Eating crickets can be good for you

 Valerie Stull was 12 when she ate her first insect.

"I was on a trip with my parents in Central America and we were served fried ants," she says. "I remember being so grossed out initially, but when I put the ant in my mouth, I was really surprised because it tasted like food -- and it was good!"

Today, Stull, a recent doctoral graduate of the University of Wisconsin-Madison Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies, is the lead author of a new pilot clinical trial published in the journal Scientific Reports that looks at what eating crickets does to the human microbiome.

It shows that consuming crickets can help support the growth of beneficial gut bacteria and that eating crickets is not only safe at high doses but may also reduce inflammation in the body.

"There is a lot of interest right now in edible insects," Stull says. "It's gaining traction in Europe and in the U.S. as a sustainable, environmentally friendly protein source compared to traditional livestock."

More than 2 billion people around the world regularly consume insects, which are also a good source of protein, vitamins, minerals and healthy fats. The research team was interested in documenting for the first time via clinical trial the health effects of eating them.

"This study is important because insects represent a novel component in Western diets and their health effects in human populations haven't really been studied," says co-corresponding author Tiffany Weir, a professor of food science and human nutrition at Colorado State University. "With what we now know about the gut microbiota and its relationship to human health, it's important to establish how a novel food might affect gut microbial populations. We found that cricket consumption may actually offer benefits beyond nutrition."

Raising insects for protein not only helps protect the environment, but also offers a more healthful option than meat in many wealthy countries with high-meat diets, says co-author Jonathan Patz, director of the UW-Madison Global Health Institute, where Stull will begin a postdoctoral research position in the fall.

Crickets, like other insects, contain fibers, such as chitin, that are different from the dietary fiber found in foods like fruits and vegetables. Fiber serves as a microbial food source and some fiber types promote the growth of beneficial bacteria, also known as probiotics. The small trial probed whether insect fibers might influence the bacteria found in the gastrointestinal tract.

For two weeks, 20 healthy men and women between the ages of 18 and 48 ate either a control breakfast or a breakfast containing 25 grams of powdered cricket meal made into muffins and shakes. Each participant then ate a normal diet for a two-week "washout period." For the following two weeks, those who started on the cricket diet consumed a control breakfast and those who started on the control diet consumed a cricket breakfast.

Every participant served as their own control for the study and the researchers were blinded with respect to which diet each participant was on at any given time.

The researchers collected blood samples, stool samples and answers to gastrointestinal questionnaires immediately before the study began, immediately following the first two-week diet period and immediately after the second two-week diet period.

Participants' blood samples were tested for a host of health measures, like blood glucose and enzymes associated with liver function, and also for levels of a protein associated with inflammation. The fecal samples were tested for the byproducts of microbial metabolism in the human gut, inflammatory chemicals associated with the gastrointestinal tract, and the overall makeup of the microbial communities present in the stools.

Participants reported no significant gastrointestinal changes or side effects and the researchers found no evidence of changes to overall microbial composition or changes to gut inflammation. They did see an increase in a metabolic enzyme associated with gut health, and a decrease in an inflammatory protein in the blood called TNF-alpha, which has been linked to other measures of well-being, like depression and cancer.

Additionally, the team saw an increase in the abundance of beneficial gut bacteria like Bifidobacterium animalis, a strain that has been linked to improved gastrointestinal function and other measures of health in studies of a commercially available strain called BB-12.

But, the researchers say, more and larger studies are needed to replicate these findings and determine what components of crickets may contribute to improved gut health. "This very small study shows that this is something worth looking at in the future when promoting insects as a sustainable food source," says Stull.

Stull is co-founder of an award-winning startup and research collaboration called MIGHTi, the Mission to Improve Global Health Through Insects. In the future, MIGHTi hopes to provide home-use insect-farming kits to communities that already consume insects, including many in southern Africa. Insects require far less water to farm than traditional livestock and can help improve food security in impoverished communities while providing economic opportunities to women.
"Most of the insects consumed around the world are wild-harvested where they are and when they are available," says Stull, who has eaten insects -- including caterpillars, cicadas, grasshoppers and beetle larvae -- all over the world. "People love flying termites in Zambia, which come out only once or twice a year and are really good; they taste like popcorn and are a crunchy, oily snack."

She hopes to promote insects as a more mainstream food in the United States, and though the industry is currently small, the rise of edible insect producers and companies using insects in their food products may make this possible.

"Food is very tied to culture, and 20 or 30 years ago, no one in the U.S. was eating sushi because we thought it was disgusting, but now you can get it at a gas station in Nebraska," she says.

Frequent sauna bathing has many health benefits

Sauna bathing is an activity used for the purposes of pleasure, wellness, and relaxation. Emerging evidence suggests that beyond its use for pleasure, sauna bathing may be linked to several health benefits. A new report published in Mayo Clinic Proceedings found that sauna bathing is associated with a reduction in the risk of vascular diseases, such as high blood pressure and cardiovascular disease, neurocognitive diseases, nonvascular conditions, such as pulmonary diseases, mental health disorders, and mortality. Furthermore, sauna bathing alleviated conditions such as skin diseases, arthritis, headache, and flu. The evidence also suggests that regular sauna baths are associated with a better health-related quality of life.

The research team led by scientists from the University of Jyväskylä, the University of Eastern Finland, and the University of Bristol conducted a comprehensive literature review on the effects of Finnish sauna baths on health outcomes. Finnish sauna bathing is characterized by exposure to high environmental temperature (80 degrees C-100 degrees C) for a brief period.

Findings from this comprehensive literature review also suggest that the health benefits of sauna bathing are linked to the effects of sauna on circulatory, respiratory, cardiovascular, and immune functions. Regular sauna bathing stabilizes the autonomic nervous system, reduces blood pressure, inflammation, oxidative stress, circulation of bad cholesterol, arterial stiffness, and vascular resistance. Moreover, sauna bathing contributes to beneficial levels of circulating hormones and other cardiovascular markers. The physiological responses produced by an ordinary sauna bath correspond to those produced by moderate- or high-intensity physical activity such as walking.
The same research team has published several experimental studies demonstrating the beneficial effects of short-term sauna exposure on blood pressure, specific cardiovascular biomarkers, inflammation, arterial compliance, and cardiovascular function. The feelings of relaxation and promotion of mental health and well-being associated with sauna sessions may be linked to the increased production of circulating levels of hormones such as endorphins, the research team reported. The review also reports that sauna bathing produces beneficial changes that are equivalent to those produced by physical activity. Indeed, the research team has shown in their previous studies that a combination of sauna bathing and physical activity might have added health benefits compared with each activity alone.
This review emphasized that sauna bathing has a good safety profile and can even be used in patients with stable cardiovascular disease. Hot Finnish sauna baths have been shown to be hemodynamically well tolerated without the occurrence of complex ventricular arrhythmias in patients with heart diseases.

Measure of belly fat in older adults is linked with cognitive impairment

A new study using data from over 5,000 individuals has found that a measure of belly fat (waist:hip ratio) was associated with reduced cognitive function in older Irish adults (>60 years of age). These findings have significant implications as the global prevalence of dementia is predicted to increase from 24.3 million in 2001 to 81.1 million by 2040.

Previous studies have found that people who are overweight do not perform as well on tests of memory and visuospatial ability compared to those who are normal weight. However, it is not well known if this is true in older adults. This is of concern within Ireland, as over half of the over 50s population is classified as being centrally obese, with only 16% of men and 26% of women reported to have a BMI (body mass index) within the normal range.

The researchers used data from the Trinity Ulster Department of Agriculture (TUDA) ageing cohort study comprising, which is a cross-border collaborative research project gathering data from thousands of elderly adults in Northern Ireland and Ireland.

The researchers found that a higher waist:hip ratio was associated with reduced cognitive function. This could be explained by an increased secretion of inflammatory markers by belly fat, which has been previously associated with a higher risk of impaired cognition. On the contrary, body mass index (BMI) was found to protect cognitive function. BMI is a crude measure of body fat and cannot differentiate between fat and fat-free mass (muscle), thus it is proposed that the fat-free mass component is likely to be the protective factor.
To the best of the authors' knowledge, this is one of the largest studies of older adults to report these findings. Given the high prevalence of overweight and obesity in the older population and the economic and social burden of cognitive dysfunction, the results suggest that reducing obesity and exposure to obeso-genic risk factors could offer a cost-effective public health strategy for the prevention of cognitive decline.
Clinical Associate Professor in Medical Gerontology at Trinity, Conal Cunningham, is the senior author of the study. He said: "While we have known for some time that obesity is associated with negative health consequences our study adds to emerging evidence suggesting that obesity and where we deposit our excess weight could influence our brain health. This has significant public health implications."

Ketamine has potential therapeutic role in adolescents with treatment-resistant depression

A new study has shown a significant average decrease in the Children's Depression Rating Scale (42.5%) among adolescents with treatment-resistant depression (TRD) who were treated with intravenous ketamine.

The study, which demonstrated the tolerability and potential role of ketamine as a treatment option for adolescents with TRD, is published in Journal of Child and Adolescent Psychopharmacology, a peer-reviewed journal from Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., publishers.

The article is available free on the Journal of Child and Adolescent Psychopharmacology website.

The article entitled "Intravenous Ketamine for Adolescents with Treatment-Resistant Depression: An Open-Label Study" was coauthored by Kathryn Cullen, MD, University of Minnesota Medical School, Minneapolis, and a team of researchers from University of Minnesota, Hennepin County Medical Center (Minneapolis, MN), and Mayo Clinic (Rochester, MN).

The study participants were young adults aged 12-18 years who had failed two previous trials of antidepressants. They received six ketamine infusions over 2 weeks. The treatment was well tolerated. Based on the Children's Depression Rating Scale scores, 38% of participants met the criteria for clinical response and remission.

Alzheimer's drug may stop disease if used before symptoms develop

About 50 percent of people who reach the age of 85 will develop Alzheimer's disease. Most will die within about five years of exhibiting the hallmark symptoms of the disease - severe memory loss and a precipitous decline in cognitive function.

But the molecular processes that lead to the disease will have begun years earlier.

Currently, there are no known ways to prevent the disease or to stop its progression once it has begun. But research at the University of Virginia offers new understanding of how the disease develops at the molecular level, long before extensive neuronal damage occurs and symptoms show up.

Additionally, the researchers have found that an FDA-approved drug, memantine, currently used only for alleviating the symptoms of moderate-to-severe Alzheimer's disease, might be used to prevent or slow the progression of the disease if used before symptoms appear. The research also offers, based on extensive experimentation, a hypothesis as to why this might work.

 The findings are published currently online in the journal Alzheimer's & Dementia.

"Based on what we've learned so far, it is my opinion that we will never be able to cure Alzheimer's disease by treating patients once they become symptomatic," said George Bloom, a UVA professor and chair of the Department of Biology, who oversaw the study in his lab. "The best hope for conquering this disease is to first recognize patients who are at risk, and begin treating them prophylactically with new drugs and perhaps lifestyle adjustments that would reduce the rate at which the silent phase of the disease progresses.

"Ideally, we would prevent it from starting in the first place."

As Alzheimer's disease begins, there is a lengthy period of time, perhaps a decade or longer, when brain neurons affected by the disease attempt to divide, possibly as a way to compensate for the death of neurons. This is unusual in that most neurons develop prenatally and then never divide again. But in Alzheimer's the cells make the attempt, and then die.

"It's been estimated that as much as 90 percent of neuron death that occurs in the Alzheimer's brain follows this cell cycle reentry process, which is an abnormal attempt to divide," Bloom said. "By the end of the course of the disease, the patient will have lost about 30 percent of the neurons in the frontal lobes of the brain."

Erin Kodis, a former Ph.D. student in Bloom's lab and now a scientific editor at AlphaBioCom, hypothesized that excess calcium entering neurons through calcium channels on their surface drive those neurons back into the cell cycle. This occurs before a chain of events that ultimately produce the plaques found in the Alzheimer's brain. Several experiments by Kodis ultimately proved her theory correct.

The building blocks of the plaques are a protein called amyloid beta oligomers. Kodis found that when neurons are exposed to toxic amyloid oligomers, the channel, called the NMDA receptor, opens, thus allowing the calcium flow that drives neurons back into the cell cycle.

Memantine blocks cell cycle reentry by closing the NMDA receptor, Kodis found.

"The experiments suggest that memantine might have potent disease-modifying properties if it could be administered to patients long before they have become symptomatic and diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease," Bloom said. "Perhaps this could prevent the disease or slow its progression long enough that the average age of symptom onset could be significantly later, if it happens at all."
Side effects of the drug appear to be infrequent and modest.

Bloom said potential patients would need to be screened for Alzheimer's biomarkers years before symptoms appear. Selected patients then would need to be treated with memantine, possibly for life, in hopes of stopping the disease from ever developing, or further developing.

"I don't want to raise false hopes," Bloom said, but "if this idea of using memantine as a prophylactic pans out, it will be because we now understand that calcium is one of the agents that gets the disease started, and we may be able to stop or slow the process if done very early."
Bloom currently is working with colleagues at the UVA School of Medicine to design a clinical trial to investigate the feasibility of using memantine as an early intervention.

Fruit peels and seeds can purify your water

Newly published research by a Dickinson College chemistry professor is advancing what we know about the power of fruit and vegetable peels to remove pollutants, such as dyes and heavy metals, from water. Cindy Samet, professor of chemistry, and her students performed water purification experiments using peels and seeds from more than a dozen varieties of foods--from pumpkin and okra to lemon and banana--and found they removed methylene blue, lead and copper through the process of adsorption, a chemical bonding of the pollutant molecules to the surface of the peels.

The study, "Fruit and Vegetable Peels as Efficient Renewable Adsorbents for Removal of Pollutants from Water: A Research Experience for General Chemistry Students," was published in the Journal of Chemical Education. In 2015, Suresh Valiyaveettil, Samet's coauthor and a professor at the National University of Singapore, published the original research on which Samet based her course. His study analyzed the ability of avocado, hamimelon and dragon fruit peels to remove pollutants from water. In this video, Samet demonstrates how dried avocado peel can adsorb large amounts of methylene blue onto its surface in a matter of hours.

Samet followed Valiyaveettil's protocol for cleaning the surface of the fruit by first boiling the peels/seeds to remove soluble surface impurities. The peels were then dried and crushed before being placed in a solution containing pollutants. Among the findings, lemon seeds removed 100 percent of lead ions, while the peels removed 96.4 percent. Okra peels also removed 100 percent of lead ions, while the seeds removed 50 percent.

"The results expand on what we know about fruit and vegetable peels as an organic, renewable, low-cost method of removing pollutants from water," said Samet. "We replicated the results from Suresh's lab with avocado and then studied never-before-tested fruits and vegetable peels and seeds. This is exciting because it is likely that this method of purification can make its way from lab to kitchen."
In the kitchen, Samet can envision dried peels being used as a natural, at-home option to remove impurities from drinking water. But Samet's classroom project focused on industrial effluents such as dyes and heavy metal ions. On a large scale, Samet envisions the peels may one day provide an affordable solution in parts of the world with dwindling supplies of clean, safe drinking water.

Drugs for heart failure are still under-prescribed

A UCLA-led study in the Journal of American College of Cardiology found that many people with heart failure do not receive the medications recommended for them under guidelines set by the American College of Cardiology, American Heart Association and Heart Failure Society of America.

The research also found that doctors frequently prescribe medications at doses lower than those recommended by the guidelines, especially for older people, those with kidney disease, those with worsening symptoms or those who were recently hospitalized for heart failure. Further study is needed to determine why people in those four groups specifically were prescribed lower-than-recommended doses.

The study, which looked at the three categories of heart failure medications, found that between 27 percent and 67 percent of patients were not prescribed the recommended drugs. And when patients did receive the medications, they were generally at a lower-than-recommended dose. Less than 25 percent of patients simultaneously received all three medication types, and only 1 percent received the target doses of all three medication types.

BACKGROUND
About 5.7 million people in the United States have heart failure, according to a 2016 report by the American Heart Association. Heart failure is associated with a lower quality of life and frequent hospitalizations, and it contributes to more than 300,000 deaths each year in the U.S. In half of people with heart failure, the disease is caused by a weak heart muscle that prevents the heart from ejecting a normal amount of blood with each heartbeat, a condition called reduced ejection fraction.
Several medications have been proven in large clinical trials to help people with heart failure and reduced ejection fraction live longer and feel better. Research conducted between 2007 and 2009 showed that many patients were not receiving the recommended doses of these medications. The new study sought to determine if there have been improvements in prescribing practice as well as which patients are most likely to receive less medication than recommended.
METHOD
The study included 3,518 patients from 150 primary care and cardiology practices who were enrolled in the Change the Management of Patients with Heart Failure registry, or CHAMP-HF, a study of adult outpatients who were diagnosed with heart failure with reduced ejection fraction.
IMPACT
The results suggest that use and dosing of heart failure medications has not improved over the past decade. The report says new strategies are needed to more effectively achieve and maintain recommended doses of heart failure medications and that there is a substantial opportunity to improve dosing of heart failure medications, which would improve the care and outcomes for people with heart failure.