Turmeric and cinnamon, Queens of Antioxidant spices

Spices. Eating a diet rich in spices, like turmeric and cinnamon, reduces the body's negative responses to eating high-fat meals, according to Penn State researchers. 

(Photo Credit: © Elena Schweitzer / Fotolia)

"Normally, when you eat a high-fat meal, you end up with high levels of triglycerides, a type of fat, in your blood," said Sheila West, associate professor of biobehavioral health, Penn State, who led the study.

"If this happens too frequently, or if triglyceride levels are raised too much, your risk of heart disease is increased.

We found that adding spices to a high-fat meal reduced triglyceride response by about 30 percent, compared to a similar meal with no spices added."

West and her colleagues prepared meals on two separate days for six men between the ages of 30 and 65 who were overweight, but otherwise healthy.

The researchers added two tablespoons of culinary spices to each serving of the test meal, which consisted of chicken curry, Italian herb bread, and a cinnamon biscuit.

The control meal was identical, except that spices were not included. The team drew blood from the participants every 30 minutes for three hours. They reported their findings in the current issue of the Journal of Nutrition.

Novel and potent natural antioxidant occurring in tomato plants.

Tomato plants. Researchers have identified a novel and potent natural antioxidant occurring in tomato plants. It is a phenolic substance that is synthesised by the tomato plant when it is subjected to biotic stress. (Credit: © Stanisaw Tokarski / Fotolia)

A team of researchers from the Institute of Molecular and Cell Biology (IBMCP) -a joint centre of the Universitat Politècnica de València and CSIC, the Spanish National Research Council- have identified a novel and potent natural antioxidant occurring in tomato plants.

It is a phenolic substance that is synthesised by the tomato plant when it is subjected to biotic stress. Until now, it was completely unknown.

The UPV and CSIC have registered the national and international patents of the new antioxidant and the laboratory procedures used to isolate and synthesise it chemically.

The finding was recently published in the journal Environmental and Experimental Botany.
IBMCP researchers point out that the antioxidant power of the new compound is much higher -14 times higher, to be precise- than, for example, that of resveratrol, a well-known antioxidant, found in red wine, which can delay cellular aging. In addition, it is 4.5 times more potent than vitamin E and 10 times more potent than vitamin C.

This substance could have multiple applications. For example, in the food industry it could be used as a preservative in food for human consumption and in animal fodder, because of its action as a retarder of lipid oxidation.

This powerful antioxidant would prevent changes such as fats and oils becoming rancid, which strongly diminishes food quality. It could also be used as a supplement in certain products after careful processing.

It should also be noted that antioxidants have beneficial health properties, such as helping to prevent coronary heart disease and cancer; therefore, the compound could have major applications in the pharmaceutical industry.

Genetic discovery by British scientists raises hopes for malaria treatments

Genetic discovery by British scientists raises hopes for malaria treatments - Times Online

The genetic code of the plant that provides the most effective treatment for malaria has been cracked by scientists, raising the prospect of cheaper and more plentiful drugs against a disease that kills about a million people each year.

The achievement by British researchers will assist the development of higher-yielding varieties of the sweet wormwood plant Artemisia annua that addresses a global shortage of the drug artemisinin and reduces its cost. New seeds could be produced using insights from the study and be available to farmers in as little as two to three years.

Artemisinin combination therapies (ACTs), in which the drug is given in combination with older anti-malarial treatments, are recommended by the World Health Organisation as the best way to fight malaria.

Artemisinin can be made only by using an acid extracted from sweet wormwood, a herb used in traditional Chinese medicine. As most of the varieties under cultivation are wild plants with low yields, demand for ACTs outstrips supply and the drugs are much more expensive than older, less-effective treatments.

Rogue Stem cell clinic raided by police

Stem cell tourism – patients paying for treatment at illegal "guerrilla" clinics – continues to be a lucrative racket. Police in Hungary last week arrested four individuals they suspect of running an illegal stem cell treatment clinic in Budapest.

Reuters reported the police saying that the treatments were unproven, based on stem cells taken from embryos or aborted fetuses, and cost as much as $25,000 per person.

Gabor Bucsek, leading the police investigation, was quoted as saying that the arrests were "on suspicion of a banned use of the human body".

The Health Ministry issued a brief statement saying that no institutions in the country have permission at present to carry out stem cell treatment, and only Hungary's Healthcare Scientific Council has authority to issue permission to conduct research. At least eight patients had been treated, although some bloggers report that there may have been as many as 100.

Unproven treatments

Stem cell researchers alarmed by the reports from Hungary praised the police action.

"If the people that have been arrested have done something illegal their arrest is good news," says Robin Lovell-Badge of the National Institute of Medical Research in London.

"I hope it scares others from offering untested treatments and will be a cautionary tale to members of the public," added Lovell-Badge, urging them to consult global guidelines issued last year by the International Society for Stem Cell Research.

Stem cell therapy is promising, but there are major hurdles to overcome, not least the risk of the cells causing cancer.

"There's no proven benefit of any of the treatments on offer at commercial clinics, and there's risks of infection, not getting the stem cells at all, or them growing into something you don't want," says Stephen Barrett, a retired psychiatrist in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, who runs the Quackwatch website. "So to go for treatment is a very foolish thing to do."

Drug-trial cancer patients recover: Magic Bullet found! Ipilimumab

Two men with advanced and inoperable prostate cancer have staged dramatic recoveries after being treated with an experimental antibody drug.

Both are now cancer-free and have returned to normal life after they took part in a trial of a drug called ipilimumab that boosts the immune system.

Before treatment at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, US, each of them had aggressive tumours that had grown well beyond the prostate gland into abdominal areas.

Trial leader Dr Eugene Kwon said: "The goal of the study was to see if we could modestly improve upon current treatments for advanced prostate cancer.

"The candidates for this study were people who didn't have a lot of other options. However, we were startled to see responses that far exceeded any of our expectations."

First, the patients received traditional hormone therapy to remove testosterone, which fuels prostate cancer. Researchers then introduced a single dose of ipilimumab. The drug is an antibody which builds on the hormone therapy and boosts the immune system's response to the cancer.

Both patients saw their prostate specific antigen (PSA) levels drop to the point where they became eligible for surgery. PSA is a protein in the blood that allows doctors to monitor prostate cancer.

When the surgeons made their incisions, they had a surprise. Mayo clinic urologist Dr Michael Blute said: "The tumours had shrunk dramatically. I had never seen anything like this before. I had a hard time finding the cancer. At one point the pathologist asked if we were sending him samples from the same patient."

Further research is now planned to understand more about the mechanisms of the antibody and how best to use it on patients, but Dr Kwon added: "This is one of the holy grails of prostate cancer research. We've been looking for this for years."