Digest - The Animal Edition, Leukemia, Strawberries, Grapes, Aging, and Seasonality

Scott Kustes on 31 Mar 2008 08:00 am

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Are you a man or a…fruit fly? Like sweets? You’re more like a fruit fly than you think… - “The diverse range of molecules that humans experience as sweet do not necessarily taste sweet to other species. For example, aspartame, a sweetener used by humans, does not taste sweet to rats and mice. However, fruit flies respond positively to most sweeteners preferred by humans, including sweeteners not perceived as sweet by some species of monkeys. ”

I didn’t even know this was a myth. SA schoolboy explodes fish-memory myth - “‘My experiments showed that goldfish have the mental capabilities to learn and remember fairly complex concepts and they can retain that knowledge for at least a number of days,’ he said.”

Feed your kids produce. Food Compounds That Kill Test-Tube Cancer Cells Analyzed - “Zunino’s current studies build upon her 2006 findings about the ability of carnosol from rosemary; curcumin from turmeric; resveratrol from grapes; and ellagic acid, kaempferol and quercetin from strawberries to kill the leukemia cells.”

And this week’s “Gee, ya think?” moment goes to the Jean Mayer USDA Human Nutrition Research Center on Aging. Elderly Improve With Exercise, Too - “The researchers concluded that minimally supervised exercise is safe and can improve functional performance in elderly individuals.” A study was needed for this?

Want to know what’s in season in your area? Check out Sustainable Table. Hat tip to Mark’s Daily Apple for the link. Looking at my own state of Kentucky and comparing it to Southern California, Florida, and pretty much everywhere south makes me really not like you people.

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Tags: elderly, exercise, fruit fly, grape, rosemary, seasonal produce, strawberry, sweet, turmeric

Filed in Digest 3 Comments so far

3 Responses to “Digest - The Animal Edition, Leukemia, Strawberries, Grapes, Aging, and Seasonality”

Bryanth Holman on 31 Mar 2008 at 12:48 pm #

Check out this private study on the artificial sweetener, asparatame (Equal,NutraSweet)

http://myaspartameexperiment.com

sarena on 31 Mar 2008 at 3:07 pm #

Off to teach my seniors w early onset alzheimers yoga class!

John E. Garst, Ph.D. (Medicinal Chemistry, Pharmacology, and Toxicology) on 01 Apr 2008 at 2:16 am #

This quoted ‘Myaspartameexperiment’ has been done incorrectly. You just cannot do this type of experiment using a simple control versus treated experimental design. The problem is that the aspartame in the treated animals hydrolyzes to methanol, which during any long term exposure depletes the vitamin folate, but only in treated rats. That she saw tumors merely confirms that folate deficiency causes tumors, which is already very well known. To do the experiment properly you would need a control group (fed 0 aspartame, that is feed), a treated group (fed varying doses of aspartame in the feed) and a folate supplemented, treated group (fed the same varying doses of aspartame in the feed). Unfortunatley this was not done, nor has it ever been done.

All experiments showing any tumors from aspartame have been done incorrectly and this includes the recent Soffritti et al work (2006,2007) that found leukemia, lymphoma, and mammary tumors (which are exactly three tumors caused by folate deficiency) and also the original Searle studies that have been criticized for finding tumors too and have falsely become the basis for this aspartame internet conspiracy. No studies have considered the importance of folate depletion nor taken it into account. Thus no studies have in any way shown aspartame to have any adverse effect in animals or humans. (The previous information was just presented in Seattle iin mid-March at the 2008 meeting of the Society of Toxicology)!