Sugar Additive Trehalose Could Have Helped Spread Dangerous Superbug Around the US (sciencealert.com) 78
A sugar additive used in several foods could have helped spread a seriously dangerous superbug around the US, according to a 2018 study. ScienceAlert reports: The finger of blame is pointed squarely at the sugar trehalose, found in foods such as nutrition bars and chewing gum. If the findings are confirmed, it's a stark warning that even apparently harmless additives have the potential to cause health issues when introduced to our food supply. In this case, trehalose is being linked with the rise of two strains of the bacterium Clostridium difficile, capable of causing diarrhea, colitis, organ failure, and even death. The swift rise of the antibiotic-resistant bug has become a huge problem for hospitals in recent years, and the timing matches up with the arrival of trehalose.
"In 2000, trehalose was approved as a food additive in the United States for a number of foods from sushi and vegetables to ice cream," said one of the researchers, Robert Britton from the Baylor College of Medicine in Texas, back in January 2018. "About three years later the reports of outbreaks with these lineages started to increase. Other factors may also contribute, but we think that trehalose is a key trigger."
The C. difficile lineages Britton is referring to are RT027 and RT078. When the researchers analysed the genomes of these two strains, they found DNA sequences that enabled them to feed off low doses of trehalose sugar very efficiently. In fact, these particular bacteria need about 1,000 times less trehalose to live off than other varieties of C. difficile, thanks to their genetic make-up. [...] It's still not certain that trehalose has contributed to the rise of C. difficile, but the study results and the timing of its approval as an additive are pretty compelling. More research will now be needed to confirm the link. According to figures from the CDC, "C. difficile was responsible for half a million infections across the year and 29,000 deaths within the first 30 days of diagnosis," adds ScienceAlert.
The findings were published in the journal Nature.
"In 2000, trehalose was approved as a food additive in the United States for a number of foods from sushi and vegetables to ice cream," said one of the researchers, Robert Britton from the Baylor College of Medicine in Texas, back in January 2018. "About three years later the reports of outbreaks with these lineages started to increase. Other factors may also contribute, but we think that trehalose is a key trigger."
The C. difficile lineages Britton is referring to are RT027 and RT078. When the researchers analysed the genomes of these two strains, they found DNA sequences that enabled them to feed off low doses of trehalose sugar very efficiently. In fact, these particular bacteria need about 1,000 times less trehalose to live off than other varieties of C. difficile, thanks to their genetic make-up. [...] It's still not certain that trehalose has contributed to the rise of C. difficile, but the study results and the timing of its approval as an additive are pretty compelling. More research will now be needed to confirm the link. According to figures from the CDC, "C. difficile was responsible for half a million infections across the year and 29,000 deaths within the first 30 days of diagnosis," adds ScienceAlert.
The findings were published in the journal Nature.
Not news, even for nerds. (Score:1)
Welcom to the pre-COVID world!
Ivermectin kills (insects) (Score:1, Flamebait)
Old news; a year later the finding was doubted (Score:5, Informative)
Re: Old news; a year later the finding was doubted (Score:5, Interesting)
To be honest, I think the real problem in the US is the anxiety of survival here. It leads to higher cortisol levels and just generally not having extra energy for things like taking care of oneself combined with easy access empty calories designed to make us binge. This is especially true for the American poor, who happen to also be the most overweight.
Americans don't know how bad they have it, because we're constantly told there are starving children in Africa/Afghanistan/Cuba(places the US actively has kept impoverished) and we have FREEDOM here.
Re: Old news; a year later the finding was doubted (Score:5, Insightful)
>Trehalose is a non-digestible sugar, so in theory it shouldn't make anyone any fatter than they already are.
If it's sweet it will lead to an insulin release regardless of whether or not it's digestible. Insulin is the primary hormone that causes cells to pull glucose in from the blood and turn it into fats inside the cell.
The basic rule for dietary health is - if your great great grandmother didn't eat it, don't eat it. If in a Western society, she ate meat and veg, used lard, suet, tallow and butter for fats, added flavours with herbs from the garden or whatever was the norm for the non western country if she was from somewhere else. She did not eat artificial flavour additives, fats with bulk linoleic acid (I.E. Seed oils) , large amounts of sugar or artificial additives.
Re: Old news; a year later the finding was doubted (Score:5, Interesting)
The basic rule for dietary health is - if your great great grandmother didn't eat it, don't eat it. If in a Western society, she ate meat and veg, used lard, suet, tallow and butter for fats, added flavours with herbs from the garden or whatever was the norm for the non western country if she was from somewhere else. She did not eat artificial flavour additives, fats with bulk linoleic acid (I.E. Seed oils) , large amounts of sugar or artificial additives.
It's a great rule, but follow it too far and that way lies insanity^W the paleo diet. Even the vegetables you buy in the shop that have he same name ("egg plant") as the ones she grew will turn out to have been changed lots and have much more sugar in them than the ones she had available. Eat natural and home grown but do consider adding things like fermented foods that might not be in your own personal food traditions but did exist in healthy societies years ago. Pay attention to what works for you.
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The paleo diet is a great example of being too selective as it all but eliminates fruit and veg, which ought to be eaten in larger quantities, so it's not just a case of "too far" but "too far with extra filters on top". I absolutely agree with everything you're saying, though.
Re: Old news; a year later the finding was doubte (Score:2)
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Go a bit further and she didn't eat plants at all, for two million years, until early humans killed off most the the big Fauna and had to adapt and relocate to survive.
https://english.tau.ac.il/news... [tau.ac.il] https://www.pnas.org/content/1... more recent times
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There never was a phase when humans did not eat plants ... probably - like bears - we even ate grass in spring.
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Ready the nitrogen study papers. You will find that there was a long period where we didn't eat plants.
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The basic rule for dietary health is - if your great great grandmother didn't eat it, don't eat it. If in a Western society, she ate meat and veg, used lard, suet, tallow and butter for fats, added flavours with herbs from the garden or whatever was the norm for the non western country if she was from somewhere else. She did not eat artificial flavour additives, fats with bulk linoleic acid (I.E. Seed oils) , large amounts of sugar or artificial additives.
It's a great rule, but follow it too far and that way lies insanity^W the paleo diet. Even the vegetables you buy in the shop that have he same name ("egg plant") as the ones she grew will turn out to have been changed lots and have much more sugar in them than the ones she had available. Eat natural and home grown but do consider adding things like fermented foods that might not be in your own personal food traditions but did exist in healthy societies years ago. Pay attention to what works for you.
Yes. I've been following what works for me for over a decade which led me down the path of being an on-and-off carnivore and I mostly avoid plants unless I'm in a fancy restaurant or it's Christmas or something - I'm British so I had Christmas pudding this year while my American family declined looking at the 9 months old, brandy soaked black mound with horror. I paid the price the following day but I owned it.
Certainly fermented plants are a good thing relative to non fermented. Fermenting toxic foods like
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I've been following the nutritional science for many years and there's one thing that's clear to me - science has not worked out the details of why people react so differently to the same diet, except for a few specific genetic differences (E.G. Asians lacking genes for metabolizing lactose).
You might be interested in the book "Spoon-Fed: Why almost everything we’ve been told about food is wrong" by Tim Spector. He's not yet offering a resolution to the problems science has, but at least pointing to an explanation of why there is a problem and how the micro-biome in your gut can lead to different responses to the same food from different people and showing a bunch of different examples.
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I've been following the nutritional science for many years and there's one thing that's clear to me - science has not worked out the details of why people react so differently to the same diet, except for a few specific genetic differences (E.G. Asians lacking genes for metabolizing lactose).
You might be interested in the book "Spoon-Fed: Why almost everything we’ve been told about food is wrong" by Tim Spector. He's not yet offering a resolution to the problems science has, but at least pointing to an explanation of why there is a problem and how the micro-biome in your gut can lead to different responses to the same food from different people and showing a bunch of different examples.
I recently saw an interview with Tim Spector. So his book is on my list of things to read already. He seems to be using the data very effectively rather than using dietary dogma.
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Hey dumbfuck, have you educated yourself on the benefits of adding engineering margin yet?
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14 gauge wire contains an engineering margin dumbfuck.
Only for short enough runs. Then you stick a 16 gauge extension cord (sold as "heavy duty") on three separate plugs on the same circuit. That margin is gone and then some. So it's 12 gauge minimum in my new old house in which I'm replacing all the shitty knob-and-tube wiring. 12 gauge on some single socket circuits with 20A sockets for heavy duty things (induction cooktop, uk kettle on a 240 circuit for 4X the boiling speed) and code+1 gauge for the car charger, oven and dryer connections. Less energy lost
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I would note at this point my great great grandmother would have had easy access to sugar. You would need to go back quite a few more generations to loose access to refined sugar. She probably also ate foods with artificial colouring and flavouring too. Then there is the whole slew of natural food stuffs (mostly fruits) that she didn't eat because they where not available in the UK at that time and if they where only for the super rich. It is frankly a stupid idea.
For context the first *printed* recipe for
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I take your point, but I think you'd still find great great grandma's diet was better than the average, not very aware, UK diet now. Even on the sugare there are recent results that say that there are specific problems with more or less pure fructose, which is a modern sugar widely included in processed foods, compared to sucrose which is what would have been in the marmalade.
Re: Old news; a year later the finding was doubte (Score:2)
There is very little to no fructose used in the UK, it's all good old fashioned sucrose.
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The basic rule for dietary health is - if your great great grandmother didn't eat it, don't eat it
As a general rule, that's silly. Life spans were far lower then, and they had plenty of gut ailments.
Certainly, scrutinize what we eat and do research, but the idea that what are ancestors managed to scrape by with was perfect is just kind of silly.
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Well, ish. And it's a big ish, for a variety of reasons.
First, the quality of the food back then was much poorer. That has a substantial impact on outcomes.
Secondly, the quantity of food was also much poorer.
Thirdly, the ratios were badly skewed (mostly due to availability).
These three boil down to "eating the same things but in a healthier ratio and healthier quantity will produce a better outcome".
Examples of ratios: the food back then would have included far too much red meat and far too little fish. The
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On the subject of what we used to eat, I was rather surprised by
===Antebellum stunting===
Food production grew through the period before the Civil war.
However, the population grew faster and income was diverted from food
to shelter. The effect of lower food per capita was to permanently
stunt the growth of non-elite children of that era. That the US had suffered a food shortage during the industrial buildup was in conflict
with the prevailing view. It took a third of a century between the
first publication ab
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As a general rule, that's silly. Life spans were far lower then, and they had plenty of gut ailments.
Statistically. Because many kids died as little children.
As a lifespan: absolutely bollocks. People got 90 just like they do now.
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The basic rule for dietary health is - if your great great grandmother didn't eat it, don't eat it.
My great, great grandmother lived through the times described in Upton Sinclair's "The Jungle." Tuberculosis ridden cattle were common because farmers realized that it increased their weight and upped their profits. Rancid butter was taken from stores and a forced air process was used to get rid of the smell so it could be repackaged and resold. Potted meats were common, but they were all the refuse and offal that had been ground up and mixed with fat and sold as beef, chicken and pork.
Frankly, there wer
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The insulin response is to glucose in the blood, not to the sweet taste of something.
That is double wrong.
Insulin response already starts with a sweet taste in the mouth.
And most sugars, regardless of digestible or not: trigger an insulin response in your blood.
Read a book about it or for funk sake stay out of discussion where you have no clue about and literally the life of people depend on.
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Insulin is released when the body detects a too high glucose level in the blood
More or less correct.
What is the rest of your rant about?
put sugar soda in your mouth and spit it out and then measure your glucose level. You will see that it will be unchanged.
Wrong? Sorry, you have no clue about the topic.
Eat something with starch: insulin level changes.
Sugar, it will change rapidly.
Artificial sweetener, it will change slowly. Depending how sweet.
Perhaps you should take your own advice and test it?
put sugar
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Perhaps you should take your own advice and test it?
I have hence why I advised OP to try it to see for himself that the insulin response from this is not enough to make any change to the blood glucose levels.
I assume you want to say: artificial sweetened soda. Otherwise your claim makes no sense at all.
No I meant sugar sweetened soda so that you can see that it doesn't really do anything even with real sugar
Btw you get an insulin response from consuming protein as well (much much higher than what you
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No I meant sugar sweetened soda so that you can see that it doesn't really do anything even with real sugar ... then you are an idiot.
Lol
Good luck with your life and your nutrition.
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The OP claim is that sweet taste in the mouth gives enough insulin release into the bloodstream that you get increased fat storage
Wrong.
The OP, which was me claimed: sugar taste in the mouth already triggers insulin secretion.
Doing the test with actual sugar would show OP right away that his/her theory is false,
the fact that insulin release starts with sweat taste in the mouth is: a fact and not a theory (or in your case: hypothesis)
By all means, fill your mouth with 2dl of syrup, spit it out and measure
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Regarding the characteristics of the cephalic phase of insulin release , it lasts up to 10 min and has its peak within the first 4 or 5 min after the food ingestion [3, 47, 49, 52]. Its contribution to the entire postprandial insulin secretion is quite small, in the range of only the 1 to 3% of the total secretion
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There are plenty of studies that say the opposite.
Especially if you sip half an hour on a pint of "soda" with artificial sweetener.
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The premise is also wrong, you don't get fat from sugar due to the insulin release, you get fat from sugar sweetened drinks due to the excess of calories you consume.
Erm, no?
Insulin makes your body transport sugar into fat cells and convert them into fat. Plain and simple. And if your fat level in your blood is high enough: that also gets transported into your fat cells.
Has absolutely nothing to do with "extra calories". Insulin level high: sugar and fat gets moved and stored into fat cells. Simple concept.
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That only works if your body is a perpetuum mobile. Yes if you constantly trigger a great enough insulin response 24x7 so that fat only can travel into your cells (in the real world its more complex than this and your body is not a slave under insulin) then you might be on to something, however for that to happen (aka to consantly trigger the release of insulin) you also have to consume a vast amount of excess calories.
Stop reading LCHF/Paleo/Atkins books that don't know what they talk about. You overweight
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I did not talk about constant excess insuline.
And it seems you were not clear that you were talking about that.
We are only talking about insulin spikes during meals.
So: again, if you have an insuline spike during a meal - all fat gets transported ans stored into your fat cells.
If you think otherwise, make a study, publish it, and farm in your nobel prize.
Stop reading LCHF/Paleo/Atkins books that don't know what they talk about.
Perhaps you should read at least one. As those guys usually perfectly well know w
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No you cannot eat as much excess calories as you want,
Depending on what it is: I can.
Because the excess just gets shit out.
Get a book and read about it.
Every single person making the claims that you do who are then put into an intervention study where they are given an excess of calories gains weight, every single time.
Only if it is sugar, dumbass - or something that can be converted into sugar, like starch. Or if it is fat that gets transported into your system: because of insulin. Which is only there: be
So, radium water and heroin (Score:2)
You great-great grandmother drank radium water "for health" and took heroin cough syrup. Then she probably died around the age of 48 from bovine tuberculosis caused by her using unpasteurized milk.
The life expectancy is 30 years longer now. That's partly because we stopped with dangerous foods and beverages like raw dairy products.
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The basic rule for dietary health is - if your great great grandmother didn't eat it,
So tuna, salmon and persimmons are off the table for me, then.
Y'all should give more thoughts to your industrialized, first-world-problems "words of wisdom."
Salami between two Mars bars (Score:4, Informative)
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kackle observed:
Add to that, that sugars seem to be hidden everywhere. I read that a slice or two of bread converts to more blood sugar than some candy bars, if I recall correctly.
American white bread is pretty much pure starch. Our digestive systems easily convert it to sugar. The same is true of potato chips, baked goods, and snack foods in general.
When I eat bread, I mostly eat dark rye, which is mostly composed of more-complex carbs (the more complex the carbohydrate, the less easily it converts to sugar). Whole-grain and multi-grain breads are better still, from a health perspective - but they taste like cardboard ...
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Whole-grain and multi-grain breads are better still, from a health perspective - but they taste like cardboard ...
Then you should come to Germany, we have plenty of breads like this that just taste awesome (and have great texture, too).
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Yes, but that is real sugar, and not fake sugar.
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Trehalose is a non-digestible sugar, so in theory it shouldn't make anyone any fatter than they already are.
Then you do not know much about theories.
If it triggers insulin it makes you fat. It is as simple as that.
And the article is about it feeding "superbugs" not about "making you fat".
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Trehalose is commonly found in mushrooms, and humans produce Trehalase to break it down into glucose. Homids have been eating Trehalose for a very long time, and the Japanese use it as a preservative in frozen and dried vegetables and it hasnt cause problems. It is possible that those two pathogenic strains of C. difficile took advantage of the ability to out compete other commensal gut bacteria because their ability to use Trehalose, but nobody has been able to prove it.
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This is a reprint from a 2018 post..
Worse even, note the exact date - 02 January 2018. In three days it will be a full four years old.
ScienceAlert seems to have very loose definition of what constitutes an "alert". Maybe the journalist is phoning this in while on holiday (it is dated 30 December 2021).
Causality shown? (Score:4, Informative)
It's not clear that they have demonstrated cause and effect. There are many strains of C.difficile and they have all been troublesome for some time, mainly in the sick and infirm. While trehalose may have allowed two particular strains of C.difficile to predominate, are they any worse than the strains they have replaced?
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Ultimately, it's down to the effect on the gut microbiome (since it's the gut and gut effects that are involved). If something reduces the microbiome, or leads to harmful mutations, then you're going to have a breeding ground for harmful bacteria. If something increases the microbiome (within limits), particularly if it leads to benign mutations, then you're going to have protection from harmful bacteria.
That's pretty much the key mechanism.
My experience (Score:3)
You think C. difficile is bad ... (Score:5, Funny)
Wait until it evolves into C++ difficile.
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Wait until it evolves into C++ difficile.
Good one. And I always found C++ to be difficile.
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Wait until it evolves into C++ difficile.
Good one. And I always found C++ to be difficile.
If you get infected with C++ difficile, you will be F#ed.
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Manufactured Sugars may reduce over population! (Score:5, Informative)
Microbiome researchers have recently identified how lots of sugar in the gut damages the surfaces of the GI tract and leads to inflamed & bleeding tissues, giving rise to the ability of microbes in the GI tract to migrate into the blood stream and consequently into organs in the body.
High Fructose Corn Syrup is now in nearly every "natural" sugar added product from restaurant meals, to drinks, snacks and baked goods. It appears to be linked the rise in obesity since its introduction in around 1980.
Refined sugar intake &/or sugar intake in high quantities looks to be a true self-induced poison, yet people in general know about it but don't do anything to reduce their intake.
Average consumption of sugar 2 centuries ago was a few pounds a year at most, and today it is many dozens of pounds per year & some people are in the 100 pounds or more per year category.
Given the obvious damage, I dare say sugar is worse than Covid. Oh-Oh, now I said something controversial. We are within 10% points of having half of all adults in the US being obese. That ought to be a major warning.
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So, how do you explain the obesity epidemic in countries other than the US, who don't tend to use high fructose corn syrup at all?
Aussie here, we use cane sugar for sweeteners.
And our bread is not sweet.
Full disclosure, I'm overweight, but I blame that on the evil bourbon your country keeps pouring down my throat!! :(
Re:Manufactured Sugars may reduce over population! (Score:5, Funny)
Seed oils are another evil foisted on us by believe it or not, Procter and gamble with the invention of crisco. Seed oils and sugars, whether from cane, fruit juice or corn should all be minimised.
Bourbon is health drink, as it dissolves the fat deposits in your arteries!
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I'm not familiar with 'crisco', is this another US only thing? What is it?
I use olive oil (extra virgin, so crushed, no heat, no chemicals, if it's really EVOO) and peanut oil for my cooking.
Bourbon dissolves fat in my arteries? Ha ha, yeah, sure, then it deposits said fat in my abdominal cavity, so... ?? :(
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You're probably drinking at a higher level than the therapeutic dose.
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Luckily it's a new year and I have resolutions now!
They are the same as the ones I've resolved to commit to for the past decade or three, but... new year resolutions!
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I have a new year's resolution, 2560x1080. Admittedly, it's not a great resolution, but I can keep it.
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The main seed based oil used here in the UK is rapeseed which is generally considered good for you. The idea that olive oil is bad for you must be news to those with a Mediterranean diet who generally have better life expectancy than their northern European counterparts.
According to Wikipedia "crisco" was originally hydrogenated cottonseed oil and stuffed full of trans fatty acids. It's not clear what it is now.
To be fair food standards in the USA are way lower than in Europe.
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For reasons, I prefer "canola" to "rapeseed", knowing too many women who may dislike the name.
Though a quick glance at Wikipedia tells me that the etymology is quite safe:
"The name for rapeseed comes from the Latin word rapum meaning turnip. Turnip, rutabaga (swede), cabbage, Brussels sprouts, and mustard are related to rapeseed. Rapeseed belongs to the genus Brassica. Brassica oilseed varieties are some of the oldest plants cultivated by humanity, with documentation of its use in India 4,000 years ago, and
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the rise in obesity since ... 1980
We are within 10% points of having half of all adults in the US being obese.
What constitutes "obesity" has changed over time; for example 25 million Americans went to bed with normal weight on June 16, 1998 and woke up obese the next day [cnn.com] because new guidelines were adopted.
The Body Mass Index calculation has a nasty history, used by Nazis and slavers [wusa9.com] to demonstrate that white, thin women were more attractive that other races, and really tells you nothing about overall health.
When you consider chronic diseases such as lipedema [lipedema.org], where liped cells tend to accumulate in certain areas o
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I'm pretty sure it's the health profession that has told you about genetics and conditions.
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I'm pretty sure it's the health profession that has told you about genetics and conditions.
True, but the information certainly isn't well known amongst your garden-variety GP's.
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Ok, that I can certainly agree with. I'm either dangerously underweight or dangerously overweight, depending on which GP I see on a given day.
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9/11 Could Have Helped Spread Dangerous Superbug (Score:2)
The swift rise of the antibiotic-resistant bug has become a huge problem for hospitals in recent years, and the timing matches up with the arrival of trehalose. "In 2000, trehalose was approved as a food additive in the United States for a number of foods from sushi and vegetables to ice cream," said one of the researchers, Robert Britton from the Baylor College of Medicine in Texas, back in January 2018. "About three years later the reports of outbreaks with these lineages started to increase."
Of course, trehalose is not the only major change that happened at the turn of the century. Clearly the fall of the twin towers in 2001 led to the oiutbreaks in 2003. The timing fits, doesn't it? The year 2000 also saw the launch of DeviantArt and a major solar flare. It's only logical that these three factors conspired with trelahose to promote Clostridium difficile, and that this was all part of a lizard people scheme to test the reactions of health institutions before the launch of COVID-19. /sarcasm