Health Meaning

Why "Mind Sexual Control 'is rare in nature -

The parasites not only cause unpleasant infections; they can also take over the minds of their hosts. The fungus Ophiocordyceps , for example, require the ants to mount stems of plants, where they die and release of fungal spores in the air to infect other ants. Similarly, it would be logical for sexually transmitted parasites to force their guests to have more sex. But biologists have found very few examples of this kind. A new study may explain why.

To understand why there is not more "mind control sexual" in nature, theoretical ecologist Ludek Berec of the Biology Centre of the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic, and biological mathematician Daniel Maxin from Valparaiso University in Indiana, turned to mathematical modeling They created two strains of a species of parasitic hypothetical. an "ancestor" who has not made his guests have more sex, and a mutant who did. Then they both turned loose stem in a hypothetical host population and watched the parasites compete until the mutant strain died on or replaced their ancestor.

If the mutant strain has replaced its ancestor, the researchers introduced a new mutant had even more power over the sex of its host life. They then watched the two strains compete again, yet another introduced strongest mutant when former surpassed its predecessor, and so on. In this way, the species as a whole could "evolve" to exert more or less control of sexual spirit of its host.

In most simulations, the mutants did not evolve toward making their guests have more sex, the team reports in the February 7 issue of Journal of Theoretical Biology . Instead, they have either lost the ability to influence mating behavior of their host or are dead on. Researchers believe that control of the mind is too sexual energy to the parasite, causes too much harm to the host, or both. For example, the host might become so focused on sex it does not spend enough time searching for food and water. In addition, for a parasite to change the libido of its host, it might have to pay a large portion of its energy in pumping powerful hormones, which could weaken in the long term.

The results will help epidemiologists understand how sexually transmitted diseases are spread not only parasites visible to the naked eye, but also bacteria, viruses and other microscopic invaders, says evolutionary biologist Patrick Abbot, from Vanderbilt University in Nashville, which has not participated. Describe the characteristics of coupling noise and improving their host populations can also help field biologists find more of these parasites in the real world, he noted.

High Profile Paper Stem Cell Under Fire -

The world of research on stem cells has been set on its ear 29 January when Japanese and American scientists reported a surprisingly simple way to generate stem cells that can theoretically develop in all cells of a body. But the anonymous bloggers and some experts have spotted possible manipulation of images in newspapers. The establishment of the principal researcher studies.

Haruko Obokata Developmental Biology of RIKEN Center (CDB) in Kobe, Japan, and colleagues from other institutions in Japan and Harvard Medical School in Boston reported that simply submit blood cells from newborn mice to a moderately acidic environment for 25 minutes and then refine culture conditions could generate pluripotent stem cells capable of developing into almost all types of cells of an organism. They described what they called the acquisition of pluripotency (STAP) cells stimulus triggered in a research paper and a research letter published online in Nature on 29 January.

Just a week later, anonymous bloggers on PubPeer website postpublication a discussion forum of scientific results, began to notice anomalies in the picture 1i in the research article. In some eyes, it appears that the central channel of a blot image was spliced ​​into. On February 13, contributors PubPeer zeroed in the letter of research, arguing that a portion of Figure 1b, showing the placenta of a chimera STAP, may have been rotated and reused in Figure 2g.

in the emails that responded to questions posed by science Insider, the public relations office at the headquarters of RIKEN in Wako, near Tokyo, wrote that they were the site of the current but launched its investigation on February 13 in response to a notification received from an outside expert. The investigation team includes both RIKEN and outside scientists. RIKEN could not say when the investigation is complete, leads, or if it only focuses on the images reported on PubPeer.

A public relations officer at the CBD said Obokata and colleagues directed all queries to RIKEN seat.

On February 13, a Japanese blog pointed to possible manipulation of images in a 2011 document tissue engineering by Obokata and others. Furthermore, on 14 February, a Japanese blogger published a note stating that "the problems of some images of the research article could be the result of image compression noise."

the RIKEN responsible for public relations wrote that their investigation only covers two Nature papers.

Both documents were revolutionary because they have put forward a method for generating stem cells much simpler than any previously reported, a development that could advance regenerative medicine, in which scientists try develop replacement tissues as a treatment for diseases and injuries.

The image problems could not say the reported results are not valid.

"for the moment, we think the research results published in Nature are sound," the public relations office wrote.

other laboratories already trying to reproduce the work, and some have posted their experiences on a blog stem cells. Nobody has said they have successfully reprogrammed cells, but most have not used the same cells used Obokata

* updated February 17, 15 hours :. a sentence referring to a second blog post in Japan can image compression discussion has been revised following a clarification of its English translation.

Breast Cancer Gene famous could affect brain growth -

The cancer gene BRCA1, that holds the breast tumors and ovarian at bay by producing proteins that repair damaged DNA, can also regulate brain size. Mice carrying a mutated copy of the gene were 10 times fewer neurons and other brain abnormalities, a new study suggests. These dramatic effects on the size and function of the brain is unlikely in humans holders of BRCA1 mutations, the authors of the study note, but they suggest the findings could shed light on the role of gene in brain evolution.

scientists have long known that the BRCA1 gene [estunesentinelleimportantecontrelesdommagesdel'ADNquipeuventconduireàdescancersdel'ovaireetduseinPlusdelamoitiédesfemmesayantunecopiemutéedu BRCA1 gene will develop breast cancer, a statistic that has led some who carry the mutation for preventive mastectomies. But his roles outside of the breast and ovaries are less clear, says Inder Verma, a geneticist and molecular biologist at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in San Diego, California, who led the new study. mice bred without BRCA1 die soon after birth, it is clear that the gene is necessary to sustain life, but scientists are just beginning to unravel its many functions, he said. There

several years, one of the students in the lab noticed that Verma BRCA1 is very active in the neurectoderm, embryonic tissue tape containing neural stem cells that divide and differentiate into wide assortment of brain cell types and structures. Verma and his colleagues wondered why the gene was expressed at high levels in this region, and what would happen if it were eliminated. They created a strain of mice in which BRCA1 was eliminated only in neural stem cells. As the mice developed, Verma's team found that the brains of rodents were only a third of their normal size, with particularly striking reductions in brain areas involved in learning and memory. The cultured mice also had a wobbly gait-a drunk symptom of ataxia, a neurological disorder that affects muscle control and balance, the researchers report online today in Acts of national Academy of sciences .

Verma, member of laboratory Gerald Pao and colleagues sought to determine why the removal BRCA1 had caused these problems. Although neural stem cells divided at a normal rate, an unusually high number of dead cells soon after they formed, they found. The researchers also found that BRCA1 proteins were helping to keep the DNA of the erosion that the divided cells. Without BRCA induced DNA repair, a molecule called ATM kinase detected excessive DNA breakage and activated a chemical that kills damaged cells. Thus, mice with defective BRCA1 genes, many more cells were eliminated as would be destroyed in the normal brain development. Most of the cells that survived were disorganized and malformed, showing additional effects of defective DNA packaging, said Verma. Cellular disarray is similar to that observed in cancer, he said. "No orderly conduct" Both cancer cells and brain cells show

Verma is quick to point out that even if there were two case studies in which BRCA1 were linked to brain abnormalities mutations, dramatic effects documented in mice in the study are not likely to occur in women with BRCA1 mutation, which still have some functioning BRCA1 , compared to mice that had not.

Verma said the new data suggest that BRCA may have a role in the evolution of brain size. Genes involved in microcephaly, a condition in which patients have a brain about the size of chimpanzee brains, directly control the levels of BRCA1 expression, he said.

Jeremy Pulvers, a molecular biologist at the Max Planck Institute of Molecular and Cell Biology and Genetics in Dresden, Germany, where the company presented similar results in a previous article, says that the new study "provides a further proof that BRCA1 ... plays a specific role in brain size control. "" This is important fundamental basic science of how the genome is protected in rapidly proliferating cells in the brain "says Huda Zoghbi, a neuroscientist at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, Texas.

Armed with new data, researchers Again Challenge effectiveness Antiflu Drug -

BMJ released the latest volley in a battle over one of the most controversial drugs of the 21st century: the compound oseltamivir anti-influenza, better known as Tamiflu. A working group of the Cochrane Collaboration, an international network of scientists that conducts systematic reviews of the medical literature, conducted the most exhaustive meta-analysis yet of drug effectiveness and its conclusions are, again, pretty overwhelming.

Tamiflu can relieve symptoms of the flu earlier than they would otherwise, the authors say, but there is no evidence that it can prevent serious flu complications, or keep people out of hospital. The group questions the wisdom of buying massive stocks of drugs to prepare for an influenza pandemic, as many countries have done.

The review comes after a long fight to get stretched all available data from trials of Tamiflu from Roche, the company that produces the drug. The Cochrane group, with the active support of BMJ , eventually won that showdown, and thereby makes Tamiflu the poster child for a wider campaign successfully to ensure access to clinical trial data. (The European Medicines Agency has already said he will make the information it receives from pharmaceutical companies available to the public, and several companies, including Roche and GlaxoSmithKline, have pledged to become much more transparent.)

There is little disagreement that Tamiflu, which entered the market in 1999, is active against influenza virus at least a little. Studies have fairly consistently shown that it can shorten the duration of symptoms, which usually last about a week, up to 1 day. But the current debate is whether Tamiflu can also prevent serious complications and hospitalizations. (The data has never been strong enough to justify conclusions about whether it prevents death.)

The Acute Respiratory Infections Cochrane Group, led by Tom Jefferson, an independent researcher in Rome published its first review the effectiveness of Tamiflu in 06, on the basis of published documents. In it, they confirmed the then conventional wisdom that Tamiflu could reduce the complications of influenza and the risk of hospitalization in adults. But in 09, the group received a letter from a Japanese pediatrician, Keiji Hayashi, who questions the data.

To the surprise of the group, eight of the 10 studies reviewed in a 03 co-written meta-analysis by scientists and favorable Roche Tamiflu was never published. Roche initially refused to hand over the data. "I do not like being made a fool," Jefferson said in a story in the current issue of BMJ by science journalist Julia Belluz. "I trusted the literature. I trusted people who were doctors and researchers. I trusted the archive. I trusted Roche."

In an updated review released in December 09, the group concluded that without these private data, there was no evidence that Tamiflu prevented complications or hospitalizations. The results have changed the public's opinion about Tamiflu, and led to buyer's remorse in some of the countries stored drugs.

The letter Hayashi also marked the beginning of the quest for the Cochrane group Roche complete data. The company promised to send the so-called mass-clinical study reports documents containing patient data underlying the conclusions in the newspapers-that scientists in 09, but it was not until last year that all data sets actually happened. Cochrane says Roche Group has been evasive answers; the company says the delay was due to logistical problems, legal issues and privacy, and a lack of communication with scientists Cochrane

Now that the group has chewed the bitter numbers, the conclusions are not very different :. Patients get better a little earlier with Tamiflu, but there is not enough evidence to say they are at low risk of complications and hospitalization. Moreover, the authors write, side effects such as nausea and vomiting are more common than was known before. "We believe these results provide reason to question the storage of oseltamivir, its inclusion in the [World Health Organization] essential drug list and its use in clinical practice as an anti-influenza drug," the group written. (In a separate document, the group found such disappointing results for another drug against influenza, zanamivir, also known as Relenza, which sold far less than Tamiflu.)

Many scientists flu disagreed with the previous analysis of the Cochrane group and challenge the new results as well. Shorten the duration of symptoms, for one, is not useless, writes Wendy Barclay, chair of influenza virology at Imperial College London, in a statement released by the Science Media Centre (SMC) in London. "While one day does not look like much, a disease that lasts only six days, it is. In the community it gets people to work and to school," she wrote.

But perhaps more importantly, some researchers oppose the group's conclusions about the usefulness of Tamiflu in the event of an influenza pandemic. During the most recent pandemic, in 09 and 2010, scientists do not conduct randomized clinical trials of Tamiflu, the gold standard in medicine, and the Cochrane group did not consider the so-called observational studies. But a review of these studies during the pandemic, published last year by Jonathan Nguyen-Van-Tam of City Hospital Nottingham, U.K., showed that Tamiflu reduced the risk of serious complications. "We now know that antivirals have saved lives during a pandemic and we risk losing one of the few weapons we have because of too much negative publicity," said Peter Openshaw, director of the Center for respiratory infections Imperial College London, in a statement to the SMC.

Dissatisfied with the work of the Cochrane Collaboration, another group of scientists has already said he will repeat the work independently. the group multiparty for advice on science, which has an unrestricted grant from Roche, said it will take the observation data into account. virologist Albert Osterhaus of the Erasmus MC in Rotterdam, Netherlands, which launched the initiative last year, says its results will be announced at a meeting of flu in Riga in September.

one way to settle matters once and for all would be to put in place new clinical trials oseltamivir. The question is who finance them. There is little incentive for Roche to do so; patents on the drug will expire in most countries in 2016, paving the way for generic competitors to produce the compound Financial Times journalist Andrew Jack wrote in a story as published in BMJ this week.

This may mark the end of an incredibly successful run for Roche. Since the drug was launched in 1999, Tamiflu generated more than $ 18 billion in sales, Jack wrote. About half of this was for stocks pandemic, the vast majority of them have never been used and will soon expire; the US government alone spent $ 1.3 billion on its Tamiflu cache.

SEAS: the sight of a virologist From Saudi Arabia -

BERLIN- Christian Drosten, a virologist at the University of Bonn in Germany, is among those leading the effort to understand the Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS) and contain the disease. It is also one of the very few Western scientists who worked in Saudi Arabia, in collaboration with local researchers.

Friday, Drosten returned to Germany after a week in Saudi Arabia, where he studied what is behind the sudden explosion in reported MERS. Science Insider caught up with him during a stopover in Berlin

Q :. There were nearly 400 MERS cases and over 100 deaths in Saudi Arabia in the past two years. What is the situation like at the time

C.D:. There is a huge public awareness of the disease. Many people wear masks now. In fact, more than when I left when I arrived. In this 1 week, there was a net increase. People know that there is this virus and are cautious, and I think that will really help reduce the number of new infections

Q :. It certainly does not feel that way. Saudi Arabia has reported more infections in April that the world during the previous two years. The United States announced its first case on Friday, and before that there were cases imported in Greece and Malaysia. Is the disease out of control

C.D:. There has been much discussion about whether the virus has mutated to pass easily from human to human. But we sequenced three genomes of samples taken at the beginning of April to Jeddah, where most cases have occurred, two others later in the epidemic of Jeddah, and another of a patient to Mecca. They all look quite normal

Q :. But can you really tell from the genome if the virus has adapted to humans

[1945001?] CD It is almost impossible to tell from the sequence that there was a functional change in the virus. But we know that some parts of the genome are particularly important, and one of those is the binding domain of the receptor protein spike

Q :. The part of the virus that binds to human cells.

CD Exactly. And we see no changes. The remainder of the genome of the virus is also very closely related to previously sequenced genomes MERS. You really have to look quite hard to change at all, and when you find changes, there are other MERS genomes that have had these changes, too. It is not as the influenza viruses, which have a higher mutation rate way. Coronaviruses have enzymes correction so in general they are more stable genetically

Q: .. Yet the number of infections is rising

CD You can not compare the new numbers to those of the last few months. Until March 26, 459 tests were done throughout Saudi Arabia this year. Then, in just one month, just in the city of Jeddah, the 4629 PCR tests were performed. Something has changed dramatically, and that is the case definition.

Before the tests were done on patients who had pneumonia and needed [intensive care]. But now, people are tested not because they are sick, but because they have been in contact with a patient. Some of them tested positive, but many of them are not really sick

Q:.? Could the wrong test results

CD No, when I was in Jeddah I really tested the central laboratory where all PCR for MERS is done. I made them run nearly 0 RFP with water, interspersed with some real samples. The tests were carried out on all the machines they use, with two different PCR assays and by two different technicians. To my surprise, there were no false positives at all

We also rebroadcast samples of six health care workers who had taken care of a patient in Tabuk. they seemed to be positive for a low level. I can say unequivocally, these results are real. When you look PCR data on all recent tests, they are often very weak signals. These people probably just a very low concentration of virus in the throat. It is difficult to interpret. It is possible that they are infections which are rapidly controlled by the immune system. This can happen frequently in workers health care face many really sick patients

Q :. You say these people should not have been tested at all

[ CD: When the epidemic [03] SARS [severe acute respiratory syndrome], there was a definition strictly case. People who had contact with SARS patients, but no symptoms has not been tested with PCR. Instead, they were tested for antibodies later to see if an infection happened. This should happen now in Saudi Arabia, too. Asymptomatic individuals should not be tested with PCR. Currently, there are no available antibody test in the country. But you can list all these contacts and take a blood sample from each 14 to 21 days later and tested it outside the country. Three people in my lab are in Riyadh to establish an ELISA for antibodies

Q:.? But is not it good to know all cases, even if they are mild

CD: The question of whether there is a benign acute infection some people is scientifically interesting. But in cities like Jeddah, it brings the health system close to collapse. That's the big problem. So many samples are tested as laboratory capacity will not be enough for the actual event. And as more and more samples are tested, errors are inevitable. On top of that, if you identify all these mild cases and put them in isolation beds, then you have no beds left for the real case

. Q: What should be done with mild cases, then?

CD: This is a good option and is isolation at home. You can have people to call agency for public health every day to ensure that people stay at home. You can give them written information on what they are allowed to do, and what not. There are numerous examples for this. It has been used very successfully in Singapore during the SARS epidemic

Q :. Obviously, there are also very serious cases. At least 38 people died of MERS in Saudi Arabia in April.

C.D. I've seen the results of patients with huge concentrations of virus. These patients are highly contagious. Now, in some emergency rooms in some Saudi hospitals, patients are kept for a very long time, because there are no beds available in the rooms. If there are such highly infectious patients among them, it is clear that you get nosocomial infections and which is the other thing we see at present. You must remember that the absolute number of cases is still small. Few hundreds. So, just a hospital home may increase significantly and give the impression that the whole of the epidemic is changing

Q:.? You also looked at how easily the virus is transmitted at home

CD We will present a paper on this soon. We examined 26 index cases and 280 people they had close contact with. These are almost all family members in some cases also maids or drivers. We looked very closely with PCR and antibody tests, and at the end you can say nine of the 280 contacts were infected. And these are people who really huge exposure. This means that the virus reproduction rate is 0.3, not close to 1, as others have argued

Q:.? So the only real chance MERS moments to spread is in hospital

CD I think those hospitals where there are problems hygiene fueling this small outbreak

Q :. What about the political situation? Deputy Health Minister Ziad Memish, you work, received a little criticism.

C.D :. Some people have accused that he holds important information to secure high ranking publications and things like that. But this is false. I work with him since October and I had a good impression of him from the beginning. It is an epidemiologist Western-educated who knows what he's talking

Q: .. Others have accused it requires to be the first or last author of a publication just return to provide samples

CD Get really good samples under controlled conditions is not easy in a country like Saudi Arabia. I think Memish organizes there is a huge contribution that deserves a first or last author. It does not have a problem. Memish really motivates people, he is very busy and built an incredible network over the past two years. It is a great loss that weakened his political position

Q:.? You mean the new Health Minister Adel Fakieh is marginalize

CD He formed a new advisory committee and Memish not part of it. This is a big problem, I think. This means they are starting from scratch. All the knowledge and the network Memish established is not used. My impression was that the committee is dominated by clinicians and clinical microbiologists. They know how to treat patients of course, but not necessarily how to deal with an epidemic. I think Memish really developed a kind of gut feeling MERS for the past two years and is not used more. I think this is the biggest mistake being made in Saudi Arabia at the time

Q :. The ministry also announced that three hospitals in Jeddah, Riyadh and Dammam will be devoted to treating patients MERS. Is it a good idea

C.D:. Of course, it is a good idea to build these facilities so that patients can be treated better. But what is most needed at this time is a massive campaign to hospital hygiene. Sending teams in hospitals to retrain health workers, who come from all over the world. Teach them the proper infection control. That would change a lot

Q: .. Even when this is done, there have been many studies suggesting that camels are a major source of infections as well

CD camels remain a source. Interestingly also, when we talk about Jeddah: Most camels are imported to the Arabian Peninsula come through the port of Jeddah. So you might think to test all young camels arrive and quarantine at the port until the virus is gone. But it would be a huge logistical challenge. Who would do the testing? When the camels must be locked all this time? A vaccine is more realistic and there are some good candidates

Q: .. But none of those tested in camels still

CD: is really difficult to get a sufficient number of animals that have not already had an infection. Where are you going to get? You can not just buy a circus. And you would have them are not adult animals, because they are really big and barely fit in all research laboratories. It is a real challenge.

Pasteur Institute under fire from France lacks SARS bottles -

has been arrested Institut Pasteur? But no! Stories in the press today suggesting that the venerable Paris institution was "closed" and ordered to stop his research have been greatly exaggerated, Pasteur says CEO Christian Bréchot Science insider. "The institute is fully functional," he said.

But Pasteur is facing a public relations fiasco after the discovery, made earlier this year, it can not take into account 2349 vials containing samples from the SARS outbreak in 03. an independent committee has concluded that the risk to public health is zero, and Pastor suspended the search in one of its 18 biosafety level 3 facilities, said Bréchot. But the question led to three investigations and raised questions in the media about the security procedures of the institute.

Today the site Mediapart published fragments of a letter leak written by two french ministers who listed a series of apparent problems in the laboratory. "High probability of [sample] not destruction ordered by managers and untraceable two-month delay in the transmission of information to the responsible authorities, lists authorized persons not initially available, unsecured freezers, no video monitoring, archives are not available during the weekend, "wrote the research and education minister Benoît Hamon and Marisol Touraine, Minister of social Affairs, in a letter Mediapart said was addressed to both government inspectors responsible for investigating the matter.

Pasteur staff discovered that the bottles went missing during a regular inventory of dangerous pathogens in January, said Bréchot. The case was reported to the National Agency for Medicines and safety of healthcare products (ANSM), who inspected the laboratory between 8 and 12 April. April 12, Pastor announced the loss of the bottles to the public in a brief statement. Bréchot also reported the matter to the police, which is conducting its own investigation, and the two ministers sent in their own inspection team. (The Institut Pasteur is a private foundation, but the French government provides nearly 30% of its annual budget.)

Bréchot said that the vials contained the patient's material gathered during the brief worldwide SARS epidemic, including nasal, trachea, and the plasma samples. A major survey of staff and students to find out what happened to the samples was barren. Security measures, it would be very difficult for someone to take them outside the laboratory, said Bréchot, who thinks the most likely explanation is that the samples were accidentally destroyed. "But we do not know how it happened," said Bréchot, "and that is clearly unacceptable."

Although the specimens had left the laboratory, they are harmless, said Bréchot. In the past, all attempts to isolate the SARS virus from the samples failed; what is more, the bottles had already thawed for several days when the freezer where they were stored broke down, which reduces the chances of any survivors the virus, he said. A group of independent experts who reviewed the risks concluded that "infectivity" was "zero," according to the statement of the institute.

Bréchot said the institute currently working with ANSM to review and improve the way it completely handles hazardous agents. "My job as president is to ensure this never happens again," he said.

Racing for disaster? -

Sugar helps bitter nutrition fuel debate in the United States, the United Kingdom -

Efforts are underway to convince US and UK consumers eat healthy foods-and aujourd ' hui, the proposals of the government led on both sides the Atlantic, predictably, generating much debate.

in the US, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) today held a public meeting to discuss the changes proposed project in February to its label the nutritional value, the cliff note summarizing the amount of fats, proteins, carbohydrates, sugars, and in food and drinks. FDA has not reviewed the food label in 1993. Since then, the rate of obesity, dietary habits and understanding of various nutrients have changed considerably. "The evidence requires rethinking," said Michael Jacobson, executive director of the Center for Science in the Public Interest. That is the only point on which everyone seems to agree, but achieving consensus seems unlikely. FDA has received more than 4,000 comments on its draft proposal, and has recently extended the comment period in early August.

Like other nutritional defenders, Jacobson, who spoke at today's meeting in downtown Washington, DC, embrace the suggestion of the FDA to include so-called sugar -from sugars that are added to foods to added labels. "Added sugars exert detrimental effects on health beyond empty calories," agreed Frank Hu, who studies nutrition and epidemiology at Harvard Medical School in Boston and who also spoke. It has " irrefutable evidence, "he argued, they contribute to obesity and diabetes, and other health problems. One question, however, is whether simply list the quantity of added sugars, such as FDA proposes, is sufficient. Jacobson wants the agency to include the amount in percentage of a recommended daily dose after all, consumers are unlikely to deduce whether 1 gram, 5 grams and 15 grams are problematic unless that they are provided context. FDA says it lacks a scientific basis for setting such a deadline.

This is a place diverges FDA scientific Advisory Committee UK on nutrition. He has published a report mastodon 366 pages earlier today recommending that the population as a whole have an average consumption of "sugar" which is 5% of the diet. (Sugar Free contains added sugars, and sugars naturally present in honey, syrups and unsweetened fruit juice.) In both countries, people consume sugar much more added than what is considered healthy; the United States, it represents on average 16% of calories.

Industry groups are not satisfied with some of the recommendations. "We believe that some aspects of the proposal are missing some merit, particularly the addition of added sugar," said Donna Garren, who represented the American Frozen Food Institute at the FDA meeting. A story from the BBC about the U.K. proposal cited the sugar industry saying that "demonizing one ingredient" will not solve the obesity epidemic.

FDA offers many other changes to its nutrition label. Among them: dropping the obligation to list the amount of vitamin A and vitamin C in food, because evidence suggests deficiencies in these vitamins are rare. Instead, the FDA wants manufacturers to list the amount of vitamin D and potassium foods include their, because of the importance of the first in the bones and the second in the control of blood pressure.

As nutritional progress of science and, in some cases, becomes more balanced, it is feared that efforts to simplify the labels so that consumers can quickly understand the risk of going too far. The FDA, for example, wants to expand the number of calories in food. Hu has this instinct, but stresses that calories are not everything, highlighting the risks of sending customers to buy products with artificial sweeteners that are less healthy, rather than high-calorie foods such as nuts and seeds that are healthier. FDA proposes to remove the label "calories from fat" because more and more evidence suggests that some fats are good for you.

After lunch today, speakers rose to comment on the plan from the FDA, which usually suggests the agency was either not doing enough or going too far. If the sodium recommendations be less than? If phosphorus is added to the labels, as a useful guide for people with kidney disease who may need to keep an eye on phosphorus intake? If labels FDA food try to reduce the consumption of saturated fats? The list is as well as research analyzes the many variables of our diet.

A consummate insider pushes ideas from outside Indonesia -

Hardcore pot smoking may damage the center of the brain's pleasure -

There probably will not be a surprise that smoking a joint now and then ... you feel pretty good, the man. But many smoking marijuana over a long period may do just the opposite. The scientists found that the brain potted addicts react less strongly to the chemical dopamine, which is responsible for creating feelings of pleasure and reward. Their blunted dopamine response could leave heavy marijuana users living in a fog and not the right type.

After high-profile legalization in Colorado, Washington, and Uruguay, marijuana is increasingly available in many parts of the world. Yet scientific research on the drug has been delayed. Pot contains many different chemicals, and scientists do not fully understand how these components interact to produce unique effects of different strains. His illegal status in most of the world has also thrown barriers to research. In the US, for example, any study of marijuana requires approval from four federal agencies, including the Drug Enforcement Administration. Politics also plays a role in the search for marijuana.

One of the unanswered questions about the drug is what, exactly, he does to our brain, both during and after the high. Of particular interest to scientists is the effect of marijuana on dopamine, a key ingredient in the brain's reward system. pleasurable activities such as eating, sex, and certain medications all dopamine trigger bursts essentially say the brain, "Hey, that was great-we will do it soon."

Scientists know that drug abuse can wreak havoc on the dopamine system. Cocaine and alcohol abusers, for example, are known to produce less dopamine in their brains than people who are not addicted to these drugs. But previous studies had suggested that the same might not be true for those who abuse marijuana.

Nora Volkow, director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse in Bethesda, Maryland, decided to take a look more closely at the brains of marijuana users. For help, she and her team turned to another drug: methylphenidate (Ritalin aka), a stimulant known to increase the amount of dopamine in the brain. The researchers gave 24 methylphenidate marijuana abusers (who had smoked a median of about five joints a day, 5 days a week, for 10 years) and 24 controls.

Brain imaging revealed that the two groups have produced as much extra dopamine after taking the drug. But while the controls showed an increase in heart rate and blood pressure readings and reported feeling restless and high marijuana users do not. Their responses were so weak that Volkow had to double check that methylphenidate, she gave them has not passed its expiry date.

This lack of physical response suggests that marijuana users may have damaged the reward circuits in their brains, Volkow and her report online today in the team Academy Acts national science . Unlike cocaine and alcohol abusers, marijuana users seem to produce the same amount of dopamine that people who abuse drugs. But their brains do not know what to do with it. This disconnection could be "a key mechanism underlying cannabis dependence," said Raul Gonzalez, a neuropsychologist at Florida International University in Miami, who was not involved in the research. The study "suggests that cannabis users may experience less reward from other things usually find enjoyable and, contrary to popular stereotypes, they generally feel more irritable, stressed, and just plain shabby. This can contribute to the ongoing use of cannabis and climbing among these people. "

But marijuana abusers smoke a lot because they feel lousy, or they feel lousy because they smoke a lot? Volkow does not know. Not being able to unravel the cause and effect "is a limitation in a study like this," she said. Perhaps the attackers had already dopamine systems less reactive and started smoking a ton of pot to cope with their general malaise. Or marijuana abuse can be sustained is actually damaging the reward circuitry of the brain, leading to apathy and social withdrawal that marijuana abusers often experience.

Lessons for recreational users of marijuana, if any, are unclear. This study used "unconditional voluntary [s]" that "uses a lot of cannabis," said Paul Stokes, a psychiatrist at Imperial College London who was not involved in the research. As such, "it probably tells you more about cannabis dependence on recreational use." But when he did a similar study of brain imaging of people who smoked marijuana more than once week, he observed "similar issues" when it came to dopamine.

All these questions are important to answer, said Volkow. the availability of drugs increases, she said, it is something "we all need to know."