CHICAGO - Scientists have come up with a new way to watch bacteria as they swim, which is expected to eventually help trap Escherichia coli bacteria and modify the microbes’ environment without hindering the way they move.
The new approach uses optical traps, microfluidic chambers and fluorescence to get an improved picture of how E. coli get around.
YannChemla, a professor of Physics at the University of Illinois, says that the microfluidic chambers provide a controlled environment in which the bacteria swim, and allow them to introduce specific stimuli - such as chemical attractants - to see if the microbes change direction in response to that stimulus.
Chemla, who jointly led the study with physics professor IdoGolding, further says that optical traps use lasers to confine individual cells without impeding their rotation or the movement of their flagella.
The researcher calls the optical traps “bacterial treadmills”.
According to the researchers, movement of the bacterial cell alters the light from the laser, and, thereby, help track its behaviour.
Fluorescent markers enhance visualization of the bacteria and their flagella under a microscope, say the researchers.
While earlier studies have been unable to follow individual bacterial cells moving in three dimensions for more than about 30 seconds, the new approach allows the researchers to track a single bacterium as it swims for up to an hour, and that is why it may offer a new look at questions that so far have been unanswerable.
“For example, some people have asked whether E. coli has a nose. Does it have a front and back?” Nature magazine quoted Golding as saying.
He and his colleagues have observed that while the bacterium can travel in either direction, most E.coli have “a pronounced preference” for one over the other.
The researchers found that after most tumbles, a bacterium usually continued swimming in the same general direction, but that about one in six tumbles caused it to change direction completely.
They were also able to quantify other features of bacterial swimming, such as changes in velocity and the time spent running and tumbling.
They hope that their novel method will allow scientists to address many more questions about this model organism.
“That’s the typical way biology moves forward. You develop a new measurement capability and then you can use that to go back and look at fundamental questions that people had been looking at but had no way of answering,” Golding said.
A research article describing the new technique has been published in the journal Nature Methods.
TRENTON - Scientists from University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey have identified a protein that can repair brain damage in Alzheimer’s patients.
They said that a protein called vimentin normally appears twice in a lifetime - when neurons in the brain are forming during the first years of life and, years later when the brain’s neurons are under siege from Alzheimer’s or other neurodegenerative diseases.
“Vimentin is expressed by neurons in regions of the brain where there is Alzheimer’s damage but not in undamaged areas of the brain,” said DrRobertNagele, a professor at UMDNJ and the study’s corresponding author.
“When the patient shows up at the doctor’s office with symptoms of cognitive impairment, the neurons have reached the point where they can no longer keep pace with the ever-increasing damage caused by Alzheimer’s,” he added.
While explaining the study results, Nagele likened neurons to a tree with long strands called dendrites branching off from the main part of the cell.
The dendrite branches are covered with 10,000 tiny “leaves” called synapses that allow neurons to communicate with each other. Vimentin is an essential protein for building the dendrite branches that support the synapses.
“A hallmark of Alzheimer’s is the accumulation of amyloid deposits that gradually destroy the synapses and cause the collapse of dendrite branches,” he said.
“When the dendrites and synapses degenerate, the neuron releases vimentin in an attempt to re-grow the dendrite tree branches and synapses. It’s a rerun of the embryonic program that allowed the brain to develop in the early years of life,” Nagele added.
The researchers also reported some initial findings that indicated a similar damage response mechanism takes place following traumatic brain injury, suggesting the possibility that similar therapeutic agents could be developed to enhance repair both for sudden brain trauma and for progressive neurodegenerative diseases.
The findings are published in journal Brain Research.
GENEVA - Prostate cancer patients who belong to low socio-economic status are more likely to die than patients with higher incomes, according to a new study from Swiss researchers.
The study’s findings indicate that poor prostate cancer patients receive worse care than their wealthier counterparts.
The researchers wanted to know how disparities affected prostate cancer mortality in Switzerland, a country with an extremely well developed health care system and where healthcare costs, medical coverage, and life expectancy are among the highest in the world,
Dr. ElisabettaRapiti, of the University of Geneva, and her colleagues conducted a population-based study that included all residents of the region who were diagnosed with invasive prostate cancer between 1995 and 2005.
The analysis included 2,738 patients identified through the Geneva Cancer Registry.
The researchers found that as compared with patients of high socio-economic status, those of low socio-economic status were less likely to have their cancer detected by screening, had more advanced stages of cancer at diagnosis, and underwent fewer tests to characterize their cancer.
These patients were less likely to have their prostates removed and were more likely to be managed with watchful waiting, or careful monitoring.
Patients with low socio-economic status also had a 2-fold increased risk of dying from prostate cancer compared with patients of high socio-economic status.
“The increased mortality risk of patients of low socio-economic status is almost completely explained by delayed diagnosis, poor work-up, and less complete treatment, indicating inequitable use of the health care system,” said Rapiti.
The authors say lead time and length time biases linked to early detection through PSA screening may partially explain the survival advantage observed among high SES patients.
The study has been published in the latest issue of Cancer, a peer-reviewed journal of the American Cancer Society.
BOSTON - Bacteria that generate power could be used in microbial fuel cells to convert waste into electricity, according to the latest research.
University of Massachusetts (U-M) researchers isolated bacteria with large numbers of tiny projections called pili which transfer electrons to generate power in fuel cells, more efficiently than counterparts with a smooth surface.
The researchers isolated a strain of Geobacter sulfurreducens which they called KN400 that grew prolifically on the graphite anodes of fuel cells.
The bacteria formed a thick bio-film on the anode surface, which conducted electricity. The researchers found large quantities of pilin, a protein that makes the tiny fibres that conduct electricity through the sticky bio-film.
“The filaments form microscopic projections called pili that act as microbial nanowires,” said DerekLovley, U-M professor. “Using this bacterial strain in a fuel cell to generate electricity would greatly increase the cell’s power output.”
Microbial fuel cells can be used in monitoring devices in environments where it is difficult to replace batteries if they fail but to be successful they need to have an efficient and long-lasting source of power.
Lovley described how KN400 might be used in sensors placed on the ocean floor to monitor migration of turtles.
These findings were reported at the Society for General Microbiology’s meeting at Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh
LOSANGELES - Researchers have claimed that a cheap form of sugar used in thousands of food products and soft drinks can damage human metabolism and is fuelling the obesity crisis.
Dangerous growth of fat cells
The study by a team at the University of California claimed fructose, a sweetener derived from corn, can cause dangerous growths of fat cells around vital organs has increasingly been used as a substitute for more expensive types of sugar in yoghurts, cakes, salad dressing and cereals.
Over 10 weeks, 16 volunteers on a strictly controlled diet, including high levels of fructose, produced new fat cells around their heart, liver and other digestive organs. It was reported that they also showed signs of food-processing abnormalities linked to diabetes and heart disease. Another group of volunteers on the same diet, but with glucose sugar replacing fructose, did not have these problems.
People in both groups put on a similar amount of weight. However, the researchers said the levels of weight gain among the fructose consumers would be greater over the long term.
Fructose is not responsible for obesity
Dr.IainFrame, Director of Research at Diabetes UK, however was dismissive of the study’s findings and said:
“The results reported from this study do not support the claim that high doses of fructose are responsible for childhood obesity or the increasing prevalence of Type 2 diabetes.
“This study used a small number of participants over a short period of time and the results are inconclusive. As the authors of the study say, further long-term and carefully controlled studies are needed to investigate the effects of fructose, sucrose, and high-fructose corn syrup.”
British Jail Staff Red-Faced after Inmates Get Drunk on Anti-Swine Flu Gel
LONDON - Authorities at a British prison had to remove a hand gel meant to fight swine flu after inmates were found drunk on the alcoholic cleaner.
Recently, dispensers containing the liquid cleanser were installed to protect the prisoners at category C Verne Prison in Dorset against H1N1.
But instead of rubbing it into their hands, they started making illicit booze when they realised it contained alcohol, The Sun reports.
“The cleansers were to combat swine flu but as soon as they were put out the prisoners started taking the stuff. The canisters have now all been removed from the wings but I couldn’t quite believe it when they were put out in the first place,” a prison source said.
Prison staff got suspicious with a sudden rise in the number of tipsy convicts.
They got to know about the bizarre makeshift booze when one inmate became aggressive after downing the “hooch” and started a drunken fight with another.
“There was a fight after one of the prisoners got violent,” the paper quoted the source as saying.
The distilled gel was believed to have been mixed with fruit and water.
AndyFear, of the Prison Officer’s Association, said: “Inmates have been incorrectly using the dispensers, for want of a better phrase.”
A spokesman for the Ministry of Justice said: “A prisoner at Her Majesty’s Prison The Verne showed signs of intoxication, the cause of which will be investigated. Antibacterial gel pumps have been removed.”
Novel Two-Step Chemical Process Makes Cancer Cells Glow Quickly, Safely
BOSTON - Researchers at Massachusetts General Hospital have developed a two-step process that uses a chemical reaction to make live cancer cells light up quickly and safely.
This attains significance because scientists generally label cells with colored or glowing chemicals to observe how basic cellular activities differ between healthy and cancerous cells, but existing techniques are either too slow or too toxic to perform on live cells.
Under the novel process, chemically modified antibodies first home in on cancer cells, and then a chemical reaction called cycloaddition transfers a dye onto the antibody making the cancer cells glow when viewed through a microscope.
Philip Dawson, a member of Faculty of 1000 Biology and leading authority in chemistry and cell biology, reviewed a study and observed that the novel cycloaddition reaction is fast, very specific, and requires minimal manipulation of the cells.
He comments that, in combining antibody binding with the cycloaddition, “low signal-to-noise ratios are achieved”.
He points out that the new labeling technique could be used to track the location and activity of anti-cancer drugs, the location of cancer-specific proteins within the cell, or to visualize cancer cells inside a living organism.
Dawson concludes that cycloaddition will allow scientists to observe live cancer cells in the body, leading to a better understanding of cancer’s basic processes.
BEVERLY HILLS - Try ‘interval exercise’ – which purportedly burns fat up to “nine times higher” than aerobic exercise “with effects continued for 24 hours,” according to studies reported in Metabolism Journal.
A program of “two minutes at 97% of maximum heart rate followed by a recovery period of three minutes at low intensity… is also better for conditioning the heart and improving overall circulation than lower-intensity, long-duration exercise like walking and jogging… because with interval training you transition back and forth between aerobic and anaerobic states, using fuel… As muscles require more oxygen than is available, muscle cells must rely on other reactions to continue contractions.” Then, because interval training also “helps reset your body’s temperature thermostat higher, it continues to burn more fuel even after you stop the exercise.”
CHAROLETTE - Scientists from University of North Carolina have identified a gene that controls the number of cells composing brain.
Called GSK-3, the gene has been found to strike a balance between two key processes - proliferation, in which the cells multiply to provide plenty of starting materials, and differentiation, in which those materials evolve into functioning neurons.
If the stem cells proliferate too much, they could grow out of control and produce a tumour. If they proliferate too little, there may not be enough cells to become the billions of neurons of the brain.
The study showed that GSK-3 controls the signals that determine how many neurons actually end up composing the brain.
The novel findings may have significant implications for people suffering from neuropsychiatric illness like schizophrenia, depression, and bipolar disorder.
“I don’t believe anyone would have imagined that deleting GSK-3 would have such dramatic effects on neural stem cells,” Nature quoted senior study author Dr William D. Snider, professor of neurology and cell and molecular physiology, and director of the UNC Neuroscience Centre, as saying
“People will have to think carefully about whether giving a drug like lithium to children could have negative effects on the underlying structure of the nervous system,” he added.
During the study, the researchers genetically engineered mice to lack both forms of the GSK-3 gene, designated alpha and beta.
They further used a “conditional knock-out” strategy to remove GSK-3 at a specific time in the development of the mouse embryo, when a type of cell called a radial progenitor cell had just been formed.
“It was really quite striking,” said Snider.
“Without GSK-3, these neural stem cells just keep dividing and dividing and dividing. The entire developing brain fills up with these neural stem cells that never turn into mature neurons,” he added.
GSK-3 is known to coordinate signals for proliferation and differentiation within nerve cells through multiple “signalling pathways.”
They found that every one of the pathways that they studied went awry after deleting the GSK-3 gene.
The study has been published in the journal Nature Neuroscience.
ORLANDO - A microbiologist has uncovered an unknown mechanism that helps a deadly food-borne bacterium subvert healthy cells.
Listeria monocytogenes is a bacterium that can cause pregnant women to lose their foetuses and can trigger meningitis fatalities among the elderly or people with compromised immune systems.
The bacterium has been linked to outbreaks traced to food processing plants in the US and Canada. Those cases in eight states were linked to people eating contaminated sliced turkey meat.
Scientists have long known that Listeria spreads from one human cell to another. Bacteria growing in one cell move fast enough to create a finger-like structure that protrudes from the cell and pushes into an adjacent cell. The bacteria then infects the adjacent cell.
Keith Ireton, microbiology professor at the University of Central Florida (UCF) and his team have discovered a previously unknown second process that gradually overwhelms the second cell’s ability to defend itself from infection.
The plasma membrane, or outer layer, of healthy human cells normally exhibits tension. Such tension might be expected to prevent Listeria from spreading to adjacent uninfected cells.
However, Ireton’s lab found that a Listeria protein called InlC appears to relieve tension at the plasma membrane in infected cells, making it easier for moving bacteria to deform the membrane and then spread into adjacent, healthy cells.
“Our discovery could have relevance for bacterial pathogens that cause Shigellosis or Rocky Mountain spotted fever, as these bacteria resemble Listeria in their ability to move inside the host cell and spread,” Ireton says.
DES MOINES - Iowa State University has opened a Biofeedback Center for students to help them deal with stress.
Directed by Student Counseling Service staff psychologist ToddPietruszka, the center is free and open to all ISU students.
The university is first of the three Regents’ universities to offer a biofeedback service to address students’ emotional needs.
The center has adopted technologies like video games and guided meditations to teach relaxation techniques, concentration skills and healthy coping responses.
It also teaches people to become aware of their physiological responses, while providing techniques like deep breathing, visualization or mindfulness, to consciously reset the body’s conditioned responses.
Pietruszka said: “Biofeedback is a fancy name. It really means getting information about your physical responses and using that information to take action.
“For example, when you take your temperature and find you have a fever, you might call the doctor.”
The compact room of the center has three massage recliners, each facing its own wall-mounted computer monitor.
Students begin with an orientation session that explains how to check out and use the equipment, and how to navigate the computer programs.
During a biofeedback session, the room is quiet and darkened as the students sit in the recliners wearing noise-cancelling headphones and fingertip sensors, which measure skin conductance and heart rate.
Three choices of computer software offer a variety of self-guided, interactive programs.
As students practice the relaxation techniques presented, they can watch real-time graphs of their physiological responses.
This information helps them identify the activities that work best for them. Once mastered, they can use the techniques whenever needed-before taking a test or giving a class presentation, for example.
Sessions last from 15 minutes to an hour or more.
Pietruszka said: “The training module teaches how to become aware of your body, how to use breathing, how to become mindful of your thoughts.
“As you practice and use the tools and get feedback, you can see what works for you.
“Biofeedback is really a way to have a coach. It basically lets you know when relaxation techniques are working.”
Iowa State’s Information Technology Services’ Computation Advisory Committee’s fund of 4,654 dollars helped establish the center.
PARIS - Researchers have found that they can tell what number a person has just seen by observing and analyzing the pattern of brain activity.
These findings confirm the notion that numbers are encoded in the brain via detailed and specific activity patterns and open the door to more sophisticated exploration of a human’s high-level numerical abilities.
Although “number-tuned” neurons have been found in monkeys, scientists hadn’t managed before now to get any farther than particular brain regions in humans.
“It was not at all guaranteed that with functional imaging it would be possible to pick this up,” said Evelyn Eger of INSERM (Institut national de la sant et de la recherche mdicale) in France.
Researchers presented 10 study participants with either number symbols or dots while their brains were scanned with a MRI. They then devised a way of decoding the numbers or the number of dots people had observed.
Although the brain patterns corresponding to number symbols differed somewhat from those for the same number of objects, the numerosity of dot sets can be predicted above chance from the brain activation patterns evoked by digits, the researchers show. That doesn’t work the other way around, however.
At least for small numbers of dots, the researchers did find that the patterns change gradually in a way that reflects the ordered nature of the numbers — allowing one to conclude that six is between five and seven, for instance.
The methods used in the new study may ultimately help to unlock how the brain makes more sophisticated calculations, the researchers say, according to an INSERM release.
“With these codes, we are only beginning to access the most basic building blocks that symbolic math probably relies on,” Eger said.
These findings were published online in Current Biology.
ROCHESTER - Paying attention to Mother Nature not only feels good, it also makes you a better person, says a new study.
The study has been published in the Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin.
“Stopping to experience our natural surroundings can have social as well as personal benefits,” says RichardRyan, coauthor and professor of psychology, psychiatry and education at the University of Rochester.
While the salubrious effects of nature are well documented, from increasing happiness and physical health to lowering stress, this study shows that the benefits extend to a person’s values and actions.
Exposure to natural as opposed to man-made environments leads people to value community and close relationships and to be more generous with money, find Ryan and his team of researchers at the University of Rochester.
The paper includes four experiments in which 370 participants were exposed to either natural or man-made settings. Participants were encouraged to attend to their environments by noticing colors and textures and imagining sounds and smells.
In three of the studies, participants were shown a selection of four images on a 19 inch computer screen for two minutes each. Half of the subject viewed buildings, roads, and other cityscapes; the other half observed landscapes, lakes, and deserts. The urban and nature images were matched for color, complexity, layout, and lighting.
In a fourth study, participants were simply assigned at random to work in a lab with or without plants.
Participants then answered a questionnaire assessing the importance of four life aspirations: wealth and fame (”to be financially successful” and “to be admired by many people”) and connectedness and community (”to have deep enduring relationships” and “to work toward the betterment of society”).
Across all four studies, people exposed to natural elements rated close relationships and community higher than they had previously. The questionnaire also measured how immersed viewers were in their environments and found that the more deeply engaged subjects were with natural settings, the more they valued community and closeness. By contrast, the more intensely participants focused on artificial elements, the higher they rated wealth and fame.
To test generosity, two of the studies gave participants a 5-dollar prize with the instructions that the money could be kept or given to a second anonymous participant, who would then be given an additional 5-dollar. The second participant could choose to return the prize money or keep it. Thus, subjects had nothing to gain if they chose to trust the other participant, and risked losing their money.
The result revealed people who were in contact with nature were more willing to open their wallets and share. As with aspirations, the higher the immersion in nature, the more likely subjects were to be generous with their winnings.
Lead author NettaWeinstein says that the findings highlight the importance of creating green spaces in cities and have implication for planners and architects.
Excerpts from the citation awarding the 2009 Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine to awarded to Americans Elizabeth Blackburn, CarolGreider and JackSzostak. The Karolinska Institute says the trio was honored for research that has implications for cancer and aging research.
This year’s Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine is awarded to three scientists who have solved a major problem in biology: how the chromosomes can be copied in a complete way during cell divisions and how they are protected against degradation. The Nobel Laureates have shown that the solution is to be found in the ends of the chromosomes the telomeres — and in an enzyme that forms them — telomerase.
The long, threadlike DNA molecules that carry our genes are packed into chromosomes, the telomeres being the caps on their ends. ElizabethBlackburn and JackSzostak discovered that a unique DNA sequence in the telomeres protects the chromosomes from degradation. CarolGreider and Blackburn identified telomerase, the enzyme that makes telomere DNA. These discoveries explained how the ends of the chromosomes are protected by the telomeres and that they are built by telomerase.
If the telomeres are shortened, cells age. Conversely, if telomerase activity is high, telomere length is maintained, and cellular senescence is delayed. This is the case in cancer cells, which can be considered to have eternal life. Certain inherited diseases, in contrast, are characterized by a defective telomerase, resulting in damaged cells. The award of the Nobel Prize recognizes the discovery of a fundamental mechanism in the cell, a discovery that has stimulated the development of new therapeutic strategies.
In conclusion, the discoveries by Blackburn, Greider and Szostak have added a new dimension to our understanding of the cell, shed light on disease mechanisms, and stimulated the development of potential new therapies.
HEALTH CARE REFORM IS HERE. THIS MEDICAL CLINIC PAYS YOU CASH TO BE HEALTHYAND USE VITAMINS
Beverly Hills. CA – January 4, 2010 — People who use Alternative remedies and, products for a variety of ailments that range from weight loss to cancer to chronic pain, have been forced to pay out-of-pocket for the supplements, Vitamins and herbs they use.
Until now.
US Tele-Medicine, (USTM) in Beverly Hills, California, refunds and rewards users of Alternative products and other holistic modalities for their cost of the natural products. “We pay them to seek health,” said the Director of Patient Affairs Randy Ryder.
According to Ryder, members of the health e-care plan offered by USTM receive physician consultations by phone and over the Internet. The company offers the consultations, follow-up care, guidance, and actually pays back the money their e-Patients spend on natural remedies. “For the first time people are financially empowered to choose medicines and care which they determine as being most beneficial to them,” said Ryder. “People should know that new regulations allow us to offer this service for no cost to the patient.”
“The reason we are able to do this is that our Medical Staff do not deal with any prescriptions or drugs that could be life-threatening. We do not deal with any conditions that are life-threatening that need immediate physician or hospital care. We mostly deal with wellness and chronic issues, such as pain.” Ryder said.
USTM is a structured Tele-Medicine group with a primary specialty in Integrated Medicine and Pain Management. The credentialed group has a network of 72 major commercial insurance carriers and self-insured labor and trade unions in California. Their computer system is HIPAA compliant, encrypted, and secured through Electronic Medical Record registry. Tele-Medicine is coming more to the forefront in health care with its inherent ability to provide more primary medical care to rural communities and chronic care patients. USTM is recognized as a world leader in Tele-Medicine care operating in eight states in the USA.
“Health Care reform now allows us to do this and at these times, money back for what was always an out-of-pocket expense is really big,” Ryder said. “We are prepared to pay out millions.”
Some of the natural medicinals USTM reimburses patients for include nutritional blends, homeopathy, vitamins, minerals, botanicals, herbs, and more. Helping people to get reimbursement for these and other natural treatments has become a mission for the organization.
“Supplements, meal replacements, protein drinks, amino acids, all of these have legitimate medical purposes. More and more studies are showing that,” Ryder said. “It’s time that it is treated like any other pharmaceutical by insurance carriers,” she said.
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LONDON - Certain flickering colors, especially red and blue in tandem, seem more likely to cause fits among epileptics, says a new study headed by a researcher of Indian origin.
JoydeepBhattacharya at the Goldsmiths-University of London (GU-L) headed a team of researchers to probe the brain rhythms of photo-sensitivity.
In 1997, more than 700 children in Japan reportedly suffered an epileptic attack while watching an episode of a popular cartoon.
This was later diagnosed as a case of photosensitive epilepsy (a kind of epilepsy caused by visual stimulus) triggered by a specific segment of the cartoon containing a colourful flickering stimulus.
In 2007, the animated video footage promoting the 2012 London Olympics faced similar complaint from some viewers.
The researchers probed brain rhythms of photo-sensitivity among adult controls, an unmedicated patient suffering from photo-sensitive epilepsy, two age-matched controls, and another medicated patient.
Their results show that when perturbed by potentially epileptic-triggering stimulus, healthy human brain manages to maintain a chaotic state with a high degree of disorder, but an epileptic brain represents a highly ordered state which makes it prone to hyper-excitation.
Their study also found how, for example, red-blue flickering stimulus causes larger excitation than red-green or blue-green stimulus, says a GU-L release.
BEVERLY HILLS - Weight loss diet tip - it’s hard to have lasting weight loss without taking steps to increase your healthy habits and reduce unhealthy ones. Losing weight is about burning energy - more than what is taken in.
This is how the low-carb/Atkins diets work… a low-carbohydrate diet reduces food intake, since the ketones produced by fat-burning really do curb ones appetite! It’s really not complicated - if you burn up your fat stored in the body - you WILL lose weight!
One of the most important and effective ways for losing weight and getting healthier is to avoid two kinds of foods.
Both of these foods have been linked to deteriorating health, and specifically weight gain and obesity.
The unhealthy ingredients in these foods have quietly and steadily been used in greater amounts over the last two decades in the USA…and most of us don’t know it!
Partially hydrogenated oils and trans fatty acids…
One group of the foods to avoid are those that contain “Trans Fatty Acids”. These fats are found in partially hydrogenated oils - manufactured and unhealthy fats. These are oils that have had hydrogen added to them to prolong their shelflife.
They are a quiet killer hidden in food and they have been directly linked to the escalating rates of obesity in both adults and children all over the world.
There is a clear statistical increase in obesity over the last 20 years as these types of hydrogenated oils have become an increasing part of the typical American diet.
The U.S. government states that manufactured hydrogenated oils have no safe level for human consumption! There is no safe level of consumption, but it’s still in most of the products Americans eat every day.
In the USA, most of our food dollars is spent on processed foods. Government reports say that over 40% of foods found in an average grocery store contain these kinds of hydrogenated oils.
Most fast foods contain hydrogenated oils. Snacks, chips, candy bars, cookies, crackers, commercial baked goods, pastries and cakes…almost all of these processed foods contain hydrogenated oil.
How can you avoid hydrogenated oil and its effect on your health? What do you look out for?
• 1 - The first thing to do is to read the labels. Read the labels of foods you buy and look for partially hydrogenated oils. If you see those words, avoid that food. Any food that contains partially hydrogenated oils is unhealthy and will affect your weight loss program in a negative way.
Here are examples of foods that contain partially hydrogenated oils:
What is known for sure is - you can’t lose weight and regularly eat foods containing partially hydrogenated oils.
• 2 - Ask questions. When eating out, ask if the foods you are ordering contain partially hydrogenated oils.
• 3 - Find alternative foods.The good news is - because of more media exposure about the dangers of hydrogenated oils, companies are starting to replace partially hydrogenated oils with other healthier ingredients and creating healthier versions of some of your favorite products.
McDonalds has had legal actions taken against it by concerned consumers attempting to force McDonalds to reduce or eliminate hydrogenated oils in its products. Restaurants are starting to add more natural oils and are removing partially hydrogenated oils from their kitchens.
Try to get as many organic whole foods included in your daily diet as possible. Fruits and vegetables, whole grains, healthy fats and organic meats and dairy products will mean you won’t be filling your body with hydrogenated oils, growth hormones and antibiotics. Try to avoid processed and fast foods as much as possible.
Avoiding these hidden oils in the food you eat every day will make an important impact on your health, and will help you in reaching your weight loss goals. Add some lifestyle changes and imagine where you will be on your trip towards better health in the future!
Refined white flour products.
The other common weight loss ingredient is refined white flour. Refined white flour products stimulate the highest production of insulin.
When we consume these kinds of products, our blood sugar levels spike upward dramatically at first within the hour, then plummet downward an hour or so after…creating mood swings, hunger cravings, and pushing us toward diabetes and obesity.
Did you know that refined white flour converts into glucose in the body FASTER than white sugar? It’s true! Once you understand how the body functions in weight gain and weight loss, you can then understand what to do to have lasting weight loss without dieting.
MANCHESTER - Obesity caused at least 124,000 new cancers last year in Europe, according to a new study.
The proportion of cases of new cancers were highest among women and in central European countries such as the Czech Republic, Latvia, Slovenia and Bulgaria.
“As more people stop smoking and fewer women take hormone replacement therapy, it is possible that obesity may become the biggest attributable cause of cancer in women within the next decade,” said AndrewRenehan, who led the study.
Renehan, senior lecturer in cancer studies and surgery, University of Manchester, and colleagues in Britain, The Netherlands and Switzerland, created a model to estimate the proportion of cancers that could be attributed to excess body weight in 30 European countries.
Using data from the WHO and International Agency for Research on Cancer, they estimated that in 2002 there had been over 70,000 new cases of cancer attributable to excess body mass index (BMI, height to weight ratio), out of a total of nearly 2.2 million new diagnoses across the 30 European countries.
Researchers found these numbers increased to 124,050 in 2008. “These are very conservative estimates, and it’s quite likely that the numbers are, in fact, higher,” said Renehan.
The number of new cases of obesity-related oesophageal cancer was particularly high in Britain relative to the rest of Europe. “This country accounts for 54 percent of new cases across all 30 countries,” said Renehan.
“This may be due to synergistic interactions between smoking, alcohol, excess body weight and acid reflux - and is currently an area where research is required,” Renehen said, according to a Manchester university release.
Renehen presented these findings at the 15th congress of the European Cancer Organisation and the 34th congress of the European Society for Medical Oncology.
These findings are slated for publication in the International Journal of Cancer.
PLEASE SEE OUR POST ON “BUDWIG PROTOCOL” AND “BICARBONATE”
