Sufficient vitamin D during gestation and early life can lower susceptibility to allergy in infants
Wageningen University (Netherlands), April 5, 2021
According to news originating from Wageningen, Netherlands, the research stated, “Worldwide, the prevalence of allergies in young children, but also vitamin D deficiency during pregnancy and in newborns is rising. Vitamin D modulates the development and activity of the immune system and a low vitamin D status during pregnancy and...
Sufficient vitamin D during gestation and early life can lower susceptibility to allergy in infants
Wageningen University (Netherlands), April 5, 2021
According to news originating from Wageningen, Netherlands, the research stated, “Worldwide, the prevalence of allergies in young children, but also vitamin D deficiency during pregnancy and in newborns is rising. Vitamin D modulates the development and activity of the immune system and a low vitamin D status during pregnancy and in early life might be associated with an increased risk to develop an allergy during early childhood.”
Our news editors obtained a quote from the research from Wageningen University and Research: “This review studies the effects of vitamin D during gestation and early life, on allergy susceptibility in infants. The bioactive form of vitamin D, 1,25(OH)2D, inhibits maturation and results in immature dendritic cells that cause a decreased differentiation of naive T cells into effector T cells. Nevertheless, the development of regulatory T cells and the production of interleukin-10 was increased. Consequently, a more tolerogenic immune response developed against antigens. Secondly, binding of 1,25(OH)2D to epithelial cells induces the expression of tight junction proteins resulting in enhanced epithelial barrier function. Thirdly, 1,25(OH)2D increased the expression of anti-microbial peptides by epithelial cells that also promoted the defense mechanism against pathogens, by preventing an invasive penetration of pathogens.”
According to the news editors, the research concluded: “Immune intervention by vitamin D supplementation can mitigate the disease burden from asthma and allergy. In conclusion, our review indicates that a sufficient vitamin D status during gestation and early life can lower the susceptibility to develop an allergy in infants although there remains a need for more causal evidence.”
Training in compassion improves the well-being of relatives to people with mental illness
Aarhus University (Denmark), April 7, 2021
If relatives of people with mental illness become better at accepting the difficult emotions and life events they experience - which is what training in compassion is about - their anxiety, depression and stress is reduced. These are the results of a new study from the Danish Center for Mindfulness at Aarhus University.
Being a relative of a person with a mental illness can be very burdensome. It can feel like a great responsibility, and many people struggle with feelings of fear, guilt, shame and anger. A new study from the Danish Center for Mindfulness shows that eight weeks of training in compassion can significantly improve the well-being of relatives.
Compassion is a human quality that is anchored in the recognition of and desire to relieve suffering. In other words, compassion occurs when we come into contact with our own or others' suffering and feel motivated to relieve our own or others pain.
"After completing the course, the relatives had increased their well-being on several parameters. They could deal with the illness in a new and more skillful way, and we saw that the training reduced their symptoms of depression, anxiety and stress," says psychologist and PhD student Nanja Holland Hansen, who is behind the study.
And the positive results were maintained after a six month follow-up.
Trying to fix what is difficult
"The relatives learned that the more they turn towards what is difficult, the more skillful they may act. For example, relatives often try to 'fix' the problem or the challenge - so as to relieve their loved ones of what is difficult. That's a huge pressure to constantly deal with, and very few people can bear it," says Nanja Holland Hansen.
Living with chronic fear
She goes on to explain that training in compassion helps people to find the strength and courage to bear pain and suffering when life is difficult. It may seem both sensible and intuitive to guard yourself from the confrontation or avoid what is difficult and unpleasant. But this is the paradox of the training, explains the researcher. Because it is precisely actions and thoughts like these that shut down our compassion and thereby maintain the suffering.
"Fear and grief are emotions that take up a lot space for relatives of people with mental illness. For example chronic fear, which is a real fear that parents of a child with schizophrenia have about whether their child is going to commit suicide, or whether a child with autism will ever enjoy a 'normal life'," explains Nanja Holland Hansen and continues:
"Our suffering is maintained inside of us when we don't work with it. To avoid feeling pain, we may resort to behaviour such as working too much or buying things that we don't need. It's therefore in all these everyday actions that our compassion training becomes important and can be used to help alleviate what is difficult," she says.
No one escapes
The purpose of training in compassion is thus more than just feeling empathy or worrying about another person.
"Not a single person can completely avoid experiencing painful things in their life. In this way we're all the same. But what isn't the same for everyone is our ability to deal with the pain and suffering we experience. Training programmes in compassion have been developed because the research shows that we can train and strengthen our mental health. With systematic training of compassion, we generate more attention - and understanding of - our own thoughts, feelings and behaviour. And this helps us to develop the tools and skills to engage in healthier relations with ourselves and others," she explains.
A total of 161 relatives of people with mental illness participated in the study. This makes the study one of the largest of its kind in the world, and also the first scientific randomised clinical trial carried out with relatives in Denmark. The relatives were between 18 and 75 of age and were family members to people with various psychiatric disorders such as e.g. ADHD, schizophrenia and depression.
Meditation as homework
The relatives met once a week in groups of twenty participants over an eight-week period. Each session lasted two hours and was structured with small group exercises, large group discussions, instruction in the theme of the week and meditation. The homework consisted of twenty minutes of daily meditation.
"There is definitely a shortage of offers for these relatives. They're often told that they should remember to take care of themselves, but they haven't learned how to. We found that those who were involved in the study received the tools for precisely this," says Nanja Holland Hansen.
The results have just been published in the scientific journal JAMA.
"My hope is that local authorities and regions can offer this type of intervention for relatives. It should be an option and could easily be incorporated into our healthcare system. Economically and socially, a healthy person going on sick leave solely because he or she is a relative is a huge loss," says the researcher.
[Billedtekst:]: "Up to fifty percent of relatives of people with mental illness risk becoming ill themselves. That's why it's important that we also keep them and their well-being in mind," says Nanja Holland Hansen.
Sesaminol prevents Parkinson's disease by activating the Nrf2-ARE signaling pathway
Osaka City University (Japan), March 331, 2021
Parkinson's disease (PD) is a neurodegenerative disease caused by the degeneration of substantia nigra neurons due to oxidative stress. Sesaminol has strong antioxidant and anti-cancer effects. We investigated the preventive effect on PD as a new physiological action of sesaminol produced from sesaminol glycoside using in vitro and in vivo PD models. To prepare an in vitro PD model, 6-hydroxydopamine (6-OHDA) was added to human neuroblastoma (SH-SY5Y cells). The viability of SH-SY5Y cells decreased dose-dependently following 6-OHDA treatment, but the addition of sesaminol restored viability to the control level. 6-OHDA increased intracellular reactive oxygen species production, and the addition of sesaminol significantly suppressed this increase. No Nrf2 expression in the nucleus was observed in the control group, but a slight increase was observed in the 6-OHDA group. The sesaminol group showed strong expression of Nrf2 in the cytoplasm and nucleus. NAD(P)H: quinone oxidoreductase (NQO1) activity was enhanced in the 6-OHDA group and further enhanced in the sesaminol group. Furthermore, the neurotoxine rotenone was orally administrated to mice to prepare an in vivo PD model. The motor function of rotenone-treated mice was shorter than that of the control group, but a small amount of sesaminol restored it to the control level. The intestinal motility in the rotenone group was significantly lower than that in the control group, but it remained at the control level in the sesaminol group. The expression of α-synuclein in the substantia nigra increased in the rotenone group but decreased in the sesaminol group. The rotenone group exhibited shortening and damage to the colonic mucosa, but these abnormalities of the colonic mucosa were scarcely observed in the sesaminol group. These results suggest that sesaminol has a preventative effect on PD.
Study finds connection between lifestyle choices, Alzheimer disease
Brigham Young University, April 8, 2021
A recent study out of BYU has linked lifestyle choice to Alzheimer's disease, at least to some degree, through findings that show a possible energy gap between the amount of glucose and ketones being used to power the brain.
BYU professor Ben Bikman, who studies diabetes and insulin resistance, thought of a fundamental question surrounding Alzheimer's disease and insulin resistance in the brain.
Bikman said there has been growing evidence that the brains in humans with Alzheimer's disease are deficient in the use of glucose.
"The brain has a certain energy demand, let's say that is 100%," Bikman said. "In most instances, glucose is providing virtually all of that energy, nearly 100% all of the time. There is a secondary fuel known as ketones, so the average brain is consuming almost all of its energy from glucose with a little bit of energy coming from ketones at any moment. In some individuals, the brain starts to become deficient in its ability to use glucose. So now glucose can only provide about 60% of that energy, and then ketones would be expected to fill up the rest of that energy. The tragedy is that the average individual has almost undetectable levels of ketones and that's entirely a matter of lifestyle."
This lack of ketones as well as the brain's resistance to insulin is linked to lifestyle. Insulin is expected to stimulate tissues or cells to take in the glucose and use it for energy.
As the brain becomes more insulin resistant, it can't take in glucose anymore and this is something Bikman said has been shown in other research. The BYU research expanded on some of those findings.
"We found that indeed the expression of genes involved in glucose metabolism was significantly down, very broad across every cell type we looked at in the brain," Bikman said. "All of the cell types we looked at had significant reductions in glucose-related genes, but the ketone-related genes were almost totally normal."
This is key because it shows that if the brain can receive more ketones, there is a possibility that one could overcome that energy gap. While it may not be able to be filled in with glucose, it can be with ketones but ketones need to be produced by one's body.
With many people having diets that are high in refined sugars and starches, insulin is elevated all of the time, and ketones are only produced when insulin levels are low. These conditions include fasting or low-carb diets, also known as keto diets.
Ph.D. student Erin Saito is another one of the lead authors of the study and is doing this project as her dissertation. Another collaborator included Washington University of Saint Louis, which gave the BYU research team access to various brain banks.
"BYU is a wonderfully collaborative environment, not only encouraging collaborations within the university but also outside of the university," Bikman said. "Thus communicating with our internal and external collaborators was very easy and very natural. There was very much a common interest to work on this project together, a common enthusiasm for answering a question that had not been asked yet. It would not have been possible without that mutual collaboration and enthusiasm."
He added that managing the project with enthusiastic students was a delight, making it easy because of the enthusiasm surrounding the project.
Bikman said it is gratifying for him to be able to contribute to what little is known about Alzheimer's disease, because traditional strategies and approaches have continued to fail.
"Looking at Alzheimer's disease as a metabolic problem, I would say, is the greatest breakthrough in our understanding of the disease in decades," Bikman said.
Looking at it through the metabolic side of things allows people to possibly detect the problem years in advance, looking at changes in brain glucose metabolism long before Alzheimer's sets in.
Bikman believes that someday the metabolic approach to Alzheimer's will be the standard of care.
Moving forward, Bikman said he hopes that people feel empowered when it comes to Alzheimer's disease. He wants people to not look at it as a passive process where they are the victim, but rather acknowledging that their lifestyle choices can either act as the culprit or the cure.
"For too long we have viewed Alzheimer's disease as a disease that is no respecter of person, no respecter of choices and that is simply not true," Bikman said. "We have long known that people with metabolic disorders, like type 2 diabetes and insulin resistance, are at significantly greater risk of developing Alzheimer's disease and we have more evidence suggesting that dietary choices and changes do make significant improvements in someone's cognition."
Even someone in the midst of Alzheimer's disease can see improvements in memory and learning with a lifestyle change, according to Bikman, and he added that he hopes this evidence will help to strengthen that view and empower individuals to take matters into their own hands.
New Study Shows Broad Benefits Of High-CBD Cannabis
Health Canada Research Institute, April 6, 2021
With CBD exploding in popularity, new studies continue to reveal its potential benefits.
A new study published in the journal Aging-US reported that high-CBD cannabis has anti-inflammatory and anti-cancer properties and may even help reduce COVID symptoms.
Cannabidiol, or CBD, is a non-psychoactive compound in cannabis and is legal in all 50 states.
“Cannabis sativa, especially those high in the anti-inflammatory cannabinoid cannabidiol, has been found to alter gene expression and inflammation and harbour anti-cancer and anti-inflammatory properties,” the researchers at Health Canada concluded.
As such, they say specific CBD extracts “may become a useful and safe addition to the prevention/treatment of COVID-19 as an adjunct therapy.”
Researchers hypothesized that high-CBD C. sativa extracts may be used to down-regulate ACE2 expression in target COVID-19 tissues. Using artificial 3D human models of oral, airway and intestinal tissues, they identified 13 high-CBD C. sativa extracts that decrease ACE2 protein levels. Some C. sativa extracts down-regulate serine protease TMPRSS2, another critical protein required for SARS-CoV-2 entry into host cells.
This is not the first study to suggest that CBD could combat respiratory illnesses like COVID.
In April 2020, researchers at the University of Nebraska and the Texas Biomedical Research Institute published a peer-reviewed article suggesting that CBD could be included in the treatment regimen for the COVID-19 coronavirus as THC and CBD both appeared to reduce the severe lung inflammation associated with the virus.
In July 2020, researchers at the Dental College of Georgia and Medical College of Georgia found early evidence that Cannabidiol, or CBD, may help reduce the cytokine storm and excessive lung inflammation that killed many patients with COVID-19.
“Our laboratory studies indicate pure CBD can help the lungs recover from the overwhelming inflammation, or cytokine storm, caused by the COVID-19 virus, and restore healthier oxygen levels in the body,” says co-author Dr. Jack Yu, physician-scientist and chief of pediatric plastic surgery at MCG.
In October 2020, the same research group published a follow-up peer-reviewed study identifying the mechanism they believe was responsible for the encouraging results of using CBD to reduce lung inflammation.
“One way CBD appears to reduce the “cytokine storm” that damages the lungs and kills many patients with COVID-19 is by enabling an increase in levels of a natural peptide called apelin, which is known to reduce inflammation and whose levels are dramatically reduced in the face of this storm,” they concluded.
While this is incredibly encouraging news for relief from COVID, businesses that sell CBD edibles and oils are not allowed to mention these benefits in advertising because the FDA has not officially approved it for any specific treatment. Apparently, experimental vaccines are okay to advertise but natural plant extracts aren’t.
The new study above is just another to suggest cannabis and CBD can help fight cancer. There have been many studies as well as countless confirmed anecdotal accounts.
In 2018, a 44-year-old UK mom refused chemo for her aggressive triple-negative breast cancer. She opted for CBD oil instead and was declared cancer-free five months later.
In 2019, an 81-year-old diagnosed with lung cancer shrunk his tumors in half by taking CBD oil. The case study was published in the peer-reviewed journal Sage.
More recently, a Colorado State University study showed that CBD extract can slow growth and kill cancer cells in aggressive brain cancer.
“Our experiments showed that CBD slows cancer cell growth and is toxic to both canine and human glioblastoma cell lines,” said Chase Gross, a doctoral student participating in the study. “Importantly, the differences in anti-cancer affects between CBD isolate and extract appear to be negligible.”
That’s not all, CBD has shown potential for treating a variety of other ailments such as arthritis, seizures, chronic pain, high blood pressure, Alzheimer’s and more – with little to no severe side effects that are common with leading pharmaceuticals.
Big Pharma hopes more people don’t discover natural treatments to common health issues, like CBD, because it could severely impact their profits and influence.
Polyphenol pills counter inflammation in women on hormonal contraceptives: RCT
Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul (Brazil), April 7, 2021
Supplements containing a mixture of polyphenols may counter increases in pro-inflammatory markers in women of childbearing age using combined hormonal contraceptives, says a new study.
The supplements, formulated with resveratrol, catechin, quercetin, chlorogenic acid and cyanidin, were also found to prevent the increases in markers of systemic oxidative stress like F2-isoprostane, according to findings published in Prostaglandins, Leukotrienes and Essential Fatty Acids .
“The increase in biomarkers of inflammation and oxidative stress observed in the present study were possibly caused by the use of hormonal contraceptives, as verified in the [control group], and this change was not observed in the group that used polyphenols,” wrote researchers from the Institute of Cardiology and the Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul in Brazil.
“Therefore, the results of this polyphenol supplementation showed that the antioxidant and anti-inflammatory effects observed in the studied population is due to the reduction in plasma levels of PGE2, supporting the conceptual hypothesis, by its action on the inflammatory cascade, probably by COX inhibition.”
Study details
The Brazil-based researchers recruited 40 women aged between 25 and 35 using contraceptives, and randomly assigned them to receive either placebo or polyphenols (3,000 mg per day) for 15 days. “A higher dosage was chosen in order to reduce the risk of food ingestion of control group to overcome the dosage of polyphenol supplementation in the [polyphenol group],” they explained.
Data from the 28 women who completed the study indicated that, as expected, markers of inflammation (PGE2 and C-reactive protein) and oxidative stress (F2-isoprostane) increased significantly in women in the placebo group. However, no such increases were observed in the polyphenol group.
“Among participants of the polyphenols group, an inverse correlation was observed between the consumption of polyphenols estimated by the [food frequency questionnaire] with PGE2 levels at the end of the study. This finding had not yet been previously described in the literature and reinforces the hypothesis of the present study regarding the action of polyphenols in reducing PGE2 levels,” wrote the researchers.
“The liver is the main organ involved in the metabolism of polyphenols, and metabolites are secreted in bile and urine. Excretion of polyphenols in participants of the [polyphenol group] was significantly higher than in the [control group], confirming the effective ingestion of capsules and absorption of compounds, which can vary depending on the amount ingested, the chemical structure of the substance and the intestinal flora of the subjects.”
Childhood diet and exercise creates healthier, less anxious adults
University of California Riverside, April 9, 2021
Exercise and a healthy diet in childhood leads to adults with bigger brains and lower levels of anxiety, according to new UC Riverside research in mice.
Though diet and exercise are consistently recommended as ways to promote health, this study is the first to examine the long-lasting, combined effects of both factors when they are experienced early in life.
"Any time you go to the doctor with concerns about your weight, almost without fail, they recommend you exercise and eat less," said study lead and UCR physiology doctoral student Marcell Cadney. "That's why it's surprising most studies only look at diet or exercise separately. In this study, we wanted to include both."
The researchers determined that early-life exercise generally reduced anxious behaviors in adults. It also led to an increase in adult muscle and brain mass. When fed "Western" style diets high in fat and sugar, the mice not only became fatter, but also grew into adults that preferred unhealthy foods.
These findings have recently been published in the journal Physiology and Behavior. To obtain them, the researchers divided the young mice into four groups -- those with access to exercise, those without access, those fed a standard, healthy diet and those who ate a Western diet.
Mice started on their diets immediately after weaning, and continued on them for three weeks, until they reached sexual maturity. After an additional eight weeks of "washout," during which all mice were housed without wheels and on the healthy diet, the researchers did behavioral analysis, measured aerobic capacity, and levels of several different hormones.
One of those they measured, leptin, is produced by fat cells. It helps control body weight by increasing energy expenditure and signaling that less food is required. Early-life exercise increased adult leptin levels as well as fat mass in adult mice, regardless of the diet they ate.
Previously, the research team found that eating too much fat and sugar as a child can alter the microbiome for life, even if they later eat healthier. Going forward, the team plans to investigate whether fat or sugar is more responsible for the negative effects they measured in Western-diet-fed mice.
Together, both studies offer critical opportunities for health interventions in childhood habits.
"Our findings may be relevant for understanding the potential effects of activity reductions and dietary changes associated with obesity," said UCR evolutionary physiologist Theodore Garland.
In other words, getting a jump start on health in the early years of life is extremely important, and interventions may be even more critical in the wake of the pandemic.
"During the COVID-19 lockdowns, particularly in the early months, kids got very little exercise. For many without access to a park or a backyard, school was their only source of physical activity," Cadney said. "It is important we find solutions for these kids, possibly including extra attention as they grow into adults."
Given that exercise was also shown to reduce adult anxiety, Cadney believes children who face these challenges may face unique physical and mental health issues as they become adults in the coming decade.
