Meals in western eating and drinking

Meals are a way of organizing eating into events that have a particular structure and form, and they play an indisputable and even self-evident role within the rhythms and routines of everyday life. In late modern societies, concern about the fate of meals has arisen in both public and academic discourse. It has been suggested that eating is characterized today by individualization, destructuration, and informalization and that communal meals are increasingly being replaced by snacks and solitary eating. This chapter focuses on meals in today’s affluent societies and reflects on why meals are considered important, how meals are defined, and what material elements and social dimensions they contain. It looks at how societal and cultural changes and ecological concerns may influence the organization and future of meals, and it suggests that the content of meals will change in response to the need to diminish the ecological burden of food production and consumption. In particular, plant-based options will at least partly need to replace meat and other animal-based foods. However, there is no reason to expect that the meal as a social institution will break down. Despite the fact that not all meals are characterized by conviviality and companionship, they continue to serve as a significant arena of human sociability and togetherness. Sharing food is, after all, an essential part of being human.Non peer reviewe

Ectopic Cushing' syndrome caused by a neuroendocrine carcinoma of the mesentery

BACKGROUND: ACTH overproduction within the pituitary gland or ectopically leads to hypercortisolism. Here, we report the first case of Cushing' syndrome caused by an ectopic ACTH-secreting neuroendocrine carcinoma of the mesentery. Moreover, diagnostic procedures and pitfalls associated with ectopic ACTH-secreting tumors are demonstrated and discussed. CASE PRESENTATION: A 41 year-old man presented with clinical features and biochemical tests suggestive of ectopic Cushing's syndrome. First, subtotal thyroidectomy was performed without remission of hypercortisolism, because an octreotide scan showed increased activity in the left thyroid gland and an ultrasound revealed nodules in both thyroid lobes one of which was autonomous. In addition, the patient had a 3 mm hypoenhancing lesion of the neurohypophysis and a 1 cm large adrenal tumor. Surgical removal of the pituitary lesion within the posterior lobe did not improve hypercortisolism and we continued to treat the patient with metyrapone to block cortisol production. At 18-months follow-up from initial presentation, we detected an ACTH-producing neuroendocrine carcinoma of the mesentery by using a combination of octreotide scan, computed tomography scan, and positron emission tomography. Intraoperatively, use of a gamma probe after administration of radiolabeled (111)In-pentetreotide helped identify the mesenteric neuroendocrine tumor. After removal of this carcinoma, the patient improved clinically. Laboratory testing confirmed remission of hypercortisolism. An octreotide scan 7 months after surgery showed normal results. CONCLUSION: This case underscores the diagnostic challenge in identifying an ectopic ACTH-producing tumor and the pluripotency of cells, in this case of mesenteric cells that can start producing and secreting ACTH. It thereby helps elucidate the pathogenesis of neuroendocrine tumors. This case also suggests that patients with ectopic Cushing's syndrome and an octreotide scan positive in atypical locations may benefit from explorative radioguided surgery using (111)In-pentetreotide and a gamma probe

Transcriptomic Approaches to Modelling Long Term Changes in Human Cardiac Electrophysiology

Slow changes in the activity of the heart occur with time scales from days through to decades, and may in part result from changes in cardiomyocyte properties. The cellular mechanisms of the cardiomyocyte action potential have time scales from < ms to hundreds of ms. Although the quantitative dynamic relations between mRNA transcription, protein synthesis, trafficking, recycling, and membrane protein activity are unclear, mRNA-Seq can be used to inform parameters in cell excitation equations. We use such transcriptomic data from a non-human primate to scale maximal conductances in the O’Hara-Rudy (2011) family of human ventricular cell models, and to predict diurnal changes in human ventricular action potential durations. These are related to circadian changes in the incidence of sudden cardiac deaths. Transcriptomic analysis of human fetal hearts between 9 and 16 weeks gestational age is beginning to be used to inform ventricular cell and tissue models of the electrophysiology of the developing fetal heart

Implication for Functions of the Ectopic Adipocyte Copper Amine Oxidase (AOC3) from Purified Enzyme and Cell-Based Kinetic Studies

AOC3 is highly expressed in adipocytes and smooth muscle cells, but its function in these cells is currently unknown. The in vivo substrate(s) of AOC3 is/are also unknown, but could provide an invaluable clue to the enzyme's function. Expression of untagged, soluble human AOC3 in insect cells provides a relatively simple means of obtaining pure enzyme. Characterization of enzyme indicates a 6% titer for the active site 2,4,5-trihydroxyphenylalanine quinone (TPQ) cofactor and corrected kcat values as high as 7 s−1. Substrate kinetic profiling shows that the enzyme accepts a variety of primary amines with different chemical features, including nonphysiological branched-chain and aliphatic amines, with measured kcat/Km values between 102 and 104 M−1 s−1. Km(O2) approximates the partial pressure of oxygen found in the interstitial space. Comparison of the properties of purified murine to human enzyme indicates kcat/Km values that are within 3 to 4-fold, with the exception of methylamine and aminoacetone that are ca. 10-fold more active with human AOC3. With drug development efforts investigating AOC3 as an anti-inflammatory target, these studies suggest that caution is called for when screening the efficacy of inhibitors designed against human enzymes in non-transgenic mouse models. Differentiated murine 3T3-L1 adipocytes show a uniform distribution of AOC3 on the cell surface and whole cell Km values that are reasonably close to values measured using purified enzymes. The latter studies support a relevance of the kinetic parameters measured with isolated AOC3 variants to adipocyte function. From our studies, a number of possible substrates with relatively high kcat/Km have been discovered, including dopamine and cysteamine, which may implicate a role for adipocyte AOC3 in insulin-signaling and fatty acid metabolism, respectively. Finally, the demonstrated AOC3 turnover of primary amines that are non-native to human tissue suggests possible roles for the adipocyte enzyme in subcutaneous bacterial infiltration and obesity

The Enchanted Hunters in Nabokov’s Lolita

In Nabokov’s Lolita, Humbert Humbert’s The Enchanted Hunters, as a quest for love, aims to reconstruct a felicitous world or integrate various fragmentary details into an organic unity that revives a lost love, experiencing it on the basis of irony, and revealing a simulation of the desire, violence, and despondency which have been expressed in myths of nymphs and Persephone. The protagonist never reaches this unity, but his narrative of erotic and romantic love reveals him as a pathetic addict engaged in mechanical reproduction related to the phenomena of desire, seduction, violence, and sex. His The Enchanted Hunters does not simulate what he expects of his childhood love with Annabel; rather, it simulates the erotic imagination suggested in Mary D. Sheriff’s term “nymphomania,” in which artists fall degenerately to a model of tragedy