Nutrition and Diet Factors in Type 2 Diabetes

We are experiencing a worldwide epidemic of diabetes. Diabetes mellitus has become a major public health burden. Approximately seven million people develop diabetes in both developed and developing countries every year, with the most dramatic increases occurring in Type 2 Diabetes. Especially alarming, is the rising incidence of Type 2 Diabetes in obese children before puberty. In April 2017, a Special Issue of Nutrients entitled “Nutrition and Diet Factors in Type 2 Diabetes” closed with 19 published papers—eight original studies on humans, five on animals, one brief report and five reviews. The focus of the issue was on nutrition, diet factors, whole foods, broad dietary and lifestyle strategies, dietary patterns, intensive personalized treatments, nutritional prevention programs, and food policies that can be used in the development, treatment, and prevention of DM2. Nutrition and Diet Factors in Type 2 Diabetes is written for clinical and academic nutritionists, for registered dietitians, health professionals, graduate students, and for everybody with deeper interest in diabetes care. Studies and reviews presented here demonstrate that diabetes research is extensive and vibrant and the prevention, treatment and reversal of diabetes are achievable, economical, powerful, and possible

Cognition: The New Frontier for Nuts and Berries

The inclusion of nuts in the diet is associated with a decreased risk of coronary artery disease, hypertension, gallstones, diabetes, cancer, metabolic syndrome, and visceral obesity. Frequent consumption of berries seems to be associated with improved cardiovascular and cancer outcomes, improved immune function, and decreased recurrence of urinary tract infections; the consumption of nuts and berries is associated with reduction in oxidative damage, inflammation, vascular reactivity, and platelet aggregation, and improvement in immune functions. However, only recently have the effects of nut and berry consumption on the brain, different neural systems, and cognition been studied. There is growing evidence that the synergy and interaction of all of the nutrients and other bioactive components in nuts and berries can have a beneficial effect on the brain and cognition. Regular nut consumption, berry consumption, or both could possibly be used as an adjunctive therapeutic strategy in the treatment and prevention of several neurodegenerative diseases and age-related brain dysfunction. A number of animal and a growing number of human studies show that moderate-duration dietary supplementation with nuts, berry fruit, or both is capable of altering cognitive performance in humans, perhaps forestalling or reversing the effects of neurodegeneration in aging. © 2014 American Society for Nutrition

Evaluating Humanitarian Protection: A Protection-Specific Evaluation Quality Assessment Framework

In 2021, over 80 million people are forcibly displaced from their homes. 177 million people need US$ 28.8 billion worth of humanitarian assistance to meet their basic needs. The international humanitarian system (IHS) exists to respond to this massive need when states or other duty-bearers are unable and/or unwilling. The gargantuan task of responding to human suffering on a global scale is one that the IHS struggles valiantly to conduct, even though the demand for aid outweighs its supply. Donor fatigue, increased needs, and the COVID-19 pandemic have created a mismatch between the availability of resources and the funding requirements of the IHS. This scarcity has forced the IHS to investigate how funds can be allocated most efficiently to make the greatest impact. Thus, the IHS is undergoing a movement of accountability reforms involving staff professionalization and the use of evidence-based practice. An important aspect of this movement is the application of evaluation to make informed judgements about the value of interventions and their impact, as well as how to improve them. Evaluation of humanitarian programming contributes to a body of evidence that establishes “what works” and what does not. This research reviews current humanitarian protection literature to investigate what criteria should be used when assessing the quality of protection-specific evaluations and then applies a novel protection-specific evaluation quality assessment framework to ten evaluation reports, finding that only five out of ten selected reports had satisfactory quality based on Global Evaluation Report System (GEROS) scoring metrics. As a result, decision makers may not know what works and what does not in humanitarian protection and should be cautious when using evaluation findings

Trends in early childhood obesity in a large, urban school district in the Southwest from 2007 to 2014.

Presented at: Experimental Biology 2016; April 2-6, 2016; San Diego, CA.https://digitalrepository.unm.edu/prc-posters-presentations/1022/thumbnail.jp

Effects of Walnut Consumption on Cognitive Performance in Young Adults

Walnuts contain a number of potentially neuroprotective compounds like vitamin E, folate, melatonin, several antioxidative polyphenols and significant amounts of n-3 α-linolenic fatty acid. The present study sought to determine the effect of walnuts on verbal and non-verbal reasoning, memory and mood. A total of sixty-four college students were randomly assigned to two treatment sequences in a crossover fashion: walnuts-placebo or placebo-walnuts. Baseline data were collected for non-verbal reasoning, verbal reasoning, memory and mood states. Data were collected again after 8 weeks of intervention. After 6 weeks of washout, the intervention groups followed the diets in reverse order. Data were collected once more at the end of the 8-week intervention period. No significant increases were detected for mood, non-verbal reasoning or memory on the walnut-supplemented diet. However, inferential verbal reasoning increased significantly by 11.2 %, indicating a medium effect size (P = 0.009; d = 0.567). In young, healthy, normal adults, walnuts do not appear to improve memory, mood or non-verbal reasoning abilities. However, walnuts may have the ability to increase inferential reasoning

Beliefs and Attitudes toward Vegetarian Lifestyle across Generations

The objective of the study was to examine whether reasons to adopt vegetarian lifestyle differ significantly among generations. Using a Food Frequency Questionnaire (FFQ), we identified that 4% of the participants were vegans, 25% lacto-ovo-vegetarians, 4% pesco-vegetarians and 67% non-vegetarian. Younger people significantly agreed more with the moral reason and with the environmental reason. People ages 41–60 significantly agreed more with the health reason. There are significant differences across generations as to why people choose to live a vegetarian lifestyle

The HIV protease inhibitor saquinavir inhibits HMGB1 driven inflammation by targeting the interaction of cathepsin V with TLR4/MyD88

Extracellular HMGB1 (disulfide form), via activation of Toll-Like-Receptor (TLR4)-dependent signaling, is a strong driver of pathologic inflammation in both acute and chronic conditions. Identification of selective inhibitors of HMGB1-TLR4 signaling could offer novel therapies that selectively target proximal endogenous activators of inflammation. A cell-based screening strategy led us to identify first generation HIV-protease inhibitors (PI) as potential inhibitors of HMGB1-TLR4 driven cytokine production. Here we report, that the first-generation HIV-PI saquinavir (SQV), as well as a newly identified mammalian protease inhibitor STO33438 (334), potently block disulfide HMGB1 induced TLR4 activation, as assayed by the production of TNF-alpha by human monocyte-derived macrophages (THP-1). We further report on the identification of mammalian cathepsin V, a protease, as a novel target of these inhibitors. Cellular as well as recombinant protein studies show that the mechanism of action involves a direct interaction between cathepsin V with TLR4 and its adaptor protein MyD88. Treatment with SQV, 334, or the known cathepsin inhibitor SID26681509 (SID) significantly improved survival in murine models of sepsis and reduced liver damage following warm liver I/R, models both characterized by strong HMGB1-TLR4 driven pathology. The current study demonstrates a novel role for cathepsin V in TLR4 signaling and implicates cathepsin V as a novel target for first-generation HIV-PI compounds. The identification of cathepsin V as a target to block HMGB1-TLR4 driven inflammation could allow for a rapid transition of the discovery from the bench to the bedside