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Climate change cut global farming productivity 21% since 1960s
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White House moves to reshape role of US capitalism
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FDA downplayed serious red flags at Merck vaccine plant slated for J&J COVID shot, whistleblower say
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“Small” gene changes lead to severe deformities in plants
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6000% Increase in Reported Vaccine Deaths 1st Quarter 2021 Compared to 1st Quarter 2020
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COVID-19 CATCH-22
Can drinking cocoa protect your heart when you’re stressed?
University of Birmingham (UK), April 1, 2021
Increased consumption of flavanols – a group of molecules occurring naturally in fruit and vegetables – could protect people from mental stress-induced cardiovascular events such as stroke, heart disease and thrombosis, according to new research.
Researchers have discovered that blood vessels were able to function better during mental stress when people were given a cocoa drink containing high levels of flavanols than when drinking a non-flavanol enriched drink.
A thin membrane of cells lining the heart and blood vessels, when functioning efficiently the endothelium helps to reduce the risk of peripheral vascular disease, stroke, heart disease, diabetes, kidney failure, tumour growth, thrombosis, and severe viral infectious diseases. We know that mental stress can have a negative effect on blood vessel function.
A UK research team from the University of Birmingham examined the effects of cocoa flavanols on stress-induced changes on vascular function – publishing their findings in Nutrients.
Lead author, Dr. Catarina Rendeiro, of the University of Birmingham’s School of Sport, Exercise and Rehabilitation Sciences, explains: “We found that drinking flavanol-rich cocoa can be an effective dietary strategy to reduce temporary impairments in endothelial function following mental stress and also improve blood flow during stressful episodes”.
“Flavanols are extremely common in a wide range of fruit and vegetables. By utilizing the known cardiovascular benefits of these compounds during periods of acute vascular vulnerability (such as stress) we can offer improved guidance to people about how to make the most of their dietary choices during stressful periods.”
In a randomized study, conducted by postgraduate student Rosalind Baynham, a group of healthy men drank a high-flavanol cocoa beverage 90 minutes before completing an eight-minute mental stress task.
The researchers measured forearm blood flow and cardiovascular activity at rest and during stress and assessed functioning of the blood vessels up to 90 min post stress – discovering that blood vessel function was less impaired when the participants drank high-flavanol cocoa. The researchers also discovered that flavanols improve blood flow during stress.
Stress is highly prevalent in today’s society and has been linked with both psychological and physical health. Mental stress induces immediate increases in heart rate and blood pressure (BP) in healthy adults and also results in temporary impairments in the function of arteries even after the episode of stress has ceased.
Single episodes of stress have been shown to increase the risk of acute cardiovascular events and the impact of stress on the blood vessels has been suggested to contribute to these stress-induced cardiovascular events. Indeed, previous research by Dr Jet Veldhuijzen van Zanten, co-investigator on this study, has shown that people at risk for cardiovascular disease show poorer vascular responses to acute stress.
“Our findings are significant for everyday diet, given that the daily dosage administered could be achieved by consuming a variety of foods rich in flavanols – particularly apples, black grapes, blackberries, cherries, raspberries, pears, pulses, green tea and unprocessed cocoa. This has important implications for measures to protect the blood vessels of those individuals who are more vulnerable to the effects of mental stress,” commented Dr. Rendeiro.
Vitamin D deficiency linked to metabolic changes in patients with lupus – study
University of Birmingham (UK), March 29, 2021
Patients with lupus are more likely to have metabolic syndrome and insulin resistance – both factors linked to heart disease – if they have lower vitamin D levels, a new study reveals.
Researchers believe that boosting vitamin D levels may improve control of these cardiovascular risk factors, as well as improving long-term outcomes for patients with systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE).
Given that photosensitivity is a key feature of SLE, the scientists say that a combination of avoiding the sun, using high-factor sunblock and living in more northerly countries may contribute to lower levels of vitamin D in lupus patients. Patients with more severe disease also had lower vitamin D levels.
An international research team, led by experts at the University of Birmingham and University of Manchester, studied vitamin D levels in 1,163 SLE patients across 33 centres in 11 countries (UK, USA, Canada, Spain, The Netherlands, Sweden, Iceland, Switzerland, Turkey, South Korea and Mexico), publishing its findings in Rheumatology.
Report co-author Dr John A Reynolds, Clinical Senior Lecturer in Rheumatology at the University of Birmingham, commented: “Our results suggest that co-existing physiological abnormalities may contribute to long-term cardiovascular risk early on in SLE.
“We found a link between lower levels of vitamin D and metabolic syndrome and insulin resistance. Further studies could confirm whether restoring vitamin D levels helps to reduce these cardiovascular risk factors and improve quality of life for patients with lupus.”
Lupus is an uncommon incurable immune system illness, more common in women, where the immune system is overactive, causing inflammation anywhere in the body. Untreated, the condition threatens irreversible damage to major organs including kidneys, heart, lungs and brain.
Metabolic syndrome is a combination of diabetes, high blood pressure (hypertension), abnormal cholesterol levels, and obesity. People with metabolic syndrome are at greater risk of getting coronary heart disease, stroke and other conditions affecting the blood vessels.
The researchers note that patients with SLE have an excess cardiovascular risk, up to 50 times that seen in people without the condition – this cannot be attributed to traditional cardiovascular risk factors, such as high blood pressure or smoking, alone.
The mechanisms underlying the association between high blood pressure and low vitamin D in SLE are not clear, but researchers believe they may be linked to impact of vitamin D deficiency on the renin-angiotensin hormone system, which regulates blood pressure, fluid and electrolyte balance, as well as systemic vascular resistance.
“This is the largest-ever study examining associations between vitamin D levels and metabolic syndrome in SLE; it also has the advantage of being an international cohort with diverse racial and ethnic backgrounds – generating results that will be applicable across many settings,” commented Dr. Reynolds.
Want a longer, healthier life? Resolve your arguments by day’s end, study says
Oregon State University, March 25, 2021
A recent Oregon State University study found that when people feel they have resolved an argument, the emotional response associated with that disagreement is significantly reduced and, in some situations, almost entirely erased.
That reduction in stress may have a major impact on overall health, researchers say.
“Everyone experiences stress in their daily lives. You aren’t going to stop stressful things from happening. But the extent to which you can tie them off, bring them to an end and resolve them is definitely going to pay dividends in terms of your well-being,” said Robert Stawski, senior author on the study and an associate professor in the College of Public Health and Human Sciences. “Resolving your arguments is quite important for maintaining well-being in daily life.”
Researchers have long been aware of how chronic stress can affect health, from mental health problems such as depression and anxiety to physical problems including heart disease, a weakened immune system, reproductive difficulties and gastrointestinal issues.
But it’s not just major chronic stressors like poverty or violence that can inflict damage.
“Daily stressors—specifically the minor, small inconveniences that we have throughout the day—even those have lasting impacts on mortality and things like inflammation and cognitive function,” said Dakota Witzel, lead author and a doctoral student in human development and family studies at OSU.
For the study, Stawski and Witzel used data from the National Study of Daily Experiences, an in-depth survey of more than 2,000 people who were interviewed about their feelings and experiences for eight days in a row.
The researchers looked at reports of both arguments and avoided arguments, defined as instances where the person could have argued about something but chose to let it slide so as not to have a disagreement. They then measured how the incident affected the person’s reported change in negative and positive emotions, both for the day of the encounter and the day after it occurred.
The measure of how an experience affects someone emotionally, an increase in negative emotions or a decrease in positive emotions, on the day it occurs is known as “reactivity,” while “residue” is the prolonged emotional toll the day after the experience occurs. Negative and positive affect refer to the degree of negative and positive emotions a person feels on a given day.
Results showed that on the day of an argument or avoided argument, people who felt their encounter was resolved reported roughly half the reactivity of those whose encounters were not resolved.
On the day following an argument or avoided argument, the results were even starker: People who felt the matter was resolved showed no prolonged elevation of their negative affect the next day.
The study also looked at age-related differences in response to arguments and avoided arguments and found that adults ages 68 and older were more than 40% more likely than people 45 and younger to report their conflicts as resolved. But the impact of resolution status on people’s negative and positive affect remained the same regardless of age.
The researchers had several explanations for older adults‘ higher rate of resolution: Older adults may be more motivated to minimize negative and maximize positive emotions as they have fewer years remaining, which is consistent with existing theories of aging and emotion. They may also have more experience navigating arguments and thus be more effective at defusing or avoiding conflict.
“If older adults are really motivated to maximize their emotional well-being, they’re going do a better job, or at least a faster job, at resolving stressors in a more timely fashion,” Stawski said.
While people cannot always control what stressors come into their lives—and lack of control is itself a stressor in many cases—they can work on their own emotional response to those stressors, he said.
“Some people are more reactive than other people,” he said. “But the extent to which you can tie off the stress so it’s not having this gnawing impact at you over the course of the day or a few days will help minimize the potential long-term impact.”
In future research projects, Stawski and Witzel hope to further unpack the nature of people’s disagreements to measure which contexts and relationships provoke the most stressful arguments.
Ginseng gintonin attenuates disruptions of brain microvascular permeability and microvascular endothelium junctional proteins
Konkuk University (South Korea), March 25, 2021
According to news originating from Seoul, South Korea, research stated, “It has been previously indicated that gintonin, which is a novel exogenous ginseng-derived lysophosphatidic acid (LPA) receptor ligand, restores memory dysfunctions in an APPswe/PSEN-1 double-transgenic mouse model of Alzheimer’s disease (AD Tg mice) by attenuating b-amyloid plaque deposition, recovering cholinergic dysfunctions and upregulating hippocampal neurogenesis in the cortex and hippocampus. Although b-amyloid plaque depositions in AD is accompanied with disruptions of brain microvessels, including the brain-blood barrier (BBB), it is unknown whether gintonin exerts protective effects on brain microvascular dysfunctions in AD Tg mice.”
Our news journalists obtained a quote from the research from Konkuk University, “In the present study, the effects of gintonin-enriched fraction (GEF) on the changes in b-amyloid plaque depositions, brain permeability of Evans blue, and microvascular junctional proteins were investigated in AD Tg mice. Long-term oral administration of GEF reduced b-amyloid plaque depositions in the cortex and hippocampus of AD Tg mice. GEF treatment also reduced the permeability of Evans blue through BBB and decreased immunoreactivity of platelet endothelial cell adhesion molecule-1 (a marker of BBB disruption) in the cortex and hippocampus of AD Tg mice in a dose-dependent manner. However, GEF elevated the protein expression of occludin, claudin-5 and zonula occludens-1, which are tight-junction proteins. The present results demonstrated that long-term oral GEF treatment not only attenuates b-amyloid plaque depositions in the brain but also exhibits protective effects against microvascular disruptions in AD Tg mice.”
According to the news editors, the research concluded: “Finally, GEF exhibits anti-AD effects through attenuation of b-amyloid plaque depositions and protection against brain microvascular damage in an AD animal model.”
This research has been peer-reviewed.
Review suggests added sugars are contributing to liver disease among children
Arizona State University, March 29, 2021
A review of more than 20 studies by researchers at Arizona State University and the Translational Genomics Research Institute (TGen), an affiliate of City of Hope, suggests that nonalcoholic fatty-liver disease (NAFLD) is a growing dietary problem for children across the globe.
“The prevalence of fatty-liver disease is escalating not only in adults, but also in children,” said Johanna DiStefano, Ph.D., a Professor and head of TGen’s Diabetes and Fibrotic Disease Unit, and the review’s senior author. “Like type 2 diabetes, NAFLD used to be considered a disease that developed only in adulthood, but that is no longer true.”
The analyses were published recently in the journal, Pediatric Obesity.
NAFLD affects more than 1-in-10 children in the U.S. and now is the nation’s most common chronic liver disease within this population. The disease can lead to nonalcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH), a chronic condition that can lead to serious illness, liver transplants, and death. Risk factors include obesity and family history.
NAFLD is associated with both a lack of exercise, and excessive consumption of sucrose, the scientific name for table sugar, which is comprised of both fructose and glucose. While both are found naturally in fruits, vegetables, dairy products and grains, they are often an additive to many processed foods.
The body and sugar
Glucose, absorbed in the intestines, is the body’s preferred carbohydrate-based energy source. Fructose must first be converted by the liver into glucose before the body can use it for energy. An earlier study led by Dr. DiStefano showed that fructose increased gene expression, altered proper cell function, and often led to liver disease.
In this review, researchers focused on studies that linked excessive fructose intake to children with NAFLD, interventions that restricted fructose, and identification of related metabolic biomarkers.
The authors suggest that restricting excessive consumption of added sugars in youth may represent an early and important target by which NAFLD risk can be reduced.
Detecting NAFLD in youths
Diagnosing NAFLD is difficult due to the lack of overt symptoms and the poor accuracy of current biomarkers. NAFLD is most commonly suspected in obese youth with abnormal liver enzymes in blood samples, but these must be confirmed with additional testing. Even with advanced imaging, current approaches do not adequately differentiate the spectrum of NAFLD, and diagnosing NASH still requires a biopsy.
“We hope to develop better tools to help clinicians decide which kids need a sophisticated work-up and which ones don’t,” said Gabriel Shaibi, Ph.D., Director of ASU’s Center for Health Promotion and Disease Prevention in the Edson College of Nursing and Health Innovation, and another author of the review. “By getting a better handle on diagnosis and disease severity, we will have a more individualized approach to management where some kids will respond well to diet and exercise while others may need a more aggressive intervention.”
Dr. Shaibi, whose research is focused on understanding and preventing obesity-related diseases in youth, said his work with Dr. DiStefano ultimately could result in identifying genomic biomarkers that track changes in liver health and potentially shed light on the molecular mechanisms underpinning NAFLD risk in high-risk children.
The reviewers indicate that additional studies are needed to understand both the short- and long-term effects of high fructose consumption and the development of NAFLD among children, but suggest that, “efforts to reduce global consumption of added sugars in the diet would most certainly yield a positive impact on overall health in youth due to its relative simplicity and focus on a single behavior.”
Diets high in heat-treated foods increase risk of chronic kidney disease
Processed foods drive intestinal barrier permeability and microvascular diseases
Monash University (Australia), April 1, 2021
A recent study led by Monash University diabetes researchers has shown that a diet high in processed foods brings on leaky gut syndrome, which in turn increases the risk of kidney disease.
In particular, the findings revealed that certain harmful chemical compounds called Advanced Glycation End Products (AGEs), triggered by a process called the Maillard reaction, switch on the body’s danger signals leading to an inflammatory response and chronic kidney disease, but by introducing foods containing a specialized fiber, the effects can be improved.
These AGEs, found in heat-treated or processed food is what gives browned, roasted, fried, grilled and baked foods their flavor and aroma. Food chemists have been isolating these chemical compounds and placing them in some of our favorite processed foods for years, such as potato chips, bread, bakery products, chocolate and confectionery, because they add flavor and lead to the palatability and sensory properties of food.
Processed foods are a key hallmark of the Western diet. With 10% of the global population affected by chronic kidney disease and the Australian diet high in highly processed food, there is a growing body of evidence that processed foods are detrimental to human health. Processed food consumption is associated with the risk of all-cause mortality, diabetes, hypertension, obesity, cancer and gastrointestinal diseases. However, an understanding of the specific mechanisms by which processed foods impact human health is in its infancy.
This rodent-based study, published in Science Advances, led by Associate Professor Melinda Coughlan from Monash Central Clinical School’s Department of Diabetes, showed the inflammatory response could be switched off by introducing foods containing high resistant starch fiber, restoring gut health and improving kidney health.
Foods high in resistant starch fiber include oats, cooked and cooled rice, barley, bean and legumes such as black beans and peas, raw potato starch (as a supplement), cooked and cooled potatoes, hi-maize resistant starch supplement.
Associate Professor Coughlan said, “These foods are important as they get down into your lower gut and basically serve as food for your gut bacteria. The gut bacteria ferment these food-producing metabolites that are anti-inflammatory.”Now that we have shown that it is certain chemical compounds found in highly processed foods that play a role in chronic kidney disease, we can look to make alternative food formulations or functional foods aimed at dampening the body’s response.
“Given the increasing interest in the effects of processed food on health, we believe that these findings represent an important step towards understanding and countering the detrimental features of the modern diet. Dietary change, as with most behavior change, can be difficult to maintain long term, but by adding more foods high in resistant starch fiber and steaming and stewing cooking practices we can help dampen the harmful effects.”
A clinical trial, in collaboration with Associate Professor Jane Muir, from the Department of Gastroenterology, Monash Central Clinical School, and Associate Professor Elif Ekinci, head of Diabetes at Austin Hospital/Melbourne Medical School, University of Melbourne, is now in planning for this year, to give people with early diabetic kidney disease a resistant starch supplemented food to study its effects on kidney health.
DHA May Reverse Effects of Stress in the Womb
University of Missouri, April 1, 2021
A dietary supplement called docosahexanoic acid (DHA) may guard against the effects of maternal stress on unborn males during early development, a new study shows
Neurodevelopmental disorders like autism and schizophrenia disproportionately affect males and are directly linked to early life adversity caused by maternal stress and other factors, which nutrition might affect.
The underlying reasons for these male-specific impacts have not been well understood, but now researchers have uncovered possible reasons for male vulnerability in the womb.
“We believe differences in metabolic requirements for male and female embryos as early as the first trimester, combined with dynamic differences in the way the male and female placenta reacts to environmental factors, contributes to the increased risk for male neurodevelopmental disorders later in life,” says senior author David Beversdorf, a professor of radiology, neurology, and psychology at the University of Missouri.
Beversdorf worked with principal investigator Eldin Jašarevic, an assistant professor of pharmacology at the University of Maryland School of Medicine and a team of researchers on the study which involved grouping 40 mice into four different cohorts.
Group 1 mothers received a standard diet and were not exposed to any early prenatal stress (EPS). Group 2 got the standard diet while being exposed to EPS, which consisted of restraint, light, noise, and predator threat. Group 3 got a diet modified with supplemental docosahexanoic acid (DHA) but was not exposed to EPS. Group 4 received DHA supplementation and EPS.
The team analyzed the embryos and placentas at 12.5 days of gestation and found exposure to prenatal distress decreased placenta and embryo weight in males but not females. In the DHA groups, they found the supplement reversed the impact of EPS on males.
“This study yielded two results regarding the interaction between maternal stress and dietary DHA enrichment in early stage embryos,” Beversdorf says. “First, stress on the mother during the first week of gestation appeared to influence gene expression pattern in the placenta, and the gender of the offspring determined the magnitude of disruption.
Second, a maternal diet enriched with preformed DHA during periods of high stress showed partial rescue of stress-dependent dysregulation of gene expression in the placenta.”
Beversdorf says researchers will need to do future studies to better understand the complex cellular and molecular mechanisms linking maternal diet consumption, chronic stress during pregnancy, placental gene expression, and lasting health outcomes in offspring.
The study appears in the journal Biology of Sex Differences. Beversdorf has consulted with Quadrant Biosciences, Impel Pharma, YAMO Pharma, and Staliclca, unrelated to this work. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the views of the funding agencies.
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