Three easy ways to fight against extra weight

Let’s face it! Obesity is a problem nowadays and, as unpleasant it is for me to say it, I deal with the same problem: I am overweight and I’m always searching for a weight loss method. Although we all know that exercising and a healthy diet is the perfect thing for a healthy, supple abdomen, it is always good to have a few quick alternatives at hand, right?

While stumbling the internet in the search for diet recipes (yes, it’s that time of the year when I MUST lose weight) I found a website offering some diet pills that seem to be really interesting. I have never tried such things so if you know anything about them, it would be great to hear.

Because from what I see, they look quite promising. For example this Xenical pill I first found – it’s a pill that helps your digestive system to filter fats faster, therefore forcing our organism to start burning that extra fat we all have round the belly. This does not appear to be one of the dangerous “faster metabolism”, so I found it really interesting.

So I kept digging through the website and found that there are more pills there – all seeming to have the same use: helping people like me lose weight fast and without problems. Reductil for example is another of their products, this time one that does not help eliminate fat faster, but gives you an overall satiety level, therefore reducing the amount of food you eat. Acomplia was another product they offered.

So now I wonder if I should start an order or go back to my exercising… pills are faster and more effective, though. Tough…

Breakthrough in treatment for E. coli toxin

Polymer binds E. coli toxin preventing kidney damage

A University of Alberta researcher has found a possible treatment for the E.coli strain that killed seven people in Walkerton, Ontario, in 2000 and has just been linked to more than 200 illnesses in North Bay, Ontario.

David Bundle, chemistry professor and director of the Alberta Ingenuity Centre for Carbohydrate Science, has developed a polymeric drug that binds a naturally-occurring protein in the body with the E.coli toxin, preventing it from affecting the kidneys. The effect of E.coli 0157.H7 on the kidneys can be life-threatening.

New Finding gor Crohn's Disease and Colitis

The tonsils and lymphoid tissues in the intestinal tract that help protect the body from external pathogens are the home base of a rare immune cell newly identified by researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. The researchers indicate that the immune cells could have a therapeutic role in inflammatory bowel diseases (IBD) such as Crohn's disease and ulcerative colitis.

"These cells have an anti-inflammatory effect," says the article's lead author Marina Cella, M.D., research associate professor of pathology and immunology. "In the gut, we have beneficial bacteria, and it's important that the body does not recognize them as something detrimental and start an inflammatory reaction, which could ultimately promote tissue damage and inflammatory or autoimmune diseases such as IBD. The cells we've discovered are important for keeping such harmful inflammatory processes in check."

The cells are a type of natural killer (NK) cells, which are white blood cells classically known to eliminate tumor cells and cells infected by viruses. Because of their killer tendencies, NK cells are carefully controlled and don't act until they receive the right signal.

Some of the signals that activate the newly discovered cells are the same signals that turn on a different immune cell with strong inflammatory properties that can promote cell death and tissue damage if chronically active. But the anti-inflammatory cells, termed NK-22 cells, that the Washington University researchers discovered have the opposite effect — they promote cell proliferation and wound healing.

"That finding suggests that these cells play a role in maintaining a balance in the immune system between inflammatory processes and anti-inflammatory processes," says coauthor Jason Mills, M.D., Ph.D., assistant professor of pathology and immunology and of developmental biology. "They make sure that factors that turn up inflammation can be counteracted by the coordinated activation of anti-inflammatory effects."

Top droppers, October

Another beautiful month has passed, it's time once again to say thanks to every Entrecard user that got the time to visit this blog. Special thanks goes, though, to those who kept visiting day after day. So, once again, thank you, my top 5 droppers:

1. Money Saving Pro
2. Curiously Awesome
3. Health Eagle
4. EU Watch
5. Austin Counsel Lawyer Blog

I hope all of you will find the blog as attractive this month, too.

Alternative energy and exercise

Alternative energy is all the rage in major media headlines, but for the human brain, this is old news. According to a study by researchers from Denmark and The Netherlands published in the October 2008 print issue of The FASEB Journal, the brain, just like muscles, works harder during strenuous exercise and is fueled by lactate, rather than glucose. Not only does this finding help explain why the brain is able to work properly when the body's demands for fuel and oxygen are highest, but it goes a step further to show that the brain actually shifts into a higher gear in terms of activity. This opens doors to entirely new areas of brain research related to understanding lactate's specific neurological effects.

"Now that we know the brain can run on lactate, so to speak, future studies should show us when to use lactate as part of a treatment," said Gerald Weissmann, MD, Editor-in-Chief of The FASEB Journal. "From an evolutionary perspective, the result of this study is a no-brainer. Imagine what could have or did happen to all of the organisms that lost their wits along with their glucose when running from predators. They were obviously a light snack for the animals able to use lactate."

To reach their conclusion, the researchers looked at research that compared the blood running to and from the heads of volunteers undergoing strenuous exercise. They found that the blood on its way to the brain contained considerably more lactate than blood flowing from the brain. Further investigation showed that the brain was not storing the lactate which had come from the muscles during exercise, but rather using it as fuel. In fact, the brain helped to clear lactate from the circulation, thereby leaving glucose to the muscles that need it for the hard work they were performing.

About Colon Cancer

Colon cancer ranks second of all gastrointestinal malignant tumors, it is one of the leading causes of cancer-related deaths worldwide. Until now, several molecules have been reported to play an important role in gastroenterological tumorigenesis and tumor metastasis, but the molecular mechanisms involved tumor development and progression still remain unclear in colon cancer.

A research article published in the World Journal of Gastroenterology refers. In this research, by using the combined methods of laser microdissection (LMD), P27-based RNA amplification, and polypeptide, They evaluated differentially expressed genes between early carcinoma and lymph node metastatic patients. Moreover, They further identified four differentially expressed genes in the progression of colon cancer in another group of 15 patients by means of semiquantitative reverse transcribed polymerase chain.

Their result indicated that the five gene expressions were changed in colon carcinoma cells compared with that of controls. Of the five genes, three genes were downregulated and two were upregulated in invasive submucosal colon carcinoma compared with non-invasive cases. The results were confirmed at the level of RNA and gene expression. Five genes were further identified as differentially expressed genes in the majority of cases in progression of colon cancer, and their expression patterns of which were similar to tumor suppressor genes or oncogenes. These results not only reveal the differentially expressed genes in progression of colon cancer, but also provide information that may prove useful for identifying novel diagnostic and therapeutic targets.

Small intestine can sense and react to bitter toxins in food

Toxins in food often have a bad, bitter taste that makes people want to spit them out. A new research finds that bitterness also slows the digestive process, keeping bad food in the stomach longer and increasing the chances that it will be expelled. This second line of defense in the gut against dietary toxins also triggers the production of a hormone that makes people feel full, presumably to keep them from eating more of the toxic food.

The study was performed with mice, and the results probably translate to humans, said Timothy Osborne, molecular biology and biochemistry professor and study senior author. Mammals have evolved to dislike the bitter taste of toxins in food. This response is particularly important when they eat a lot of plant material, which tends to contain more bitter-tasting, potentially toxic ingredients than meat.

Examples of bitter-tasting toxins include phenylthiourea, a compound that destroys the thyroid gland, and quinine, found in tonic water, which can be deadly in large doses. If toxins are swallowed, bitter-taste receptors in the gut sense them and trigger the production of a hormone called cholecystokinin that both suppresses appetite and slows the movement of food from the stomach to the small intestine.

Interestingly, the UCI scientists found that cholesterol regulates the activity of bitter-taste receptors in the intestine, and diets high in plant material and potential toxins naturally are low in cholesterol, compared to low-toxin, high-cholesterol, meat-based diets.

In small intestine cell cultures, low levels of cholesterol triggered a stronger receptor response – meaning they worked better – while high levels caused a weaker response.

The same response was observed in mice that were given drugs to stop the production and absorption of cholesterol. Not only were their receptors more active, their small intestine cells produced two to three times the amount of the appetite-suppressing hormone in the presence of bitter food, compared to normal mice.

In addition to the appetite-suppressing hormone, bitter-taste receptors in the gut activate the production of glucagon-like peptide 1, a protein that stimulates insulin secretion in the pancreas. Drugs currently are on the market that attempt to stabilize this protein in people with diabetes, and therapies aimed at increased production are attractive therapeutic targets.

Probiotic bacteria don't make eczema better

I truly hope that most of my readers know that probiotics or probiotic bacteria is only useful for our digestive system, colon and digestive process and shall never accept to be treated for other affection with probiotics. Probiotics are bacteria that have to stay inside our abdomen only!

Unfortunately, there are uses of probiotics on patients suffering from other problems than digestive system-related. There is no evidence probiotics can relieve the symptoms of eczema, but there is some evidence that they may occasionally cause infections and gut problems. These findings from The Cochrane Library come at a time when use of probiotics to treat eczema is increasing.

Eczema is an itchy skin condition that affects more than 1 in 20 people at some time in their lives and is especially common in children. Its cause is complex and not well understood, but sufferers do have different bacteria in their guts compared to unaffected people. Consequently, some nutritionists have suggested that eating live gut-dwelling bacteria, such as those found in probiotic yoghurts and some infant formulas, could be beneficial.

"Some doctors are recommending probiotics as a cheap treatment for eczema, but having carried out a systematic review we have found no evidence that they work for treating eczema," says lead researcher Robert Boyle of Imperial College, London, UK.

The Cochrane Researchers looked at 12 studies that together involved 781 children diagnosed with eczema. These studies compared severity of the disease in children given live bacteria to severity in those given a placebo. The researchers found that probiotics provided no significant health improvement. Similar bacteria were given across all studies, so the researchers could not rule out the possibility that other strains might be beneficial. Moreover they found that in separate studies 46 patients had been reported to suffer side effects from using probiotics, including infection and bowel damage.

"There is no evidence that probiotics are a worthwhile treatment for eczema, and they may be harmful for certain groups of people," says Boyle. "However, further studies of new probiotics are needed, because it is possible that different types of probiotics which haven't yet been studied in eczema treatment could be more effective."