Human nutritionist says to focus on lunchchanges to a supplemental nutrition program are improving the number of fruits eaten daily by children
A Kansas State university human nutritionist says to reach that amount you need to focus on lunch.
A new report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention finds that children between the ages of 2 and 18 are eating more whole fruits
and caregivers that even though 100 percent fruit juice is very nutritious it is very high in calories.
When it is served over to young children it can cause diarrhea and contribute to obesity.
According to the 2013 State Indicator Report on Fruits and Vegetables from the National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion the average American eats one serving of fruit and 1. 3
By showing how that land cover has changed over time scientists can determine how these changes impact our plant's environmental health said Nate Herold a NOAA physical scientist who directs the mapping effort at NOAA's Coastal Services Center
Their short stature is caused not by a single genetic mutation as occurs in many forms of dwarfism
and Blood Institute (NHLBI) of the National institutes of health (NIH) have transplanted successfully hearts from genetically engineered piglets into baboons'abdomens
and a more focused immunosuppression regimen in the baboon recipients according to a study published in The Journal of Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgery an official publication of the American Association for Thoracic Surgery.
Cardiac transplantation is the treatment of choice for end stage heart failure. According to the NHLBI approximately 3000 people in the US are on the waiting list for a heart transplant
For cardiac patients currently waiting for organs mechanical assist devices are the only options available.
and experience issues with power supplies infection and problems with blood clots and bleeding. Transplantation using an animal organ
Despite many setbacks over the years recent genetic and immunologic advancements have helped revitalized progress in the xenotransplantation field comments lead investigator Muhammad M. Mohiuddin MD of the Cardiothoracic Surgery
Dr. Mohiuddin's group and other investigators have developed techniques on two fronts to overcome some of the roadblocks that previously hindered successful xenotransplantation.
The second advance was the use of target-specific immunosuppression which limits rejection of the transplanted organ rather than the usual generalized immunosuppression
which is more toxic. Pigs were chosen because their anatomy is compatible with that of humans and they have a rapid breeding cycle among other reasons.
They are also widely available as a source of organs. In this study researchers compared the survival of hearts from genetically engineered piglets that were organized into different experimental groups based on the genetic modifications introduced.
The gene that synthesizes the enzyme alpha 1-3 galactosidase transferase was knocked out in all piglets
Dr. Mohiuddin explains that thrombomodulin expression helps avoid some of the microvascular clotting problems that were associated previously with organ transplantation.
and duration of antibody used for costimulation blockade to suppress T and B cell immune response in the hosts.
In several groups longer survival of transplants was observed with the use of anti-CD40 monoclonal antibodies
but the longest-surviving group was treated specifically with a high dose of recombinant mouse-rhesus chimeric antibody (clone 2c10r4).
In contrast use of an anti-CD40 monoclonal antibody generated in a mouse (clone 3a8) did not extend survival.
Anti-CD40 monoclonal antibodies also allow for faster recovery says Dr. Mohiuddin. No complications including infections were seen in the longest-survival group.
The researchers used surveillance video and telemetric monitoring to identify any symptoms of complications in all groups such as abdominal bleeding gastrointestinal bleeding aspiration pneumonia seizures or blood disorders.
The goal of the current study was to evaluate the viability of the transplants. The researchers'next step is to use hearts from the genetically-engineered pigs with the most effective immunosuppression in the current experiments to test
whether the pig hearts can sustain full life support when replacing the original baboon hearts.
Our study has demonstrated that by using hearts from genetically engineered pigs in combination with target-specific immunosuppression of recipient baboons organ survival can be prolonged significantly.
This has potential for paving the way for the use of animal organs for transplantation into humans concludes Dr. Mohiuddin.
The above story is provided based on materials by American Association for Thoracic Surgery. Note: Materials may be edited for content and length.
#Worlds primary forests on the brink, study concludesan international team of conservationist scientists and practitioners has published new research showing the precarious state of the world's primary forests.
while in the neonatal intensive care unit is an indicator of better long-term health and developmental outcomes.
Researchers at the USDA/ARS Children's Nutrition Research center at Baylor College of Medicine and Texas Children's Hospital have incorporated now successfully a cream supplement into premature infants'diets that improved their growth outcomes in the NICU.
The report appears in the Journal of Pediatrics. For premature babies who weigh less than 1000 grams (about 2 pounds 2 ounces) one of the problems is that their lungs
and other organs are still developing when they are born. If the infant gains weight and increases in length at a good rate
while in the NICU this helps improve their outcomes said Dr. Amy Hair assistant professor of pediatrics at Baylor neonatologist at Texas Children's Hospital and first author of the study.
or infant formula to help premature babies grow but we can now use a natural source from donor milk said Hair.
Since November 2013 the NICU at Texas Children's Hospital has changed its protocol to add this cream supplement to the diet of infants who weigh less than 1500 grams.
Texas Children's was the first hospital in the world to add human milk-based cream to the diets of very low birth weight infants.
since 2009 Texas Children's has reduced significantly its rates of necrotizing enterocolitis one of the most devastating
and potentially fatal diseases a neonate can face by implementing a human milk feeding protocol for all infants weighing less than 3. 3 pounds.
Story Source The above story is provided based on materials by Baylor College of Medicine. The original article was written by Dipali Pathak.
The study which appears online Aug 14 in the American Journal of Public health is based on a nationally representative survey of 403457 adolescents from 1997 to 2009.
An even larger group of 157000 youths ages 10 to 24 are treated for self-inflicted wounds each year.
Gassman-Pines said she hopes the research may help mental health workers identify teens who could be suicide risks.
Now as part of the largest quail disease study ever undertaken in the U s. scientists at The Institute of Environmental and Human Health at Texas Tech University believe they have found a major culprit.
Researchers in the Wildlife Toxicology Laboratory necropsied hundreds of birds throughout a 19-million-acre area of land
The study part of multi-million-dollar Operation Idiopathic Decline and funded by the private Rolling Plains Quail Research Foundation is titled Evidence of an Oxispirura petrowi Epizootic in Northern bobwhites
It was published in the Journal of Wildlife Diseases and provides evidence of how the parasitic outbreak began.
if it's possible for a parasite to move that quickly through a population on a large area said Ron Kendall professor of environmental toxicology at Texas Tech and lead investigator.
Toxicology Laboratory. Rick Snipes president of The Rolling Plains Quail Research Foundation said he was impressed with the researchers'findings.
As a result of the massive die off in 2010 our board of directors made a decision to fund the first disease
which includes Dr. Kendall's work. We are thrilled beyond imagination at the results that he
Throughout the Rolling plains Kendall and others found a significant infection rate with the birds they trapped.
and feed predominantly in ducts behind the eye where they can cause severe inflammation and edema from their feeding activities.
We think infection with these eyeworms can negatively impact vision of quail. These birds need to be 100 percent performance ready to get away from a Cooper's hawk.
and if you have vision impairment it could negatively impact your ability to get away from a predator.
Kendall believes that by eating crickets infected with eyeworms quail were actually swallowing a poisoned pill.
We need a cure; we need a strategy to cure it. So we're in the process of a major research and development effort to find a remedy.
There's been evidence for some time that eyeworms were in the Rolling Plains but we didn't know how to assess their potential impact.
and a production process using various toxic chemicals. As well as providing significant environmental benefits by reducing reliance on fossil fuels a successful digestate-ash fertilizer would also reduce costs
Dr Ben Herbert Director of research and Environment at Stopford Energy and Environment an independent consulting company based in offices at Lancaster University's Environment Centre said:
Using a word coding technique researchers tracked how the European commission's drafts on tobacco control policy changed markedly between 2010 and 2013 resembling tobacco industry submissions much more than those of health groups in the latter stages.
The research in Tobacco Control published by BMJ was conducted by the University of Oxford London School of Hygiene &tropical Medicine and the University of Bath.
They also coded 20 documents from 18 stakeholders (health groups and representatives from the tobacco industry) written between 2010 and 2013 in
They found that the European documents shifted from a near neutral position of 0. 52 (slightly favouring the health groups) to 0. 4 (a relative 10%shift towards the tobacco industry position.
Initially the European commission's draft legislation from 2010 was closer to the position of health groups
The word'health'which appeared in about 1. 71%of words in health group submissions made up around 1. 5%of total words in the initial European commission proposal
Meanwhile the researchers found that the root word'warn'used frequently in submissions by health groups declined from 1. 57%to 1. 18%in official EU documents.
'Professor Martin Mckee from the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine said:''Our study shows why we need to tighten up the governance of health policy in the different institutions of the European union.'
'Story Source: The above story is provided based on materials by University of Oxford. Note: Materials may be edited for content and length.
#Statistical model predicts performance of hybrid ricegenomic prediction a new field of quantitative genetics is a statistical approach to predicting the value of an economically important trait in a plant such as yield or disease resistance.
and Huazhong Agricultural University China has used the method to predict the performance of hybrid rice (for example the yield growth-rate and disease resistance).
Genomic prediction can be used to predict heritable human diseases. For example many cancers are heritable and genome prediction can be performed to predict disease risk for a person.
Xu was joined in the research by Qifa Zhang and his student Dan Zhu at Huazhong Agricultural University China.
Next the research team led by Xu and Zhang will design a field experiment to perform hybrid prediction in rice.
and Osaka universities who have come up with a simple way to spot contaminants. Because it's so easy to accidently introduce impurities into graphene labs led by physicists Junichiro Kono of Rice
Lead researcher Dr Philip Leftwich from UEAÂ##s school of Biological sciences and Oxitec said: â#oethe Mediterranean fruit fly infests more than 300 types of cultivated and wild fruits vegetables and nuts.
Dr Dan Bebber of the University of Exeter said: We were surprised by the strength of the edge effect on wood decay
Dr Martha Crockatt of Earthwatch said: Saprotrophic fungi control the cycling of carbon and nutrients from wood in forests and their responses to changes in microclimate driven by fragmentation
Dr. Martone's analyses of the effects of sea otters on kelp forest ecosystems can help shape predictions of how climate change
Dr. Simone Riehl of TÃ bingen University's Institute for Archaeological Science and the Senckenberg Center for Human Evolution and Palaeoenvironment has headed an investigation into archaeological finds of grain
Dr. Riehl and her team measured the grains'content of two stable carbon isotopes. When barley grass gets insufficient water
and heat stress. While this is good news for ravens it could be bad news for sensitive prey species including the Greater Sage-grouse.
and plant diseases have dramatically cut back coffee supplies. With a lower supply of coffee in the market prices rise and that favors fraud because of the economic gain says research team leader Suzana Lucy Nixdorf Ph d. In 2012 a study from the U k.'s Royal Botanic Gardens
#Wild sheep show benefits of putting up with parasitesin the first evidence that natural selection favors an individual's infection tolerance researchers from Princeton university
and the University of Edinburgh have found that an animal's ability to endure an internal parasite strongly influences its reproductive success. Reported in the journal PLOS Biology the finding could provide the groundwork for boosting the resilience of humans and livestock to infection.
The researchers used 25 years of data on a population of wild sheep living on an island in northwest Scotland to assess the evolutionary importance of infection tolerance.
and its level of infection with nematodes tiny parasitic worms that thrive in the gastrointestinal tract of sheep.
The level of infection was determined by the number of nematode eggs per gram of the animal's feces.
While all of the animals lost weight as a result of nematode infection the degree of weight loss varied widely:
and found that sheep with the highest tolerance to nematode infection produced the most offspring while sheep with lower parasite tolerance left fewer descendants.
To measure individual differences in parasite tolerance the researchers used statistical methods that could be extended to studies of disease epidemiology in humans said senior author Andrea Graham an assistant professor of ecology and evolutionary biology
Medical researchers have understood long that people with similar levels of parasite infection can experience very different symptoms.
if you knew an individual's parasite burden you could perfectly predict its health and survival prospects Graham said.
and so have developed statistical tools to measure variation among hosts in the fitness consequences of infection.
Therefore tolerance to nematode infection could result from an ability to make up for the lost nutrition
Graham and her colleagues identified a similar evolutionary tradeoff in a 2010 study that compared immune-response levels and reproductive success in female Soay sheep.
They found that animals with strong antibody responses produced fewer offspring each year but also lived longer.
While the PLOS Biology findings provide strong evidence that natural selection favors infection tolerance they do raise questions such as how the tolerance is generated
In humans and domesticated animals intestinal parasites are becoming increasingly resistant to the drugs used to treat infections Graham said.
which include anemia stunted growth and cognitive difficulties. Ideally we would clear the worms from the bellies of the kids who have those heavy burdens Graham said.
But if we could also understand how to ameliorate the health consequences and thus promote tolerance of nematodes that could be a very powerful tool.
but for sick hospitalized babies it's also medicine. That's the central premise of a series of articles in a neonatal nursing journal's special issue focused on human milk for sick newborns.
The articles are being published during World Breastfeeding Week Aug 1-7 2014. Multiple public health and professional medical associations from the World health organization to the American Academy of Pediatrics have endorsed the widespread advantages of human milk
and breastfeeding for all infants. A new issue of Advances in Neonatal Care is devoted to best practices in providing human milk to hospitalized infants.
The immunological and anti-inflammatory properties of human milk are especially important for the critically ill infants in our intensive care units said Diane L. Spatz Ph d. R n b. C. FAAN nurse researcher
and director of the Lactation Program at The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) and the invited guest editor of the August 2014 issue of the journal published by the National Association of Neonatal Nurses.
CHOP is already on the cutting edge of human milk science and lactation services with a state-of-the-art Human Milk Management Center and round-the-clock support from nurses and international board-certified lactation consultants
At CHOP more than four out of five infants discharged from the Hospital's intensive care units are receiving human milk.
The Hospital has used donor human milk since 2006 for at-risk infants to supplement a mother's own milk supply
In the special issue Spatz and her colleagues from CHOP and other institutions cover a variety of topics on the provision of human milk in the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) including original research articles ethical rationales
of Pennsylvania School of nursing analyzes data from a 2008 survey of 6060 registered nurses in 104 NICUS.
This large national sample found that overall NICU nurses provided breastfeeding support to about 1 in 7 mothers around the clock.
Infants and mothers were more likely to receive this support in units with adequate nurse staffing.
when NICUS were staffed by nurses with B. S n. degrees. â#¢An Ethical Case for the Provision of Human Milk in the NICU by Elizabeth B. Froh Ph d. R. N. clinical supervisor
The well-documented health benefits of human milk say the authors make it the optimal form of nutrition for those infants. â#¢Implementation of a Human Milk Management Center by Spatz
and promote optimal health and developmental outcomes for these children added Spatz. This special edition provides clinicians with tools
in order to transform human milk and breastfeeding practices in their own institutions. Story Source: The above story is provided based on materials by Children's Hospital of Philadelphia.
Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. Journal References a
#Excavation of ancient well yields insight into Etruscan, Roman and medieval timesduring a four-year excavation of an Etruscan well at the ancient Italian settlement of Cetamura del Chianti a team led by a Florida State university archaeologist
#Fipronil, imidacloprid reduce honeybee mitochondrial activitynew research published in Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry addresses the effects of two broad-spectrum systemic insecticides fipornil and imidacloprid on honeybees.
This action can explain the toxicity of these compounds for honeybees. Scientists are urgently trying to determine the causes of colony collapse disorder and the alarming population declines of honeybees.
The cross-pollination services they provide are required by approximately 80 percent of all flowering plants and 1/3 of all agricultural food production directly depends on bee pollination.
As a result there has been a flurry of research on honeybee parasitic mite infestations viral diseases and the direct and indirect impacts of pesticides.
A key characteristic of colony collapse disorder is the incapacity of the honey bees to return to their hives
The above story is provided based on materials by Society of Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry. Note: Materials may be edited for content and length.
#Vaccinating cows could answer serum shortageby many estimates an Ebola vaccine could be available in humans as early as next year.
There are a number of vaccines in development and each is in a race to prove that it is most effective safe
One promising Ebola vaccine is based on a human rabies virus vaccine and is developed by Thomas Jefferson University in collaboration with the National institutes of health (NIH).
This novel vaccine could not only help reign in the current epidemic in West Africa but could be expanded easily
and used if another filovirus strain started to spread. The researchers also plan to develop the vaccine into the type of antibody serum therapy used in the first U s. recipients in a platform that could deliver at least 2000 doses of potentially lifesaving serum per month.
Vaccines are the best way to completely eradicate an epidemic threat like Ebola says Matthias Schnell Ph d. Director of the Jefferson Vaccine Center and Professor of Microbiology and Immunology at Thomas Jefferson University.
But for those patients who already have the disease antibody-based therapies could be the best treatment--it's a way to give the body's own defenses time to ramp up.
Dr. Schnell and his team have developed a vaccine that activates the immune system to produce large amounts of antibodies against three virus strains
in order to most effectively eradicate the threat of hemorrhagic fever. It includes the Zaire strain of Ebola virus that is currently spreading across West Africa as well as the Sudan strain and the Marburg virus a virus in the same family as Ebola
which causes a very similar disease. Already Dr. Schnell's group has developed the vaccine which showed good protection in nonhuman primates against the Zaire Ebola virus.
Currently the vaccine is being developed with the help of Peter Jahrling at the Integrated Research Facility at the NIH
and with IDT a company that prepares human-grade vaccines. Although the current timeline would have the shots ready for trials in two to three years Dr. Schnell says that a vaccine could be ready in six to ten months
if appropriate investments were made. Vaccines however may only prevent the spread of the disease rather than help those who have contracted already the infection because of how quickly the disease progresses.
In order to address this issue Dr. Schnell is working with another company with a novel method of producing antibodies en masse.
Although they do not confer the long-lasting immunity of a vaccine antibodies attach to virus particles
and help chaperone them out of the blood before they can infect more cells It's like a sponge that mops up a lot of the virus in the body says Schnell.
It gives the immune system the time it needs to build a response to the virus that has infected already cells.
But to be safe and to have the ability to give multiple doses if needed those antibodies need to look human to the immune system.
The experimental therapy that humanitarian aid workers Kent Brantly and Nancy Writebol received was purified based on a monoclonal antibodies from mice genetically engineered to produce humanlike antibodies against the Ebola virus.
However the company that produced the serum had limited a very quantity available. SAB Biotherapeutics is a company in South dakota with a small herd of cattle that can produce humanlike antibodies.
Together with SAB Dr. Schnell is applying for a grant that would allow the team to vaccinate the cows with his vaccine in order to produce large quantities of antibodies specific for the three viral strains.
The cows would have harvested their blood plasma every two weeks to produce 30-60 liters of serum every month from one animal--the equivalent of 2000 doses. The vaccinated cows would produce polyvalent antibodies--antibodies that can recognize many
different viral components--rather than the monoclonal antibodies administered to Brantly and Writebol. Polyvalent antibodies are more likely to remain effective
if the virus mutates. If money were no object we could have the first batch of serum ready for human testing in four to six months says Dr. Schnell.
Story Source: The above story is provided based on materials by Thomas Jefferson University. Note: Materials may be edited for content and length h
#Farm manager plays leading role in postharvest losswith all the effort it takes to grow a food crop from seed to sale it may be surprising that some farms in Brazil lose 10 to 12 percent of their yield at various points
along the postharvest route. According to a University of Illinois agricultural economist when it comes to meeting the needs of the world's growing population that's a lot of food falling through the cracks.
Interestingly farm managers who are aware of the factors that contribute to postharvest grain loss actually lose less grain.
and lead author of the study published recently in Environmental Toxicology & Chemistry. The lack of any significant biomagnification through the food chain indicates that there is very little risk of harm from exposure to these CUPS in this region.
Pesticides or heavy metals enter rivers or lakes and vegetation where they are ingested by fish and mammals and in turn are consumed by other animals and humans.
and other toxic chemicals such as PCBS found in wildlife and in Inuit and other aboriginal and non-aboriginal Northerners dependent on hunting Morris said.
Such legacy contaminants are banned now widely under the Stockholm Convention he said. But some have been replaced by CUPS
Morris focused on studying the Bathurst region of the Canadian Arctic working with Guelph toxicology professor emeritus Keith Solomon adjunct professor Derek Muir and collaborators from Environment Canada's Aquatic
Contaminants Research Division. They examined the vegetation-caribou-wolf food chain in the area where the presence of other organic contaminants such as legacy pesticides
and fluorinated surfactants suggested that CUPS might be found in the vegetation and animals. Caribou are among the most important subsistence animals for people living in the North
It is an important responsibility both for health and for food security issues that Northerner's face that we monitor traditional food sources Morris said.
Morris said these CUPS represent only a small percentage of contaminants in Arctic regions or in the environment globally.
However their unique set of properties does help us more clearly see how different contaminants behave in the environment
and in food chains compared to legacy contaminants. Morris has widened his research to include marine food chains
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