We can help fight heart disease and aging and perhaps even boost our romance for the evening by choosing our foods wisely.
which may prevent the formation of toxic plaque that leads to Alzheimer's disease. Dr. Sirna warns that you should drink in moderation by consuming no more than one 5-ounce glass for women and two 5-ounce glasses for men.
and contains cancer-fighting enzymes. Other items that top the list of heart-healthy foods include:
The FDA reports that eating a diet that includes one ounce of nuts daily can reduce your risk of heart disease.
Fish--Consider a Valentine's meal with fish that is high in omega-3 fatty acids which reduce your risk of dying from a heart attack.
Jack Juvik a U of I crop sciences researcher explained that the combined application of two compounds both are extracted natural products from plants increased the presence of cancer-fighting agents in broccoli
Glucosinolates have been identified as potent cancer-preventative agents because of their ability to induce detoxification enzymes such as quinone reductase (QR) that detoxify
but it provides a preventative approach to all the medical costs associated with degenerative diseases. These are not pills that go in
but it's a way to protect people by reducing the risk they currently have to different diseases.
When you look at how much the United states spends on medical costs associated with these diseases you see it's a huge burden on the economy
and Health a landmark report that linked tobacco smoke to heart disease and lung cancer and laid the foundation for tobacco control efforts in the United states
. Since then 31 Surgeon general's Reports have been released including the latest The Health Consequences of Smoking--50 Years of Progress released Jan 11.
Amoxicillin is used to treat various types of infections in animals Gehring said. The goats with lead intoxication show signs of kidney and liver damage so we had hypothesized this damage would inhibit the excretion of amoxicillin leading to higher drug concentrations in these animals.
or develop a disease Grozinger said. But our results show that the external environment plays a much greater role in regulating expression of genes in the brain
Genetic discovery to keep crops disease-freeaccording to John Curtin Distinguished Professor Richard Oliver Director of the Australian Centre for Necrotrophic Fungal Pathogens (ACNFP) at Curtin
For an average-sized farm of 4000 hectares this could mean an almost $500000 loss to disease per year--or about $212 million worth of damage to the wider Australian agricultural industry.
Funded by the Grains Research & development Corporation Professor Oliver and his team in conjunction with independent research provider Kalyx Australia have demonstrated that by taking away disease-sensitivity genes from the wheat germplasm
pathogens find it difficult to latch onto wheat and cause damage. Our finding will help breeders produce crops in
which disease losses are 60 to 80 per cent lower and would be a real win for farmers--they will often be able to avoid using foliar fungicides Professor Oliver said.
The key has been to supply breeders with specific proteins (we call them effectors) that the fungi use to cause disease.
For the first time our technology allows for a steady and sustained improvement in disease resistance without affecting the farmer's pocket.
when subjected to natural disease and stress pressures in the WA wheatbelt. They compared cultivars with disease-sensitivity genes to cultivars that lacked these particular genes
and were able to show that the cultivars lacking the gene showed no yield loss and in some instances increased yields in the presence of disease.
From this the team were able to conclude if a sensitivity gene was eliminated there would be associated minimal risks
and it would be a safe and straightforward strategy for improving disease resistance. Professor Oliver said this research had never been done before as direct mapping for disease resistance had led not to useful molecular markers.
Previously geneticists would infect plants that were progeny of crosses between relatively resistant and relatively susceptible parents before doing the QTL (quantitative disease-resistance gene) mapping.
But as disease resistance is multifactorial due to the several effector reactions the QTL mapping was always a bit fuzzy
and was passed therefore never on Professor Oliver said. Our research looks directly at the loci that recognise the pathogens
which can be identified readily using a process we developed earlier thereby bypassing the need for QTL mapping.
and the University of Texas Medical Branch (UTMB) at Galveston have developed a simple highly sensitive and efficient test for the diarrheal disease cryptosporidiosis that could have great impact on global health.
whether samples taken from the stool of a patient contain genetic DNA from the parasite that causes the disease.
Diarrheal illness is a leading cause of global mortality and morbidity said Richards-Kortum director of the Rice 360ë:
Parasites such as cryptosporidium are more common causes of prolonged diarrhea. Current laboratory tests are not sensitive are time-consuming
A rapid affordable accurate point-of-care test could greatly enhance care for the underserved populations who are affected most by parasites that cause diarrheal illness.
A. Clinton White director of the Infectious disease Division at UTMB asked Richards-Kortum to help develop a diagnostic test for the parasite.
Recent studies in Africa and South Asia by people using sophisticated techniques show this organism is a very common underappreciated cause of diarrheal disease in underresourced countries.
Lead author Zachary Crannell a graduate student based at Rice's Bioscience Research Collaborative said the disease usually transmitted through drinking water accounts for 20 percent of childhood diarrheal deaths in developing countries.
Cryptosporidiosis is also a threat to people with HIV whose immune system is less able to fight it off he said.
In the most recent global burden-of-disease study diarrheal disease accounts for the loss of more disability-adjusted life years than any other infectious disease
and cryptosporidiosis is the second leading cause of diarrheal illness. Crannell said. Anybody if it's not treated can get dehydrated to the point of death.
or fluorescent analysis of stool samples or polymerase chain reactions (PCR) that amplify pathogen DNA are considered impractical for deployment in developing countries because of the need for expensive equipment
and enzymes tuned to amplify the pathogen of interest Crannell said. If the pathogen DNA is present these primers will amplify it billions of times to a level that we can easily detect he said.
The sample is flowed then over the detection strip which provides a positive or negative result.
While current tests might catch the disease in samples with thousands of the pathogens the Rice technique detects the presence of very few--even one--parasite in a sample.
or absence of the disease was identified correctly in 27 of 28 infected and control-group mice and all 21 humans
The research team's goal is to produce a low-cost diagnostic that may also test for the presence of several other parasites including giardia the cause of another intestinal disease.
It is important to know as much as we can about virus evolution as emerging infectious plant diseases are a growing threat to global food security
History tells us about the devastation caused by the emergence of disease from wild hosts in disparate countries such as the Central american origin of the oomycete that led to The irish potato famine.
It is very difficult to understand how a plant disease evolved by solely relying on recent samples
The researchers believe that the Medieval BSMV genome came from a time of rapid expansion of the plant disease in the Near east and Europe.
In the first study of its kind they analyzed the way these structures contribute to APEC's ability to cause infection
APEC infections are a serious threat to poultry causing both systemic and localized infections collectively known as colibacillosis.
Further APEC infections may pose a risk to humans due to their zoonotic potential--their ability to infect human hosts.
A better understanding of infectious capacity (or virulence) and zoonotic potential are therefore essential for combatting these hazardous pathogens.
Stacy was an undergraduate student in Dr. Mellata's lab and was supported partialy by funding from School of Life sciences Undergraduate Research (SOLUR) ASU.
and Roy Curtiss III (who directs the Institute's Center for Infectious diseases and Vaccinology). Avian Pathogenic E coli (APEC) belong to a broad group of extraintestinal pathogenic E coli (Expec) strains.
Colibacillosis caused by APEC in birds leads to serious illness often attacking the avian respiratory system producing systemic
or localized infections depending on the age and gender of bird immunologic health and various environmental factors.
Because APEC and human Expec forms share important virulence characteristics possible zoonotic transmission is a serious health concern.
E coli common pilus (ECP) was identified originally in an Expec form known to cause neonatal meningitis in humans
While E coli bacteria exist primarily as beneficial residents of the human intestine extraintestinal variants are responsible for diarrheal diseases like hemorrhagic colitis as well as urinary tract infections neonatal meningitis sepsis and pneumonia.
The toll of such diseases--particularly in the developing world--is substantial claiming some 2. 5 million lives per year.
and high acetate concentration have been shown to upregulate the expression of ECP in human E coli strains that cause urinary tract infections meningitis and diarrheal diseases.
In the current study an APEC strain was found to adhere to human cervical cells in a manner similar to human Expec infections.
This finding suggests that ECP could be considered as a potential antigen for vaccines for both human and poultry infections.
and thus presents a plausible target for future therapeutics aimed at these serious infections of both humans and animals.
or off by different factors will help us understand how these bacteria cause disease. Story Source:
and heart disease studies conducted over the last several decades investigators found that participants directed to adopt a whole diet approach instead of limiting fat intake had a greater reduction in cardiovascular death and nonfatal myocardial infarction.
Early investigations of the relationship between food and heart disease linked high levels of serum cholesterol to increased intake of saturated fat and subsequently an increased rate of coronary heart disease.
However they did not reduce the incidence of myocardial infarction or coronary heart disease deaths. Carefully analyzing studies
and specifically Mediterranean-style diets are effective in preventing heart disease even though they may not lower total serum or LDL cholesterol.
and overall better at preventing heart disease than a blanket low-fat diet. Encouraging the consumption of olive oil over butter
The last fifty years of epidemiology and clinical trials have established a clear link between diet atherosclerosis
what is consumed as well as what is excluded is more effective in preventing cardiovascular disease than low fat low cholesterol diets.
#Study shows yogurt consumption reduces the risk of type 2 diabetesnew research published in Diabetologia (the journal of the European Association for the Study of Diabetes) shows that higher consumption of yoghurt compared with no consumption can reduce the risk of new
-onset type 2 diabetes by 28%.%Scientists at the University of Cambridge found that in fact higher consumption of low-fat fermented dairy products which include all yoghurt varieties
and some low-fat cheeses also reduced the relative risk of diabetes by 24%overall.
Lead scientist Dr Nita Forouhi from the Medical Research Council (MRC) Epidemiology Unit at the University of Cambridge commented this research highlights that specific foods may have an important role in the prevention of type 2 diabetes
or low fat) and diabetes had inconclusive findings. Thus the nature of the association between dairy product intake and type 2 diabetes remains unclear prompting the authors to carry out this new investigation using much more detailed assessment of dairy product consumption than was done in past research.
The research was based on the large EPIC-Norfolk study which includes more than 25000 men and women living in Norfolk UK.
and drink consumed over a week at the time of study entry among 753 people who developed new-onset type 2 diabetes over 11 years of follow-up with 3502 randomly selected study participants.
This allowed the researchers to examine the risk of diabetes in relation to the consumption of total dairy products and also types of individual dairy products.
or total low-fat dairy was associated not with new-onset diabetes once important factors like healthier lifestyles education obesity levels other eating habits
Total milk and cheese intakes were associated also not with diabetes risk. In contrast those with the highest consumption of low-fat fermented dairy products (such as yoghurt fromage frais
and low-fat cottage cheese) were 24%less likely to develop type 2 diabetes over the 11 years compared with non-consumers.
which makes up more than 85%of these products was associated with a 28%reduced risk of developing diabetes.
A further finding was that consuming yoghurt in place of a portion of other snacks such as crisps also reduced the risk of developing type 2 diabetes.
While this type of study cannot prove that eating dairy products causes the reduced diabetes risk dairy products do contain beneficial constituents such as Vitamin d calcium and magnesium.
In addition fermented dairy products may exert beneficial effects against diabetes through probiotic bacteria and a special form of Vitamin k (part of the menaquinone family) associated with fermentation.
therefore helps to provide robust evidence that consumption of low-fat fermented dairy products largely driven by yoghurt intake is associated with a decreased risk of developing future type 2 diabetes.
'and the new research shows that pests pathogens and management issues likely play a major role in this
and has led to hypotheses that a specific novel syndrome'Colony Collapse Disorder'(CCD) is plaguing bee populations.
That the major causes of annual losses include pests (e g. the Varroa mite) pathogens (e g. viruses that these mites carry) and the need for research and advancements in management techniques available for large-scale apiaries
and pathogens play in species declines said Dr. Peter Daszak Disease Ecologist and President of Ecohealth Alliance.
We call this phenomenon'Pathogen Pollution 'and bees are no exception--the role of introduced mites
and the pathogens they carry is researched under and desperately in need of more work he added.
Dr. Smith continued confusion also exists around the term Colony Collapse Disorder since the media and general public often generalize by applying this term to any larger than normal annual losses.
of which may be harmful (such as diseases and herbivores) and some of which may be beneficial (such as mycorrhizal fungi).
Last year a campaign to vaccinate children in Scotland against influenza was halted because of concern in the Muslim community about pork gelatine within the vaccine.
The Asian citrus psyllid (ACP) can spread the lethal and incurable citrus disease known as huanglongbing (HLB)
which spreads a bacterium that causes zebra chip disease. Such low attack rates are unlikely to cause population declines of this pest.
#Pesticides increase risk for Parkinsons disease: Certain people may be more susceptibleprevious studies have shown the certain pesticides can increase the risk for developing Parkinson's disease.
Now UCLA researchers have now found that the strength of that risk depends on an individual's genetic makeup
which in the most pesticide-exposed populations could increase the chances of developing the debilitating disease by two-to sixfold.
In a previous study published January 2013 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences the UCLA research team discovered a link between Parkinson's
and therefore contributed to the development of Parkinson's. In this study UCLA researchers tested a number of other pesticides
and increase the risk of Parkinson's and at much lower levels than those at which they are currently being used said study lead author Jeff Bronstein a professor of neurology
and director of movement disorders at UCLA. Bronstein said the team also found that people with a common genetic variant of the ALDH2 gene are particularly sensitive to the effects of ALDH-inhibiting pesticides
and were two to six times more likely to develop Parkinson's than those without the variant when exposed to these pesticides.
The study compared 360 patients with Parkinson's in three agriculture heavy Central California counties to 816 people from the same area who did not have Parkinson's.
When ALDH does not detoxify DOPAL sufficiently it accumulates damages neurons and increases an individual's risk of developing Parkinson's.
which these environmental toxins contribute to Parkinson's pathogenesis especially in genetically vulnerable individuals said study author Beate Ritz a professor of epidemiology at the Fielding School of Public health at UCLA. This suggests several potential interventions to reduce Parkinson's occurrence
Then the researchers found that those participants in the epidemiologic study with a genetic variant in the ALDH gene were increased at risk of Parkinson's when exposed to these pesticides.
however did not increase risk of the disease Bronstein said. This report provides evidence for the relevance of ALDH inhibition in Parkinson's disease pathogenesis identifies pesticides that should be avoided to reduce the risk of developing Parkinson's disease
and suggests that therapies modulating ALDH enzyme activity or otherwise eliminating toxic aldehydes should be developed
and tested to potentially reduce Parkinson's disease occurrence or slow its progression particularly for patients exposed to pesticides the study states.
but they did not suffer any harm even over multiple generations. In a similar article appearing in the February 2014 issue of the Journal of Economic Entomology called Tri-Trophic Studies Using Cry1ac-Resistant Plutella xylostella Demonstrate No Adverse Effects of Cry1ac on the Entomopathogenic
Nitrogen the most important and widely used agricultural nutrient is also a major environmental contaminant. In many regions increased levels of nitrate found in groundwater have been attributed to the high rates of nitrogen fertilizer applied to surrounding crops.
and The Sainsbury Laboratory Norwich looked in unprecedented detail at how Phytophthora infestans a pathogen that continues to blight potatoes
The study published today in the journal Science is the first to show how pathogens switch from targeting one species to another through changes at the molecular level.
and sister species Phytophthora mirabilis a pathogen that split from P. infestans around 1300 years ago to target the Mirabilis jalapa plant commonly known as the four o'clock flower.
They found that each pathogen species secretes specialised substances to shut down the defences of their target hosts'Plants have called these enzymes proteases that play a key role in their defence systems'said Dr Renier van der Hoorn co-author of the study from Oxford university
'When a plant becomes infected proteases help plants to attack the invading pathogens and trigger immune responses.
'We looked at specialisation in the blight pathogens'secret weapon a key family of effectors called'EPIC'that can pass through plants'defences undetected to disable the proteases.
and destroy the pathogen. Potato and tomato plants with such proteases would be resistant to the blight pathogens
and combined with other resistant traits could provide another'wall'of defence against the pathogens.'
'Story Source: The above story is provided based on materials by University of Oxford. Note: Materials may be edited for content and length.
#Gastric bypass improves insulin secretion in pigsthe majority of gastric bypass patients mysteriously recover from their type 2 diabetes within days before any weight loss has taken place.
A study at Lund University Diabetes Centre in Sweden has shown now that the insulin-producing beta cells increase in number and performance after the surgery.
Type 2 diabetes develops when the body's insulin-producing beta cells stop working or when the body is not able to use the insulin that the cells produce.
and undergo a gastric bypass operation recover from their diabetes within days of the procedure.
The group at Lund University Diabetes Centre found that the pigs'beta cells improve their insulin secretion.
since it also helps the further refinements of surgical methods says Jan Hedenbro surgeon at Aleris Obesitas who has collaborated with Lund University Diabetes Centre on the project.
The researchers hope that the findings could lead to new methods of treatment for type 2 diabetes in the future.
and diabetes concludes Nils Wierup. Story Source: The above story is provided based on materials by Lund University.
The biomedical applications of these hormones as anti-tumor agents and to facilitate somatic cell reprogramming (the cells that form tissues) to stem cells are also being investigated.
Helps babies struggling to breathethe first clinical study of a low-cost neonatal breathing system created by Rice university bioengineering students demonstrated that the device increased the survival rate of newborns with severe respiratory illness from 44
The researchers found that premature infants with complications like sepsis very low birth weight and respiratory distress syndrome (RDS) benefited most from the new technology.
Survival rates more than doubled for babies with RDS and more than tripled for babies in the other two categories after treatment with bubble CPAP.
respiratory distress syndrome 64 percent with bubble CPAP compared with 23 percent without; very low birth weight 65 percent with bubble CPAP compared with 15 percent without;
and sepsis 61 percent with bubble CPAP and zero without. The improvement that we saw for premature babies with respiratory distress syndrome mirrored the improvement that was seen in the United states
when CPAP was introduced first here said Rice's Rebecca Richards-Kortum the Stanley C. Moore Professor and chair of the Department of Bioengineering and director of both BTB and Rice 360â°.
and Dalesbred each showed a lower than average risk of infection to Maidi Visna a virus causing a slow-acting disease affecting millions of sheep worldwide with massive welfare and economic impacts.
While this won't provide a solution to bee colony collapse disorder it could provide an option for improving the shrinking population of bees'pollen-collecting capacity.
Greening a disease first found in Florida in 2005 has led to $4 billion in lost revenue and industry-related jobs since 2006 for the $9 billion-a-year citrus industry.
The presented their research at the 2014 ASM Biodefense and Emerging Diseases Research Meeting. Multiple sclerosis (MS) is an inflammatory disease of the central nervous system characterized by blood brain (BBB) permeability and demyelination a process in
which the insulating myelin sheaths of neurons are damaged. The disease is thought to be triggered in a genetically susceptible individual by a combination of one or more environmental factors.
The environmental trigger of MS however is still unknown. According to the National Multiple sclerosis Society the condition affects approximately 400000 Americans
and is with the exception of trauma the most frequent cause of neurological disability beginning in early to middle adulthood.
the same cells that die in MS lesions says Jennifer Linden of Weill Cornell Medical College who presented the research.
Epsilon toxin may be responsible for triggering MS. Epsilon toxin is produced by certain strains of Clostridium perfringens a spore-forming bacterium that is one of the most common causes of foodborne illness in the United states. The U s. Centers for Disease Control
and Prevention estimates that non-epsilon toxin producing C. perfringens strains cause nearly a million cases of foodborne illness each year.
They discovered that the toxin did target the brain cells associated with MS pathology. But that was not all they found.
and subpial cortical lesions exclusively observed in MS patients but not fully understood says Linden.
or vaccine directed against epsilon toxin might stop the progression of the disease or prevent it from even developing.
#DDT pesticide exposure linked to Alzheimers disease, study showsscientists have known for more than 40 years that the synthetic pesticide DDT is harmful to bird habitats and a threat to the environment.
since 1972 but still used as a pesticide in other countries--may also increase the risk and severity of Alzheimer's disease in some people particularly those over the age of 60.
when DDT breaks down were higher in the blood of late-onset Alzheimer's disease patients compared to those without the disease.
and livestock and to combat insect-borne diseases like malaria--was introduced as a pesticide during WWII.
Rutgers scientists--the first to link a specific chemical compound to Alzheimer's disease--believe that research into how DDT
and DDE may trigger neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer's is crucial. I think these results demonstrate that more attention should be focused on potential environmental contributors
Our data may help identify those that are at risk for Alzheimer's disease and could potentially lead to earlier diagnosis and an improved outcome.
Although the levels of DDT and DDE have decreased significantly in the United states over the last three decades the toxic pesticide is still found in 75 to 80 percent of the blood samples collected from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
In the Rutgers study conducted in coordination with Emory University Alzheimer's disease Research Center and the University of Texas Southwestern Medical school's Alzheimer's disease Center 74 out of the 86 Alzheimer's patients involved
--whose average age was had 74 DDE blood levels almost four times higher than the 79 people in the control group who did not have Alzheimer's disease.
Patients with a version of Apoe gene (Apoe4) which greatly increases the risk of developing Alzheimer's
and high blood levels of DDE exhibited even more severe cognitive impairment than the patients without the risk gene.
Brain cell studies also found that DDT and DDE increased the amount of a protein associated with plaques believed to be a hallmark of Alzheimer's disease.
These sticky amyloid proteins--which may form in regions of the brain involved in memory learning
and increase as the disease progresses. This new research is important Richardson says because it suggests that DDT
Although the exact cause of Alzheimer's disease--with five million Americans suffering now and millions more expected to fall prey with the graying of the Baby boom Generation--is known not scientists believe that late-onset Alzheimer's may be linked to a combination of genetic environmental and lifestyle factors.
Much of the research into Alzheimer's and other neurodegenerative diseases has mostly been centered on finding genetic connections Richardson says.
This study demonstrates that there are additional contributors to Alzheimer's disease that must be examined and that may help identify those at risk of developing Alzheimer's says Richardson.
It is important because when it comes to diagnosing and treating this and other neurodegenerative diseases the earlier someone is diagnosed the more options there may be available.
Story Source: The above story is provided based on materials by Rutgers Biomedical and Health Sciences. The original article was written by Robin Lally.
Overtext Web Module V3.0 Alpha
Copyright Semantic-Knowledge, 1994-2011