New research examines the effects of a high-fat, low-carb ketogenic diet on both rodents and humans, and suggests that it can alleviate the symptoms of gout.

Gout is a rheumatic disease that affects more than 8 million people in the United States. It is caused by either an excessive production or insufficient excretion of uric acid. In gout, the uric acid crystals sediment in tissues and fluids, triggering the body's immune cells. This results in disabling pain, inflammation, and fever.

These episodes of immune cell reactivation, also known as flares, are triggered by a protein complex called the NLRP3 inflammasome.

New research from the laboratory of Vishwa Deep Dixit - professor of comparative medicine and immunobiology at Yale School of Medicine in New Haven, CT - suggests that the so-called ketogenic diet may help to relieve the symptoms of gout.

A ketogenic diet is low in carbohydrates and typically used to lose weight. Ketogenic diets work by inducing "physiological ketosis" in the body - a state of the metabolism where the body's reserves of glucose are no longer enough for the body's central nervous system.

The central nervous system then needs an alternative source of energy, so it makes the liver turn fats into fatty acids and ketone bodies.

The new study - published in the journal Cell Reports - suggests that one of these ketone bodies, the beta-hydroxybutyrate (BHB), may alleviate urate crystal-induced gout.

The research team developed a new model of gout flares in rodents.

As the researchers explain, these flares are triggered by the NLRP3 inflammasome. With the help of neutrophils - the most common type of white blood cell - NLRP3 activates the IL-1B pro-inflammatory cytokine, leading to episodes of intense pain, fever, and the destruction of joints.

In the rodent model, researchers induced gout by injecting 1.25 milligrams of monosodium urate into rats' knees. Researchers measured knee thickness and performed pathology analyses on the rats' ligaments and menisci.

The rodents were kept in pathogen-free conditions and fed a ketogenic diet 1 week before starting the experiments. Scientists measured the levels of BHB in the rodents' blood.

The scientists also examined human subjects. They recruited healthy, steroid-free adults aged between 18 and 45, as well as older adults aged 65 and over. Participants were not fasting when their peripheral blood was collected.

Dixit and colleagues also conducted statistical analyses and performed all of the experiments at least twice.

The team found that a ketogenic diet raised BHB levels, which in turn inhibited the NLRP3 inflammasome. As a consequence, the symptoms of urate crystal-induced gout were alleviated, without negatively impacting the immune system or its ability to defend against bacterial infections.

Additionally, BHB blocked IL-1B in the neutrophils of both mice and humans, regardless of age. Dixit and colleagues conclude that:

"Collectively, our studies show that BHB, a known alternate metabolic fuel, is also an anti-inflammatory molecule that may serve as a treatment for gout."

Emily Goldberg, co-author on the study, associate research scientist, and clinical veterinarian in comparative medicine, explains the findings:

"In isolated neutrophils, [BHB] completely blocked NLRP3 inflammasome activation, even when provided at low concentrations that are physiologically achievable through dietary modification."

She also suggests that targeting the NLRP3 inflammasome to reduce inflammation during a flare may improve the gout patients' symptoms. However, she admits that more studies are needed to test this possibility.

Learn how gout flare-ups could be managed by blood pressure diet.

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Ketogenic diet may protect against gout - Medical News Today

Full disclosure: I don't really get juicing. Don't get me wrong, I've slurped down some delicious veggie and ginger concoctions and done my fair share of shots of lemon and turmeric. But spending 10 bucks onor trying to replace breakfast witha beverage that essentially amounts to cold, sugary soup has just never sounded appealing.

Still, there's no accounting for taste, and I don't begrudge folks who enjoy sipping on cold carrot water. But don't pretend that juicing is good for you.

Researchers have tackled the pervasive myths of juice-related health benefits in a study published Monday in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology. In an attempt to cut through confusion surrounding research on nutrition, the study authors reviewed existing reports on various fad diets looking for any sign of actual benefit. Many of these popular dietary choices are supported by the "evidence" of a single study or two, meaning the results haven't been replicated by enough scientists to be taken as truth. Others are based on industry-funded studies that are likely biased, or are based on research that relied on self-reported surveys, where folks are known to lie aboutor simply misremembertheir eating habits.

Unsurprisingly, the cardiologists focused on the effects of fad diets on heart health. But let's be real: if your diet is bad for your heart, can you even pretend it's "healthy"? Nah.

Juicing was called out for its tendency to sneak extra sugarand caloriesinto your diet. When you juice a fruit, you remove the healthful fiber contained therein. You're basically just drinking sugar water with some vitamins in it. You'd be better off eating a few carrots and apples than drinking a whole grocery cart worth of fruits and veggies in one sitting.

"There are things that youre going to have in the whole fruit that you cant get into the juice," Keith Ayoob of the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, who wasn't involved in the new study, told ABC. "Also the other side is to remember that your gut is a great juicer, it just works more slowly. Let your teeth and digestive tract do what its supposed to do. And the fiber in fruits and vegetables is critical to a healthy diet."

And that leads us to another important point: detoxing. If you're drinking fruit juice instead of eating real food, you might roll your eyes at a doctor's warning about sugar and caloriesafter all, you're going to consume fewer calories overall if you drink 50 carrots a day than if you eat breakfast, lunch, and dinner. But your body is perfectly capable of filtering out "toxins" without a juice cleanse, and juicing in this manner might actually make your body filter out the bad stuff more slowly. Meanwhile, all those sugar spikes will do a real number on you, and could actually make it harder for you to lose weight in the long run.

Lest you think the researchers just have it in for kale juice, the study's disclosure of conflicts of interest actually reveal that one of the authors serves as a scientific advisor for Pressed Juicery. Dr. Miller is clearly not shilling for Big Juice. Dr. Miller is gonna tell it like it is.

But juicing wasn't the only dietary fad to attract the researchers' ire:

The study also takes a stab at coconut oil, a much-lauded "healthy" fat. The oil has more saturated fat than even butter or lard, but its popularity has surged in recent years due to many reports of health benefits.

But "current claims of documented health benefits of the tropical oils are unsubstantiated," according to the new study, "and use of these oils should be discouraged."

And then there's gluten. Hoo boy, gluten. The study authors conclude thatunless you have a wheat allergy, celiac disease, or are one of the six percent of the population that has some other type of sensitivity to this wheat proteinthere's no sound evidence that cutting gluten out of your diet has any health benefit. But unlike the whole juicing thing, there's no harm in avoiding gluten if you really want toas long as you're not filling up the resulting gaps in your daily food intake with foods high in calories or cholesterol.

The bottom line? Any diet that has you swapping food for sugar water is probably misguided. And while your daily dietary needs may very, you probably already know what a heart-healthy diet looks like: leafy greens, fresh fruits, and taking it easy when it comes to calories.

All in all, the analysis is a good reminder of just how confusing it can be to navigate the landscape of nutritional research. Just remember: a single study doesn't mean anything. Scientists need to reproduce the same results over and over again, in different circumstances and settings, to determine how likely something is to hold true. So stop worrying about new research praising the health benefits of wine or demonizing your favorite wheat product. Instead, stick to the things you know are healthyand enjoy the rest in moderation.

Link:
Juicing isn't actually good for you and your diet is probably dumb - Popular Science

A diet that mimics fasting temporarily put mice in a starvation state, reversing diabetes in the animals, according to a new study. The diet was also shown to reduce the risk factors in people with pre-diabetes

Research by investigators at the University of Southern California showed the special, fasting-mimicking diet triggers the development of insulin-producing cells in mice with diabetes. The study was published in the journal Cell.

In humans, an earlier study of the diet reduced the risk factors of diabetes, such as elevated blood sugar, in people who were headed toward development of the disease. An article on the diet in humans appeared in Science Translational Medicine.

In both Type 1 diabetes and in the later stages of Type 2 diabetes, the beta cells of the pancreas are destroyed. But the authors said the diet appears to "reboot" the body, switching on genes that trigger the release of stem cells, master cells responsible for organ development.

More than fasting required

However, fasting alone is not the key to restoring insulin levels. Scientists said refeeding after the brief starvation diet, with specially calibrated nutrients, is critical to kickstarting the production of new beta cells.

FILE - A woman fills a syringe as she prepares to give herself an injection of insulin.

The process of stem cell activation is the same as seen in embryos to stimulate organ growth, according to gerontology professor Valter Longo, the director of USC's Longevity Institute and senior author of both studies. He said the fasting-mimicking diet can be used to reprogram cells without any genetic alterations.

"So basically the system is using some of the same program that we use during embryonic and fetal development to regenerate the pancreas once the food comes back around," he said. "And that's the trick. It's not so much the starvation. It's really the combination of the starvation and the refeeding." And, he stressed, "the refeeding's got to be a high-nourishment one."

Study participants put on the high-fat, low-calorie, low-protein diet consumed between 800 and 1,100 calories daily for five days in a row each month for three months. After each fast, they were refed with nutrient-rich foods.

Researchers found fasting triggered the production of a protein called Ngn3, which generated new, healthy beta cells that secreted insulin. They saw production of insulin in a dish in pancreatic cells extracted from mice and from healthy human donors and patients with both types of diabetes.

Scientists found the diet replaced damaged insulin-producing cells with new functioning ones in mice placed on the diet for four days.

Heart disease, cancer risks

The investigators have also amassed evidence that the fasting-mimicking diet reduces the risk of age-related diseases, including heart disease and cancer. It may also hold benefits for people with multiple sclerosis, said researchers.

FILE - A woman who suffers from diabetes is seen walking on a treadmill as part of an exercise program to help control the disease.

But Longo said people with diabetes should not try the diet at home yet because it can drop blood sugar to perilously low levels if they don't know what they are doing. "We warn people that, particularly [for people with] Type 1 or patients that inject themselves with insulin, it can be very risky or even lethal," Longo cautioned.

He said investigators were poised to begin larger human clinical trials of the fasting-mimicking diet in the next six months.

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Fasting Diet Reverses Diabetes in Mice - Voice of America

When going through stressful times, it can be hard to get a good night's sleep. Now, researchers suggest that dietary prebiotics might be effective against stress-induced insomnia.

First study author Robert Thompson, of the Department of Integrative Physiology at the University of Colorado Boulder, and colleagues recently reported their findings in the journal Frontiers in Behavioral Neuroscience.

Current guidelines recommend that adults should aim to get between 7 and 9 hours sleep each night for optimal health and well-being. However, around 1 in 3 of us fail to meet these recommendations.

According to the American Psychological Association, stress is a key player in sleep loss. Approximately 47 percent of adults in the United States report a lack of sleep due to stress, and 21 percent report that poor sleep further exacerbates their stress.

Thompson and team note that previous studies have suggested that stress can alter gut bacteria in a way that interferes with the sleep-wake cycle. Until now, it was unclear whether prebiotics might help to improve sleep in the face of stress.

Prebiotics are nondigestible food components - found in chicory, artichokes, onions, leeks, and other vegetables - that fuel the growth of "good" gut bacteria. Research has indicated that when these good bacteria digest prebiotic fiber, they release byproducts that can affect brain function.

For their study, Thompson and colleagues put male rats on one of two diets for 4 weeks: a diet supplemented with prebiotics or a standard chow diet (the control diet).

On analyzing fecal samples from the rodents after 4 weeks, the team found that rats that were fed the prebiotic diet showed an increase in beneficial gut bacteria - including Lactobacillus rhamnosus, known to aid immune system function - compared with rats fed the control diet.

Using electroencephalography to measure the rats' sleep-wake cycles, the researchers found that rats fed the prebiotic diet also had more non-rapid eye movement (NREM) sleep (the restorative sleep stage) compared with rodents fed the control diet.

"Given that sufficient NREM sleep and proper nutrition can impact brain development and function and that sleep problems are common in early life, it is possible that a diet rich in prebiotics started in early life could help improve sleep, support the gut microbiota and promote optimal brain/psychological health," note the authors.

When both groups of rats were exposed to acute stress (induced by tail shocks), the researchers found that the group fed the prebiotic diet had more rapid eye movement (REM) sleep than the group fed the control diet. The team notes that REM is the sleep stage associated with better recovery from stress.

Additionally, the researchers found that the rats fed the prebiotic diet were less likely to experience abnormalities in body temperature that can arise as a result of stress-induced alterations to gut bacteria.

While further studies are needed to better determine how prebiotics affect sleep quality, the researchers believe that their findings suggest that dietary prebiotics might offer benefits.

The team concludes:

"These data are the first to show that a diet rich in prebiotics can modulate the sleep-wake cycle both before and after stress and induce stress-protective effects in diurnal physiology and the gut microbiota.

Our results, however, cannot address how increases in Lactobacillus rhamnosus or other changes in microbial community structure contribute to the observed effects of a diet rich in prebiotics and more work is necessary to further elucidate the potential mechanisms. Nonetheless, our work is the first to demonstrate that consumption of a prebiotic diet can provide stress-protective effects on sleep-wake behavior."

Learn how chronic stress may increase the risk of obesity.

Excerpt from:
Prebiotics could stop stress from harming sleep quality - Medical News Today

WTNH Connecticut News (press release)

Don't believe everything you read when it comes to fad diets WTNH Connecticut News (press release) In fact, some studies show gluten free diets in healthy people can lead to weight gain. And if you really want to protect your heart, skip the antioxidant supplements. No proof they work. A real, proven heart healthy diet adds extra virgin oil, berries ... The new heart rules: Cut down on eggs, forget antioxidant pills, and for God's sake STOP juicing: US surgeons ...Daily Mail all 11 news articles »

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Don't believe everything you read when it comes to fad diets - WTNH Connecticut News (press release)