James Blunt has admitted that he contracted scurvy after going on a meat-only diet out of principle to take a stand against his vegan friends.

The Youre Beautiful singer, 46, became a carnivore for two months - consuming nothing but chicken and mince - after finding himself surrounded by vegetarians.

Blunt was eventually diagnosed with scurvy, a disease brought on by a lack in vitamin C.

Scurvy is becoming a little more common in the UK but is still considered rare, according to Azmina Govindji,spokesperson for the British Dietetic Association, who warns that cutting out any food group from your diet involves risks of lacking essential nutrients.

Read more: Rosie Huntington-Whiteley reveals she doesnt eat after 6pm

Often referred to as sailors disease, scurvy was historically most common in sailors who were unable to get a balanced diet.

Govindji explains that the best way to achieve a healthy diet is by including all food groups.

There's a place for animal and plant-based foods in a healthydiet, she said.

Completelytaking away fruit, vegetables, beans and other plant-based foods can set you up for low levels of vitamin C, fibre and potassium: not having enough vitamin C can leave you feeling tired and lethargic.

Certain types of fibre such as oats and barley can reduce your blood cholesterol levels; and potassium helps your heart muscle to work properly.

Conversely, a well-designed plant-based diet, with the addition of vitamin B12, can be nutritionally adequate.

Read more: Tesco honey health claims after its bulked out with sugar

Symptoms of scurvy include weakness, feeling tired, and sore arms and legs. It is relatively easy to cure and is treated by adding vitamin C into your diet - which is usually found in fruit and vegetables.

Some doctors will also recommend a vitamin C supplement to increase the levels in your body.

Blunt developed the disease while studying at university.

Out of principleI decided I'd become a carnivore and just lived on mince, some chicken, maybe with some mayonnaise, he said on the podcast, Table Manners with Jessie Ware.

And it took me about six to eight weeksto get very unhealthy and see a doctor,who then said 'I think you've got the symptoms of scurvy'.

He saidyou are really lackingin vitamin Cso I took it upon myselfto drink orange juice everynight - then I nearly developed acid reflux.

Read more: Spoonful of yoghurt before meals may help you lose weight, study finds

Despite the disease becoming a little more common in recent years, its still deemed as rare by the NHS.

Those who are on unusual or restrictive fad diets, eat very little food at all, have a poor diet and also smoke, or a poor diet and are also pregnant or breastfeeding, are at a slightly higher risk of contracting scurvy.

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What is scurvy? James Blunt was diagnosed with the 'sailor's disease' after eating a meat-only diet - Yahoo Sports

Can you prevent weight gain and 21st-century health problems by eating the way our ancestors did?

Thats the premise behind the paleo diet, which takes inspiration from the Paleolithic era that spanned between 2.6 million to 12,000 years ago predating the advent of farming and animal domestication.

Some followers of the paleo diet believe that humans are genetically adapted to eat a certain way one thats closer to how early humans ate. This view is rooted in the evolutionary discordance hypothesis, which states that human evolution stopped around 50,000 years ago. In other words, our Stone Age bodies are not suited for our modern diets of convenience and carbs, and this mismatch is making us fat and sick.

While eating like a caveman or cavewoman isnt easy, making the paleo leap is purported to result in a number of health benefits from weight loss, to clearer skin, to improved mood, to better sleep. But like many health and wellness fads, researchers say paleos health benefits are likely too good to be true.

Unfortunately, scientists havent found much evidence that backs up the health benefits of the paleo diet beyond weight loss. Other claims havent been studied at all. But what research has uncovered is that it might be unhealthy for some people to follow a paleo diet, particularly among those concerned with heart and kidney health.

But theres another mammoth in the room: Even paleolithic people didnt eat paleo. Plenty of anthropological research has found that the popular diets interpretations of how Paleolithic-era humans ate are pretty inaccurate.

"[With] ancient diets, people just ate the foods available to them. With the current globalized food system, we now have access to more types of food, which makes that approach more complicated," says Colleen Rauchut Tewksbury, a senior research investigator and bariatric program manager at the University of Pennsylvania. She is also a spokeswoman for the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics.

(Credit: Alexander Raths/Shutterstock.com)

According to Google Trends data, paleo was the most-searched diet in 2013. In recent years, diets like keto, intermittent fasting and the carnivore diet have kicked paleo out of the top rankings. But survey data from 2018 showed that roughly 3 million Americans were still following a version of the paleo diet.

It is also sometimes called the Paleolithic diet, Stone Age diet, hunter-gatherer diet or a caveman diet. Whole30, which is a 30-day regimen based on the paleo diet, has also become a popular way to supposedly reset the body after an indulgent holiday season.

But no matter what you call it, interest in adopting ancient diets isn't new. In the 1970s, an American gastroenterologist named Walter L. Voegtlin promoted a meat-centric Stone Age diet to achieve optimal health. Voegtlin is largely regarded as the pioneer of the modern paleo diet and was the first to write a book about it. But his ideas never gained widespread support, which perhaps is not a surprise considering some of Voegtlins extreme and unsavory views like encouraging the mass slaughter of dolphins and eugenics.

Since then, other purported health gurus helped to bring paleo out of the cave and into the mainstream. Primal eating feels at home in our current era of romanticizing health wisdom and habits of the past.

But before you keep sipping on bone broth, it might be a good idea to consider what real prehistoric people actually ate.

While people living in Paleolithic times would have painstakingly hunted and gathered their own food, modern-day followers of the diet can conveniently hop in their cars and zoom to the nearest grocery to find most paleo essentials on their shopping list. There, they can load up on all the meat, fish, eggs, fruits, non-starchy veggies and nuts they want. But dairy, legumes, grains, added sugars, alcohol, coffee and processed food should be avoided. Some versions of the paleo diet are stricter than others.

But a nuance the modern take on the diet doesn't take into account is that hunter-gatherers varied considerably in terms of the food they consumed. Different groups of early humans lived in vastly different climates and landscapes. People simply ate whatever was available to them, wherever that was.

Homo sapiens occupied every niche on the planet starting from [around] 100,000 years ago. We were highly adaptable, says Jennie Brand-Miller, a professor of nutrition at the University of Sydney. There were high-latitude hunter-gatherers who ate mostly animal foods and very little plant food and there was the opposite, [those who ate] a lot of plant-based food and only a little animal [protein].

Interestingly, there were no vegan hunter-gatherers, she says.

Meat-eating is often emphasized in anthropology simply because butchered animal bones are often better preserved and more likely to be discovered than evidence of plant-based meals. Based on whats been uncovered, early humans didnt appear to be terribly picky eaters. They probably ate insects. They didnt turn their nose up at elephant brains. They ate starchy tubers. They ate oats, processed by hand.

One things certain, though: Our ancestors most certainly did not eat bacon or chocolate. Those indulgences came on the food scene much later in history, yet are sometimes recommended in paleo diet literature. (But its pretty safe to say our paleo ancestors would have eaten bacon or chocolate, if given the chance.)

(Credit: Keith Homan/Shutterstock)

The idea that we should adopt a special diet because our genes are still stuck in the Stone Age isnt quite accurate.As cultures change through time, our genes change, too. Brand-Miller says there are a few genetic adaptations to modern diets that help illustrate this.

One of the best examples relates to milk and the prevalence of lactose intolerance. For most of our species history, the ability to digest milk after infancy didnt exist. Adults lacked lactase, the enzyme needed to break down lactose to simpler sugars that can be absorbed by the intestines. When people started domesticating cattle around 10,000 years ago, they started relying on dairy products as a food source. Over time, these groups evolved a genetic mutation for making lactase into adulthood. But because dairy wasnt a traditional part of diets everywhere, many descendants of these groups are missing this genetic mutation today.

People vary in their ability to process other foods as well, Brand-Miller says. People with genetic ties to regions that historically ate a high-starch diet tend to have more copies of the gene linked to higher production of salivary amylase an enzyme that breaks down carbs. That makes east Asians in particular more efficient at digesting starchy food. Likewise, Brand-Miller says fruit wasnt part of the traditional Arctic diet. So, its not surprising that a greater incidence of people with Inuit ancestry are deficient in sucrase, the enzyme that processes sucrose, a type of sugar.

But some people who dont have adequate levels of particular digestive enzymes can still consume small amounts of these foods without ill effects, Brand-Miller says. Aside from these differences, humans are generally well-adapted to eat almost anything put in front of them, which is perhaps one of the secrets to our species success.

People always have and probably always will eat a wide variety of foods depending on culture and what's available, says Melyssa Roy, a public health researcher at the University of Otago in New Zealand.

The health claims around the paleo diet are as controversial as the ancient menus themselves. Typically, the modern paleo diet is high in protein and low in carbohydrates. Paleo often gets a bad rap for being so restrictive, and it doesnt allow consumption of foods like legumes, whole grains and dairy products.

Nutrition has a lot of gray area, and many diets such as these leave little room for flexibility or individualization, says Rauchut Tewksbury.

Because paleo hasnt been studied extensively, the long-term benefits and potential risks are poorly understood. But if weight loss is your primary reason for considering the paleo diet, theres some evidence it works.

For instance, Roy and her colleagues compared the weight loss results of 250 overweight individuals following one of three diets: intermittent fasting, Mediterranean and paleo. After 12 months, all groups lost weight but paleo came in last. Paleo dieters lost 4 pounds on average, compared with a 6-pound loss on the Mediterranean diet, and nearly 9 pounds with intermittent fasting. In general, participants found it easiest to stick to the Mediterranean diet, which is an important part of sustaining weight loss over time.

But if quick weight loss is your goal the paleo diet has its merits.

"In the short term, lower carbohydrate paleo diets are associated with higher satiety and faster weight loss, Brand-Miller says.

A two-year randomized and controlled study followed 70 postmenopausal Swedish women who were obese. Some participants were assigned to a paleo diet that included lean meat, fish, eggs, vegetables, fruits, berries and nuts. Other participants were assigned to a diet in line with the Nordic Nutrition Recommendations (NNR), the joint dietary recommendations for northern European countries. The NNR incorporates less protein and fat, but more carbohydrates than the paleo diet.

Six months in, the paleo group lost more weight than those following the NNR. Paleo dieters lost 13 pounds on average compared with 5 pounds with NNR. But after 24 months, the difference in weight loss between the two diets was less pronounced. Both groups showed similar improvements in blood pressure and cholesterol. Interestingly, participants' triglyceride levels decreased more on the paleo diet. High levels of triglycerides a type of fat found in the blood have been linked to heart disease.

But that doesnt necessarily mean that the paleo diet is heart-healthy. Brand-Miller says several studies have linked low-carb diets to higher rates of death, especially from heart disease. To add to that, she says mouse studies have suggested high-carbohydrate diets increase longevity. Perhaps the reason is rooted in our microbiomes.

A study compared the bloodwork of 44 paleo dieters with 47 people following a diet based on Australian national health recommendations. Among paleo dieters, researchers found elevated levels of a compound called trimethylamine N-oxide, which is associated with heart problems. In their work, the researchers explained that high levels of this compound might be due to a lack of whole grains in the paleo diet. Bacteria in the gut produces trimethylamine N-oxide while digesting meat. But consuming whole grains increases production of beneficial gut bacteria, which seems to counter the harmful compound.

(Credit: WR.lili/Shutterstock)

Saturated fat might be another thing to worry about on the paleo diet. Dietary fats, in general, arent demonized today like they were in the '90s. But saturated fat isnt totally in the clear. Decades of research have linked the consumption of saturated fats to elevated levels of LDL cholesterol levels (the bad kind), which has been shown to increase the risk for heart disease.

The evidence is conflicting about whether high amounts of saturated fat are harmful in the context of this kind of diet. For some people, it may be better to avoid high amounts of animal fats, especially if they're still consuming a more standard diet. A strict paleo diet eliminates dairy, and there may be concerns around calcium intake, too, Roy says.

Diets that are high in protein have also been linked to kidney problems. Whether this applies to people with normally functioning kidneys hasn't been settled. Filtering excess protein from the blood can put additional stress on the organs, further decreasing their function among people with kidney problems.

But the idea that paleo must incorporate copious amounts of meat might be a bit of a misnomer to begin with.

[Paleo] is more about eating foods in their natural state, Roy says.

Brand-Miller says there are healthier approaches to paleo. For instance, incorporating plenty of fruits and vegetables even those that are packed with carbs. Plant-based foods can add nutrients, fiber, flavor and variety to diets.And, they'll help you live longer, too.

If the paleo diet gets anything right, it's the stance against processed food. Highly refined ultraprocessed foods now account for more than half of all calories consumed and 90 percent of added sugar intake in the U.S. which increases the risk of weight gain and several health conditions. But it's not a matter or paleo or bust.

Ultimately, the best way to eat for your health is the change you can keep up with. Most people know what they need to do: Limit calories, eat fruits, vegetables, whole grains and lean proteins. The challenge is how to do it, says Rauchut Tewksbury. There are lots of ways people can achieve this. The key is figuring out which is best for you as an individual that you can keep up with.

The rest is here:
The Paleo Diet: Should Modern Humans Eat the Way Our Ancestors Did? - Discover Magazine

Having a workout and diet regimen that is sustainable and easy-to-do is key to ensure follow-through, and Kareena Kapoor Khan knows that well. The actor, and now second-time expecting mom has been working with nutritionist Rujuta Diwekar for years, and the two often work together to tweak Kapoor Khan's routine in accordance to her needs. What's not on the menu? A strict diet that is too hard to maintain. Im a Kapoorwe love our foodand I cant diet," she shared in 2018.

Earlier this week, Rujuta Diwekar shared the food schedule that Kapoor Khan was following while working on for her latest at-home Filmfare cover, with a snapshot of the shoot. The star was already expecting at this time, and the menu in Diwekar's in-depth caption revealed a glimpse at her pregnancy diet. When Kapoor Khan was in her first trimester back in May and June 2020, Diwekar made sure to include carbs, fats and proteins in a balanced manner to her diet, so that Kapoor Khan was satiated throughout. Her first meal was soaked almonds or bananas for some quick energy, after which she completed a workout. Grains like rice and wheat are an important component of one's diet, particularly while pregnant. Lunch and dinner included rice-based dishes and yoghurt (with papad too!) or a roti with a vegetable or sabzi like paneer.

Before bedtime, Kapoor Khan drank turmeric milk with nutmeg, an immune-boosting and sleep-inducing drink, as well. Since having snack options for in-between important is important to prevent binge-eating something else, Diwekar also shared her picks for those: fresh fruit, yoghurt with nuts, coconut water, lemon sherbet or buttermilk with black pepper and asafoetida.

While pregnancy diets differ from person to person (which means this exact diet may not always work for you!), Kareena Kapoor Khan's pre-baby food routine so far has been quite easy-to-follow. Even back in 2015, before she was pregnant with her son Taimur, the actor was on the healthy food train. I eat a lot of green leafy vegetables like broccoli, spinach and fenugreek, and I dont believe in cutting down the carbs in my diet. I try to eat something healthy every two to three hours. My breakfast usually comprises upma or paranthas (without oil), muesli or idlis. For lunch, its the usual roti, or brown rice, with dal and vegetables. At night I like to keep it light with a soup and some stir-fried veggies. I make sure to include lots of salads and fresh fruits in my diet, she confirmed.

But before that, Kapoor Khan has also been honest about the mistakes she's made while dieting in her 20s. On a radio interview, she once shared, I did a lot of foolish things in the past without knowing the repercussions.Mentally, I used to feel low and down and irritable. When I first started my journey to fitness, main ek galti hamesha karti thi. Basically I used to constantly try these water diets, or I would constantly try and change my diets every two days, she said, sharing that she would often skip rice and roti in the effort to stop eating carbs.

Mixing up a workout routine can keep you from getting bored and keeps the body balanced. According to Rujuta Diwekar's Instagram post, Kareena Kapoor Khan included both sprints and endurance-building runs on the treadmill, yoga, a strength training workout, and a core workout with rest days interspersed in between during the first three months of her pregnancy. Switching between high intensity and low intensity exercises can help the body heal and build in the most efficient and sustainable manner. Allowing for break days is important toomuscles can heal and regenerate during those periods.

Kareena Kapoor Khan's nutritionist shares 6 sustainable food resolutions you can actually stick to IRL

Kareena Kapoor Khan reveals what she regrets about her eating habits in her 20s

Rujuta Diwekar's diet for Kareena Kapoor Khan may probably not work for you. Here's why

See more here:
Mom-to-be Kareena Kapoor Khan's pregnancy diet and workout routine are easier to follow than you think - VOGUE India

on August 19, 2020 at 1:35 pm

Honolulu Zoo director Linda Santos enjoys walking the park grounds.

These are fun and exciting times for the newly accredited Honolulu Zoo and its proud director Linda Santos, whos been a guiding force for the city-run operation since the 1980s.

Linda Santos appointment to Honolulu Zoo director has been decades in the making. After first setting foot on the property back in 1986, she was hired as a laborer at the zoos commissary. Her specific job? Shaping diets and preparing meals for the animals.

It was overwhelming what the carnivores would get, recalls Santos. At the time when I started, we didnt have a lot of prepared animal feed like they sell now. Back then, we had to make the diets from scratch.

This included cutting up butchered meat and weighing it out for each creature.

Visiting with animal friends like Squirt the giraffe

It was so interesting to see how much each animal got, she continues. Finding out how much food an elephant eats in a day is really surprising.

From the commissary, Santos worked her way up to residential animal keeper trainee and animal keeper I and II, and oversaw everything from elephants to hoof-stock and primates.

Ive literally worked in almost every animal position possible, says Santos, who also served as the zoos bird curator, general curator and assistant director.

Those experiences left her well-equipped to lead the zoo into its next phase of growth. As the organizations first female director, Santos has been hard at work these past three years, and the effort she and her staff have put forth in that time havent gone unnoticed.

Zoo director Linda Santos loves animals of all shapes and sizes.

This past April, Honolulu Zoo earned its accreditation from Association of Zoos and Aquariums after years of trying. The designation means the citys menagerie met strict guidelines relating to animal welfare, education, safety and conservation and is evidence that the zoo is moving in the right direction.

This is a big thing, Santos states. We are accredited! We are sorry it happened during lockdown, but it was a little boost to know what we accomplished.

Winning back its accreditation isnt the only bright spot during those COVID months, either. Honolulu Zoo also welcomed two young giraffes Sandi and Neelix to their new homes in Waikk back in May. (Theyre now living with 20-year-old Squirt, the zoos resident long-necked beauty.) It also moved the spider monkeys to their new and improved habitat on the premises, and welcomed baby lemurs who were born on Easter Sunday.

During the lockdown for COVID, the zoo stayed busy, Santos assures.

Honolulu Zoo reptile curator Dwain Uyeda, reptile keeper Kale Taylor and Santos get up close and personal with a slithery friend.

Her role in working with animals comes as no surprise to those who know her best. Growing up on Oahu, Santos had nearly every pet imaginable from dogs and cats to rabbits and birds, as well as lesser-kept animal kingdom friends like anoles, turtles and mice. Right now, though, Santos just has her big brown-and-orange tabby Johnny as her furry companion, but thats because she has a whole host of animals from around the world to take care of.

I enjoy coming out into the zoo grounds and looking at the animals, she says. I also get excited watching our staff grow in their positions. Ive been working with them for many years, watching them with all the success theyre getting from hatching croc monitor lizard eggs to bringing in the giraffes safely and getting them acclimated.

Currently, Honolulu Zoo is operating with modified hours 10 a.m.-2:30 p.m. Wednesdays-Sundays, with the park closing at 3:30 p.m. but call 971-7171 or check out honoluluzoo.org for all updates.

We ask people to come visit and enjoy, Santos adds. This is one of the places that people can still come outdoors and get to do some activities for the kids. We cant do a lot of gatherings and keeper talks, but theres still a lot happening with animal enrichment and feedings.

And, she notes, locals get a discount on zoo admission.

Were really happy to get support from kamaina, she concludes. Wed like to thank everyone for supporting the zoo and coming out. We really appreciate them.

Some educational activities at Honolulu Zoo are on hold for now, but there are still ways to enjoy all the park has to offer in a virtual setting. Schools can take part in Honolulu Zoos ZOOm-to-You online sessions, which run about an hour long on video communication platform Zoom.

Visit honoluluzoo.org and click education programs to learn whats available and for more details.

PHOTOS COURTESY HONOLULU ZOO

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Walk On The Wild Side - Midweek

When attempting to become a little more healthy, a change in the food you eat can help in a big way. Dietitians recommend lifestyle changes based on the outcome you want. Whether it be muscle growth, fat loss, or changing your stress levels, diet can benefit you in a big way. And some are better than others. There are so many to choose from, and it can kind of make our head spin. Weve compiled a list from some registered dietitians that rated some popular diets. Here are the latest rankings of the best diets, that feature everything from the Mediterranean Diet to the popular Ketogenic Diet. Find the top plan for you.

If youve ever heard of centenarians, many of them follow this path! This diet follows the traditional cuisine of the countries bordering the Mediterranean Sea. Its high in vegetables, fruits, whole grains, nuts, seeds, and olive oil. Fish, healthy fats, limited intake of meat favor this diet. Having daily exercise and that occasional glass of wine is also part of it!

The DASH Diet is popular for lowering sodium and helping heart health. It stands for Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension. This is a lifelong diet that can treat high blood pressure. You should consume between 1,500 to 2,300 milligrams of sodium per day.

This one is just what it sounds like. No rules or recommended calories govern this diet. Eat whole, healthy foods. Limit fast food. Fruits, veggies, and whole grains all the time. Eat plant protein instead of an animal protein, but you can include animal protein from time to time. Read more here.

This is one that has been around for a long, long time. Weight Watchers works by looking at a persons age, weight, height, and gender. Then they determine how much food they need to eat to lose weight at a safe rate. You then count food as points, making sure not to go over a certain amount, while rewarding yourself. Read more about it here.

Veganism is the full abstaining of the use of animal products, especially in the diet. They are known as vegans. There are different sectors of veganism, such as raw veganism, which you can read about below. Read more about veganism here.

This diet, developed by the Mayo Clinic focuses on having foods that contain a smaller number of calories in a large volume of food, like fruits and vegetables. This main principle of this diet is to feel full on fewer calories, so weight loss is possible. Read more here.

This diet focuses on replacing carbs with fat, for the most part. The typical model goes like this: 75% fat, 20% protein, and 5% carbs (usually from vegetables). Basically, by drastically reducing carb intake, you put your body into a metabolic state called ketosis. Here, your body burns fat better than ever for energy, so weight loss is great. Then ketones in your liver supply energy for the brain.

Jenny Craig is a super popular weight loss program that focuses on managing calories, fat, and portions. They supply the meals and recipes for you, as well as your workout schedule and how your lifestyle should be. Its all about balanced meals, and you can read more about it here in detail.

The Therapeutic Lifestyle Change Diet was created by NIH (hi Dr. Fauci!) with the goal of helping cut cholesterol for a healthy heart. It involves eating many vegetables, fruits, cereals, pasta, and lean meats. Read more about it here.

The Nordic Diet follows the seasonal dishes of foods from Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Sweden, and Norway. Its very similar to the Mediterranean Diet but emphasizes different whole grains such as barley, rye, berries, oats, and vegetables. Lots of fatty fish are included in this diet. Read more about it here.

Very similar to other weight-loss diets, this was created in 1977. Here you eat a lot of beans, legumes, fruits, and grains to get plenty of protein. Similar to vegetarianism, on this diet, you avoid all meat, oils, and sugars, in an effort to cut down on those things. Read more about it here.

The MIND Diet is a combination of the Mediterranean Diet and the DASH Diet, but its goal is not to lose weight! This diet is all about keeping brain health up and going so that we stay mentally strong as we age. Read more about it here!

This diet is veganism, but with a twist. Like veganism, no animal products are eaten in this diet. The difference is that food is eaten completely raw or heated below 104 degrees. It is believed to help against illness and was actually first promoted by a minister in the nineteenth century! Read more about it here.

The Atkins program has existed for quite some time and is super popular for those who face heart issues. It mainly focuses on being low-carb. Read more about it and its four-step phase here.

This is more of a reset than a diet. For those of us who are stressed, logarithmic, or want more energy, Whole 30 is for you. Its a clean-eating program designed to revamp your eating habits by cutting out certain foods. Dairy, sugar, legumes, and alcohol are gone. Clean protein and veggies in. Read more about it here.

Originally posted here:
These Are The 15 Best Diets as Rated by Dietitians - Sporteluxe

Anne Kiltie and her team.

By 2066, its predicted that around a quarter of the total UK population will be over 65 years old. A number approximately equivalent to the population of London.

This is in part due to increasing life expectancy, a result of progress made through medical research. But as life expectancy increases, an ageing population brings up a whole host of new challenges for healthcare, as weve blogged about before.

One of these problems is considering the side effects of cancer treatments, which can often be experienced more intensely by older patients.

We can see this with radiosensitisation, where additional treatment, such as small doses of chemotherapy, can be added to enhance the sensitivity of a tumour to radiotherapy.

But this comes at the cost of harmful side effects.

We caught up with Professor Anne Kiltie and PhD student, Chee Then, who are part of a team looking into the relationship between the gut microbiome and radiosensitisation in bladder cancer.

A radiosensitiser can be thought of as an enhancer, an additional agent that increases the sensitivity of tumour cells to radiotherapy.

So classically, radiotherapy was given on its own for any sort of tumour. And then people discovered that if you add a little bit of chemo at the same time as giving radiotherapy,it acts locally to enhance the effects of the radiotherapy, explains Kiltie.

This is often the case for patients who are being treated for pelvic tumours including cervical, rectal and bladder cancers. The problem, Kiltie explains, is that the radiosensitising chemotherapy frequently results in increased toxicity in local organs and tissues, causing negative side effects.

And these negative side effects may be too much for older people to cope with. Kiltie has witnessed this first-hand in her clinics. The median age of my radiotherapy patients is about 81 to 82, Kiltie explains, and patients older than this end up having radiotherapy alone.

So Kiltie and Then set out on the hunt for a radiosensitiser with reduced side effects, which led them to the gut.

The gut is one of the most widely researched parts of the body, but scientists are finding out eye-opening information about the gut and its unusual inhabitants every day.

More specifically, the trillions of bacteria, fungi and viruses that call the human body home, often called the microbiome.

The vibrant community of bugs can help protect us from harm, programming our immune system as well as providing nutrients for our cells. And its a real area of interest for cancer research.

Scientists, including our OPTIMISTICC Cancer Grand Challenges team, are interested in a whole host of possible links between the gut and cancer, from looking for cancer clues in poo, to discovering unique strains of bacteria that could act as a genetic marker for bowel cancer.

So far, changes to the gut microbiome enhancing anti-cancer treatment have only been explored in the context of chemotherapy and immunotherapy, but there is not any study about radiotherapy and the gut microbiome, says Then.

Because of its effect on the microbiome, scientists are also interested in the role that diet particularly high fibre foods can play in cancer. Previous studies have looked at how a high fibre diet has the capacity to reduce tumour growth, but havent looked explicitly at the mechanism behind how a high fibre diet could change the bacterial composition in the gut.

Kiltie and her team wanted to explore this gap in the research by further examining the connection between the microbiome and radiotherapy.

The lab focussed their work on mice with a compromised immune system and bladder cancer, who were fed a variety of fibre diets. We treated the mice with either a low fibre diet, or a high soluble fibre or insoluble fibre diet or a mix of the two, Then explains.

The team went on to analyse the composition of the gut microbiome of the different groups of mice, and how they responded to radiotherapy.

The team found that the mice fed with the high soluble fibre diet on average had the slowest tumour growth rate following small doses of radiotherapy.

Changes to fibre consumption can be seen almost immediately in the mices poo. With an indication of an increased amount of a short chain fatty acid known to confer anti-cancer effects, called butyrate.

Interestingly, and more unexpectedly, of the mice administered the high soluble fibre diet, those who responded to radiotherapy were enriched with a strain of bacterium known as Bacteroides acidifaciens. A relatively newly-discovered bacterium, I suppose isolated in 2000, Then comments.

The team believe the increase in the Bacteroides acidifaciens could be the missing link between the change in fibre consumption, short chain fatty acids and radiosensitisation. And that this bacterial strain plays a crucial role in the production of short chain fatty acids.

So, the gut microbiota needs the fibre to produce short chain fatty acids and we think that this might be a potential radiosensitiser, Then explains.

Like Kiltie and Chee, Our Cancer Grand Challenges OPTIMISTICC team are also investigating correlations between the microbiome and treatment response. Some of their latest work has identified a bacterial strain which is associated with a higher chance of relapse of patients with rectal cancer who have been treated with chemotherapy.

Kiltie and her team believe the proof is in the fibre. And it wont take any expensive medicine to get this into practice, but repurposing of an existing treatment.

The team are looking into different types of fibre, including ispaghula husk. This is currently administered as a standard treatment for radiotherapy patients, but as a way to reduce diarrhoea.

Currently, patients only start taking it halfway through their radiotherapy to help the side effects, explains Kiltie. But the argument is that the fibre can actually increase the short chain fatty acid production.

The idea would be to get patients to take the fibre supplement before and during their radiotherapy to act as a radiosensitiser, whilst also reducing side effects. And most importantly, this would be something easily administered to older patients.

The beauty of ispaghula husk, or whatever fibre supplement we end up giving, is its a medicine and old people take lots medicines and theyre generally pretty compliant, says Kiltie. To try and modify somebodys diet is unlikely to work in a 78-year old, theyre probably going to say no way.

Its early days, and the team have lots planned before they can trial it in humans, but the latest results are promising. The idea has been kind of boiling, bubbling along for two or three years, says Kiltie, but to actually show something in the mice is really exciting.

Lilly

Then, C.K., Paillas, S., Wang, X. et al. (2020). Association of Bacteroides acidifaciens relative abundance with high-fibre diet-associated radiosensitisation. BMC Biol 18, 102. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1186/s12915-020-00836-x

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The team tackling the serious side effects of cancer treatment in an ageing population - Cancer Research UK - Science Blog

For 20 years, thousands of eager adults signed up for personal and professional development classes through a little-known upstate New York company blandly called Executive Success Programs, or ESP.

Started in 1998, the lessons beginning at five-day sessions taught students to change habitual behaviors, reject needless fear and gain full control over their response to any situation. Empowering as that sounds, however, these teachings had a much more insidious goal.

In 2017, it was revealed that the workshops, operating near Albany under an umbrella group called Nxivm, were concealing a reprehensible sex cult. It was later alleged in high-profile criminal prosecutions of several Nxivm members that pretty young women were turned into slaves, made to eat restricted-calorie diets, forced into bed with the companys founder and, most barbarically, branded on their pelvis with the pervs initials.

The rise and fall of Nxivm is the subject of a captivating nine-part HBO documentary series, called The Vow, which starts Sunday night and exposes how one persons charisma and calm-voiced coercion can destroy countless lives.

Nxivm was unlike any cult youve heard about before. For one, it was not a religion or a commune, but a reputable business, albeit an alleged pyramid scheme. Even now, it is repeatedly referred to by its defectors as the company, as though it offered health insurance rather than bunk science and PTSD. Bucking the usual cult cliches, Nxivms members were not financially struggling runaways, but millionaires, TV stars and even royalty. Seagram Company heiress Clare Bronfman reportedly bankrolled Nxivm to the tune of $150 million over 15 years.

And they were all in the snare of Keith Raniere, a short, bespectacled, Brooklyn-born man with a Jesus haircut and hypnotists voice. He called himself Vanguard, and everyone else had to as well. Its creepy.

Filmmaker and former high-ranking member of ESP, Mark Vicente, whose wealth of archival footage makes the doc extraordinary, said of their strange first meeting, There was part of me that was like, This is the dude?

A pianist, judo master and self-styled scientist, Raniere, now 59, also enjoyed kissing everybody on the lips as a greeting.

If this guy created all these things that are helping so many people, who cares about the kissing-on-the-lips thing?, Bonnie Piesse, the actress who played young Aunt Beru in Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith, said in the doc.

Women were especially transfixed by Ranieres ideas and often fell in love with him. Early in the organizations history, he was having sexual relationships with at least 12 female employees at once, according to a spurned lover in the documentary.

At their compound in Albany, the founder would host bizarre late-night volleyball games past 1 a.m., an odd obsession of his, and followers would flock to the gym to compete and ask him questions. As he rambles New Age gobbledygook, we see Nxivm members shower him in adoration in footage captured by Vicente.

These theories that so enamored the crowd that pain could feel good, or that fear was a choice would later be used to enforce sexual servitude.

Piesse, who was recruited by and later married Vicente, recorded a conversation between her and Raniere during a walk one evening. She was expressing to him her concerns about her job as a proctor, working 23-hour days for no money with little time to eat, leading her to nearly pass out during a Nxivm singing rehearsal.

If you pass out, you pass out, Raniere said. Ive done that. But when there are higher values, when youre connecting with people, when you are serving humanity, which is serving your inner self? And that sort of servitude is not slavery.

The leader said, What are you scared of? Whats really gonna happen to you? Im not going to put you in a chamber and torture you.

Longtime members Piesse, Vicente and Sarah Edmondson unceremoniously left Nxivm in 2017. Their move was risky because the group is known for being highly litigious, breaking and entering into former employees homes and seeking revenge. But the departure was unavoidable after they made the disturbing discovery of a faction called DOS.

Nxivm contained many different specific entities. Jness was a subset meant to embolden powerful women, while the SOP (Society of Protectors) was a macho bunch of dudes building the leaders of tomorrow; Exo/eso was exercise- and arts-focused. Thousands of people took classes, and the most dedicated ascended the stripe path, a tiered, color-coded system of seniority determined by recruitment and dedication.

But DOS wasnt mentioned on the groups website or fliers.

Started by Raniere and Smallville actress Allison Mack, Dominus Obsequious Sororium was a horrific secret society of masters and slaves, in which one woman would recruit another woman and then have total control over everything she did, according to court papers. To join, which is described in audio recordings as a high honor, women needed to continuously provide collateral usually nude photos and damaging information. Sometimes, they signed over the deed to their home.

Once the woman made the sacred vow, she was branded like cattle with a symbol combining Raniere and Macks initials. In Edmondsons case, she was taken blindfolded to Macks house for the two-hour ritual, and then forced to watch her friends scream as their flesh was seared before her own torture.

I was just thinking, How the fk am I gonna get out?, Edmondson said in the doc. And they werent doing well. They were squirming, they were crying, they were twitching, they were sweating. And at one point Lauren [Salzman, daughter of Nxivm co-founder Nancy Salzman] pulled me aside and said, Youre green [a level in the company]. You need to show them how to do this. Edmondson had to be the example, and choose to not feel fear.

I was just thinking, How the f--k am I gonna get out?

In the doc, viewers learn about Readiness Drills, in which a master texts her slave, ? and then the slave must reply, RM, short for Ready, Master, within one minute. Before every meal, calories must be counted and approved by the master. And, in one of the sickest assignments, the women were tasked with seducing Raniere and having him take a nude photo to prove the encounter occurred.

All the while, they were forced to continue doing the day-to-day work of Nxivm for little to no money, and the perv-protecting organization kept teaching as if nothing was going on.

The groups wrongdoings finally came to light in 2017, first by a blog called the Frank Report, run by Nxivms former publicist, Frank Parlato, and then in the New York Times, The Post and other publications. Although the efforts of Edmondson, Vicente and Piesse to expose the organizations wrongdoings are heroic, this is where the series starts to lose steam.

Its moving to witness actress Catherine Oxenberg work to rescue her brainwashed then 26-year-old daughter India, who was branded and made a slave, from the clutches of Nxivm, but we no longer get as many rare glimpses into the mysterious organization, which would collapse in 2019 after Raniere was found guilty of sex trafficking, forced labor and racketeering. Mack pleaded guilty to racketeering, while Bronfman, who bankrolled the group, pleaded guilty to harboring illegal aliens. Bronfman and Raniere both await sentencing.

Still, the elder Oxenberg gets the most memorable line in the show, when she is on the phone with her mother, Princess Elizabeth of Yugoslavia.

Can you call Charles and get him in direct contact with the Dalai Lama? Oxenberg said on the phone. I want to tell [the Dalai Lama] that my daughter is being held as a sex slave to this organization that he received money from.

Whos Charles?, asked the producer.

Prince Charles, said Oxenberg. Hes moms second cousin.

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'The Vow' gives horrific look inside the Nxivm sex cult that branded women - New York Post

I am thoroughly enjoying a novel with the unusual title The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane, by Lisa See.

The novel is set in the Yunnan province of China and is a story of the Akha people, a Chinese ethnic minority. Before I decided to read it, I noticed some negative reviews about the amount of "tea discussion" and thought "great this looks like a book for me" and it is, what a gem!

Tea and tea trade have a long history in many countries including China, India, Sri Lanka and of course the United Kingdom although why we colonials insist on butchering tea with milk is beyond me.

Prior to lockdown, I wrote one of my columns while in India, on my way to Sri Lanka. At the time, I promised to write my next column about my Sri Lankan experience, but the Covid-19 drama on return meant I put those reflections aside.

Reading about the tea plantations in China has reminded me of being up on the Sri Lanka tea plantations watching Sri Lankan women harvest tea, nimbly climbing mountainous slopes in the heat, deftly handpicking leaves into backpacks.

There are parallels of our economy with Sri Lankas, both being heavily land and tourism based. Like New Zealand, Sri Lanka is genuinely beautiful and has that same small country feel being so close to its big brother India.

I went to Sri Lanka to work with a UK company, Capital Agri, led by an ex Otago-ite, Hadyn Craig. They have invested significantly into a leafy green business, Lanka Salads and I was there to meet people involved in Ayurvedic medicine, with a view to adding some of the wonderful medicinal herbs grown in Sri Lanka to their leafy green salad mixes.

Anyone who knows me understands that I get ridiculously excited about seeing exotic food plants grow in their native environment. I was treated to cinnamon plantations, turmeric, nutmeg, cocoa beans and the fabulous red-medicinal pineapple.

Imagine my delight when I met (and ate) red bananas and saw multiple other varieties in the world of big-food, we only ever experience the cavendish banana, which is a real problem in terms of genetic diversity and disease management.

I was treated to a tour of Associate Professor Marasinghes fabulous medicinal plant garden he is a botanist with an encyclopedia knowledge of Ayurvedic plants and medical practices. When I showed him the herbs we were interested in for digestive health, he quickly pointed out that my photo of one herb was the right genus but wrong species. Desktop research can only get you so far, clearly Uncle Google let me down.

On a more sober note, when we were staying in a remote hotel, the proprietors asked for a photo as we were the first Westerners to have visited since the Easter Sunday bombings of 2019. We were a sign to them that much needed tourists might be coming back.

Given the Covid-19 situation, Sri Lankas tourism industry will be faring worse than ours, having already been decimated prior to the virus. One older man I met, who relied on the tourist dollar to live told me he had limited pension and life had been very difficult since the bombing a reminder to be thankful for what we have.

Food businesses have been the first to recover and I am pleased to hear Lanka Salads is doing well again. As we imagine what a post-Covid-19 economy looks like, I hope too that we will take the opportunity to bring greater diversity into our diets and food systems. I hope that those food systems do more to protect and nurture the growers themselves technology should be able to play a role in connecting us to food producers in a way we havent been before. This will work for New Zealand farmers as well as those growing red pineapples in Sri Lanka.

Big-food has given us efficiency, profits and processed food. How can a new economy shape a more sustainable food model?

Anna Campbell is managing director of AbacusBio Ltd, a Dunedin based agri-technology company.

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It is time to diversify our diets and food systems - Otago Daily Times