The Gary Null Show - 08.10.20

The Gary Null Show is here to inform you on the best news in health, healing, the environment. 

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Professor Sunetra Gupta: the epidemic is on its way out

Brendan O'Neill: The danger of the 'chattering class'

Link confirmed between healthy diet and prostate cancer prevention

University of Calgary, August 6, 2020

 

The Canadian Cancer Society estimates that more than 23,000 Canadians will be diagnosed with prostate cancer in 2020. Among other risk factors, more and more studies point to diet as a major factor in the development of prostate cancer, as it is for cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and obesity. Using data from a study conducted in Montreal between 2005 and 2012, a research team led by Professor Marie-Elise Parent of Institut national de la recherche scientifique (INRS) has shown a link between diet and prostate cancer in the article “Dietary Patterns Are Associated with Risk of Prostate Cancer in a Population-Based Case-Control Study in Montreal, Canada”, published in Nutrients in June.

Three main dietary profiles analyzed

INRS PhD student Karine Trudeau, the lead author of the study, based her analysis on three main dietary profiles: healthy diet, salty Western diet including alcohol, and sugar-rich Western diet with beverages. The first profile leans heavily towards fruits, vegetables, and plant proteins like tofu and nuts. The salty Western diet with alcohol includes more meat and beverages such as beer and wine. The third profile is rich in pasta, pizza, desserts, and sugary carbonated drinks. The study took age, ethnicity, education, family history, and date of last prostate cancer screening into account.

Marie-Elise Parent and Karine Trudeau found a link between a healthy diet and a lower risk of prostate cancer. Conversely, a Western diet with sweets and beverages was associated with a higher risk and seemed to be a factor in more aggressive forms of cancer. The study did not show any clear link between a Western diet with salt and alcohol and the risk of developing the disease.

Moving away from the typical approach used in epidemiological studies, which involves looking at one nutrient or food group at a time, the researchers collected data from a broader dietary profile. “It’s not easy to isolate the effect of a single nutrient,” explained Ms. Trudeau. “For example, foods rich in vitamin C, such as citrus fruits, promote iron absorption. Calcium is often found in dairy products, which also contain vitamin D. Our more targeted approach takes this synergy into account to produce more meaningful results that public health authorities can use to formulate recommendations. Rather than counting on one miracle food, people should look at their overall diet.”

“For a long time we’ve suspected that diet might play a role in the development of prostate cancer, but it was very hard to pinpoint the specific factors at play,” said Professor Parent. “This study is significant because it looks at dietary habits as a whole. We’ve uncovered evidence that, we hope, can be used to develop prevention strategies for prostate cancer, the most common cancer among men in Canadaand many other countries.”

 

Compounds in 'monster' radish could help tame cardiovascular disease

American Chemical Society, August 9, 2020

Step aside carrots, onions and broccoli. The newest heart-healthy vegetable could be a gigantic, record-setting radish. In a study appearing in ACS' Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry, scientists report that compounds found in the Sakurajima Daikon, or "monster," radish could help protect coronary blood vessels and potentially prevent heart disease and stroke. The finding could lead to the discovery of similar substances in other vegetables and perhaps lead to new drug treatments.

Grown for centuries in Japan, the Sakurajima Daikon is one of the Earth's most massive vegetables. In 2003, the Guinness Book of World Records certified a Sakurajima weighing nearly 69 pounds as the world's heaviest radish. Radishes are good sources of antioxidants and reportedly can reduce high blood pressure and the threat of clots, a pair of risk factors for heart attack and stroke. But to date, no studies have directly compared the heart-health benefits of the Sakurajima Daikon to other radishes. To address this knowledge gap, Katsuko Kajiya and colleagues sought to find out what effects this radish would have on nitric oxide production, a key regulator of coronary blood vessel function, and to determine its underlying mechanisms.

The researchers exposed human and pig vascular endothelial cells to extracts from Sakurajima Daikon and smaller radishes. Using fluorescence microscopy and other analytical techniques, the research team found the Sakurajima Daikon radish induced more nitric oxide production in these vascular cells than a smaller Japanese radish. They also identified trigonelline, a plant hormone, as the active component in Sakurajima Daikon that appears to promote a cascade of changes in coronary blood vessels resulting improved nitric oxide production.

 

Placebos prove powerful even when people know they're taking one

Michigan State University, August 7, 2020

 

How much of a treatment is mind over matter? It is well documented that people often feel better after taking a treatment without active ingredients simply because they believe it's real -- known as the placebo effect.

A team of researchers from Michigan State University, University of Michigan and Dartmouth College is the first to demonstrate that placebos reduce brain markers of emotional distress even when people know they are taking one.

Now, evidence shows that even if people are aware that their treatment is not "real" -- known as nondeceptive placebos -- believing that it can heal can lead to changes in how the brain reacts to emotional information.

"Just think: What if someone took a side-effect free sugar pill twice a day after going through a short convincing video on the power of placebos and experienced reduced stress as a result?", said Darwin Guevarra, MSU postdoctoral fellow and the study's lead author. "These results raise that possibility."

The new findings, published in the most recent edition of the journal Nature Communications, tested how effective nondeceptive placebos -- or, when a person knows they are receiving a placebo -- are for reducing emotional brain activity. 

"Placebos are all about 'mind over matter," said Jason Moser, co-author of the study and professor of psychology at MSU. "Nondeceptive placebos were born so that you could possibly use them in routine practice. So rather than prescribing a host of medications to help a patient, you could give them a placebo, tell them it can help them and chances are -- if they believe it can, then it will."

To test nondeceptive placebos, the researchers showed two separate groups of people a series of emotional images across two experiments. The nondeceptive placebo group members read about placebo effects and were asked to inhale a saline solution nasal spray. They were told that the nasal spray was a placebo that contained no active ingredients but would help reduce their negative feelings if they believed it would. The comparison control group members also inhaled the same saline solution spray, but were told that the spray improved the clarity of the physiological readings the researchers were recording.

The first experiment found that the nondeceptive placebos reduced participants' self-reported emotional distress. Importantly, the second study showed that nondeceptive placebos reduced electrical brain activity reflecting how much distress someone feels to emotional events, and the reduction in emotional brain activity occurred within just a couple of seconds.

"These findings provide initial support that nondeceptive placebos are not merely a product of response bias - telling the experimenter what they want to hear -- but represent genuine psychobiological effects," said Ethan Kross, co-author of the study and a professor of psychology and management at the University of Michigan.

 

 

Greater coffee intake associated with decreased depressive symptoms among older Japanese women Nakamura Gakuen University (Japan), August 5, 2020

 

According to news reporting originating from Fukuoka, Japan, by NewsRx correspondents, research stated, “Depression in elderly people is a major global concern around the world. Epidemiological evidence of the association of beverages with depressive symptoms has received research attention; however, epidemiological studies on the association of coffee and green tea consumption with depressive symptoms among the elderly population are limited.”

Our news editors obtained a quote from the research from Nakamura Gakuen University, “The objective of this study is to cross-sectionally examine the association of depressive symptoms with the intake of coffee, green tea, and caffeine and to verify the antidepressant effect of caffeine. The subjects were 1,992 women aged 65-94 years. Intakes of coffee, green tea, and caffeine, as well as depressive symptoms, were assessed with a validated brief dietary history questionnaire (BDHQ) and the Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale (CES-D), respectively. Multiple logistic regression analysis was used to calculate odds ratios (ORs) and 95% confidence intervals (as) for depressive symptoms with adjustments for potential confounders. Coffee intake was associated with a lower prevalence of depressive symptoms, the ORs of which for the 4th versus the 1st quartiles of intake was 0.64 (95% CI, 0.46-0.88, P for trend = 0.01) in a fully adjusted model. Caffeine intake was marginally associated with depressive symptoms, but the association was not statistically significant (OR 0.75; 95% CL 0,55-1,02. P for trend = 0.058). The result suggests that the inverse association of coffee intake with depressive symptoms might be associated with not only caffeine intake but also some other substances in coffee or factors related to coffee intake.”

According to the news editors, the research concluded: “Because of the cross-sectional design of the present study, longitudinal studies are required to confirm the present finding.”

 

 

Sugary drinks and disease: Chugging 2 sodas per day increases your risk of premature death

University College Dublin (Ireland), August 8, 2020

 

On top of raising blood sugar and contributing to abdominal fat, European researchers found that soda can also lead to an earlier death.

Published in JAMA Internal Medicine, the study demonstrates that daily consumption of two or more sodas – diet or not – and other sweetened drinks corresponds to a 17 percent increase in the risk of premature death from all causes.

The “bitter truth” of soda consumption: premature death

To examine the relationship between soda consumption and the risk of all-cause and cause-specific mortality, the researchers studied 451,743 individuals living in 10 European countries, including Denmark, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Spain, Sweden and the United Kingdom.

The participants were from the European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition (EIPC) study, one of the largest ongoing cohort studies on diet and its relation to cancer and other chronic diseases. None of the participants have any chronic conditions.

The team studied their soda consumption for an average of 16 years. During that period, a total of 41,693 participants died from all causes, eleven percent of whom reported drinking at least two sodas daily, while nine percent reported drinking not more than one per month.

The participants who drank two or more glasses of soda also had a higher risk of death from heart conditions. Meanwhile, those who reported consuming other beverages sweetened with either sugar or artificial sweeteners had a greater risk of death from digestive diseases.

Participants who drank diet soda weren’t off the hook either. The team reported that those who drank diet sodas also had a greater risk of earlier death from cardiovascular disease(CVD).

Taken together, these findings indicate that the consumption of soda, diet soda and other sweetened beverages is linked to premature death from all causes, including CVD and digestive diseases.

The researchers noted that their study supports public health campaigns aimed at limiting the consumption of sodas and other sugar-laden drinks.

 

 

 

Fisetin derivative shows promise against Alzheimer disease in mice

Salk Institute, August 5 2020. 

 

he September 2020 issue of Redox Biology published the finding of Salk Institute researchers of an ability for a compound derived from fisetin, a flavonoid occurring in many plants, to reverse memory loss in a mouse model of Alzheimer disease. The compound, known as CMS121, which was synthesized by Pamela Maher and colleagues, was recently demonstrated to slow brain cell aging.

"This was a more rigorous test of how well this compound would work in a therapeutic setting than our previous studies on it," commented Dr Maher. "Based on the success of this study, we're now beginning to pursue clinical trials."

In the current research, normal mice and mice that were genetically modified to develop Alzheimer disease were given CMS121 starting at nine months of age. Untreated Alzheimer mice and normal mice served as controls. At 12 months, memory and behavior tests revealed that treated Alzheimer mice performed as well as control mice and that Alzheimer mice that did not receive CMS121 performed worse. 

An increase in lipid peroxidation was observed in brains cells of untreated Alzheimer mice in comparison with Alzheimer mice that received CMS121. "That not only confirmed that lipid peroxidation is altered in Alzheimer's, but that this drug is actually normalizing those changes," remarked first author Gamze Ates. 

It was further determined that CMS121 lowered levels of the lipid-producing molecule fatty acid synthetase (FASN). Brain samples from human Alzheimer patients revealed that greater amounts of FASN were present in comparison with cognitively healthy patients, suggesting that FASN could be a drug target for Alzheimer disease. 

"There has been a big struggle in the field right now to find targets to go after," Dr Maher stated. "So, identifying a new target in an unbiased way like this is really exciting and opens lots of doors."

 

 

REM sleep tunes eating behavior

University of Bern (Germany),  August 7, 2020

 

Despite our broad understanding of the different brain regions activated during rapid-eye-movement sleep, little is known about what this activity serves for. Researchers at the University of Bern and the Inselspital have now discovered that the activation of neurons in the hypothalamus during REM sleep regulates eating behaviour: suppressing this activity in mice decreases appetite.

While we are asleep, we transition between different phases of sleep each of which may contribute differently to us feeling rested. During (rapid eye movement) REM sleep, a peculiar sleep stage also called paradoxical sleep during which most dreaming occurs, specific brain circuits show very high electrical activity, yet the function of this sleep-specific activity remains unclear. 

Among the brain regions that show strong activation during REM sleep are areas that regulate memory functions or emotion, for instance. The lateral hypothalamus, a tiny, evolutionarily well conserved brain structure in all mammals also shows high activity during REM sleep. In the awake animals, neurons from this brain region orchestrate appetite and the consumption of food and they are involved in the regulation of motivated behaviours and addiction.

In a new study, researchers headed by Prof. Dr. Antoine Adamantidis at the University of Bern set out to investigate the function of the activity of hypothalamic neurons in mice during REM sleep. They aimed at better understanding how neural activation during REM sleep influences our day-to-day behaviour. They discovered that suppressing the activity of these neurons decreases the amount of food the mice consume. "This suggests that REM sleep is necessary to stabilize food intake", says Adamantidis. The results of this study have been published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).

Long-lasting effect on neuronal activity and feeding behavior

The researcher discovered that specific activity patterns of neurons in the lateral hypothalamus that usually signal eating in the awake mouse are also present when the animals were in the stage of REM sleep. To assess the importance of these activity patterns during REM sleep the research group used a technique called optogenetics, with which they used light pulses to precisely shut down the activity of hypothalamic neurons during REM sleep. As a result, the researchers found that the activity patterns for eating were modified and that the animals consumed less food.

"We were surprised how strongly and persistently our intervention affected the neural activity in the lateral hypothalamus and the behaviour of the mice", says Lukas Oesch, the first author of the study. He adds: "The modification in the activity patterns was still measurable after four days of regular sleep." These findings suggest that electrical activity in hypothalamic circuits during REM sleep are highly plastic and essential to maintain a stable feeding behaviour in mammals. 

It is a question of quality

These findings point out that sleep quantity alone is not solely required for our well-being, but that sleep quality plays a major role in particular to maintain appropriate eating behaviour. "This is of particular relevance in our society where not only sleep quantity decreases but where sleep quality is dramatically affected by shift work, late night screen exposure or social jet-lag in adolescents", explains Adamantidis.

The discovered link between the activity of the neurons during REM sleep and eating behaviour may help developing new therapeutical approaches to treat eating disorders. It might also be relevant for motivation and addiction. "However, this relationship might depend on the precise circuitry, the sleep stage and other factors yet to be uncovered", adds Adamantidis.

 

The key role of zinc in elderly immunity Federal University of Juiz de Fora (Brazil), August 7, 2020

 

According to news reporting originating from Juiz de Fora, Brazil, by NewsRx editors, the research stated, “The COVID-19 infection can lead to severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), mainly affecting patients aged 60 and older. Preliminary data suggest that the nutritional status can change the course of the infection, and on the matter, zinc is crucial for growth, development, and the maintenance of immune function.”

Our news editors obtained a quote from the research from the Federal University of Juiz de Fora, “In the absence of treatment for this virus, there is an urgent need to find alternative methods that can contribute to control of disease. The aim of this paper is to establish the relation between zinc and COVID-19. From the prior scientific knowledge, we have performed a review of the literature and examine the role of zinc in immune function in the infection by COVID-19. Our findings are that the zinc as an anti-inflammatory agent may help to optimize immune function and reduce the risk of infection.”

According to the news editors, the research concluded: “Zinc supplementation can be a useful strategy to reduce the global burden of infection in the elderly, there is a need the increased reporting to improve our understanding of COVID-19 and the care of affected patients.”