Be Careful with What You Eat, Mommy

            We are all aware of the link that a pregnant woman has both emotionally and physically with her child and the effects that anything that happens around her have on the baby, as well as whatever substance that the future mother introduces to her body—for instance, what she ingests. Expectant ladies need to eat healthy food; otherwise, their children could be born with diseases such as diabetes, depression, obesity, or even cancer.

            An oncologist at Duke University, North Carolina, Randy Jirtle found out along with his associates the reason of the alimentary effects on their offspring through an experiment on genetically similar mice that consisted in feeding one group of pregnant mice a standard diet, while the other group was provided with foods high in B12, folic acid, choline and betaine.

Jirtle thinks that the food that contained those elements provided the mice a supply of methyl molecules; as a consequence, the expression of any of the diseases mentioned at the beginning in the genome could have been inhibited. Unlike the first group, the rodents that were fed with extra nutrients bred babies that had less probability in their genes to develop diabetes, cancer or obesity.

Would this mean that the typical idea of “eating for two” would be definitely discarded? What else could help your babies to be born without any illness?

Fat to burn fats

Lose weight has always been topic of conversation for many people in the world, especially women, and, as we all know, doctors have created a non-end list of diets and methods for reducing fats and make our body look healthier but what has been recently discovered may change some things.

Brown adipose tissue or brown fat is abundant in children’s body and is an excellent and natural way for generating body heat to prevent them from hypothermia by burning fat and calories in their bodies. This type of tissue was thought to disappeared from our bodies among we grew old but recent studies have shown that it is also present in adults’ bodies but in really low quantities, and that is where scientists focused on.

The procedure consist in providing fat people’s body with a nucleic acid called miRNA-133 to activate the production of brown fat in their bodies and that way burn white fat which is the responsible of 25% of bodyweight in women. Scientist state that with the production or rise of the levels of this fat in our bodies, we could lose weight faster and in an easier way.

Now, what’s left is to ask: Would you try this procedure? Or you just think it is another less effective way of reducing your size?

Was Doña Tota Right?

          Some of you may remember certain person mentioning the “Doña Tota’s boldo tea” for relieving stomach aches. Let me inform you that it seems not to be such a funny fiction, people; actually, these so called old wives’ tales have become a fascinating object of study for several scientists.

         Even though these may not contribute very much in our memory as a vast number of grannies tend to say, raisins can be a good remedy for our teeth. Dentists usually recommend not to consume raisins provided the high amount of sugar that they have; however, a study conducted by the microbiologist Christine Wu from the University of Illinois in Chicago led to find out that raisins contain five chemicals which are able to destroy several oral microorganisms such as the streptococcus, the major causative of cavities in our teeth, and those are: oleanolic acid, oleanolic aldehyde, betulin, betulinic acid and 5 - (hydroxymethyl)-2-furfural.

For those girls who became obsessed with their figure and drink no other thing but green tea in the evening, there is spectacular news: apart from its polyphenols and tannins that burn your fat and help you lose weight—if you combine it with a balanced diet an exercise, of course—it was proven in animal testing conducted by the molecular toxicologist Thomas Gasiewicz of the University of Rochester, NY that a compound named epigallocatechingallate—also known as EGCG—can alter the structure of HSP90, one of the proteins responsible for cancer. This does not mean, nevertheless, that it is 100% assured that green tea will cure cancer, since this has not been proven yet in humans.

So, do you still think that Doña Tota’s boldo tea story is just an old wives’ tale or you may give it a try some time?

Food Security: Can GM foods help to feed the World?

Have you ever heard about food security? The World Health Organization describes it as having food availability, which means having enough quantities of food on a consistent basis; having food access, that considers having sufficient economic and physical resources to obtain food; and having food use, which is the appropriate use of food considering basic nutrition and care. However, it is well-known that our world is going through food insecurity rather than food security (click here to watch an explanation).

In theory, there is enough food in the world for everyone; the problem is that it is not well distributed. Governments should try to redistribute that food in order to feed their population, but what if it is not enough? The world’s population is likely to rise from 6 billion today to 8 billion in 2020 and 11 billion by 2050 (click here) and, probably, 95% of the increase will occur in the world’s poorest nations. What should governments do then?
GM foods have been considered as a possibility in the challenge of producing enough food to feed the world. This technology may not only benefit the world’s poor by altering the nutritional contents of food, but could also help reduce crop losses and increase food production without the need for additional farmland.
The controversy goes on because opponents of GM claim that GM is a bad idea because it is “unnatural”, and hunger is not caused by farming problems, but by political circumstances related to poverty and unfair trading practices.
What do you think? Are GM foods a practical solution to an impossible problem?
For further information: http://www.trust.org/alertnet/multimedia/in-focus/hungry-world/

Microwave ovens are dangerous: True or false?

Have you heard about the controversy of using microwave ovens? In the past, it was believed that microwave radiation was dangerous because this would not be contained within the oven. For this reason, American manufacturers of microwave ovens had to demonstrate to the FDA (U.S. Foods and Drugs Administration) that microwaves, produced by a magnetron inside the oven, pass through plastic and glass containers, and are absorbed by the food. In that way, it is impossible to think that these waves could go out and cause damage because they are inside the food. But, if the waves are in the food, what do we eat when we eat microwaved food?

There are a lot of people that are against using microwave ovens. They posit that these ovens are unsafe because they alter food composition, producing toxins or carcinogens that may affect our body. In 1991, the Dr. Hans Hertel, a well-known Swiss food scientist, conducted a study comparing the effects of microwaved and non-microwaved foods in humans. The results showed that blood samples obtained from the participants that ingested microwaved food had significant changes. These anomalies included a decrease in hemoglobin and lymphocytes, and an increase in hematocrit, leukocytes and cholesterol values.

These registers could make evident that microwaved foods cause the degeneration of the human health; however, this study, and some other related to the same topic, have never been published in scientific journals, so there is not enough evidence to prove that microwaves are hazardous. And the controversy continues, and maybe, it will never stop.

Do you think microwave ovens are dangerous?

Aspartame: Is it really good for your health?

Aspartame is a sugar substitute that can be found in many products, such as sodas, chewing gum, breakfast cereal, and even medicines. This artificial sweetener is 200 times sweeter than sugar, so it can be considered free of calories because of the small quantity needed to sweet food, even if it has almost the same amount of calories that sugar has. Since it was first approved by the U.S Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in 1981, it has been used in more than 6,000 food products, and consumed by over 200 million people worldwide. Although the popularity of this product, numerous studies have proved that this sugar substitute is one of the most dangerous food additives today.

According to the FDA, over the 75% of the adverse reactions to food additives are due to aspartame. These reactions include headaches, muscle spasms, weight gain, depression, insomnia, vision problems, memory loss, loss of taste; or even worse things such as brain tumors, epilepsy, multiple sclerosis, Parkinson’s disease, and diabetes.
Several recent studies have scientifically proved this:
• In Italy, a study on rats has shown that aspartame is a multi-potential carcinogenic compound. Its effects are evident at a daily dose of 20 mg/kg of body weight, less than the recommended for humans.
• In Greece, a group of scientists have shown that aspartame ingestion worsen learning and causes memory loss.
• In Spain, a study on rats has proved that ingestion of aspartame promotes the formation of a known carcinogen called formaldehyde.

Having this in mind, Are you going to prefer food that contains aspartame instead of sugar?