People who eat at irregular times run a greater risk of developing insulin resistance and what is known as metabolic syndrome, according to a study from the Swedish medical university Karolinska Institutet.
Metabolic syndrome is a condition whereby multiple risk factors for cardiovascular disease and diabetes accumulate in one and the same individual. The chances of developing the components of the syndrome - abdominal obesity, hypertension, dyslipidemia, and glucose intolerance - are affected by several lifestyle factors, of which diet is thought to be one of the most important.
Scientists at Karolinska Institutet have now, for the first time, showed that the frequency of meals, regardless of their content, affects the chances of developing metabolic syndrome. The study, which was based on a survey and medical examination of over four thousand 60-year old men and women, shows that irregular eating is associated with a higher risk of metabolic syndrome.
The participants that said that they rarely ate a regular breakfast, lunch and dinner had, on average, a larger waist size and more blood lipid disorders than people who ate more regularly. They also tended to exhibit more signs of insulin resistance, which is thought to be an underlying cause of metabolic syndrome. The scientists believe that the results can help to improve dietary advice regarding the prevention or treatment of metabolic syndrome.
"Dietary advice is usually all about what kind of food we should eat," says Professor Mai-Lis Hell?Šnius, who led the study. "But this study shows that the way in which we eat can also be an important health factor."
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Cranberry juice had no discernible effect on E. coli bacteria without fimbriae, suggesting that compounds in the juice may act directly on the molecular structure of the fimbriae themselves. This reinforces previous work by the WPI team that showed that exposure to cranberry juice alters the shape of the fimbriae, causing them to become compressed. Using an atomic force microscope as a minute strain gauge, the team also showed that the adhesive force exerted by bacteria on urinary tract cells declined in direct proportion to the concentration of cranberry juice in the solution.
"Our results show that, at least for urinary tract infections, cranberry juice targets the right bacteria-those that cause disease-but has no effect on non-pathogenic organisms, suggesting that cranberry juice will not disrupt bacteria that are part of the normal flora in the gut," Camesano says. "We have also shown that this effect occurs at concentrations of cranberry juice that are comparable to levels we would expect to find in the urinary tract."
Camesano notes that unpublished work has shown that while cranberry juice has potent effects on disease-causing bacteria, those effects are transitory. "When we takes E. coli. bacteria that have been treated with cranberry juice and place them in normal growth media, they regain the ability to adhere to urinary tract cells," she says. "This suggests that to realize the antibacterial benefits of cranberry, one must consume cranberry juice regularly-perhaps daily."
For those watching calories, Camesano says other recent work in her lab has shown that the effects of regular cranberry juice cocktail and diet (sugar-free) cranberry juice are identical. "That's good news for people who do not like to consume a lot of sugary juice," she says.
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