A recent study examining early microbiota disruption has purportedly suggested “that antibiotic exposure during a critical window of early development disrupts the bacterial landscape of the gut, home to trillions of diverse microbes, and permanently reprograms the body’s metabolism, setting up a predisposition to obesity.” Laura Cox, et al., “Altering the Intestinal Microbiota during a Critical Developmental Window Has Lasting Metabolic Consequences,” Cell, August 2014. Researchers with New York University’s (NYU’s) Langone Medical Center apparently used low-dose penicillin (LDP) to disrupt the gut microbiota of mice in the week before birth or immediately after weaning to measure the life-long metabolic effects. The results evidently showed that mice receiving LDP in the womb and early in life had increased fat mass compared with mice that received no antibiotics at all. “When we put mice on a high-calorie diet, they got fat. When we put mice on antibiotics, they got fat,” reported lead…
Category Archives Scientific/Technical Items
U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) researchers recently presented dietary exposure assessments for 4-methylimidazole (4-MEI) at the 248th American Chemical Society (ACS) National Meeting held August 10-14, 2014, in San Francisco. Contributing to FDA’s review of available toxicological data for 4-MEI found in Class III and IV Caramel colors produced using ammonium compounds, the scientists analyzed 4-MEI levels of caramel-containing foods and beverages using liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry, then relied on intake data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) to estimate dietary exposure levels for the following U.S. population groups: (i) “the U.S. population aged 2 years or more”; (ii) “infants (< 1 year old)”; (iii) “children aged 1 year”; (iv) “children aged 2-5 years”; (v) “children aged 6-12 years”; and (vi) “teenage boys aged 12-18 years.” According to the presentation poster, the caramel-containing food categories contributing more than 1 percent “to the cumulative dietary exposure to 4-MEI…
Three studies recently published in The New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) have answered the Institute of Medicine’s call for additional data on the effects of salt consumption on human health, raising questions about the relationships between sodium intake, blood pressure, cardiovascular events, and mortality. Relying on the Prospective Urban Rural Epidemiology (PURE) cohort study that followed more than 150,000 adult participants from a selection of low-, middle- and high-income countries, two of the articles used urinary sodium and potassium excretion measurements to estimate dietary sodium consumption. One study reported that, despite previous research linking sodium intake to hypertension, the association between sodium and potassium excretion and blood pressure was “non-linear and most pronounced in persons consuming high salt diets, persons with hypertension, and older persons.” Andrew Mente, et al., “Association of Urinary Sodium and Potassium Excretion with Blood Pressure,” NEJM, August 2014. Looking at mortality and cardiovascular events, the second…
National Canadian newspaper The Globe and Mail has traced the history of sugar from its roots as a luxury to its current incarnation as a “forbidden fruit, the momentary pleasure infused with a lifetime of guilt.” Author John Allemang argues that the human taste for sweetness is natural and that “when we denounce sugar, we are defying our nature.” He describes sugar’s history, from its inclusion in recipe collections dating to about 1300 that extolled its ability to relieve illness to its use in creating plates and sculptures as a model of early conspicuous consumption. From there, it took on negative overtones through its association with slavery, colonialism and environmental degradation; later, sugar consumption became a moral failing. “[Early nutritionists] understood it to be seductive,” Elizabeth Abbott, author of Sugar: A Bittersweet History, told Allemang. “This prompted moral outrage: When you ate it, you kept wanting to have more.” The Industrial…
An animal study presented at the Annual Meeting of the Society for the Study of Ingestive Behavior (SSIB) held July 29-August 1, 2014, in Seattle, Washington, has reportedly claimed that “daily consumption of beverages sweetened with high-fructose corn syrup or sucrose can impair the ability to learn and remember information, particularly when consumption occurs during adolescence.” According to a July 29, 2014, SSIB press release, University of Southern California researchers reported that, unlike adult rats given daily access to sugar-sweetened beverages (SSBs), rats that consumed SSBs during adolescence “were impaired in tests of learning and memory capability.” “[O]ur findings reveal that consuming sugar-sweetened drinks is also interfering with our brain’s ability to function normally and remember critical information about our environment, at least when consumed in excess before adulthood,” the lead researcher was quoted as saying. “In addition to causing memory impairment, adolescent sugar-sweetened beverage consumption also produced inflammation in the…
A recent perspective article in the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) has questioned whether nutrient-content claims—such as “sugar-free,” “high in oat bran,” or “contains 100 calories”—are confusing to consumers. Authored by Allison Sylvetsky and William Dietz, the article claims that sugar- and calorie-related claims “may lead parents to underestimate the products’ energy content and allow their children to consume more than they otherwise would.” According to the authors, the use of nonnutritive sweeteners in sugar- and calorie-modified products “may still foster the development of a ‘sweet tooth’ because nonnutritive sweeteners are a hundred times sweeter than table sugar by weight.” In addition, U.S. consumers have no way to gauge whether their children have exceeded the acceptable daily intake for a particular nonnutritive sweetener because the amount added to any given product is considered proprietary information. “We believe that adopting a more straightforward and easily understandable ingredient-labeling system in the…
Directed by Congress to conduct an independent review of the styrene assessment in the National Toxicology Program’s (NTP’s) 12th Report on Carcinogens (12th RoC), the National Academies National Research Council (NRC) recently issued a report concurring that there is “compelling evidence… to support a listing of styrene as, at a minimum, reasonably anticipated to be a human carcinogen.” Deemed “a substance of interest” because many people are exposed to it through environmental sources, styrene is used in food packaging and “a broad spectrum of products, including latex paints and coatings; synthetic rubbers; construction materials, such as pipes, fittings, and lighting fixtures; packaging; household goods, such as synthetic marble, flooring, and molded furnishings; and automotive parts.” According to NRC, which reviewed the primary literature cited in the 12th RoC, NTP “adequately documented that exposure to styrene occurs in occupational settings and in the general public regardless of smoking status.” Concluding there…
A recent study has allegedly concluded that high dietary sodium intake doubles the risk of cardiovascular disease (CVD) in patients with type-2 diabetes. Chika Horiakwa, et al., “Dietary Sodium Intake and Incidence of Diabetes Complications in Japanese Patients with Type 2 Diabetes–Analysis of the Japan Diabetes Complications Study (JDCS),” Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism, July 2014. Researchers with the University of Niigata Prefecture analyzed food frequency questionnaires and disease incidence data for more than 1,500 people with type-2 diabetes who participated in the Japan Diabetes Complications Study (JDCS) during eight years of follow-up. Their results evidently showed that although sodium intake was not associated with overt nephrology, diabetic retinopathy or all-cause mortality, participants “who consumed an average of 5.9 g of sodium per day had about a 2-fold higher risk of CVD than those who consumed an average of 2.8 g/d.” “The study’s findings provide clear scientific evidence supporting low-sodium diets…
A recent study asserts that even when children’s TV programs are free of product advertisements, they still include positive cues for unhealthy food and beverages. Paul Scully, et al., “Food and beverage cues in UK and Irish children-television programming,” Archives of Disease in Childhood, July 2014. Researchers with the University of Limerick Graduate Entry Medical School apparently analyzed 85.2 hours of primetime children’s programming that aired over five weekdays on two national public broadcast channels. Of the 1,155 food and beverage cues recorded, 47.5 percent represented unhealthy foods and 25 percent represented sugary drinks. Sweet snacks (13.3 percent) and confectionery/candy (11.4 percent) were the most common food cues, while tea and coffee (13.5 percent) and sugar-sweetened drinks (13 percent) were the most common beverage cues. In addition, the study’s authors noted that individual food or beverage cues were portrayed neutrally 47.5 percent of the time, positively 32.6 percent of the…
Duke University researchers have reportedly identified a “highly pathogenic mold” in recalled yogurt samples, raising questions about the human health implications of fungal pathogens such as Mucor circinelloides. Soo Chan Lee, et al., “Analysis of a foodborne fungal pathogen outbreak: virulence and genome of a Mucor circinelloides isolate from yogurt,” mBio, July 2014. After isolating the fungal strain from Chobani Greek yogurt voluntarily recalled in September 2013, the study’s authors apparently identified the pathogen as M. circinelloides f. circinelloides, a subspecies “commonly associated with human infection,” and noted that the yogurt isolate was virulent in both mouse and wax moth larva host systems. These isolates also survived transit through the GI tract in the mouse model, suggesting that “M. circinelloides can spoil food products and cause gastrointestinal illness in consumers and may pose a particular risk to immunocompromised patients.” “Typically when people think about food-borne pathogens, they think about viruses or…
