A recent study targets the alleged health effects of two food and beverage dyes—Brilliant Blue (E133) and Patent Blue (E131)—after systemic absorption. Marianna Lucová, et al., “Absorption of triphenylmethane dyes Brilliant Blue and Patent Blue through intact skin, shaven skin and lingual mucosa from daily life products,” Food and Chemical Toxicology, February 2013. A particular focus of the study was to “assess the potential for lingua mucosa absorption of the dyes from human saliva as a consequence of licking lollipops.” The findings were “troubling,” the study noted, “particularly with regard to the repeated licking of lollipops by children.” The study concludes that because both dyes can potentially enter the bloodstream through the dorsum of the tongue and cause adverse health effects, such as attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, allergies and asthma, neither dye should be used in the manufacturing of lollipops and hard candies. Brilliant Blue is used as food additive…
Category Archives Scientific/Technical Items
A recent study using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) has allegedly suggested that compared with glucose consumption, fructose consumption resulted “in a distinct pattern” of cerebral blood flow (CBF) in brain regions linked to appetite and reward pathways, and “a smaller increase in systemic glucose, insulin, and glucagon-like polypeptide 1 levels.” Kathleen Page, et al., “Effects of Fructose vs Glucose on Regional Cerebral Blood Flow in Brain Regions Involved With Appetite and Reward Pathways,” JAMA, January 2013. Researchers relied on 20 adult volunteers who underwent to MRI sessions “together with ingestion of either a fructose of a glucose drink in a blinded, random-order crossover design.” The MRIs evidently showed that within 15 minutes, “glucose significantly reduced hypothalamic CBF, whereas fructose did not.” As the authors explained, “[I]ngestion of glucose but not fructose reduced cerebral blood flow and thus activity in specific regions that regulate appetite and reward processing. In keeping with…
The Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) recently highlighted energy drinks in its December 19, 2012, online issue, where two commentaries discussed caffeine-related adverse events and the risks of mixing energy drinks with alcohol. Authored by Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center infectious disease specialist Kent Sepkowitz, the first viewpoint article notes that “the swift change in public perception of energy drinks from harmless mild stimulant to lethal, unregulated drug is unprecedented.” Summarizing recent cases of unintentional caffeine overdoses and caffeine poisoning, the article claims that “a person would need to ingest at least 12 of the highly caffeinate energy drinks within a few hours” to reach a lethal dose of caffeine. Sepkowitz argues, however, that this estimate does not take into account variables such as medications that may slow the metabolism of caffeine or preexisting cardiac or liver conditions “that could increase susceptibility to caffeine-related adverse events.” “The appropriate…
A recent study has reportedly concluded that bisphenol A (BPA) exposure is associated with low-grade albuminuria in U.S. children, suggesting they may be at a greater risk for kidney and heart disease as adults. Leonardo Trasande, et al., “Bisphenol A exposure is associated with low-grade urinary albumin excretion in children of the United States,” Kidney International, January 2013. Using data from 710 children enrolled in the 2009-10 National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, researchers reported that those “with the highest as compared to the lowest quartile of urinary BPA [uBPA] had a significant 0.91 mg/g higher albumin-to-creatinine ratio, adjusted for urinary BPA concentration.” These results were evidently consistent with previous studies associating BPA exposure with low-grade albuminuria in Chinese adults. “Long-term observational studies will be needed to ascertain whether uBPA-associated changes in low-grade albuminuria potentiate the features of the metabolic syndrome—hypertension, hyperlipidemia, or insulin resistance— and augment the risk of…
A recent World Health Organization-commissioned meta-analysis has reportedly concluded that diets lower in fat can reduce relative body weight by 1.6 kg, BMI by 0.56kg/m2 and waist circumference by 0.5 cm. Lee Hooper, et al., “Effect of reducing total fat intake on body weight: systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials and cohort studies,” BMJ, December 2012. After analyzing results from 33 randomized control trials involving 73,589 participants and 10 cohort studies, researchers apparently found “high quality, consistent evidence that reduction of total fat intake has been achieved in large numbers of both healthy and at risk participants over many years.” In particular, the meta-analysis suggested that each 1 percent reduction in energy from total fat “resulted in a 0.19 kg reduction in body weight, compared with not altering total fat intake, in populations with 23-43% of energy from total fat, and in studies of six months to over…
A recent article has speculated that cheese consumption is behind the epidemiological phenomenon known as the “French paradox,” that is, “the low rates of cardiovascular mortality which have existed in France for decades despite high saturated fat consumption.” Ivan Petyaev and Yurig Bashmakov, “Could cheese be the missing piece in the French paradox puzzle,” Medical Hypotheses, December 2012. Although previous studies have attempted to link red wine consumption to reduced cardiovascular mortality, the article argues that the “French paradox” “seems to be a multifactorial phenomenon and not due solely to red wine intake.” The authors hypothesize that many cheeses—and particularly molded cheese—contain unique peptides “inhibiting the inflammatory cascade and angiotension-converting enzyme [that] may provide a pharmacological basis for this phenomenon.” They also note that in addition to bacteria-ripened varieties, such as Cheddar and Gouda, blue-veined cheeses including Roquefort contain “some important secondary metabolites” produced by Penicillium roqueforti, Penicillium camemberti or other…
A recent research article focusing on bisphenol A (BPA) has questioned the use of National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) datasets “to draw causal inferences regarding environmental chemical exposures and adverse health outcomes.” Judy LaKind, et al., “Use of NHANES Data to Link Chemical Exposures to Chronic Disease: A Cautionary Tale,” PLoS One, December 2012. Using “consistent a priori selected methods,” researchers analyzed four NHANES datasets to determine whether (i) there was “a consistent association between urinary [BPA] measures and diabetes, coronary heart disease (CHD), and/or heart attacks across surveys”; and (ii) NHANES was “an appropriate dataset for investigating associations between chemicals with short physiologic half-lives such as BPA and chronic disease with multifactorial etiologies.” The results evidently revealed no significant associations “between urinary BPA and heart disease or diabetes” for any of the NHANES surveys. Based on these findings, the study’s authors opted not to draw “any conclusions…
A recent study has purportedly found that “high levels of glucose in the diet of mice with cancer is linked to increased expression of mutant p53 genes,” raising questions about the effect of a high-sugar diet on tumor growth. Olga Catalina Rodriguez, et al., “Dietary downregulation of mutant p53 levels via glucose restriction: Mechanisms and implications for tumor therapy,” Cell Cycle, November 2012. According to a concurrent Georgetown University Medical Center (GUMC) press release, normal p53 acts as a tumor suppressor but mutant p53 acts as an oncogene, with high levels of expression “linked to cancer aggressiveness, resistance to therapy, worse outcomes and even relapse after therapy.” The five-year study apparently examined how glucose restriction (GR) affected autophagy—the degradation of dysfunctional proteins—in cultured cells and tumor growth in animal models. The first experiments not only suggested that GR helped eliminate p53 mutant proteins via autophagy, but that transgenic mice fed a…
A recent study has reportedly suggested that compared with sucrose, some nonnutritive sweeteners (NNSs) induce greater weight gain in Wistar rats. Fernanda de Matos Feijó, et al., “Saccharin and aspartame, compared with sucrose, induce greater weight gain in Wistar rats, at similar total caloric intake levels,” Appetite, November 2012. After feeding 29 male rats a free chow diet and yogurt sweetened with sucrose, saccharin or aspartame over the course of 12 weeks, Brazilian researchers found that “addition of either saccharin or aspartame to yogurt resulted in increased weight gain compared to addition of sucrose,” even though total caloric intake was similar among groups. “Although saccharin and aspartame promoted relatively fewer calories from yogurt intake when compared to sucrose, increases in calories from chow intake effectively compensated for decreases in calories from yogurt, in such a way that there was a similar total caloric intake among all groups after the 12-week…
Researchers with the University of Missouri-Kansas City and University of Kansas Medical Center have used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to map brain responses to food logos in obese and healthy-weight children. Amanda Bruce, et al., “Brain Responses to Food Logos in Obese and Health Weight Children,” Journal of Pediatrics, November 2012. According to the study, 10 healthy-weight children and 10 obese children completed “self-report measures of self-control” and then underwent fMRI while viewing 60 food and 60 nonfood logos. The results purportedly indicated that, when viewing food logos, “obese children showed significantly less brain activation than the healthy weight children in regions associated with cognitive control.” Obese children also apparently demonstrated “greater activation in reward regions when shown food logos compared with baseline blurred images,” although the researchers “did not find significantly greater brain activation in the OFC [orbitofrontal cortex] or ventral striatum, which have been identified in previous food…
