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The Power Of Plants In Your Diet

August 27, 2011 By

Make way for the plant-based diet, the latest buzzword for an optimal diet that focuses on plants, such as grains, legumes, vegetables, fruits, nuts, and seeds, rather than a diet of animal products like meat, fish, poultry, eggs, and dairy. Health experts extol the virtues of a plant-based diet as a healthy eating style that can help you fight chronic disease and obesity.

While plant-based diets are not novel, the fact that the trend is catching on is new, according to Reed Mangels, Ph.D., R.D., nutrition advisor of The Vegetarian Resource Group. She says, “More people are interested in plant-based eating; it goes along with the movement to eat more locally grown vegetables and fruits, and the availability of plant-based cookbooks.”

The beauty of plant-based eating is that it’s flexible — and it doesn’t mean that you have to give up animal foods. The U.S. Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee, tasked at looking at the body of nutrition science in order to make recommendations for the 2010 Dietary Guidelines, defines a plant-based diet as a diet that “emphasizes plant foods.” [Read more...]

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Ink-jet Printers Inspire Scientists To Make Skin

February 22, 2011 By

Ink-jet printing technology has inspired scientists to look for ways to build sheets of skin that could one day be used for grafts in burn victims, experts said Sunday.

One technique involves a portable bioprinter that could be carried to wounded soldiers on the battlefield where it would scan the injury, take cells from the patient and print a section of compatible skin.

Another uses a three-dimensional printer combining donor cells, biofriendly gel and other materials to build cartilage.

The 3-D printer was shown at work, building a prototype of an ear during a half-hour demonstration at a Washington science conference. [Read more...]

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A Tea For Everyone

February 1, 2011 By

No place better illustrates the reach and variety of tea than T, an Urban Teahouse.

Owner Kristy Jennings has no fewer than 100 teas to choose from, meaning there’s a tea for every person, every mood, every part of the day.

After spending 17 years as a health care professional, Jennings sought an endeavor to allow her to connect with the community more broadly. She spent two years flashlighting her soul for inspiration and found herself in Vienna. It was there an interest in tea, developed via her mother, blossomed into a four-alarm passion.

“Vienna sealed the deal,” she said.

Fast forward to October 2009, and Jennings was opening her chic tea boutique near Blue 7. [Read more...]

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How Tomatoes Cut Prostate Cancer Risk

January 31, 2011 By

The University of Illinois scientists, who suggested that eating tomatoes reduces risk of prostate cancer, have developed a tool that may help trace the metabolism of tomato carotenoids in the human body.

“Scientists believe that carotenoids-the pigments that give the red, yellow, and orange colours to some fruits and vegetables-provide the cancer-preventive benefits in tomatoes, but we don’t know exactly how it happens,” said John W. Erdman, of the University of Illinois.

The researchers will use isotopic labelling of three tomato carotenoids with heavier carbon atoms than are commonly seen in nature, which will allow tracking of the tomato components’ absorption and metabolism in the body, he said.

“We have two questions we’d like to answer. First, are the carotenoids themselves bioactive, or are their metabolic or oxidative products responsible for their benefits? Second, is lycopene alone responsible for the tomato’s benefits, or are other carotenoids also important” he said. [Read more...]

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Chocolate To Combat Heart Diseases

January 21, 2011 By

Chocolate could be combating heart disease and conferring other major health benefits within five years.

Researchers are scouring the genome of the tree theobroma cacao to find ways of enhancing the health benefits of cocoa beans produced by the plant.

They took two years to unlock the genetic code of the tree and now hope to use the information it contains to improve the quality, flavour and nutritional value of the beans, which are used to produce chocolate.

They believe they can boost the levels of compounds known as flavonols in the beans, reports the Telegraph.

Flavonols have been found in recent research to improve blood pressure and have beneficial effects on the cardiovascular system. [Read more...]

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Biologists Head To Bunkers To Fight Bat Disease

December 26, 2010 By

Biologist Susi von Oettingen walked into the dark World War II-era military bunker and took out her flashlight. Among the old pipes, wires and machinery parts, she saw some bats hanging from cracks in the cement walls and ceiling.

It was an unusual place for the bats to hibernate, different from a mine or cave. But something else was different, too: None of them had white-nose syndrome, a fungus that’s killing bats across the country.

The group of bats found last winter in the New Hampshire bunker was small, recalled von Oettingen, an endangered species biologist for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. But two of the three species discovered there – the Northern Long-eared Bat and the Little Brown Bat – have been dying off from the disease.

Starting as early as next month, von Oettingen will be part of a group of state and federal biologists monitoring that bunker and a few others in the state. They’ll study temperature and humidity levels and put up footholds for the bats, hoping to attract more and figure out if there’s a way to control white-nose syndrome, first discovered near Albany, N.Y., in 2006. [Read more...]

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Debate Over Cloned Offspring Meat

December 5, 2010 By

Meat and milk from the offspring of cloned animals could be put on sale in British shops without labels to distinguish it from traditionally-produced foods, after ministers judged it would be “disproportionate” to impose restrictions, it has emerged.

The European Commission has proposed a temporary five-year ban on food and drink from clones, but papers released by the Food Standards Agency indicate that Environment Secretary Caroline Spelman believes this is unnecessary. [Read more...]

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