Food and Health Room

[Piling]

Vegetarian diet 'raises risk of heart disease and cancer'

Over generations, vegetarianism leads to genetic mutations in populations

Mutation makes it easier for vegetarians to absorb fatty acids from plants

Also boosts arachidonic acid, which raises risk of heart disease and cancer

Mutated obstructs production of omega 3 - which protects the heart

This, coupled with a diet rich in vegetable oils, means the mutated gene turns fatty acids into arachidonic acid.

The problem is also worsened because the mutation obstructs the production of Omega 3, which protects against heart disease.

This is an increasing issue given the shift in people’s diets away from fish and nuts, which contain valuable Omega 3, to vegetable oils, which contain the unhealthier Omega 6.

The new findings provide an explanation for previous studies which found that vegetarians were up to 40 per cent more likely to develop bowel cancer than those who eat meat.

Until now, doctors had been confused by this research, since red meat is known to increase the risk of cancer.

The research by Cornell University, compared hundreds of genomes from a mostly vegetarian population in Pune, India to meat eaters in Kansas, and found a notable genetic difference.

Tom Brenna, Professor of Human Nutrition at Cornell University, said: ‘Those whose ancestry derives from vegetarians are more likely to carry genetics that more rapidly metabolise plant fatty acids.

‘In such individuals, vegetable oils will be converted to the more pro-inflammatory arachidonic acid, increasing the risk for chronic inflammation that is implicated in the development of heart disease, and exacerbates cancer.

‘The mutation appeared in the human genome long ago, and has been passed down through the human family.’

Vegetarians are often found to be deficient in protein, iron, vitamin D, vitamin B12 and calcium, with one study showing that vegetarians had a five per cent lower bone-mineral density than those who eat meat.

Other research, however, has said that vegetarians are less likely to suffer from diabetes, obesity and strokes.

The study was published in the journal of Molecular Biology and Evolution.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/artic ... ancer.html

[Anthea]

Vegetarian diet 'raises risk of heart disease and cancer'

Happily waiting for Londoner's response

[Anthea]

Mail Online

An apple a day really DOES keep the doctor away

Slashing risk of dying early by 35%

Eating just 100 grams of the fruit each day improved life expectancy

The study looked at health of 1,456 women aged 70 to 85 for 15 years

Apple skin in particular has high levels of plant compounds flavonoids

These help prevent cell damage and help to maintain a healthy weight

Eating an apple a day slashes the risk of dying early by 35 per cent, a study has found.

Women who ate more than 100 grams of the fruit each day - one small apple - were likely to have a longer life expectancy than those who didn't.

Researchers at the University of Western Australia, followed a group of pensioners aged 70 to 85 for 15 years.

Each of the 1,456 participants completed a food frequency questionnaire, which the researchers used to understand how apples impacted on their mortality.

It found a variety of different fruits when consumed on a daily basis gave moderate health benefits.

Dr Jonathan Hodgson, from the UWAs School of Medicine and Pharmacology, said it was down to high concentrations of fibre and flavonoids in the skin.

Flavonoids are plant compounds found in fruit and vegetables including apples, berries, pears, strawberries and radishes.

They have long been celebrated for their antioxidant effect, which is thought to help prevent cell damage.

'Apples are amongst the top contributors to total flavonoid intake,' he said.

'We have previously shown that flavonoid intake from apple skin improved artery relaxation.

'We have now shown that higher apple intake was associated with lower risk of all-cause mortality and cancer mortality in older women.'

The researchers examined the impact of apples because they are a popular are widely eaten fruit.

The study found women who ate them regularly had a lower risk of dying but Dr Hodgson said it would also apply to other fruits.

High levels of fibre found in apples has been linked to lower cholesterol and blood pressure and a reduced cancer risk.

They are also a good source of magnesium, potassium, vitamin C.

People who eat apples are also more likely to live healthy lifestyles and consume other fruits and vegetables, which may also contribute to their longer life expectancy.

It follows research which found flavonoids may also help reduce the energy - particularly from sugar - that is absorbed from food.

Earlier this year, a study by the University of East Anglia (UEA) and Harvard Medical School linked the compounds to both maintaining a healthy weight, and even helped people lose a little.

Eating the flavonoids contained in an 80g (2.8oz) handful of blueberries every day for four years helped people to lose about 2lb 10oz.

By comparison, the average woman in the same period would usually put on about 2lb 3oz, and the average man 4lb 6oz.

Speaking at the time, Professor Aedin Cassidy, from the UEA’s Norwich Medical School, said eating a 'modest amount' could lead to significant health benefits.

‘We found that an increased consumption of most flavonoids was associated with weight maintenance, and even a modest weight loss.

'The results were found to be consistent across men and women, and different ages.

‘However losing even small amounts of weight, or preventing weight gain, can improve health and these modest effects were seen with a small, readily achievable increase in intake of many of these fruits.

‘Just a single portion of some of these fruits per day would have an important impact on health at a population level.’

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/artic ... ly-35.html

[Londoner]

Vegetarian diet 'raises risk of heart disease and cancer'

Happily waiting for Londoner's response

This couldn't be true. In the old days in Kurdistan, people ate meat once or twice a year. Serious diseases like cancer and heart-related diseases were very rare. The Japanese experiment also disproves this claim. Before WW11 Japanese diet was made up of fish and plants always for generations and generations before. Serious diseases like cancer and heart related diseases were very rare. But after WW11, they adopted western diet, meat and dairy products. After that millions of them got cancer, diabetes and serious heart related diseases.

But we have to bear one point in mind, which is that this research had been done on vegetarians, who eat dairy products and dairy products are similar to meat. So vegetarians may be healthier than meat eaters but they are in risk of getting the same diseases like meat eaters. So there is nothing surprising about this findings. It is interesting that some times ago I had this discussion with some of my customers. They booked me to move food to an event of theirs. The food didn't include any meat. When I asked them why, they told me they are vegetarians. I asked them if they also didn't eat dairy products. They said they ate dairy products a lot. I told them because they were eating dairy products there were not any differences between them and meat eaters.

[Piling]

This couldn't be true. In the old days in Kurdistan, people ate meat once or twice a year.

But they ate lot of dairy and eggs. They were hunters also.

In former farmers' societies, people lacked of proteins and vitamins, and calcium. They suffered of rachitis and were not strong against epidemic plagues.

At the contrary, hunters and shepherds were taller and generally in better condition. Wheat eaters are not healthy.

And Japanese people eat fishes also, so they were not vegans but pescetariens.

No traditional culture had been pure vegan.

btw, chickens here are huge. The one I bought has a weight of 2 kilos

[Anthea]

No traditional culture had been pure vegan.

What about Jainism?

btw, chickens here are huge. The one I bought has a weight of 2 kilos

That probably means they are free range NOT the rubbish eaten in Europe

[Piling]

Jains can eat dairy, but the funniest is that potatoes, mushrooms, roots are forbidden. Not surprising that they are champions in Fasting-until-Death :

In general Jains are pretty strict about adherence, but some of the rules regarding plants (one sensed beings) and no overnight storage are not tightly adhered to by laity today. Monks and nuns are expected to follow all strictures with great accuracy. This section is an overview of important points but for more detail (and more rules) refer to Jain Web sites (1, 2).
Night Meals are forbidden because of the many creatures that come out at night and which may be accidentally killed due to poor lighting or attraction to fire.
Freshness: Food must be prepared fresh daily. Keeping cooked food overnight is forbidden. Ground spices have an expiry of 3 days during rain, 5 days in summer and 7 days in winter.
Vegetarianism: Traditionally Jains have been lacto-vegetarians, but modern dairy farming methods, particularly what happens to the male calves (the veal market) has caused many to pursue a vegan diet eating no animal products.
Water is filtered through three layers of cotton cloth before use for cooking or drinking. Water should boiled and cooled before drinking to avoid illness caused by micro-organisms. Illness is thought to engender intolerance.
Root Vegetables: (potatoes, carrots, turnips) are forbidden because uprooting a plant kills it (non-violence) and because many tiny creatures may inhabit roots.
Beansprouts are prohibited because they are living and eating them kills the whole plant.
Cereal Grains are permitted.
Fruits: Most are permitted but fruits that bleed milky sap when cut, Jackfruit, for instance, are forbidden. Many Jains avoid fruits that have a red meat-like appearance (tomatoes, watermelon).
Vegetable Greens are considered marginal because plucking them involves pain to the plant. Most Jains consider greens acceptable but cabbages and other greens where the whole top is cut and the plant thus killed are forbidden.
Mushrooms, Fungus and Yeasts are forbidden because they are parasites, grow in non-hygienic environments and may harbor other life forms.
Honey is forbidden as the excrement of bees (actually they barf it up).
Eggs are forbidden as progeny of five-sensed beings.
Cheese and Yogurt are permissible (for non vegan Jains) but must be freshly prepared on the day they are eaten and no animal rennet may be used to make them. Vegetable and Microbial rennet is acceptable but in strict practice only acid coagulated fresh cheese will fit the same day rule. The previous day's yogurt may not be use as a starter the next day.
Vinegar is forbidden, it's a product of fermentation (yeast to alcohol then bacterial to vinegar).
Alcohol is forbidden because it may destroy the power of discrimination, create delusions and result in ill health. Also alcoholic beverages are considered non-vegetarian because of FDA allowed additives, some of which are of animal origin.
Onions, Garlic, Scallions, Chives and Leeks full under the category of "roots" the pulling of which kills the whole plant so they are forbidden.
Silver Foils common in India as decoration on sweets are banned because the foils are pounded out between layers of bull intestine and are therefor not vegetarian.
http://www.clovegarden.com/diet/jain.html

[Anthea]

Silver Foils common in India as decoration on sweets are banned because the foils are pounded out between layers of bull intestine

NEVER NEVER NEVER NEVER NEVER AGAIN

Will I eat sweets when I visit my Indian friends

[Piling]

Before having read it, I thought that the Jewish diet was the craziest in the world

Even Londoner has found masters in austerity.

[Anthea]

Before having read it, I thought that the Jewish diet was the craziest in the world

Even Londoner has found masters in austerity.

Do they have an extremely long life?

Do they live to be 100 years old?

[Piling]

No one could say exactly how long theu could live, though when they begin to become old they practice suicide by extreme fasting.

Now another paper : http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/ ... 032816.php

Eating green could be in your genes

ITHACA, N.Y. - Could there be a vegetarian gene?

Cornell University researchers have found evidence of a genetic variation - called an allele - that has evolved in populations that have historically favored vegetarian diets, such as in India, Africa and parts of East Asia. They also discovered a different version of this gene adapted to a marine diet discovered among the Inuit in Greenland, who mainly consume seafood.

The vegetarian allele evolved in populations that have eaten a plant-based diet over hundreds of generations. The adaptation allows these people to efficiently process omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acids and convert them into compounds essential for early brain development and if they stray from a balanced omega-6 to omega-3 diet, it may make people more susceptible to inflammation, and by association, increased risk of heart disease and colon cancer.

In Inuit populations of Greenland, the researchers uncovered that a previously identified adaptation is opposite to the one found in long-standing vegetarian populations: While the vegetarian allele has an insertion of 22 bases (a base is a building block of DNA) within the gene, this insertion was found to be deleted in the seafood allele.

"The opposite allele is likely driving adaptation in Inuit," said Kaixiong Ye, co-lead author of the paper appearing March 29 in the journal Molecular Biology and Evolution. Ye is a postdoctoral researcher in the lab of Alon Keinan, associate professor of biological statistics and computational biology, and the paper's co-senior author.

"Our study is the first to connect an insertion allele with vegetarian diets, and the deletion allele with a marine diet," Ye said.

"It is the most interesting example of local adaptation that I have been fortunate to help study," said Keinan. "Several studies have pointed to adaptation in this region of the genome. Our analyses combine to show that the adaptation is driven by an insertion of a small piece of DNA that we know its function. Moreover, when it reached the Greenlandic Inuit, with their marine-based diet rich in omega-3, it might have become detrimental."

FADS1 and FADS2 are enzymes that are essential for converting omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acids into downstream products needed for brain development and controlling inflammation. Meat and seafood eaters have less need for increased FADS1 and FADS2 enzymes to get proper nutrition because their omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acid conversion process is simpler and requires fewer steps.

This study is based on previous work by co-senior author Tom Brenna, professor of human nutrition and of chemistry at Cornell University, who showed the insertion can regulate the expression of FADS1 and FADS2 and hypothesized it could be an adaptation in vegetarian populations.

Ye, Keinan and colleagues analyzed frequencies of the vegetarian allele in 234 primarily vegetarian Indians and 311 U.S. individuals and found the vegetarian allele in 68 percent of the Indians and in just 18 percent of Americans. Analysis using data from the 1,000 Genomes Project similarly found the vegetarian allele in 70 percent of South Asians, 53 percent of Africans, 29 percent of East Asians and 17 percent of Europeans.

"Northern Europeans have a long history of drinking milk and they absorbed enough end products from milk for long-chain fatty acid metabolism so they don't have to increase capacity to synthesize those fatty acids from precursors," said Ye.

"One implication from our study is that we can use this genomic information to try to tailor our diet so it is matched to our genome, which is called personalized nutrition," he added.

The researchers are not sure yet when the adaptation first occurred, as analyses of chimpanzee or orangutan genomes did not uncover the vegetarian allele. But there is evidence for the allele in early hominid Neanderthal and Denisovan genomes.

"It is possible that in the history of human evolution, when people migrated to different environments, sometimes they ate a plant-based diet and sometimes they ate a marine-based diet, and in different time periods these different alleles were adaptive," meaning the alleles have a tendency to evolve under dietary pressures, Ye said.

[Anthea]

Thank you an excellent report

Does it mean that I was genetically predisposed to consuming chocolate

I still use past tense because I have lost all desire to eat chocolate now and much prefer watermelon, oranges and apples

[Piling]

Thank you an excellent report

Does it mean that I was genetically predisposed to consuming chocolate

I still use past tense because I have lost all desire to eat chocolate now and much prefer watermelon, oranges and apples

Perhaps you are becoming a genetic mutant

After 50 days of Lent fasting, I can affirm that my genes are typically Northern European : MEAT and DAIRY everyday !

[Anthea]

Perhaps you are becoming a genetic mutant

After 50 days of Lent fasting, I can affirm that my genes are typically Northern European : MEAT and DAIRY everyday !

All my relations are meat eaters

Perhaps I was a Hindu in a previous life

,m kijhuj7hg hj jkh uj7 me turning keyboard upside down to shake the crumbs out

Hark I hear the distant sound of an ice-cream van

Sadly, far too distant for me

It was probably miles away

Gone but not forgotten

All I hear now is the chirping of birds

NO traffic

NO planes

NO trains

Just the sound os the countryside

And my washer/dryer

[Anthea]

Here's What Brazil's Drought Means for Coffee Lovers Around the World

Though it has been a difficult couple of years for Brazil's coffee crop, it looks like things are beginning to look up – at least temporarily. Following a ravaging drought, coffee experts predict that this year's crop will be bountiful and beautiful. For consumers, it's a win-win situation: better-tasting coffee at low prices.

Jason Sarley, a sensory analyst for Coffee Review, a California-based online publication and consulting group for the specialty coffee community, said that the temporary relief for Brazil's struggling crop is largely thanks to El Niño conditions, which brought much needed rain to the region.

Though this is great news for coffee enthusiasts, Sarley is quick to emphasize the ephemeral nature of Brazil's bountiful harvest.

"They're expected to have an unusually large production," he said. "But generally the drought has decreased production and quality and it's expected to be worse as time goes on because of the effects of climate change."

Though basic price dynamics — the cost to consumers drops as supply increases — works for coffee on a large scale, niche markets will remain relatively untouched by high yields in Brazil.

"What's happening in Brazil is unrelated to the rest of the ultra-premium specialty market," said Sarley. "The extremely high-end coffees will probably stay about the same price."

In order to understand mass production versus specialty markets, it helps to start with a few coffee basics: namely, the distinction between the two most well known varietals, Arabica and Robusta.

"Coffee emerged way back at its origin in the border between the highlands of Ethiopia and the Congo, and it genetically split off into two main varietals, Coffea arabica, which grew into the highlands of Ethiopia, and Coffea canephora, referred to generally as robusta, which grew into the lowlands of the Congo," said Sarley.

"The highlands of Ethiopia are a more delicate place, so coffee Arabica at its core is a fairly delicate fruit-provided evergreen shrub," he added. "It has natural defenses including caffeine and polyphenols, which help prevent disease, but with generally increasing humidity and temperature because of climate change, even fairly higher grown Arabica has become at risk, because it's a fairly delicate plant."

Robusta, on the other hand, is much heartier in the face of climate change, which means as temperatures rise, so does its prevalence.

"Robusta is more and more being spliced into Arabica for its sturdiness, for its resistance," said Sarley. "It is a much heartier plant. It has on average about half as many sugars and twice as much caffeine and polyphenols which help protect the plant."

Caffeine and polyphenols act as a sort of natural pesticide, which helps defend coffee plants.

What this means for taste is a question that preoccupies coffee experts. If Arabica is threatened, so too is the delicacy and complexity it offers.

"The best coffees are bouquets —they're floral, they're chocolatey, they're fruity, they're rich, they're exotic, they're complicated," said Sarley. "They're a mind-altering, joyful experience."

Interest in specialty coffees continues to rise and to spread worldwide. When Blue Bottle opened branches in Japan last year, the Associated Press reported that customers waited in line for up to four hours for a cup of coffee.

"The issue along with that is that we have this massive increased global demand for very good coffee, but on the production side they're struggling," said Sarley, estimating that the specialty industry has grown more than 400 percent over the last 15 or so years.

Because Brazil produces more than 30 percent of the world's coffee, the country is at the heart of concerns regarding the intersection of climate change and coffee. Farmers are worried, even if many consumers have remained relatively oblivious.

A joint study published last year by the International Center for Tropical Agriculture under the CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture, and Food Security (CCAFS) focused specifically on projections for the more delicate Arabica plant.

"Increases in temperature and changes in precipitation patterns will decrease yield, reduce quality, and increase pest and disease pressure," according to the study, which also estimates that Brazil will see a 25 percent decrease in Arabica production by the 2050s.

As is the case with grapes and wine, scientists predict that what grows where in terms of coffee varietals will continue to evolve as temperatures change; this could be good for certain regions, bad for others.

"If we're thinking of long-term solutions, we need to be looking at how do we deal with climate change worldwide because these exporting countries suffer the worst, and in the long-term will suffer the worst, from those repercussions" Sarley said. "The real question is how do we prevent climate change so we can preserve these delicate beautiful coffee varietals that produce magnificent cups of coffee?"

https://news.vice.com/article/heres-wha ... ewstwitter