Bioactivity in Whey Proteins Influencing Energy Balance

Peer-reviewedObesity develops due to energy (food) intake exceeding energy expenditure. Nutrients that reduce the positive energy balance are thus being considered as therapies to combat obesity. Here, we review the literature related to the physiological, cellular and endocrine effects of intake of whey proteins, namely α-lactalbumin, β-lactoglobulin, glycomacropeptide and lactoferrin. Moreover, we discuss how dietary composition and obesity may influence whey protein effects on the above parameters. Evidence suggests that intake of whey proteins causes a decrease in energy intake, increase in energy expenditure, influence insulin sensitivity and glucose homeostasis and alter lipid metabolism in the adipose, liver and muscle. These physiological changes are accompanied by alterations in the plasma levels of energy balance related hormones (cholecystokinin, ghrelin, insulin and glucagon-like peptide-1) and the expression of catabolic and anabolic genes in the above tissue in the direction to cause a negative energy balance

Extreme Ultraviolet Emission in the Fornax Cluster of Galaxies

We present studies of the Extreme Ultraviolet (EUV) emission in the Fornax cluster of galaxies; a relatively nearby well-studied cluster with X-ray emitting cluster gas and a very large radio source. We examine both the large-scale (~size of the X-ray emitting cluster gas), and the small-scale (<arcmin) emission. We find that this cluster has large-scale diffuse EUV emission. However, at the sensitivity level of the existing EUVE data, this emission is due entirely to the low energy tail of the X-ray emitting gas. We have also examined small-scale structures in raw EUVE images of this cluster. We find that small-scale irregularities are present in all raw Deep Survey images as a result of small-scale detector effects. These effects can be removed by appropriate flat-fielding. After flat-fielding, the Fornax cluster still shows a few significant regions of small-scale EUV enhancement. We find that these are emission from stars and galaxies in the field. We find that at existing levels of sensitivity, there is no excess EUV emission in the cluster on either large or small scales.Comment: 6 pages, 3 eps figures, aastex5, Accepted to ApJ

Early life colonization of the human gut : microbes matter everywhere

Microbes colonising the infant intestine, especially bacteria, are considered important for metabolic and immunological programming in early life, potentially affecting the susceptibility of the host to disease. We combined published data to provide a global view of microbiota development in early life. The results support the concept that the microbiota develops with age in an orchestrated manner, showing common patterns across populations. Furthermore, infants are colonised at birth by specific, selected maternal faecal bacteria and likely their bacteriophages. Therefore, infants are adapted to receiving specific bacterial signals, partly derived from the maternal microbiota, at successive immunological time windows during early development. Birth by caesarean section compromises the initial vertical transmission of microbes whereas antibiotic use shifts the microbiota away from the normal developmental pattern. These disruptions alter the microbial signals that the host receives, potentially affecting child development.Peer reviewe

Infant gut microbiota restoration : state of the art

The gut microbiota has a central role in the programming of the host's metabolism and immune function, with both immediate and long-term health consequences. Recent years have witnessed an accumulation of understanding of the process of the colonization and development of the gut microbiota in infants. The natural gut microbiota colonization during birth is frequently disrupted due to C-section birth or intrapartum or postpartum antibiotic exposure, and consequently aberrant gut microbiota development is common. On a positive note, research has shown that restoration of normal gut microbiota development is feasible. We discuss here the current understanding of the infant microbiota, provide an overview of the sources of disturbances, and critically evaluate the evidence on early life gut microbiota restoration for improved health outcomes by analyzing published data from infant gut microbiota restoration studies.Peer reviewe

A South African perspective on factors that impact on the adoption and meaningful use of health information technologies

Objective: Various benefits are associated with the adoption and meaningful use of health information technologies (HITs) in the healthcare sector. Despite the associated advantages with the adoption and use of HITs, the South African healthcare sector has been slow to adopt HITs, such as electronic record systems. The purpose of this study was to identify factors that should be addressed to encourage the adoption and meaningful use of HITs in the South African healthcare landscape.Design: A three-round Delphi study was conducted to identify such factors.Setting and subjects: The Delphi panel included 21 participants who were considered to be suitably knowledgeable about the acceptance and significant use of HITs in the context of the South African healthcare setting.Results: A total of 58 factors were uncovered by the participants. Consensus was reached on 42 factors that were considered to have a direct to significant impact on the adoption and meaningful use of HITs in the South African healthcare sector.Conclusion: The results of this study highlight factors that should be addressed to encourage the adoption and meaningful use of HITs in South Africa’s healthcare setting. These results indicate that a wide range of factors need to be addressed and involve a multitude of stakeholders.Keywords: health information technology, adoption, meaningful use, South Africa, Delphi stud

Pleistocene hypothesis – moving Savanna perceptual preference hypothesis beyond Savanna

We provide an extension of the Savanna perceptual preference hypothesis (“Savanna Hypothesis”), supposing that interaction with landscapes offering survival advantage for human groups during evolution might have gradually evolved to permanent landscape preferences. This additional support is based on the palaeoenvironmental analysis of the spread of modern humans into Europe in the late Pleistocene and their living environments there. Our hypothesis is that the preference for park-like landscapes after African savannas experienced a kind of “refreshment” in the Pleistocene. Thus, preferences for certain types of natural settings and scenes may have a more continuous evolutionary history than previously thought. The extended Savanna Hypothesis termed “Pleistocene Hypothesis” might stimulate further work on this important topic linking human evolution and human environmental preferences

A novel Bayesian approach to quantify clinical variables and to determine their spectroscopic counterparts in 1H NMR metabonomic data

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>A key challenge in metabonomics is to uncover quantitative associations between multidimensional spectroscopic data and biochemical measures used for disease risk assessment and diagnostics. Here we focus on clinically relevant estimation of lipoprotein lipids by ¹H NMR spectroscopy of serum.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>A Bayesian methodology, with a biochemical motivation, is presented for a real ¹H NMR metabonomics data set of 75 serum samples. Lipoprotein lipid concentrations were independently obtained for these samples via ultracentrifugation and specific biochemical assays. The Bayesian models were constructed by Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) and they showed remarkably good quantitative performance, the predictive R-values being 0.985 for the very low density lipoprotein triglycerides (VLDL-TG), 0.787 for the intermediate, 0.943 for the low, and 0.933 for the high density lipoprotein cholesterol (IDL-C, LDL-C and HDL-C, respectively). The modelling produced a kernel-based reformulation of the data, the parameters of which coincided with the well-known biochemical characteristics of the ¹H NMR spectra; particularly for VLDL-TG and HDL-C the Bayesian methodology was able to clearly identify the most characteristic resonances within the heavily overlapping information in the spectra. For IDL-C and LDL-C the resulting model kernels were more complex than those for VLDL-TG and HDL-C, probably reflecting the severe overlap of the IDL and LDL resonances in the ¹H NMR spectra.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>The systematic use of Bayesian MCMC analysis is computationally demanding. Nevertheless, the combination of high-quality quantification and the biochemical rationale of the resulting models is expected to be useful in the field of metabonomics.</p