pinus koraiensis seed oil pinno thin tm supplementation reduces body weight gain and lipid concentartion in liver and plasma of mice

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Fertilisation with compost mitigates salt stress in tomato by affecting plant metabolomics and nutritional profiles

Background: Salinity is one of the major threats for crop growth and yield and its rate of expansion is expected to increase. We conducted a pot experiment to evaluate and compare the effect of a green compost addition and mineral fertilisation, on growth, nutrition and metabolites of tomato plants, exposed to increasing doses of NaCl. Results: Although the development of stressed plants was lower than the corresponding controls, compost-treated plants performed better than mineral-amended plants watered with the same amount of salt. The different plant growth was related to an increased nutritional status. Namely, compost-treated plants showed a larger content of macro- and micronutrients, and a greater accumulation of osmoprotectants, such as soluble sugars and amino acids. Moreover, compost-treated plants showed a larger content of metabolites involved in modulating the response to salt stress, such as molecules related to energy transfer in plants and precursors of Reactive Oxygen Species scavenging compounds. Overall, the better performance of compost-added plants may be attributed to a greater availability of the organic forms of nutrients and to the positive bioactivity of compost-derived humic substances. Conclusions: Compost application efficiently mitigated salt stress in tomato plants in respect to mineral fertilisation. This alleviating role was associated to the induction of a more efficient metabolic response that increased accumulation of metabolites involved in modulating the salinity stress. Therefore, fertilising with composted agricultural residue may represent a convenient alternative to mineral fertilisers to grow tomato plants in the presence of salt stres

Does crop diversity contribute to dietary diversity? Evidence from integration of vegetables into maize-based farming systems

Background: Maize is the most important staple crop for food security and livelihood of smallholder farmers in many parts of sub-Saharan Africa, but it alone cannot ensure food security. Cropping patterns must be diversified to ensure an adequate supply and economic access to greater variety of foods for smallholder farm households. This study measured the effect of crop diversification on household dietary diversity in a selected study locale using a survey of 300 randomly stratified farm households in 10 villages located in the Babati, Kongwa and Kiteto districts of Tanzania. Results: Based on multiple regression analysis, the study found that simply increasing Simpson’s Index does not influence dietary diversity of farm households due to the presence of interaction effect between Simpson’s Index and crop income. It is much more critical and significant to increase the revenue generated from diversified crops along with other socioeconomic endowment and behavioral characteristics of farm households. This is particularly applicable to poorer smallholder farmers who receive crop income less than US$85 per sales transaction and per season. Particularly, marginal and smallholders might be exposed to the effects of crop diversification and crop income toward increasing in their household dietary diversity score. Conclusion: Under average crop income scenarios, households that diversify their crop production tend to increase their dietary diversity from their existing dietary diversity score at a decreasing rate. However, under below average crop income threshold scenarios, farmers tend to increase their dietary diversity score from their existing score at an increasing rate when they diversify into high-value crops that attract relatively high farm gate values and accrue higher net revenues from the market. Monthly food expenditure also tends to positively influence household dietary diversity, indicating that farm households that spend more on market-purchased food have consistent increases in their dietary diversity scores at the household level. This study concludes that improving economic access to variety of foods at the smallholder household level by diversifying diets through increased crop diversification should be encouraged within maize-based farming systems of the study locale, through integration of micronutrient-rich foods such as vegetables

Global Mortality Estimates for the 2009 Influenza Pandemic from the GLaMOR Project: A Modeling Study

Background: Assessing the mortality impact of the 2009 influenza A H1N1 virus (H1N1pdm09) is essential for optimizing public health responses to future pandemics. The World Health Organization reported 18,631 laboratory-confirmed pandemic deaths, but the total pandemic mortality burden was substantially higher. We estimated the 2009 pandemic mortality burden through statistical modeling of mortality data from multiple countries. Methods and Findings: We obtained weekly virology and underlying cause-of-death mortality time series for 2005–2009 for 20 countries covering ~35% of the world population. We applied a multivariate linear regression model to estimate pandemic respiratory mortality in each collaborating country. We then used these results plus ten country indicators in a multiple imputation model to project the mortality burden in all world countries. Between 123,000 and 203,000 pandemic respiratory deaths were estimated globally for the last 9 mo of 2009. The majority (62%–85%) were attributed to persons under 65 y of age. We observed a striking regional heterogeneity, with almost 20-fold higher mortality in some countries in the Americas than in Europe. The model attributed 148,000–249,000 respiratory deaths to influenza in an average pre-pandemic season, with only 19% in person