health (SSSH) linked proteomics from religiosity-based stress to cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk markers. This study marks the first investigation of protein levels associated with religion and spirituality in any group.

South Asians have an elevated CVD risk compared to other racial/ethnic groups, with the biological risk factors attributable to type 2 diabetes risk factors, and the rest stemming from traditional risk factors which show no enhancements as compared to other racial/ethnic groups.

“Before we can develop the best interventions to reduce CVD disparities, we need to understand the biological pathways through which health disparities are produced,” said principal investigator and co-senior author Alexandra Shields, PhD, associate professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School (HMS). “As this study shows, psychosocial factors—and religious or spiritual struggles in particular—can affect biological processes that lead to CVD in this high-risk population. Spirituality can also serve as a resource for resilience and have a protective effect. Given that many of the minority communities that experience higher levels of CVD also report higher levels of religiosity and spirituality, studies such as the SSSH may help identify new leverage points, such as spiritually focused psychotherapy for those in spiritual distress, that could reduce risk of CVD for such individuals.”

The study had 100 South Asian participants, 50 diagnosed with CVD and 50 without. The participants were drawn from the Mediators of Atherosclerosis in South Asians Living in America (MASALA) Study, which is following 1164 South Asian participants to investigate the factors that lead to heart disease among this racial/ethnic group. Three proteins were found to be involved in CVD risk after adjustment for diabetes (Contactin-5 [CNTN5], Low affinity immunoglobulin gamma Fc region receptor II-a [FCGR2A], and Complement factor B [CFB]), and of these, the expression of two (Contactin-5 and Complement factor B) were slightly modified by religious struggles interacting with adverse life events.

The results indicate that there may be unique protein expressions associated with CVD among individuals of South Asian descent, and these associations may be affected by religious struggles, such as feeling abandoned by God. “Understanding the pathways of this mechanism at the molecular level using proteomics technology is crucial to developing potential interventions that can help reduce CVD incidence in this population,” says Long H. Ngo, PhD., lead author and co-director of Biostatistics in the Division of General Medicine at BIDMC and associate professor of Medicine at HMS.

Co-senior author Towia Libermann, PhD, at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, added: “The kinds of blood-based protein biomarkers used in this study are particularly effective in assessing CVD risk because they carry clinical information about risk of disease and are the most commonly used molecules for diagnostic applications.

Source: Medical Xpress

Journal information: Long H. Ngo et al, Plasma protein expression profiles, cardiovascular disease, and religious struggles among South Asians in the MASALA study, Scientific Reports (2021). DOI: 10.1038/s41598-020-79429-1