effects

We have compared the effects of the Mediterranean diet with those of the so -called “planetary health diet”. There are surprises

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Something everyday as eating can have a huge impact on our health, but you can also put a small grain of sand in environmental protection. The problem in these cases is that it is not always easy to demonstrate reliably the impacts of our diet on our health and the environment. Some scientists have tried. As beneficial as the Mediterranean diet. A group of researchers He has been studyingface to face, the health and environmental effects of two diets: the traditional and well -known Mediterranean diet, and the least known planetary health diet. According to this analysis, adhesion to both diets presents similar benefits for both our health and our environment. Planetary health diet. The planetary health diet, or PHD for its acronym in English is a diet Proposal in 2019 By a group of experts from the Eat-Lancet commission, associated with the medical magazine The Lancet. It is a diet that prepares the consumption of plant foods and limits the consumption of meats and dairy products (although it does not eliminate them as in vegetarian and vegan diets). “In 2019, the planetary health diet (PHD) was developed to optimize global dietary quality at the same time that the impacts of food production within sustainable borders were maintained,” indicated in a press release Mercedes Sotos Prieto, researcher at the Autonomous University of Madrid and co -author of the study. “However, evidence of how PHD is compared to the Mediterranean diet (…). We have evaluated the effects of both diets on mortality for any cause and the environmental impact on a large (sample) representative of the Spanish population.” 11,488 participants. The study was carried out from compiled data in the study of nutrition and cardiovascular risk in Spain (Enrica). The data of this cohort allowed to track 11,488 participants over 14.4 years. To analyze the adhesion to each of the diets two indexes were used, the PHD Index and Medas Score. These measured the consumption of certain foods associated with each of the diets, the planetary health diet and the Mediterranean diet, respectively. The environmental impact of these forms of food consumption was carried out through the Sharp-ID tool (Sharp-Indicors Database), which allows estimating greenhouse gas emissions based on land uses. Health impacts were measured through mortality, through the National Death Index. The analysis also included information about other variables to adjust the results. Less mortality. The study results They indicated a positive effect of both diets about health. In the case of the PHD, the study showed a decrease of approximately 22% in the risk of death during the period studied when comparing the group with greater adhesion to this diet with respect to the group with less adhesion. In the case of the Mediterranean diet, the comparison between the mortalities of the groups with the greatest and lesser adhesion was approximately 21%. A very similar positive effect, so much that the difference is statistically irrelevant. More than health. The second point of interest is that of the environmental impact of diets, calculated in this case based on emissions that are estimated to the different options. In the case of the PHD diet, the estimate calculates emissions equivalent to 4.15 kg of CO₂ a day, with a soil use estimated at 5.54 m² a day. The Mediterranean diet, on the other hand, is calculated emissions equivalent to 4.36 kg of CO₂ per day, with a land use estimated at 5.43 m² a day. Results, again, very similar. The details of the study have not yet been published in a scientific journal, but were presented at the beginning of the month at the Congress of the European Society of Cardiology (ESC). An open debate. The PHD diet is a relatively recent formula, proposed less than a decade ago. In his presentation it was received with a certain degree of skepticismsomething logical if we take into account the difficulties facing science when analyzing something as complex as nutrition and the effects of food on our body and our health. That is why studies are required to test the Initial results. Experiments such as this incline the balance in favor of this type of diets but when addressing this type of issues all additional information can be useful. In Xataka | Coffee has no cholesterol but does raise its levels. And someone has discovered the perfect elaboration to limit it Image | Louis Hansel

Some researchers have created a pill that mimics the effects of the lack of oxygen. They have a good reason

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Height evil is one of the problems that professional mountaineers and occasional visitors who decide to ascend to certain altitudes must face. This disorder is related to the lack of oxygen, hypoxia, which occurs in these environments, but now a pharmaceutical company wants to turn it around. Turn that “evil” into a “good.” Hypoxystat. Transform the mountain air, or rather, the absence of air of the mountain, into a pill It is the proposal of the Gladstone Institute and Maze Therapeutics laboratories. The new drug has received the name Hypoxystat and its goal is to fight against metabolic disorders such as Leigh Syndrome. Mountain air. It might seem crazy idea, but reducing the amount of oxygen that enters our body can make sense in certain senses beyond high performance sport. Living in a mountainous area can benefit people with Leight syndrome, a mitochondrial disease that affects childhood. This disorder occurs when the mitochondria, the organelle in charge of feeding the rest of the cell is not able to consume all the oxygen it receives. This leads to a dangerous accumulation of oxygen that ends with cells and tissues and, ultimately, with the patient’s life. “It is not practical for each patient with this disease to move to the mountains,” Explain in a press release Isha Jain, who has led the recent study of the drug. “But this drug could be a controlled and safe way to apply the same benefits to patients.” 2016. Almost a decade ago, a team, in which Jain herself participated, discovered that mice with this syndrome responded well when they were exposed to air with a lower amount of oxygen, the equivalent of that which can be found at heights of 4,500 meters (a upper altitude in almost a kilometer to the Teide peak). The lack of oxygen caused it to stop accumulating in the cells. The new compound could achieve a similar effect in a different way: focusing on hemoglobin, the molecule that transports oxygen in our blood. The new compound causes oxygen to be linked more easily to hemoglobin which may sound contraintuitive, they explain. However, this fact also makes it difficult for the molecule to deliver oxygen to the cells of our body. Concept test. The new drug has been developed Maze Therapeutics to fight anemia. The Gladstone Institute team, from the University of California San Francisco, found the substance when looking for a compound capable of reinforcing the bond between hemoglobin and oxygen. As a treatment, Hypoxystat is still in early development, but has already begun to succeed in mice. The details of these tests have been published recently in an article in the magazine Cell. Promising results. Although for now the studies are limited to rodents, they invite cautious optimism. The team observed, for example, that the compound had therapeutic capacity both in cases where it was administered before the appearance of symptoms and in cases where mice were already in advanced stages of the disease. In Xataka | We did not know why some superbacteria were resistant to antibiotics. This AI has found it in two days Image | Gladstone Institutes

The atlas of side effects (positive and negative) of Ozempic discovered | Health and well-being

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All medications have side effects, just take a look at any leaflet to see this. But there are not many cases in which these amount to the main effect. This is what happened a few years ago with GLP-1 agonists, medications used for decades to treat type 2 diabetes that began to demonstrate weight-loss effects. After several reformulations, new commercial brands, such as Ozempic and Wegovy, became an effective way to end obesity. But science is proving that there are many other side effects that could become major ones. GLP-1 is a molecular Swiss army knife, a kind of all-purpose drug. They affect our bodies in ways we still don’t fully understand. But today we are closer to listing. A team of scientists from the University of Washington School of Medicine has published the first detailed atlas of the side effects of these drugs. They have found benefits for cognitive and behavioral health, while revealing an increased risk of developing pancreatitis and kidney conditions. “Until now we had seen anecdotes and reports here and there. “Some people saying that it can affect this or that,” explained its main author, the clinical epidemiologist, in the presentation of the study. Ziyad Al-Aly, from the John J. Cochran Veterans Hospital. “But no one, no one had thoroughly investigated the effectiveness and risks of GLP-1 and all the ways it can affect health.” The study was published this Monday in the journal Nature Medicineshowcase of the best world science. More information “We did an analysis that comprehensively mapped the associations between GLP-1 and 175 potential health effects,” Al-Aly notes. The benefits, beyond weight loss, included a lower risk of substance use disorders and a reduction in suicidal ideation, schizophrenia, and other psychotic disorders. They also observed a reduction in cognitive disorders, such as Alzheimer’s and dementia. And finally, a reduction in the risk of clotting disorders, including stroke. “We found that these drugs have a wide range of beneficial effects, but all this does not come without risks,” warns the expert. The study confirms that, in some cases, they can cause gastrointestinal problems, such as nausea and vomiting. This is quite common and has already been documented in some patients. An increased risk of gastroparesis or stomach paralysis in rare cases and an increased risk of low blood pressure have also been seen. The analysis also notes that the drug may increase the risk of sleep problems and headaches, kidney stones, and drug-induced kidney inflammation. For these reasons, the authors recommend that, when evaluating this treatment, it should always be done under medical supervision and after an individualized analysis. “It is an observational study, although it has a large database and has been carried out for a long time,” he explains. Christopher Moralesan endocrinologist at the Virgen Macarena University Hospital in Seville, who was not involved in the study. The study does not demonstrate, therefore, that the medication is the cause of the listed effects. But these are consistent enough (risk reduction between 10 and 20%) and the database large enough (almost two million patients over three years) to think there is a direct relationship. “With Big Data you can scrape these results in very large databases and this is positive. But we must remember that here we can only verify association, not causality.” The objective of this research, in the words of its own authors, was not to analyze a specific effect and demonstrate causality, but to build an atlas of the association of risks and benefits of this relatively new medicine. “It’s like when Christopher Columbus arrived in America, and he thought about mapping it to get his bearings,” explains Al-Aly. “This is what we are doing, drawing a landscape of benefits and risks.” This opens the door to the possibility that in the future, after many reformulations and research, we can talk about an Ozempic for dementia, alcoholism or Alzheimer’s. There is still a long way to go, but this study has drawn a first map to locate the path. And there are many companies willing to embark on this adventure. There is currently a scientific and commercial race to find the next revolutionary use of GLP-1 agonists. Everyone has in mind the case of Novo Nordisk, the Danish laboratory that presented Ozempic in 2018, and which today has a stock market capitalization of 382,000 million dollars, which makes it the largest company in Europe. This has enormous business and economic implications, but from the scientific world, the question is different. How does an anti-diabetes drug have so many and varied effects? “Medicines don’t work surgically. They are designed to do one thing, but the reality is that this is almost never the case,” reflects Al-Aly. “Biology is complex and multiple, and if you touch one thing you will create a network of various effects.” GLP-1 acts on the intestine, but also on the brain, affecting areas that are involved in impulse control and reward signaling. This would explain why they help mitigate addiction problems. These medications would also affect the blood vessels, and in doing so have a potential effect on the heart. There is research that suggests that they also reduce inflammation, including that of the brain, which could explain their protective effect against neurodegenerative diseases. “But there is also another simpler theory that can explain all these positive health effects,” explains Al-Aly. Obesity is considered a disease in itself, but also the gateway to many others. It is the fifth risk factor for death in the world and every year 2.8 million adults die as a result of this condition. “When we treat obesity, it is normal that this affects other diseases, since it is the mother of them all,” summarizes Al-Aly. The expert has not yet decided, with the available scientific evidence, on which of these two theories has more force. The first would mean that we are talking about a miracle drug with multiple uses. The second would be less profitable for companies, would fill … Read more

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