Eat as Much as You Burn – a Good Diet and Eating Less Should Be More Important Than an Intense Exercise Program for Decreasing Morbidity and Mortality.

Eat as much as you burn – a good diet and eating less should be more important than an intense exercise program for decreasing morbidity and mortality.

Clinics (Sao Paulo). 2013; 68(3): 419
Cakar M, Balta S, Demirkol S, Kurt O, Sarlak H, Arslan Z

HubMed – eating

 

Multiple bursts of pancreatic ribonuclease gene duplication in insect-eating bats.

Gene. 2013 May 1;
Xu H, Liu Y, Meng F, He B, Han N, Li G, Rossiter SJ, Zhang S

Pancreatic ribonuclease gene (RNASE1) was previously shown to have undergone duplication and adaptive evolution related to digestive efficiency in several mammalian groups that have evolved foregut fermentation, including ruminants and some primates. RNASE1 gene duplications thought to be linked to diet have also been recorded in some carnivores. Of all mammals, bats have evolved the most diverse dietary specializations, mainly including frugivory and insectivory. Here we cloned, sequenced and analysed RNASE1 gene sequences from a range of bat species to determine whether their dietary adaptation is mirrored by molecular adaptation. We found that seven insect-eating members of the families Vespertilionidae and Molossidae possessed two or more duplicates, and we also detected three pseudogenes. Reconstructed RNASE1 gene trees based on both Bayesian and maximum likelihood methods supported independent duplication events in these two families. Selection tests revealed that RNASE1 gene duplicates have undergone episodes of positive selection indicative of functional modification, and lineage-specific tests revealed strong adaptive evolution in the Tadarida ? clade. However, unlike the RNASE1 duplicates that function in digestion in some mammals, the bat RNASE1 sequences were found to be characterised by relatively high isoelectric points, a feature previously suggested to promote defense against viruses via the breakdown of double-stranded RNA. Taken together, our findings point to an adaptive diversification of RNASE1 in these two bat families, although we find no clear evidence that this was driven by diet. Future experimental assays are needed to resolve the functions of these enzymes in bats. HubMed – eating

 

Ability of different screening tools to predict positive effect on nutritional intervention among the elderly in primary health care.

Nutrition. 2013 May 2;
Beck AM, Beermann T, Kjær S, Rasmussen HH

OBJECTIVE: Routine identification of nutritional risk screening is paramount as the first stage in nutritional treatment of the elderly. The major focus of former validation studies of screening tools has been on the ability to predict undernutrition. The aim of this study was to validate Mini Nutritional Assessment-Short Form (MNA-SF), the Malnutrition Universal Screening Tool (MUST), the Nutritional Risk Screening 2002 (NRS-2002), Body Mass Index (BMI) <24, and the Eating Validation Scheme (EVS), using published randomized controlled trials of nutritional intervention among old people in primary health care, in order to evaluate whether they were capable of distinguishing those with a positive benefit from those that showed no benefit of nutritional intervention. METHODS: The methods used were a literature search; classification of participants with respect to nutritional risk according to the different nutritional screening tools; and validation (i.e., evaluation of whether the different tools were capable of distinguishing those with a positive benefit from those that showed no benefit of nutritional intervention by assessing the positive [PPV] and negative [NPV] predictive values). RESULTS: MNA-SF, NRS-2002, BMI <24 and EVS had the highest PPV (0.75) and EVS the highest NPV (0.74) with regard to function-the primary clinical outcome. CONCLUSION: Overall EVS seemed most capable of distinguishing those clients and residents with a positive benefit from those that showed no benefit of nutritional intervention. The findings should be confirmed in further validation and intervention studies. HubMed – eating

 

Lack of association between brain-derived neurotrophic factor Val66Met polymorphism and body mass index change over time in healthy adults.

Neurosci Lett. 2013 May 2;
Perkovic MN, Mustapic M, Pavlovic M, Uzun S, Kozumplik O, Barisic I, Muck-Seler D, Pivac N

Obesity is becoming the epidemic health problem worldwide with a very complex etiology. The interaction between diverse genetic and environmental factors contributes to development of obesity. Among myriad of functions in central and peripheral tissues, brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) also regulates energy homeostasis, food intake and feeding behavior, and has a role in obesity and increased body mass index (BMI). BDNF Val66Met (rs6265) polymorphism is associated with BMI gain, but both positive associations and non-replications are reported. Since BMI changes over time and since genetic influences on BMI vary with age, the aim of the study was to evaluate association between BDNF Val66Met polymorphism and BMI gain in healthy subjects with middle or old age. The study included a cohort of 339 adult healthy Caucasians of Croatian origin, free of eating and metabolic disorders, evaluated in three time periods in the year 1972, 1982 and 2006, when the subjects were around 40, 50 and 70 years old, respectively. The results revealed a significant effect of smoking on BMI, but a lack of significant association between BDNF Val66Met polymorphism and overweight or obesity, and no significant association between BDNF Val66Met and BMI changes over time. These results did not confirm the major role of BDNF Val66Met in the regulation of BMI changes in adult and old healthy subjects. HubMed – eating