Blueberries each day may keep the doctor away
Blueberries each day may keep the doctor away
(Medical Xpress)
August 27, 2013
Eating 2 cups of wild blueberries a day for two months can reduce chronic inflammation, improve metabolism of fat and lower LDL cholesterol and triglycerides, according to research by a University of Maine clinical nutritionist.
Additionally, UMaine professor Dorothy Klimis-Zacas says a diet enriched with the fruit can normalize gene expression of inflammatory markers and those related to lipid and lipoprotein metabolism.
The findings from her research with obese Zucker rats have promising implications for people wanting to reduce inflammation and thus their risk of coronary heart disease and Type 2 diabetes, says Klimis-Zacas.
The obese male Zucker rat is a valid experimental model for human metabolic syndrome (MetS), which is characterized by chronic inflammation, obesity, hypertension, glucose intolerance and insulin resistance.
The results are significant in light of the MetS epidemic in the United States, which affects an estimated 37 percent of adults, says Klimis-Zacas. That figure is expected to increase in direct relationship with the rate of obesity, according to National Health Statistics Reports.
Heart disease alone annually kills 600,000 people in the United States, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Being able to improve health by eating blueberries rich in antioxidants and anti-inflammatory agents that prevent degenerative disease, rather than relying on pharmaceuticals, is a great benefit, she says.
Klimis-Zacas is the first to report that wild blueberries lowered triglycerides (fatty materials) in the rats' blood in vivo.
The fruit lowered low-density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol—which clogs people's blood vessels and increases the risk of a heart attack—while maintaining the level of beneficial high-density lipoprotein (HDL) cholesterol, says Klimis-Zacas, who has studied nutritional benefits of wild blueberries for 15 years.
There was an overall anti-inflammatory effect in the obese rats, she says. Circulating levels of inflammatory markers were reduced in their blood, fatty tissues and livers. She found the blueberry-enriched diet improved abnormal overall blood lipid profiles and the genetic expression of enzymes that regulate lipids and cholesterol.
The multiple benefits for obese Zucker rats eating a wild blueberry-enriched diet are detailed in two research articles recently authored by Klimis-Zacas.
The study "Wild blueberry (Vaccinium angustifolium) consumption improves inflammatory status in the obese Zucker rat model of the metabolic syndrome," was published in SciVerse ScienceDirect, a Journal of Nutritional Biochemistry. Stefano Vendrame, Allison Daugherty and Alekandra S. Kristo, all UMaine graduate students, as well as Patriza Riso of the Universita degli Studi di Milano in Italy, participated in the research.
The study "Wild blueberry (Vaccinium angustifolium)-enriched diet improves dyslipidaemia and modulates the expression of genes related to lipid metabolism in obese Zucker rats" was published in the British Journal of Nutrition. Vendrame, Daugherty and Kristo are co-authors.
Showing posts with label inflammation. Show all posts
Showing posts with label inflammation. Show all posts
Thursday, August 29, 2013
Friday, July 5, 2013
Imbalances in the microbial community in your intestines may lead to metabolic syndrome, obesity, and diabetes.
Are Happy Gut Bacteria Key to Weight Loss?
Imbalances in the microbial community in your intestines may lead to metabolic syndrome, obesity, and diabetes. What does science say about how to reset our bodies?
By Moises Velasquez-Manoff
Mother Jones
Apr. 22, 2013
A few years before Super Size Me hit theaters in 2004, Dr. Paresh Dandona, a diabetes specialist in Buffalo, New York, set out to measure the body's response to McDonald's—specifically breakfast. Over several mornings, he fed nine normal-weight volunteers an egg sandwich with cheese and ham, a sausage muffin sandwich, and two hash brown patties.
Dandona is a professor at the State University of New York-Buffalo who also heads the Diabetes-Endocrinology Center of Western New York, and what he observed has informed his research ever since. Levels of a C-reactive protein, an indicator of systemic inflammation, shot up "within literally minutes." "I was shocked," he recalls, that "a simple McDonald's meal that seems harmless enough"—the sort of high-fat, high-carbohydrate meal that 1 in 4 Americans eats regularly—would have such a dramatic effect. And it lasted for hours.
Inflammation comes in many forms. The swelling of a sprained ankle indicates repairing torn muscle and tendon. The redness and pain around an infected cut signifies the body's repulsion of microbes. The fever, aches, and pains that accompany the flu represent a body-wide seek-and-destroy mission directed against an invading virus. They're all essential to survival, the body's response to a perceived threat or injury. But inflammation can also cause collateral damage, especially when the response is overwhelming—like in septic shock—or when it goes on too long.
Chronic, low-grade inflammation has long been recognized as a feature of metabolic syndrome, a cluster of dysfunctions that tends to precede full-blown diabetes and that also increases the risk of heart disease, stroke, certain cancers, and even dementia—the top killers of the developed world. The syndrome includes a combination of elevated blood sugar and high blood pressure, low "good" cholesterol, and an abdominal cavity filled with fat, often indicated by a "beer belly." But recently, doctors have begun to question whether chronic inflammation is more than just a symptom of metabolic syndrome: Could it, in fact, be a major cause?
For Dandona, who's given to waxing grandiloquent about the joys of a beer on the porch in his native Delhi, or the superb ice wines from the Buffalo region, the results presented a quandary. Food was a great pleasure in life. Why would Nature be so cruel, he wondered, and punish us just for eating?
Over the next decade he tested the effects of various foods on the immune system. A fast-food breakfast inflamed, he found, but a high-fiber breakfast with lots of fruit did not. A breakthrough came in 2007 when he discovered that while sugar water, a stand-in for soda, caused inflammation, orange juice—even though it contains plenty of sugar—didn't.
The Florida Department of Citrus, a state agency, was so excited it underwrote a subsequent study, and had fresh-squeezed orange juice flown in for it. This time, along with their two-sandwich, two-hash-brown, 910-calorie breakfast, one-third of his volunteers—10 in total—quaffed a glass of fresh OJ. The non-juice drinkers, half of whom drank sugar water, and the other half plain water, had the expected response—inflammation and elevated blood sugar. But the OJ drinkers had neither elevated blood sugar nor inflammation. The juice seemed to shield their metabolism. "It just switched off the whole damn thing," Dandona says. Other scientists have since confirmed that OJ has a strong anti-inflammatory effect...
Imbalances in the microbial community in your intestines may lead to metabolic syndrome, obesity, and diabetes. What does science say about how to reset our bodies?
By Moises Velasquez-Manoff
Mother Jones
Apr. 22, 2013
A few years before Super Size Me hit theaters in 2004, Dr. Paresh Dandona, a diabetes specialist in Buffalo, New York, set out to measure the body's response to McDonald's—specifically breakfast. Over several mornings, he fed nine normal-weight volunteers an egg sandwich with cheese and ham, a sausage muffin sandwich, and two hash brown patties.
Dandona is a professor at the State University of New York-Buffalo who also heads the Diabetes-Endocrinology Center of Western New York, and what he observed has informed his research ever since. Levels of a C-reactive protein, an indicator of systemic inflammation, shot up "within literally minutes." "I was shocked," he recalls, that "a simple McDonald's meal that seems harmless enough"—the sort of high-fat, high-carbohydrate meal that 1 in 4 Americans eats regularly—would have such a dramatic effect. And it lasted for hours.
Inflammation comes in many forms. The swelling of a sprained ankle indicates repairing torn muscle and tendon. The redness and pain around an infected cut signifies the body's repulsion of microbes. The fever, aches, and pains that accompany the flu represent a body-wide seek-and-destroy mission directed against an invading virus. They're all essential to survival, the body's response to a perceived threat or injury. But inflammation can also cause collateral damage, especially when the response is overwhelming—like in septic shock—or when it goes on too long.
Chronic, low-grade inflammation has long been recognized as a feature of metabolic syndrome, a cluster of dysfunctions that tends to precede full-blown diabetes and that also increases the risk of heart disease, stroke, certain cancers, and even dementia—the top killers of the developed world. The syndrome includes a combination of elevated blood sugar and high blood pressure, low "good" cholesterol, and an abdominal cavity filled with fat, often indicated by a "beer belly." But recently, doctors have begun to question whether chronic inflammation is more than just a symptom of metabolic syndrome: Could it, in fact, be a major cause?
For Dandona, who's given to waxing grandiloquent about the joys of a beer on the porch in his native Delhi, or the superb ice wines from the Buffalo region, the results presented a quandary. Food was a great pleasure in life. Why would Nature be so cruel, he wondered, and punish us just for eating?
Over the next decade he tested the effects of various foods on the immune system. A fast-food breakfast inflamed, he found, but a high-fiber breakfast with lots of fruit did not. A breakthrough came in 2007 when he discovered that while sugar water, a stand-in for soda, caused inflammation, orange juice—even though it contains plenty of sugar—didn't.
The Florida Department of Citrus, a state agency, was so excited it underwrote a subsequent study, and had fresh-squeezed orange juice flown in for it. This time, along with their two-sandwich, two-hash-brown, 910-calorie breakfast, one-third of his volunteers—10 in total—quaffed a glass of fresh OJ. The non-juice drinkers, half of whom drank sugar water, and the other half plain water, had the expected response—inflammation and elevated blood sugar. But the OJ drinkers had neither elevated blood sugar nor inflammation. The juice seemed to shield their metabolism. "It just switched off the whole damn thing," Dandona says. Other scientists have since confirmed that OJ has a strong anti-inflammatory effect...
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