The Gary Null Show - 04.13.21

Research suggests quercetin can alleviate pulmonary arterial hypertension by regulating inflammatory cytokines

Zhejiang Provincial People’ s Hospital (China), April 9, 2021

 

According to news reporting originating in Zhejiang, People’s Republic of China, research stated, “This study aimed to investigate the effects of quercetin in the treatment of pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH) in a murine model. Thirty-six adult male rats were randomly divided into three groups: the control group (saline), monocrotaline (MCT) - induced PAH group (MCT group) and quercetin treatment group (prevention group).”

The news reporters obtained a quote from the research from Zhejiang Provincial People’ s Hospital, “After modelling, the animals from prevention group received 100 mg/(kg bw/day quercetin by gavage and the gavage for 20 days, while the animals from the other two groups received the same amount of 0.9% sodium chloride saline solution. The mean pulmonary artery pressure, right ventricular index and relative expression levels of HIF-1 (hypoxia-inducible factor 1), ET-1(vascular endothelin-1), TGF-beta 1 (transforming growth factor-beta 1), VEGF (vascular endothelial growth factor), IL-1 (interleukin-1), IL-6 (interleukin-6) and TNF-alpha (tumour necrosis factor alpha) in lung tissues significantly increased in MCT group compared with the control group, 21 days after modelling. The levels of HGF (hepatocyte growth factor) and NAC (N-acetyl-L-cysteine) significantly increased compared with the control group. The treatment with quercetin significantly decreased the level of mean PAH, right ventricular index and relative expression levels of H1F-1, ET-1, TGF-beta 1, VEGF, IL-1, IL-6 and TNF-alpha in lung tissues compared with MCT group and significantly decreased the levels of HGF and NAC. In vitro experiment with PCEC (pulmonary capillary endothelial cells) from the three groups showed that in the MCT group the cell proliferation was significantly decreased and the apoptosis was significantly increased compared with the control group, while the quercetin treatment inhibited the MCT-induced cell apoptosis and promoted cell proliferation.”

According to the news reporters, the research concluded: “Quercetin can alleviate PAH by regulating the inflammatory cytokines, promoting cell proliferation and inhibition of cell apoptosis.”

This research has been peer-reviewed.

 

 

 

Intermittent fasting shown to provide broad range of health benefits in new study

Texas State University, April 7, 2021

Intermittent fasting may provide significant health benefits, including improved cardiometabolic health, improved blood chemistry and reduced risk for diabetes, new research conducted in part at Texas State University indicates. 

Matthew McAllister, assistant professor in the Department of Health and Human Performance, co-authored the study with Liliana Renteria, graduate research assistant in the Department of Health and Human Performance, along with Brandon Pigg and Hunter Waldman of the Department of Kinesiology at Mississippi State University. Their research, "Time-restricted feeding improves markers of Cardiometabolic health in physically active college-age men: A 4-week randomized pre-post pilot study," is published in the journal Nutrition Research (https://doi.org/10.1016/j.nutres.2019.12.001).

"What we are doing is time-restricted feeding. It is a way to use fasting each day to promote various aspects of cardiometabolic health," McAllister said. 

Time-restricted feeding (TRF) has been shown to improve body composition and blood lipids, as well as reduce markers of inflammation and oxidative stress. However, those results originated from rodent models and studies with small human samples. In the Texas State study, 22 men were divided into two groups to complete a 28-day study. Subjects ate daily during one eight-hour period, for example, between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m. or between noon and 8 p.m. For 16 hours of the day, they did not eat or drink anything other than water. 

While both groups underwent TRF, one group's caloric intake was controlled during meal periods to ensure they ate the same amount as before the study, while members of the other group were allowed to eat as much as they wanted. 

"My initial thought was that if you are going to restrict the time, you would eat fewer calories. And the reduction of daily calories would cause weight loss and other health benefits," McAllister said. "But these benefits are found with no change in caloric intake—things like loss in body fat, reduced blood pressure, reduced inflammation.”

Fasting blood samples were analyzed for glucose and lipids, as well as adiponectin, human growth hormone, insulin, cortisol, c-reactive protein, superoxide dismutase, total nitrate/nitrite and glutathione. Results showed that both groups experienced significant reductions in body fat, blood pressure and significant increases in adiponectin and HDL-c. No change in caloric intake was detected among members of either group.

 

 

The COVID-19 pandemic has been linked with six unhealthy eating behaviors

University of Minnesota Medical School, April 12, 2021

A new probe into the lingering impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic revealed correlations to six unhealthy eating behaviors, according to a study by the University of Minnesota Medical School and School of Public Health. Researchers say the most concerning finding indicates a slight increase or the re-emergence of eating disorders, which kill roughly 10,200 people every year -- about one person every 52 minutes.

U of M Medical School's Melissa Simone, PhD, a postdoctoral research fellow in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, collaborated with School of Public Health professor and head of the Division of Epidemiology and Community Health, Dianne Neumark-Sztainer, PhD, MPH, to learn from study participants in Neumark-Sztainer's Project EATbetween April and May 2020.

"The COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in the rapid implementation of public health policies to reduce transmission of the virus. While these protections are necessary, the disruptions to daily life associated with the ongoing pandemic may have significant negative consequences for the risk of eating disorders and symptoms," said Simone, who is the lead author of the study. "Eating disorders have one of the highest mortality rates across all psychiatric health concerns, and therefore, it is important to try to make links between the consequences of the pandemic and disordered eating behaviors.

The study aimed to understand potential associations between stress, psychological distress, financial difficulties and changes in eating behaviors during the COVID-19 pandemic through the analysis of both qualitative and quantitative data. Simone's findings, published in theInternational Journal of Eating Disorders, found six key themes of eating behavior changes:

• Mindless eating and snacking;
• Increased food consumption;
• Generalized decrease in appetite or dietary intake;
• Eating to cope;
• Pandemic-related reductions in dietary intake;
• And, a re-emergence or marked increase in eating disorder symptoms.

Approximately 8% of those studied reported extreme unhealthy weight control behaviors, 53% had less extreme unhealthy weight control behaviors and 14% reported binge eating. The study revealed that these outcomes were significantly associated with poorer stress management, greater depressive symptoms and moderate or extreme financial difficulties.

"There has been a lot of focus on obesity and its connection with COVID-19. It is also important to focus on the large number of people who have been engaging in disordered eating and are at risk for eating disorders during and following the pandemic," said Neumark-Sztainer, who is the principal investigator of Project EAT. "The majority of the young adults in our study are from diverse ethnic/racial and lower income backgrounds, who often do not receive the services they need. To ensure health inequities do not increase, we need to meet the needs of these populations."

Simone added, "The economic consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic will likely persist long beyond the dissemination of a vaccine. Because our findings suggest that moderate or severe financial difficulties may be linked with disordered eating behaviors, it is essential that eating disorder preventive interventions and treatment efforts be affordable, easily accessible and widely disseminated to those at heightened risk. As such, online or mobile-based interventions may prove to be effective and accessible modes for targeted intervention efforts."

This study was funded by the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (R01HL116892, R35HL139853: Principal Investigator: D. Neumark-Sztainer), the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences (TL1R002493, UL1TR002494), and the National Institute of Mental Health (T32MH082761).

 

 

Ginseng and anti-obesity: Does Asian variety offer greater weight loss hope?

Tennessee State University, April 5, 2021

 

Studies comparing the differing anti-obesity effects of Asian and American ginseng are urgently needed, it has been claimed, not least because they are thought to have opposite medical effects in Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM).

 

Writing in a review in the Journal of Nutritional Biochemistry, scientists from Tennessee State University said a number of investigations had been conducted on ginseng in preventing and treating of obesity.

 

However, the effect and the relevant mechanisms behind how ginseng works as an anti-obesity treatment are still controversial, they added, and the issue is clouded by the differing uses of American and Asian ginseng in TCM.

 

The former is used to treat yin manifestations of Qi (life energy), while the latter tackle yang manifestations. Therefore, Asian ginseng has often been used to help treat, fatigue, poor appetite, diarrhoea, breath shortness, feeble pulse, spontaneous perspiration, febrile diseases, amnesia, insomnia and impotence.

 

On the other hand, American ginseng is used to treat diseases such as cough, blood sputum, dysphoria, fatigue and thirst.

 

“Although the potential anti-obesity effect of Asian ginseng has been investigated in mice and humans in Asia in the last several decades, the anti-obesity effect and mechanism of ginseng are still not fully understood, especially in humans,” wrote the researchers. “Moreover, high-quality studies of the effects of ginseng in the United States are rare, particularly whether and how American ginseng prevents obesity is almost blank.”

 

They said this was area ripe for further investigation, and pointed to their own unpublished data which showed that while Asian ginseng significantly inhibited fat accumulation in 3T3-L1 cells, American ginseng has no such effect at the same concentration (1 mg/ml). They suggest this could be due increased fat accumulation caused by one of the major ginsenosides in American ginseng that is not detectable in Asian ginseng

 

 

“The different anti-obesity effect between American ginseng and Asian ginseng may also result from the different profiles of other ginsenosides,” they added.

 

“There is only one study showing that Asian ginseng extract intake exerted a weight loss effect in obese women,” they wrote. “American ginseng extract or whole plant/berry has not been investigated for anti-obesity in humans. In addition, there is no report using human primary cells investigating the antiobesity effect of ginseng and ginsenosides.”

 

They argue that standardised ginseng production is sorely needed to overcome the fact that the results of existing studies “are controversial”.

 

“These controversial results at least partly come from the variety of the quality of ginseng, especially the whole extract and juice. The quantity and composition of ginsenosides in ginseng plants are dramatically influenced by species, age, and part of the plant, cultivation methods, harvesting season, preservation methods and geographical distribution,” they state. “However, almost all ginsenosides or extracts in these studies were prepared in the individual labs or from different companies, it is almost impossible to keep the quality at the same level, particularly the whole extract.”

 

The authors concluded; “Although Asian and American ginsengs have similar profiles of active ingredients, the different percentage of crude saponins (4.8%–5.2% in Asian ginseng vs. 7.0%–7.3% in American ginseng) and the specific ginsenoside (Rf only in Asian ginseng, F11 only in American ginseng) may contribute to the different functions of these two ginsengs.” “Therefore, it is very important to compare the medical effects using modern scientific approaches.”

 

 

 

Study links prenatal phthalate exposure to altered information processing in infants

University of Illinois, April 6, 2021

Exposure to phthalates, a class of chemicals widely used in packaging and consumer products, is known to interfere with normal hormone function and development in human and animal studies. Now researchers have found evidence linking pregnant women's exposure to phthalates to altered cognitive outcomes in their infants.

Most of the findings involved slower information processing among infants with higher phthalate exposure levels, with males more likely to be affected depending on the chemical involved and the order of information presented to the infants.

Reported in the journal Neurotoxicology, the study is part of the Illinois Kids Development Study, which tracks the effects of hormone-disrupting chemicals on children's physical and behavioral development from birth to middle childhood. Now in its seventh year, IKIDS has enrolled hundreds of participants and is tracking chemical exposures in pregnant women and developmental outcomes in their children. Susan Schantz, a neurotoxicologist and professor emerita of comparative biosciences at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, is the principal investigator of the study. She is a faculty member in the Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology, which houses the IKIDS program at Illinois.

"IKIDS is part of a larger initiative funded by the National Institutes of Health, the Environmental Influences on Child Health Outcomes program. It is tracking the impact of prenatal chemical exposures and maternal psychosocial stress on children's growth and development over time," Schantz said. "We measure numerous birth outcomes, including birth weight and gestational age. We also assess infants' cognition by studying their looking behavior. This allows us to get measures of working memory, attention and information-processing speed."

The researchers analyzed metabolites of three commonly occurring phthalates in urine samples regularly collected from the pregnant women in the study. The chemical exposure data were used in combination with assessments of the women's infants when the children were 7.5 months old.

The researchers used a well-established method that gives insight into the reasoning of children too young to express themselves verbally: Infants typically look longer at unfamiliar or unexpected images or events.

The team used an infrared eye-tracker to follow each infant's gaze during several laboratory trials. With the infant sitting on a caregiver's lap, researchers first familiarized the child with two identical images of a face. After the infant learned to recognize the face, the researchers showed that same face paired with an unfamiliar one.

"In repeated trials, half of the 244 infants tested saw one set of faces as familiar, and half learned to recognize a different set of faces as familiar," Schantz said. "By analyzing the time spent looking at the faces, we could determine both the speed with which the infants processed new information and assess their ability to pay attention."

The assessment linked pregnant women's exposure to most of the phthalates that were assessed with slower information processing in their infants, but the outcome depended on the specific chemical, the sex of the infant and which set of faces the infant viewed as familiar. Male infants, in particular, tended to process information more slowly if their mothers had been exposed to higher concentrations of phthalates known to interfere with androgenic hormones.

The specific characteristics of faces presented to the infants in the familiarization trials also appeared to play a role in the outcome, the researchers reported. Phthalate-exposed children who were first familiarized with faces from Set 2 were more likely to experience slower processing speed than those familiarized with faces from Set 1. The finding is perplexing, Schantz said, but is likely related to differences in the infants' preferences for the faces in the two sets. It also may be an indication that familiarization with the Set 2 faces is a more sensitive detector of changes in processing speed related to phthalate exposure.

"Most previous studies of the relationship between prenatal exposure to phthalates and cognition have focused on early and middle childhood," Schantz said. "This new work suggests that some of these associations can be detected much earlier in a child's life."

 

Heart failure and stroke rising in men under 40

University of Gothenburg (Germany), April 8, 2021

Heart failure and stroke are unusual diagnoses among younger people. But they are now clearly on the rise in men below the age of 40, according to a University of Gothenburg study. The scientists have found links to obesity and low fitness in the upper teens.

The present study, published in Journal of Internal Medicine, includes data on 1,258,432 men who, at an average age of 18.3 years, enlisted for military service in Sweden between 1971 and 1995.

Particulars of the men's weight, height and physical fitness on enlistment were merged with data in the National Board of Health and Welfare's National Patient Register and Cause of Death Register for the period 1991-2016. From when they enlisted, the men were thus monitored over a period exceeding 20 years.

The proportion of participants who were overweight at the time of enlistment, i.e. with a body mass index (BMI) of 25-30, increased from 6.6 to 11.2 percent between 1971 and 1995, while the proportion with obesity (BMI over 30) rose from 1.0 to 2.6 percent. During the same period, their fitness level at the time of enlistment also declined slightly.

"These factors -- that is, overweight, obesity and low fitness -- partly explain the large increase in heart failure we see in the study, and the rise in stroke as well," states David Åberg. An Associate Professor at Sahlgrenska Academy, University of Gothenburg, and specialist doctor at Sahlgrenska University Hospital, Åberg is the study's first author.

"It's pleasing to see, despite rising obesity, a fairly sharp fall in heart attacks among these younger men, and also their reduced mortality from cardiovascular diseases," he continues.

Heart-failure cases within 21 years of enlistment rose, according to the study, by 69 percent -- from 0.49 per 1,000 of the men who had enlisted in the first five years (1971-75) to 0.83/1,000 of those who enlisted in the last five (1991-95).

The number of stroke cases -- cerebral infarction and cerebral hemorrhage -- showed a similar trend. The increase for cerebral infarction was 32 percent, from 0.68 for the first five-year cohort to 0.9 per 1,000 for the last. For cerebral hemorrhage the rise was 20 percent, from 0.45 to 0.54 per 1,000.

In contrast, heart attacks within 21 years of enlistment fell by 43 percent, from 1.4 to 0.8 per 1,000, of the cohorts enlisting first and last respectively. The proportion of deaths from all cardiovascular disease also decreased, by 50 percent -- from 1.5 to 0.74 per 1,000.

The fact that the trends for cardiovascular diseases move in differing directions over time suggests that other, unknown factors are involved as well. According to the researchers, post-enlistment weight trends may be one such factor, but stress and drug use may be others. Especially for heart attacks, researchers believe that a sharp fall in smoking underlies the decline. The fact remains, however, that overweight and obesity are influential.

"We see that heart attacks would have decreased even more if it hadn't been for the rise in overweight and obesity. Our results thus provide strong support for thinking that obesity and, to some extent, low fitness by the age of 18 affect early-onset cardiovascular disease. So at societal level, it's important to try to get more physical activity, and to have already established good eating habits by adolescence, while being less sedentary," David Åberg concludes.

 

Clinical trial shows benefit of yoga for side effects of prostate cancer treatment

University of Pennsylvania, April 7, 2021

Men who attended a structured yoga class twice a week during prostate cancer radiation treatment reported less fatigue and better sexual and urinary function than those who didn't, according to a clinical trial led by the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. It is the first randomized trial to look at the effect of twice-weekly yoga on the side-effects and quality of life issues caused by prostate cancer treatment. The results published in the International Journal of Radiation Oncology, Biology, and Physics.

All of the patients in the trial underwent between six and nine weeks of external beam radiation therapy for prostate cancer. The patients were randomized into two groups: one arm participated in a yoga class that met twice a week and the other arm served as a control group. Patients who already practiced yoga on their own were not eligible for the study, nor were patients with a history of prior radiation therapy or those with metastatic disease.

Only two instructors led classes for this study, with the lead instructor teaching 75 percent of the classes. Each session lasted 75 minutes, beginning with five minutes of breathing and centering techniques and ending with five minutes of Savasana, a common yoga position. Typical sessions incorporated sitting, standing, and reclining positions that were modified using props to adapt to each patient's needs and restrictions.

Patients were primarily evaluated on their level of fatigue. Each man filled out a nine-item questionnaire assessing fatigue severity and impact on daily life. The first questionnaire was given between two and three weeks before the start of radiotherapy, then twice a week while receiving radiotherapy, with a final survey filled out within a week of their last yoga class or last radiation treatment, depending on the assigned study arm.

"At their baseline, before patients started treatment, patients in both groups were on the lower end of the scale, meaning they reported lower amounts of fatigue," said the trial's principal investigator Neha Vapiwala, MD, an associate professor of Radiation Oncology. "But as treatment went on, we observed a difference in the two groups." Patients in the yoga group reported lower fatigue scores over time, as they attended more yoga sessions, relative to where they started. Patients who did not participate in yoga trended in the opposite direction, reporting greater fatigue as treatment progressed.

"Levels of patient-reported fatigue are expected to increase by around the fourth or fifth week of a typical treatment course, but that did not happen in the yoga group," Vapiwala said. "Both the severity of the fatigue as well as the patients' ability to go about their normal lives appeared to be positively impacted in the yoga group."

Researchers also evaluated both groups in terms of their sexual health. Sexual dysfunction - including but not limited to erectile dysfunction (ED) - is reported by up to 85 percent of radiation therapy patients during treatment, often due to the concurrent use of androgen deprivation therapy (ADT). The study utilized the International Index of Erectile Function (IIEF) questionnaire, in which scores range from 0-25. Scores greater than 21 are considered normal and scores below 12 indicate moderate to severe ED. Both groups started out with scores of around 11, and were balanced in terms of ADT exposure; but while the yoga group's score ended up largely unchanged from baseline, the non-yoga group saw a decline over the course of treatment.

"Yoga is known to strengthen pelvic floor muscles, which is one of several postulated theories that may explain why this group did not demonstrate declining scores, as seen in the control group," Vapiwala said. "That may also explain the yoga patients' improved urinary function scores, another finding of this trial." Vapiwala pointed out that the findings on improved or stable urinary function are consistent with other research on the effects of physical therapy on pelvic floor muscles.

The trial also found that while the emotional well-being of both groups increased as patients progressed through treatment, the evaluation scores in the yoga group rose more rapidly than in the control group. An evaluation of physical well-being showed a similar pattern

 

Spanking may affect the brain development of a child

Study shows it could alter a child's neural responses to their environment in similar ways to a child experiencing more severe violence

Harvard University, April, 12, 2021

Spanking may affect a child's brain development in similar ways to more severe forms of violence, according to a new study led by Harvard researchers. 

The research, published recently in the journal Child Development, builds on existing studies that show heightened activity in certain regions of the brains of children who experience abuse in response to threat cues. 

The group found that children who had been spanked had a greater neural response in multiple regions of the prefrontal cortex (PFC), including in regions that are part of the salience network. These areas of the brain respond to cues in the environment that tend to be consequential, such as a threat, and may affect decision-making and processing of situations.

"We know that children whose families use corporal punishment are more likely to develop anxiety, depression, behavior problems, and other mental health problems, but many people don't think about spanking as a form of violence," said Katie A. McLaughlin, John L. Loeb Associate Professor of the Social Sciences, director of the Stress & Development Lab in the Department of Psychology, and the senior researcher on the study. "In this study, we wanted to examine whether there was an impact of spanking at a neurobiological level, in terms of how the brain is developing."

According to the study's authors, corporal punishment has been linked to the development of mental health issues, anxiety, depression, behavioral problems, and substance use disorders. And recent studies show that approximately half of parents in U.S. studies reported spanking their children in the past year and one-third in the past week. However, the relationship between spanking and brain activity has not previously been studied. 

McLaughlin and her colleagues--including Jorge Cuartas, first author of the study and a doctoral candidate in the Harvard Graduate School of Education, and David Weissman, a post-doctoral fellow in the Department of Psychology's Stress & Development Lab--analyzed data from a large study of children between the ages of three and 11. They focused on 147 children around ages 10 and 11 who had been spanked, excluding children who had also experienced more severe forms of violence. 

Each child lay in an MRI machine and watched a computer screen on which were displayed different images of actors making "fearful" and "neutral" faces. A scanner captured the child's brain activity in response to each kind of face, and those images were analyzed to determine whether the faces sparked different patterns of brain activity in children who were spanked compared to those who were not. 

"On average, across the entire sample, fearful faces elicited greater activation than neutral faces in many regions throughout the brain... and children who were spanked demonstrated greater activation in multiple regions of PFC to fearful relative to neutral faces than children who were never spanked," researchers wrote. 

By contrast, "(t)here were no regions of the brain where activation to fearful relative to neutral faces differed between children who were abused and children who were spanked."

The findings are in line with similar research conducted on children who had experienced severe violence, suggesting that "while we might not conceptualize corporal punishment to be a form of violence, in terms of how a child's brain responds, it's not all that different than abuse," said McLaughlin. "It's more a difference of degree than of type."

Researchers said the study is a first step towards further interdisciplinary analysis of spanking's potential effects on children's brain development and lived experiences. 

"These findings aligned with the predictions from other perspectives on the potential consequences of corporal punishment," studied in fields such as developmental psychology and social work, said Cuartas. "By identifying certain neural pathways that explain the consequences of corporal punishment in the brain, we can further suggest that this kind of punishment might be detrimental to children and we have more avenues to explore it."

However, they noted that their findings are not applicable to the individual life of each child. 

"It's important to consider that corporal punishment does not impact every child the same way, and children can be resilient if exposed to potential adversities," said Cuartas. "But the important message is that corporal punishment is a risk that can increase potential problems for children's development, and following a precautionary principle, parents and policymakers should work toward trying to reduce its prevalence." 

Ultimately, added McLaughlin, "we're hopeful that this finding may encourage families not to use this strategy, and that it may open people's eyes to the potential negative consequences of corporal punishment in ways they haven't thought of before."