Is eating raisins healthy?

Raisins are dried grapes consumed worldwide that contain beneficial components for human health. They are rich in fiber and phytochemicals such as phenolic compounds. Despite a 60% sugar content, several studies have reported health-promoting properties for raisins and this review compiles the intervention studies, as well as the cell line and animal model studies carried out to date. It has been demonstrated that raisins possess a low-to-moderate glycemic index, which makes them a healthy snack. They seem to contribute to a better diet quality and may reduce appetite. Their antioxidant capacity has been correlated to the phenolic content and this may be involved in the improvement of cardiovascular health. In addition, raisins maintain a good oral health due to their antibacterial activity, low adherence to teeth and an optimum oral pH. Raisin consumption also seems to be favorable for colon function, although more studies should be done to conclude this benefit. Moreover, gut microbiota could be affected by the prebiotic content of raisins. Cell line and animal model studies show other potential benefits in specific diseases, such as cancer and Alzheimer's disease. However, deeper research is required and future intervention studies with humans are needed. Overall, incorporating an 80-90 g portion of raisins (half a cup) into the daily diet may be favorable for human health

Encapsulation of Phenolic Compounds from a Grape Cane Pilot-Plant Extract in Hydroxypropyl Beta-Cyclodextrin and Maltodextrin by Spray Drying

Grape canes, the main byproducts of the viticulture industry, contain high-value bioactive phenolic compounds, whose application is limited by their instability and poorly solubility in water. Encapsulation in cyclodextrins allows these drawbacks to be overcome. In this work, a grape cane pilot-plant extract (GCPPE) was encapsulated in hydroxypropyl beta-cyclodextrin (HP-β-CD) by a spray-drying technique and the formation of an inclusion complex was confirmed by microscopy and infrared spectroscopy. The phenolic profile of the complex was analyzed by LC-ESI-LTQ-Orbitrap-MS and the encapsulation efficiency of the phenolic compounds was determined. A total of 42 compounds were identified, including stilbenes, flavonoids, and phenolic acids, and a complex of (epi)catechin with β-CD was detected, confirming the interaction between polyphenols and cyclodextrin. The encapsulation efficiency for the total extract was 80.5 ± 1.1%, with restrytisol showing the highest value (97.0 ± 0.6%) and (E)-resveratrol (32.7 ± 2.8%) the lowest value. The antioxidant capacity of the inclusion complex, determined by ORAC-FL, was 5300 ± 472 µmol TE/g DW, which was similar to the value obtained for the unencapsulated extract. This formulation might be used to improve the stability, solubility, and bioavailability of phenolic compounds of the GCPPE for water-soluble food and pharmaceutical applications

Long-Term Persistance of the Pathophysiologic Response to Severe Burn Injury

Main contributors to adverse outcomes in severely burned pediatric patients are profound and complex metabolic changes in response to the initial injury. It is currently unknown how long these conditions persist beyond the acute phase post-injury. The aim of the present study was to examine the persistence of abnormalities of various clinical parameters commonly utilized to assess the degree hypermetabolic and inflammatory alterations in severely burned children for up to three years post-burn to identify patient specific therapeutic needs and interventions. Nine-hundred seventy-seven severely burned pediatric patients with burns over 30% of the total body surface admitted to our institution between 1998 and 2008 were enrolled in this study and compared to a cohort non-burned, non-injured children. Demographics and clinical outcomes, hypermetabolism, body composition, organ function, inflammatory and acute phase responses were determined at admission and subsequent regular intervals for up to 36 months post-burn. Statistical analysis was performed using One-way ANOVA, Student's t-test with Bonferroni correction where appropriate with significance accepted at p<0.05. Resting energy expenditure, body composition, metabolic markers, cardiac and organ function clearly demonstrated that burn caused profound alterations for up to three years post-burn demonstrating marked and prolonged hypermetabolism, p<0.05. Along with increased hypermetabolism, significant elevation of cortisol, catecholamines, cytokines, and acute phase proteins indicate that burn patients are in a hyperinflammatory state for up to three years post-burn p<0.05. Severe burn injury leads to a much more profound and prolonged hypermetabolic and hyperinflammatory response than previously shown. Given the tremendous adverse events associated with the hypermetabolic and hyperinflamamtory responses, we now identified treatment needs for severely burned patients for a much more prolonged time

A user modeling pipeline for studying polarized political events in social media

This paper presents a user modeling pipeline to analyze discussions and opinions shared on social media regarding polarized political events (e.g., public polls). The pipeline follows a four-step methodology. First, social media posts and users metadata are crawled. Second, a filtering mechanism is applied to filter spammers and bot users. As a third step, demographics information is extracted out of the valid users, namely gender, age, ethnicity and location information. Finally, the political polarity of the users with respect to the analyzed event is predicted. In the scope of this work, our proposed pipeline is applied to two referendum scenarios (independence of Catalonia in Spain and autonomy of Lombardy in Italy) in order to assess the performance of the approach with respect to the capability of collecting correct insights on the demographics of social media users and of predicting the poll results based on the opinions shared by the users. Experiments show that the method was effective in predicting the political trends for the Catalonia case, but not for the Lombardy case. Among the various motivations for this, we noticed that in general Twitter was more representative of the users opposing the referendum than the ones in favor.Accepted Author ManuscriptWeb Information System

Pilot-plant scale extraction of phenolic compounds from grape canes: Comprehensive characterization by LC-ESI-LTQ-Orbitrap-MS

Grape canes, also named vine shoots, are well-known viticultural byproducts containing high levels of phenolic compounds, which are associated with a broad range of health benefits. In this work, grape canes (Vitis vinifera cv. Pinot noir) were extracted in a 750 L pilot-plant reactor under the following conditions: temperature 80 °C, time 100 min, solid/liquid ratio 1:10. The comprehensive characterization of grape cane phenolic compounds was performed by liquid chromatography coupled to high-resolution/accurate mass measurement LTQ-Orbitrap mass spectrometry. A total of 44 compounds were identified and, 26 of them also quantified, consisting of phenolic acids and aldehydes (17), flavonoids (12), and stilbenoids (15). The most abundant class of phenolics were stilbenoids, among which (E)-ε-viniferin predominated. The phenolic profile of grape canes obtained using pilot plant extraction differed significantly from the results of laboratory-scale studies obtained previously. Additionally, we observed a high antioxidant capacity of grape cane pilot-plant extract measured by the radical antioxidant cavenging potential (ABTS+) (2209 ± 125 µmol TE/g DW) and oxygen radical absorbance capacity using fluorescein (ORAC-FL) (4612 ± 155 µmol TE/g DW). Grape cane pilot-plant extract for their phenolic profile may be used as a by-product for the development of novel nutraceutical and pharmaceutical products, improving the value and the sustainability of these residues