a health cook 18

A new study by researchers at the Keck School of Medicine of USC indicates that a sugar called fructose is passed from mother to infant through breast milk. The proof-of-concept study involving 25 mothers and infants provides preliminary evidence that even fructose equivalent to the weight of a grain of rice in a full day's serving of breast milk is associated with increased body weight, muscle and bone mineral content. Found in fruit, processed food and soda, fructose is not a natural component of breast milk, which is still considered the gold standard diet for babies. The "secondhand sugar" is derived from a mom's diet, said Michael Goran, lead author of the new study published in February in the journal  Nutrients . Exposing infants and children to higher amounts of sugar during growth and development can produce problems with cognitive development and learning as well as create lifelong risk for obesity, diabetes, fatty liver disease and heart disease, said...

In a study involving 86 people with varying degrees of fatty liver disease, researchers from KTH Royal Institute of Technology's Science for Life Laboratory (SciLifeLab) research center and Gothenburg University found that the liver has the ability to burn up accumulated fats. The researchers propose a mixture of substances that will set this process in motion. One of the most common chronic liver problems in the world, the accumulation of fat in the liver -- or hepatic steatosis -- is the key characteristic of non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD). It is linked to obesity, insulin resistance, type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular diseases. Up to 30 percent of subjects with NAFLD develop non-alcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH) in which hepatic inflammation and scarring can lead to cirrhosis and liver cancer. The researchers mapped the metabolic changes caused by accumulated fat in 86 patients' liver cells, and combined this data with an analysis of a genome-scale model of l...

The study was led by scientists from Tufts University School of Dental Medicine (TUSDM) and published in  Bone Research . "Our results provide insight into the complex regulatory interplay of muscle, bone and fat tissues. Increased irisin levels in circulation upon systemic administration can recapitulate part of the beneficial effects of exercise in the skeletal system," said senior study author Jake Chen, D.M.D., M.D.S., Ph.D., professor and biological sciences researcher at TUSDM. "Further experimentation will be needed to evaluate the involvement of irisin and other factors increased by exercise and expressed by bone, muscle and fat tissue." Previous studies have revealed that exercise induces the production of irisin and its precursor molecule , FNDC5 (fibronectin-type III domain-containing 5) protein, which convert white fat tissue into beneficial, calorie-burning brown fat. Irisin has been linked to improved glucose tolerance and weight loss in obese, p...

Unlike many genetics studies, the huge project looked at how genes' activity actually manifests in human patients -- in this case, 770 Finnish men. The results will help doctors and scientists better understand how normal gene variations can affect individuals' health and risk for disease. "There are a lot of regions in our genomes that are associated with increased risk for, let's say, type 2 diabetes. But we don't always understand what's happening in these regions," said Mete Civelek, PhD, of the University of Virginia School of Medicine. "This study actually addresses some of those questions." Gene Effects on Health The men used in the study have had their health histories, body composition, blood work and other wellness factors recorded in astoundingly complete detail -- Civelek called them "one of the very few extremely well characterized populations in the world." The precise documentation allowed the researchers to draw ...

In an abstract published in the Proceedings of the Nutrition Society, the authors conducted a systematic review of previous intervention studies, analysing changes to participant's glycated haemoglobin levels following a switch to a lower carbohydrate diet. Glycated haemoglobin forms when haemoglobin, a protein in red blood cells, combines with glucose and is used to measure long-term blood glucose levels. The review, which was conducted by Michelle McKenzie and Sarah Illingworth from London Met's School of Human Sciences, found that individual's glycated haemoglobin levels fell when following a reduced carbohydrate diet (up to 120g per day) with the greatest reduction of 2.2% observed in those consuming under 30g per day. Lead author Michelle McKenzie said: "Our findings suggest that a reduced carbohydrate diet can be an effective technique for managing diabetes and new guidelines that promote lower carbohydrate intakes for both the general population, and those...

In the current study, the researchers of Kanazawa University in collaboration with the researchers of Kagome Co., Ltd. compared the mice fed with high-fat food supplemented with sulforaphane and the others with high-fat food but without sulforaphane in terms of their body weight. The researchers found that the mice fed with sulforaphane exhibited the weight gain rate 15% lower than that of the mice fed without sulforaphane, 20% visceral fat reduction, and reduction of augmentation of their hepatic steatosis and blood glucose level. Further research has allowed the researchers to indicate the followings; 1) Sulforaphane augments the level of uncoupling protein-1*2 (UCP-1) and accelerates adipose tissue browning*3, which induces augmentation of energy consumption and fat burning; 2) Sulforaphane decreases relative abundance of bacterial family Desulfobivrionaceae in the gut, which overproduces exdotoxin*4 (LPS), thus decreasing the endotoxin level in the blood to ameliorate metab...