Trans fatty acids and weight gain

Increasing rates of obesity have stimulated research into possible contributing factors, including specific dietary components such as trans fatty acids (TFAs). This review considers the evidence for an association between TFA intake and weight gain. It concludes that there is limited but consistent evidence from epidemiological studies, and from a primate model, that increased TFA consumption may result in a small additional weight gain. Data from a long-term study in a primate model suggest that TFA may have a greater adipogenic effect than cis monounsaturated fatty acids; however, there are currently inadequate mechanistic data to provide a comprehensive and plausible explanation for any such metabolic differences between the types of fatty acids.

The Finance Acts 1998 and 2000: can the owners of agricultural land continue to gain from their capital disposals?

This paper seeks to analyse and discuss, from the perspective of the owners of agricultural land, the main changes to the Capital Gains Tax regime introduced in the Finance Act 1998 and subsequently amended in the Finance Act 2000. The replacement of indexation with a new Taper relief is examined, along with the phasing out of Retirement relief, and the interaction of Taper relief with Rollover relief. The opportunity for tax mitigation by the owners of agricultural land is critically examined.

Issues in language and development in multilingual settings: a case-study of knowledge exchange and teacher education in South Africa

The quality of a country’s human-resource base can be said to determine its level of success in social and economic development. This study focuses on some␣of the major human-resource development issues that surround the implementation of South Africa’s policy of multilingualism in education. It begins by discussing the relationship between knowledge, language, and human-resource, social and economic development within the global cultural economy. It then considers the situation in South Africa and, in particular, the implications of that country’s colonial and neo-colonial past for attempts to implement the new policy. Drawing on the linguistic-diversity-in-education debate in the United Kingdom of the past three decades, it assesses the first phase of an in-service teacher-education programme that was carried out at the Project for Alternative Education in South Africa (PRAESA) based at the University of Cape Town. The authors identify key short- and long-term issues related to knowledge exchange in education in multilingual societies, especially concerning the use of African languages as mediums for teaching and learning.

The Finance Act 1998: can the owners of agricultural land continue to gain from their capital disposals?

This paper seeks to analyse and discuss, from the perspective of the owners of agricultural land, the main changes to the Capital Gains Tax regime introduced in the Budget of March 1998 and contained in the Finance Act 1998. The immediate replacement of indexation with a new Taper relief is examined, along with the phasing out of Retirement relief, and the interaction of Taper relief with Rollover relief.

Early metabolic adaptation in C57BL/6 mice resistant to high fat diet induced weight gain involves an activation of mitochondrial oxidative pathways

We investigated the short-term (7 days) and long-term (60 days) metabolic effect of high fat diet induced obesity (DIO) and weight gain in isogenic C57BL/6 mice and examined the specific metabolic differentiation between mice that were either strong-responders (SR), or non-responders (NR) to weight gain. Mice (n = 80) were fed a standard chow diet for 7 days prior to randomization into a high-fat (HF) (n = 56) or a low-fat (LF) (n = 24) diet group. The (1)H NMR urinary metabolic profiles of LF and HF mice were recorded 7 and 60 days after the diet switch. On the basis of the body weight gain (BWG) distribution of HF group, we identified NR mice (n = 10) and SR mice (n = 14) to DIO. Compared with LF, HF feeding increased urinary excretion of glycine conjugates of β-oxidation intermediate (hexanoylglycine), branched chain amino acid (BCAA) catabolism intermediates (isovalerylglycine, α-keto-β-methylvalerate and α-ketoisovalerate) and end-products of nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide (NAD) metabolism (N1-methyl-2-pyridone-5-carboxamide, N1-methyl-4-pyridone-3-carboxamide) suggesting up-regulation of mitochondrial oxidative pathways. In the HF group, NR mice excreted relatively more hexanoylglycine, isovalerylglycine, and fewer tricarboxylic acid (TCA) cycle intermediate (succinate) in comparison to SR mice. Thus, subtle regulation of ketogenic pathways in DIO may alleviate the saturation of the TCA cycle and mitochondrial oxidative metabolism.

Impact of HPA nonlinearity on MIMO systems with quantized equal gain transmission

In this paper, we investigate the performance of multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) transmit beamforming (TB) systems in the presence of nonlinear high-power amplifiers (HPAs). Due to the suboptimality of maximal ratio transmission/maximal ratio combining (MRT/MRC) under HPA nonlinearity, quantized equal gain transmission (QEGT) is suggested as a feasible TB scheme. The effect of HPA nonlinearity on the performance of MIMO QEGT/MRC is evaluated in terms of the average symbol error probability (SEP) and system capacity, considering transmission over uncorrelated quasi-static frequency-flat Rayleigh fading channels. Numerical results are provided and show the effects of several system parameters, such as the parameters of nonlinear HPA, cardinality of the beamforming weight vector codebook, and modulation order of quadrature amplitude modulation (QAM), on performance.

Influence of dietary protein intake and glycemic index on the association between TCF7L2 HapA and weight gain

BACKGROUND: Genetic polymorphisms of transcription factor 7-like 2 (TCF7L2) have been associated with type 2 diabetes and BMI. OBJECTIVE: The objective was to investigate whether TCF7L2 HapA is associated with weight development and whether such an association is modulated by protein intake or by the glycemic index (GI). DESIGN: The investigation was based on prospective data from 5 cohort studies nested within the European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition. Weight change was followed up for a mean (±SD) of 6.8 ± 2.5 y. TCF7L2 rs7903146 and rs10885406 were successfully genotyped in 11,069 individuals and used to derive HapA. Multiple logistic and linear regression analysis was applied to test for the main effect of HapA and its interaction with dietary protein or GI. Analyses from the cohorts were combined by random-effects meta-analysis. RESULTS: HapA was associated neither with baseline BMI (0.03 ± 0.07 BMI units per allele; P = 0.6) nor with annual weight change (8.8 ± 11.7 g/y per allele; P = 0.5). However, a previously shown positive association between intake of protein, particularly of animal origin, and subsequent weight change in this population proved to be attenuated by TCF7L2 HapA (P-interaction = 0.01). We showed that weight gain becomes independent of protein intake with an increasing number of HapA alleles. Substitution of protein with either fat or carbohydrates showed the same effects. No interaction with GI was observed. CONCLUSION: TCF7L2 HapA attenuates the positive association between animal protein intake and long-term body weight change in middle-aged Europeans but does not interact with the GI of the diet.

Factors contributing to fecal incontinence in older people and outcome of routine management in home, hospital and nursing home settings

Objective: Fecal loading, cognitive impairment, loose stools, functional disability, comorbidity and anorectal incontinence are recognized as factors contributing to loss of fecal continence in older adults. The objective of this project was to assess the relative distribution of these factors in a variety of settings along with the outcome of usual management. Methods: One hundred and twenty adults aged 65 years and over with fecal incontinence recruited by convenience sampling from four different settings were studied. They were either living at home or in a nursing home or receiving care on an acute or rehabilitation elderly care ward. A structured questionnaire was used to elicit which factors associated with fecal incontinence were present from subjects who had given written informed consent or for whom assent for inclusion in the study had been obtained. Results: Fecal loading (Homes 6 [20%]; Acute care wards 17 [57%]; Rehabilitation wards 19 [63%]; Nursing homes 21 [70%]) and functional disability (Homes 5 [17%]; Acute care wards 25 [83%]; Rehabilitation wards 25 [83%]; Nursing homes 20 [67%]) were significantly more prevalent in the hospital and nursing home settings than in those living at home (P < 0.01). Loose stools were more prevalent in the hospital setting than in the other settings (Homes 11 [37%]; Acute care wards 20 [67%]; Rehabilitation wards 17 [57%]; Nursing homes 6 [20%]) (P < 0.01). Cognitive impairment was significantly more common in the nursing home than in the other settings (Nursing homes 26 [87%], Homes 5 [17%], Acute care wards 13 [43%], Rehabilitation wards 14 [47%]) (P < 0.01). Loose stools were the most prevalent factor present at baseline in 13 of the 19 (68%) subjects whose fecal incontinence had resolved at 3 months. Conclusion: The distribution of the factors contributing to fecal incontinence in older people living at home differs from those cared for in nursing home and hospital wards settings. These differences need to be borne in mind when assessing people in different settings. Management appears to result in a cure for those who are not significantly disabled with loose stools as a cause for their fecal incontinence, but this would need to be confirmed by further research.