Microbes—usually bacteria, fungi, or protists—made a big splash of news when the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy announced the new National Microbiome Initiative (NMI) last month. The NMI’s aim is to advance the understanding of microbiome, which refers to all the microbes in a particular environment. The initiative particularly focuses on restoring […]
In a discovery that carries significant implications for changing brain function through dietary interventions, UCLA researchers say they now have the first evidence that bacteria ingested in food can affect how the human brain works. The study, which focused on women who consumed yogurt containing the bacteria known as probiotics, appears in the journalGastroenterology. Researchers […]
New findings published in the journal PLoS ONEsuggest that diet – rather than lack of exercise – may be the main driver for expanding waistlines in the Western world. The research team behind the study, led by Herman Pontzer of Hunter College, measured daily energy expenditure (calories/day) among the Hadza, a population of traditional hunter-gatherers […]
“The more fast food you consume, the greater the risk of depression,” say Spanish researchers who have linked the consumption of hamburgers, hotdogs and pizza to a significantly greater likelihood of developing depression. The results, published in the journal Public Health Nutrition, reveal that consumers of fast food, compared to those who eat little or […]
New experiments by researchers at the University of Missouri (UM) show that exposure to the controversial chemical Bisphenol A (BPA) through diet has likely been underestimated by previous lab tests. In the new study, appearing in Environmental Health Perspectives, the researchers compared mice given a steady diet containing BPA to mice given a single exposure […]
Changes in diet have previously been linked to a reduction of abnormal behaviors in mentally ill animals and people, but a new Purdue University study shows that diet can also trigger the onset of mental illness in the first place. In the experiment, mice were fed a diet high in sugar and tryptophan (an essential […]
A new Northwestern University study of men in the Philippines makes a strong case for nurture’s role in male to female differences. For male infants, rapid weight gain in the first six months of life predicts a future where they will be taller, more muscled, stronger, have more sex partners and higher levels of testosterone […]
The dramatic effect that a little-known omega-3 fatty acid has on sperm may have important implications for treating male infertility, say University of Illinois (UI) scientists. “In our experiment, we used ‘knockout’ mice that lacked the gene responsible for an enzyme important in making docosahexaenoic acid [DHA]. In the absence of DHA, male mice are […]
Reported in the journal Molecular Neurodegeneration, a study by Alzheimer’s researchers has found that a high protein diet, such as the Atkins diet, can lead to a smaller brain. The researchers, from the US, Canada, and the UK, tested four different menus on mice that had been transgenically altered to provide a model of Alzheimer’s […]
Researchers at the University of Missouri have established that maternal diet can influence the gender of offspring and that sheep fed a diet enriched with omega-6 fats have a significantly higher chance of giving birth to male offspring. The study, carried out by researchers from the Division of Animal Sciences and reported in the journal […]
