Carbohydrate counting of food

Carbohydrate counting is a principal strategy in nutritional management of type 1 diabetes. The Nutri-Learn buffet (NLB) is a new computer-based tool for patient instruction in carbohydrate counting. It is based on food dummies made of plastic equipped with a microchip containing relevant food content data. The tool enables the dietician to assess the patient's food counting abilities and the patient to learn in a hands-on interactive manner to estimate food contents such as carbohydrate content.

Novel insights into mechanisms of food allergy and allergic airway inflammation using experimental mouse models

Over the last decades, considerable efforts have been undertaken in the development of animal models mimicking the pathogenesis of allergic diseases occurring in humans. The mouse has rapidly emerged as the animal model of choice, due to considerations of handling and costs and, importantly, due to the availability of a large and increasing arsenal of genetically modified mouse strains and molecular tools facilitating the analysis of complex disease models. Here, we review latest developments in allergy research that have arisen from in vivo experimentation in the mouse, with a focus on models of food allergy and allergic asthma, which constitute major health problems with increasing incidence in industrialized countries. We highlight recent novel findings and controversies in the field, most of which were obtained through the use of gene-deficient or germ-free mice, and discuss new potential therapeutic approaches that have emerged from animal studies and that aim at attenuating allergic reactions in human patients.

Eosinophilic esophagitis: analysis of food impaction and perforation in 251 adolescent and adult patients

BACKGROUND ; AIMS: Eosinophilic esophagitis is a rapidly emerging, chronic inflammatory disorder. Prolonged inflammation evokes structural alterations and a fragile esophageal wall prone to perforation/rupture and food impaction. This report assesses the risk of spontaneously arising and procedure-induced complications and proposes practical recommendations. METHODS: The Swiss Esophageal Esophagitis Database documented 251 confirmed cases. A chart review identified which patients had required endoscopic bolus removal and/or experienced transmural esophageal perforation/rupture. In addition, a MEDLINE search for "eosinophilic esophagitis" with "esophageal perforation" or "esophageal rupture" was undertaken. RESULTS: During an 18-year period, 87 patients (34.7%) experienced 134 food impactions requiring flexible (124, 92.5%) or rigid (10, 7.5%) endoscopic bolus removal. Transmural perforation occurred in 20% (2/10) of rigid procedures, and 1 esophageal rupture (Boerhaave's syndrome) was observed. CONCLUSIONS: Bolus removal by rigid endoscopy is a high-risk procedure and should be avoided in eosinophilic esophagitis patients who require a gentler approach. Whether food impaction and esophageal wall remodeling can be prevented with anti-inflammatory medication is still undetermined. All Boerhaave's syndrome cases should be evaluated for underlying eosinophilic esophagitis.

The Deep Blue Color of HD 189733b: Albedo Measurements with Hubble Space Telescope/Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph at Visible Wavelengths

We present a secondary eclipse observation for the hot Jupiter HD 189733b across the wavelength range 290-570 nm made using the Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph on the Hubble Space Telescope. We measure geometric albedos of Ag = 0.40 ± 0.12 across 290-450 nm and Ag < 0.12 across 450-570 nm at 1σ confidence. The albedo decrease toward longer wavelengths is also apparent when using six wavelength bins over the same wavelength range. This can be interpreted as evidence for optically thick reflective clouds on the dayside hemisphere with sodium absorption suppressing the scattered light signal beyond ~450 nm. Our best-fit albedo values imply that HD 189733b would appear a deep blue color at visible wavelengths.

Action of food preservatives on 14-days dental biofilm formation, biofilm vitality and biofilm-derived enamel demineralisation in situ

AIMS The aims of this double-blind, controlled, crossover study were to assess the influence of food preservatives on in situ dental biofilm growth and vitality, and to evaluate their influence on the ability of dental biofilm to demineralize underlying enamel over a period of 14 days. MATERIALS AND METHODS Twenty volunteers wore appliances with six specimens each of bovine enamel to build up intra-oral biofilms. During four test cycles of 14 days, the subjects had to place the appliance in one of the assigned controls or active solutions twice a day for a minute: negative control 0.9 % saline, 0.1 % benzoate (BA), 0.1 % sorbate (SA) and 0.2 % chlorhexidine (CHX positive control). After 14 days, the biofilms on two of the slabs were stained to visualize vital and dead bacteria to assess biofilm thickness (BT) and bacterial vitality (BV). Further, slabs were taken to determine mineral loss (ML), by quantitative light-induced laser fluorescence (QLF) and transversal microradiography (TMR), moreover the lesion depths (LD). RESULTS Nineteen subjects completed all test cycles. Use of SA, BA and CHX resulted in a significantly reduced BV compared to NaCl (p < 0.001). Only CHX exerted a statistically significant retardation in BT as compared to saline. Differences between SA and BA were not significant (p > 0.05) for both parameters. TMR analysis revealed the highest LD values in the NaCl group (43.6 ± 44.2 μm) and the lowest with CHX (11.7 ± 39.4 μm), while SA (22.9 ± 45.2 μm) and BA (21.4 ± 38.5 μm) lay in between. Similarly for ML, the highest mean values of 128.1 ± 207.3 vol% μm were assessed for NaCl, the lowest for CHX (-16.8 ± 284.2 vol% μm), while SA and BA led to values of 83.2 ± 150.9 and 98.4 ± 191.2 vol% μm, respectively. With QLF for both controls, NaCl (-33.8 ± 101.3 mm(2) %) and CHX (-16.9 ± 69.9 mm(2) %), negative values were recorded reflecting a diminution of fluorescence, while positive values were found with SA (33.9 ± 158.2 mm(2) %) and BA (24.8 ± 118.0 mm(2) %) depicting a fluorescence gain. These differences were non-significant (p > 0.05). CONCLUSION The biofilm model permited the assessment of undisturbed oral biofilm formation influenced by antibacterial components under clinical conditions for a period of 14 days. An effect of BA and SA on the demineralization of enamel could be demonstrated by TMR and QLF, but these new findings have to be seen as a trend. As part of our daily diet, these preservatives exert an impact on the metabolism of the dental biofilm, and therefore may even influence demineralization processes of the underlying dental enamel in situ.

The stable isotopic composition of Daphnia ephippia reflects changes in δ13C and δ18O values of food and water

The stable isotopic composition of fossil resting eggs (ephippia) of Daphnia spp. is being used to reconstruct past environmental conditions in lake ecosystems. However, the underlying assumption that the stable isotopic composition of the ephippia reflects the stable isotopic composition of the parent Daphnia, of their diet and of the environmental water have yet to be confirmed in a controlled experimental setting. We performed experiments with Daphnia pulicaria cultures, which included a control treatment conducted at 12 °C in filtered lake water and with a diet of fresh algae and three treatments in which we manipulated the stable carbon isotopic composition (δ13C value) of the algae, stable oxygen isotopic composition (δ18O value) of the water and the water temperature, respectively. The stable nitrogen isotopic composition (δ15N value) of the algae was similar for all treatments. At 12 °C, differences in algal δ13C values and in δ18O values of water were reflected in those of Daphnia. The differences between ephippia and Daphnia stable isotope ratios were similar in the different treatments (δ13C: +0.2 ± 0.4 ‰ (standard deviation); δ15N: −1.6 ± 0.4 ‰; δ18O: −0.9 ± 0.4 ‰), indicating that changes in dietary δ13C values and in δ18O values of water are passed on to these fossilizing structures. A higher water temperature (20 °C) resulted in lower δ13C values in Daphnia and ephippia than in the other treatments with the same food source and in a minor change in the difference between δ13C values of ephippia and Daphnia (to −1.3 ± 0.3 ‰). This may have been due to microbial processes or increased algal respiration rates in the experimental containers, which may not affect Daphnia in natural environments. There was no significant difference in the offset between δ18O and δ15N values of ephippia and Daphnia between the 12 and 20 °C treatments, but the δ18O values of Daphnia and ephippia were on average 1.2 ‰ lower at 20 °C than at 12 °C. We conclude that the stable isotopic composition of Daphnia ephippia provides information on that of the parent Daphnia and of the food and water they were exposed to, with small offsets between Daphnia and ephippia relative to variations in Daphnia stable isotopic composition reported from downcore studies. However, our experiments also indicate that temperature may have a minor influence on the δ13C, δ15N and δ18O values of Daphnia body tissue and ephippia. This aspect deserves attention in further controlled experiments.

Eco-evolutionary Dynamics of Individual-Based Food Webs

The past decade has seen the rise of high resolution datasets. One of the main surprises of analysing such data has been the discovery of a large genetic, phenotypic and behavioural variation and heterogeneous metabolic rates among individuals within natural populations. A parallel discovery from theory and experiments has shown a strong temporal convergence between evolutionary and ecological dynamics, but a general framework to analyse from individual-level processes the convergence between ecological and evolutionary dynamics and its implications for patterns of biodiversity in food webs has been particularly lacking. Here, as a first approximation to take into account intraspecific variability and the convergence between the ecological and evolutionary dynamics in large food webs, we develop a model from population genomics and microevolutionary processes that uses sexual reproduction, genetic-distance-based speciation and trophic interactions. We confront the model with the prey consumption per individual predator, species-level connectance and prey–predator diversity in several environmental situations using a large food web with approximately 25,000 sampled prey and predator individuals. We show higher than expected diversity of abundant species in heterogeneous environmental conditions and strong deviations from the observed distribution of individual prey consumption (i.e. individual connectivity per predator) in all the environmental conditions. The observed large variance in individual prey consumption regardless of the environmental variability collapsed species-level connectance after small increases in sampling effort. These results suggest (1) intraspecific variance in prey–predator interactions has a strong effect on the macroscopic properties of food webs and (2) intraspecific variance is a potential driver regulating the speed of the convergence between ecological and evolutionary dynamics in species-rich food webs. These results also suggest that genetic–ecological drift driven by sexual reproduction, equal feeding rate among predator individuals, mutations and genetic-distance-based speciation can be used as a neutral food web dynamics test to detect the ecological and microevolutionary processes underlying the observed patterns of individual and species-based food webs at local and macroecological scales.

Consumption and food production in crisis time: Swiss consumption co-operations as farmers at the End of World War I

During the last two years of World War I food supply in Switzerland declined and caused shortcomings in consume, leading to social distress and conflict. Mainly two important factors caused these problems: First, Switzerland was highly dependent on food imports and during the war traditional supply lines faded. Second, weather extremes in the years 1916–1917 caused crop failure all over Europe and North America, which intensified the decline of food trade between the nations. In 1918 a conflict between classic urban consumers, such as workers, and famers erupted due to the food shortcomings and led to a lasting discord between urban and agrarian regions in Switzerland. But there was not only disharmony and conflict between the urban and agrarian regions. As a matter of fact several agents (urban and agrarian) interested in presenting adequate coping strategies to overcome the food shortages developed ideas of alternative ways of food production and supply since 1917. The aim of the paper is to outline these strategies that were undertaken to create a new era of food production that was not solely dependent on the agrarian sector or the import-trade. Actual growing of vegetables in estate areas is an important, but just one, factor of establishing a new system of food production, distribution and consume. The market-leading grocery stores in Switzerland nowadays (Coop and Migros) started their business during that time as co-operatives establishing new forms of distribution and food-production. So the interest of the paper is not only in actual «urban farming», but it wants to share some light on how swiss urban and agrarian spheres overlapped their functions in order to create a modern system of agro food-chains at the beginning of the interwar period.

Enhancing Food Sovereignty and Food Security through the Revitalization of Indigenous Knowledge: Experiences from the Bolivian Andes

Endogenous development is defined as development that values primarily locally available resources and the way people organized themselves for that purpose. It is a dynamic and evolving concept that also embraces innovations and complementation from other than endogenous sources of knowledge; however, only as far as they are based on mutual respect and the recognition of cultural and socioeconomic self-determination of each of the parties involved. Experiences that have been systematized in the context of the BioAndes Program are demonstrating that enhancing food security and food sovereignty on the basis of endogenous development can be best achieved by applying a ‘biocultural’ perspective: This means to promote and support actions that are simultaneously valuing biological (fauna, flora, soils, or agrobiodiversity) and sociocultural resources (forms of social organization, local knowledge and skills, norms, and the related worldviews). In Bolivia, that is one of the Latin-American countries with the highest levels of poverty (79% of the rural population) and undernourishment (22% of the total population), the Program BioAndes promotes food sovereignty and food security by revitalizing the knowledge of Andean indigenous people and strengthening their livelihood strategies. This starts by recognizing that Andean people have developed complex strategies to constantly adapt to highly diverse and changing socioenvironmental conditions. These strategies are characterized by organizing the communities, land use and livelihoods along a vertical gradient of the available eco-climatic zones; the resulting agricultural systems are evolving around the own sociocultural values of reciprocity and mutual cooperation, giving thus access to an extensive variety of food, fiber and energy sources. As the influences of markets, competition or individualization are increasingly affecting the life in the communities, people became aware of the need to find a new balance between endogenous and exogenous forms of knowledge. In this context, BioAndes starts by recognizing the wealth and potentials of local practices and aims to integrate its actions into the ongoing endogenous processes of innovation and adaptation. In order to avoid external impositions and biases, the program intervenes on the basis of a dialogue between exogenous, mainly scientific, and indigenous forms of knowledge. The paper presents an analysis of the strengths and weaknesses of enhancing endogenous development through a dialogue between scientific and indigenous knowledge by specifically focusing on its effects on food sovereignty and food security in three ‘biocultural’ rural areas of the Bolivian highlands. The paper shows how the dialogue between different forms of knowledge evolved alongside the following project activities: 1) recuperation and renovation of local seeds and crop varieties (potato – Solanum spp., quinoa – Chenopodium quinoa, cañahua – Chenopodium pallidicaule); 2) support for the elaboration of community-based norms and regulations for governing access and distribution of non-timber forest products, such as medicinal, fodder, and construction plants; 3) revitalization of ethnoveterinary knowledge for sheep and llama breeding; 4) improvement of local knowledge about the transformation of food products (sheep-cheese, lacayote – Cucurbita sp. - jam, dried llama meat, fours of cañahua and other Andean crops). The implementation of these activities fostered the community-based livelihoods of indigenous people by complementing them with carefully and jointly designed innovations based on internal and external sources of knowledge and resources. Through this process, the epistemological and ontological basis that underlies local practices was made visible. On this basis, local and external actors started to jointly define a renewed concept of food security and food sovereignty that, while oriented in the notions of well being according to a collectively re-crafted world view, was incorporating external contributions as well. Enabling and hindering factors, actors and conditions of these processes are discussed in the paper.

Discussion: Food security and sustainable food systems: The role of soil

There is a general consensus that healthy soils are pivotal for food security. Food production is one of the main ecosystem services provided by and thus dependent on well-functioning soils. There are also intrinsic connections between the four pillars of food security: food availability, access, utilization, and stability; with how soils are managed, accessed and secured, in particular by food insecure and vulnerable populations. On the other hand, socio-political and economic processes that precipitate inequalities and heighten vulnerabilities among poor populations often increase pressure on soils due to unsustainable forms of land use and poor agricultural practises. This has often led to scenarios that can be described as: ‘poor soils, empty stomachs (hungry people) and poor livelihoods.' In 2015, in particular, as we head towards approval of the ‘Sustainable Development Goals' (SDGs), the role of Financing for Development is debated and agreed upon and a new climate pact is signed – these three political dimensions define how a new post-2015 agenda needs to be people-smart as well as resource-smart. For proposed SDG 2 (Food Security and Hunger), there can be so resolution without addressing people, policies and institutions.

Chromosomal assignment of the canine melanophilin gene (MLPH): a candidate gene for coat color dilution in Pinschers

Pinschers affected by coat color dilution show a specific pigmentation phenotype. The dilute pigmentation phenotype leads to a silver-blue appearance of the eumelanin-containing fur and a pale sandy color of pheomelanin-containing fur. In Pinscher breeding, dilute black-and-tan dogs are called "blue," and dilute red or brown animals are termed "fawn" or "Isabella fawn." Coat color dilution in Pinschers is sometimes accompanied by hair loss and a recurrent infection of the hair follicles. In human and mice, several well-characterized genes are responsible for similar pigment variations. To investigate the genetic cause of the coat color dilution in Pinschers, we isolated BAC clones containing the canine ortholog of the known murine color dilution gene Mlph. RH mapping of the canine MLPH gene was performed using an STS marker derived from BAC sequences. Additionally, one MLPH BAC clone was used as probe for FISH mapping, and the canine MLPH gene was assigned to CFA25q24.