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The
University of Wageningen withdraws a statement promoting milk against
cardiovascular diseases. Following
a bitter controversy about allegations by the University of Wageningen,
in the Netherlands, authorities of the University have accepted to modify
their description of the content of a paper published with American colleagues
in the American
Journal of Clinical Nutrition. The initial statement was misleading
in that it suggested that three glasses of milk a day would
protect against cardiovascular diseases, while no such conclusion can
safely be drawn from the study. |
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Recent
patents on the use of antioxidant agents in food. The
application of antioxidant ingredients is a common way to delay
and prevent the detrimental effect of oxygen in foods. However, consumer
trends towards healthier and safer foods, together with the increasing
concern for the potential toxicity of some antioxidants are leading research
efforts towards the use of antioxidants obtained from natural sources,
such as plant phenols, essential oils and chitosan. This paper reviews
the latest published studies and issued patents on the use of antioxidants
agents in foodstuffs. The properties of the most commonly used antioxidants
as well as natural antioxidants are revised. Moreover, examples
of recent patents on the application of antioxidants to different foodstuffs
(meat, fish, vegetables, fruits and beverages) are given. |
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AMAbiotics
participates to the effort of the Beijing Genome Institute to sequence
the genome of Escherichia coli EHEC serotype O104:H4. Helping
Europe, the BGI, delocalized in Shenzhen (next to Hong Kong) sequences
the genome of the deadly EHEC strain that affects Germany. This work will
allow investigators to characterize the features that makes this
strain so dangerous. It appears to be quite similar to a strain
that affected a Korean patient in 2006, and the way it spread to
Germany is a puzzling and interesting open question. The work is published
in The New England Journal of Medicine |
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A protein from royal gelly is necessary and sufficient to trigger the development of bees into queens. Masaki Kamakura has demonstrated that aged royal jelly has no effect. The reason is that its effect allowing the differentiation of workers into queens (that are much larger and live much longer) is entirely caused by a protein, royalactin. The remarkable effect of this protein extends to other insects such as the fruit fly, Drosophila. |
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Selenium does not prevent cancer. A trace element essential to humans, selenium was often predicted to be active in preventing cancer, because it acts against free radicals and reactive oxygen species (ROS). A recent study shows that it has no positive effect. |
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Sulfite,
widely used as a food preservative, is toxic for neurons involved
in memory. In
the absence of metabolic capacities to oxidise or reduce sulfite
this common product of sulfur metabolism, used as a food preservative
kills hippocampal neurons. |
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Choline is essential to humans, but it promotes cardiovascular diseases. Lecithin, and choline are common dietary component that some people even take as a supplement that are converted by the gut microbiota to harmful metabolites linked to heart diseases. Bioremediation of the gut flora could be a way to prevent their deleterious effects. |
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Even pathogens communicate. AMAbiotics' philosophy is to take into account the overall metabolism of the organism of interest. In the case of man, this means to analyze the human metabolism, as supplemented by that of human's flora. The present study demonstrates that even microbes display positive interactions: they commmunicate chemically, and collaborate. The purpose of this paper is to analyze a case of pathogenicity, but it goes without saying that this behavior is general, and often beneficial. There is an effect of community, and this effect is certainly central to good nutrition. |
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Chromium is a poison. The chromic ion has long be used for leather tanning, making animal skin rot proof, showing high toxicity even to microbes. It is irreversibly binding to proteins, often replacing essential ions involved in catalysis. It is likely that chronic use will lead to irreversible damage in the human body and its use should be restricted
to particular chelates and submitted to analyses similar to those required for authorization of drugs on the market and certainly not sold over the counter. |
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Rapid time fluctuations
of the ileon microbiota. Analysis of the microbiota of patients undergoing ileostomy permitted investigators to show that their flora varies rapidly during the day, and is quite diverse. It is also differing from that found in the colon. |
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Brain lactate increases with aging.
Investigators from the Karolinska Institut in Sweden have shown that lactate concentration can be used to monitor in mice the true aging status of the brain. |
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Gene+virus+irritation
= disease It has
long been known that the genetic background is important for diseases.
Yet, the correspondence: a gene = a disease is seldom observed. Now,
in an animal model, investigators have shown that co-occurrence of a gene
(present in 50% of europeans), a norovirus (responsible of the diarrhoeas
witnessed frequently for a few decades), and of substances causing
an irritation of the intestine, is enough to trigger the irritable bowel
disease (Crohn's disease, a chronic irritation of the gut, often requiring
heavy surgery). But this is not without hope: intestine "cleansing" with
a massive antibioitc treatment appears to permit returning to normal semble
permettre le retour à la normale. The "agressive" component in the disease
shows that food plays a considerable role, and the importance of the genetic
background argues for a personalised nutrition (and a good hygiene). |
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Will carbon dioxyde shorten our lifespan?
Not entirely far-fetched. A
remarkable study published in PLoS Biology shows that the destruction
of a carbon dioxyde receptor in Drosophila flies shortens their lifespan
considerably. A link between longevity and the nervous system of
animals has been firmly established for some time, raising questions
about the role of gazeous compounds in triggering responses for survival.
Yet another effect of carbon dioxyde, far from greenhouse effects,
but that may have had an important role in the past on the way the
Earth has been populated by plants and animals. |
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Sulfur metabolism in
plants. The
8th International Plant Sulfur Workshop entitled "Sulfur Metabolism
in Plants: Mechanisms and Application to Food Security and Responses to
Climate Change" will jointly be organized by the University of Melbourne,
Australia and the University of Groningen, The Netherlands and will be
held in the Department of Forest and Ecosystem Science, University of Melbourne,
Water Street, Creswick, Victoria 3363, Australia, November 22 - 27, 2010. |
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EFSA rejects claims for a patent for
probiotics. A
dossier containing 13 randomised controlled trials, 6 observational studies,
and 15 non-human studies has failed to impress European Food Safety Authority
(EFSA) scientists because the four strains in question were not sufficiently
characterised. |
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