Ibero-American Consensus on Low- and No-Calorie Sweeteners: Safety, Nutritional Aspects and Benefits in Food and Beverages

International scientific experts in food, nutrition, dietetics, endocrinology, physical activity, paediatrics, nursing, toxicology and public health met in Lisbon on 2-4 July 2017 to develop a Consensus on the use of low- and no-calorie sweeteners (LNCS) as substitutes for sugars and other caloric sweeteners. LNCS are food additives that are broadly used as sugar substitutes to sweeten foods and beverages with the addition of fewer or no calories. They are also used in medicines, health-care products, such as toothpaste, and food supplements. The goal of this Consensus was to provide a useful, evidence-based, point of reference to assist in efforts to reduce free sugars consumption in line with current international public health recommendations. Participating experts in the Lisbon Consensus analysed and evaluated the evidence in relation to the role of LNCS in food safety, their regulation and the nutritional and dietary aspects of their use in foods and beverages. The conclusions of this Consensus were: (1) LNCS are some of the most extensively evaluated dietary constituents, and their safety has been reviewed and confirmed by regulatory bodies globally including the World Health Organisation, the US Food and Drug Administration and the European Food Safety Authority; (2) Consumer education, which is based on the most robust scientific evidence and regulatory processes, on the use of products containing LNCS should be strengthened in a comprehensive and objective way; (3) The use of LNCS in weight reduction programmes that involve replacing caloric sweeteners with LNCS in the context of structured diet plans may favour sustainable weight reduction. Furthermore, their use in diabetes management programmes may contribute to a better glycaemic control in patients, albeit with modest results. LNCS also provide dental health benefits when used in place of free sugars; (4) It is proposed that foods and beverages with LNCS could be included in dietary guidelines as alternative options to products sweetened with free sugars; (5) Continued education of health professionals is required, since they are a key source of information on issues related to food and health for both the general population and patients. With this in mind, the publication of position statements and consensus documents in the academic literature are extremely desirable

Measurement of the lifetimes of promptly produced Omega(0)(c) and Xi(9)(c) baryons

A measurement of the lifetimes of the Omega(0)(c) and Xi(0)(c) baryons is reported using proton-proton collision data at a centre-of-mass energy of 13 TeV, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 5.4 fb(-1) collected by the LHCb experiment. The Omega(0)(c) and Xi(0)(c) baryons are produced directly from proton interactions and reconstructed in the pK(-)K(-)pi(+) final state. The Omega(0)(c) lifetime is measured to be 276.5 +/- 13.4 +/- 4.4 +/- 0.7 fs, and the Xi(0)(c) lifetime is measured to be 148.0 +/- 2.3 +/- 2.2 +/- 0.2 fs, where the first uncertainty is statistical, the second systematic, and the third due to the uncertainty on the D-0 lifetime. These results confirm previous LHCb measurements based on semileptonic beauty-hadron decays, which disagree with earlier results of a four times shorter Omega(c)0 lifetime, and provide the single most precise measurement of the Omega(0 )(c)lifetime. (C) 2021 Science China Press. Published by Elsevier B.V. and Science China Press

Measurement of prompt charged-particle production in pp collisions at root s=13 TeV

The differential cross-section of prompt inclusive production of long-lived charged particles in proton-proton collisions is measured using a data sample recorded by the LHCb experiment at a centre-of-mass energy of root s = 13 TeV. The data sample, collected with an unbiased trigger, corresponds to an integrated luminosity of 5.4 nb(-1). The differential cross-section is measured as a function of transverse momentum and pseudorapidity in the ranges P-T is an element of [80, 10 000) MeV/c and eta is an element of [2.0, 4.8) and is determined separately for positively and negatively charged particles. The results are compared with predictions from various hadronic-interaction models

Evidence of a structure and observation of excited states in the decay

First evidence of a structure in the J/psi Lambda invariant mass distribution is obtained from an amplitude analysis of Xi(-)(b) -> J/psi Lambda K- decays. The observed structure is consistent with being due to a charmonium pentaquark with strangeness with a significance of 3.1r including systematic uncertainties and lookelsewhere effect. Its mass and width are determined to be 4458.8 +/- 2.9(-1.1)(+4.7) MeV and 17.3 +/- 6.5(-5.7)(+8.0) MeV, respectively, where the quoted uncertainties are statistical and systematic. The structure is also consistent with being due to two resonances. In addition, the narrow excited Xi(-) states, Xi(-)(1690) and Xi(-)(1820)(-), are seen for the first time in a Xi(-)(b) decay, and their masses and widths are measured with improved precision. The analysis is performed using pp collision data corresponding to a total integrated luminosity of 9 fb(-1), collected with the LHCb experiment at centre-of-mass energies of 7, 8 and 13 TeV. (c) 2021 Science China Press. Published by Elsevier B.V. and Science China Press. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)