Herbal Home Remedies Help Fight Bird Flu

Sydney: Young men with a poor diet saw a significant improvement in their symptoms of depression when they switched to a healthy Mediterranean diet, a new study has shown. Mediterranean diet, which consists of fresh fruit, vegetables, fish, and grains, caused significant impact on young men's mental health. According to researchers from the University of Technology Sydney, the study is the first randomised clinical trial to assess the impact of a Mediterranean diet on the symptoms of depression in young men aged 18-25. The team conducted a 12-week randomised control trial, where the men were asked to switch to foods rich in colourful vegetables, legumes and wholegrains, oily fish, olive oil and raw, unsalted nuts from their regular as well as fast foods. The findings, published in the peer-reviewed American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, suggested that doctors should recommend patients to a nutritionist or dietician as part of their treatment plan, the researchers said. "The primary focus was on increasing diet quality with fresh wholefoods while reducing the intake of 'fast' foods, sugar and processed red meat," said researcher Jessica Bayes, a candidate in the UTS Faculty of Health. "There are lots of reasons why scientifically we think food affects mood. For example, around 90 per cent of serotonin, a chemical that helps us feel happy, is made in our gut by our gut microbes. "There is emerging evidence that these microbes can communicate to the brain via the vagus nerve, in what is called the gut-brain axis," Bayes said. "The results showed that nearly all our participants stayed with the programme, and many were keen to continue the diet once the study ended, which shows how effective, tolerable and worthwhile they found the intervention," the researchers said. The study "suggests that medical doctors and psychologists should consider referring depressed young men to a nutritionist or dietitian as an important component of treating clinical depression", she said. (Agency) Read More► New Gene-Edited Tomatoes Could Boost Your Vitamin D Levels

New York: Aerobic exercise, which includes brisk walking, swimming, running, or cycling, can help reprogramme the immune system to reduce tumour growth and amplify the effects of immunotherapy, finds a new study. Published online in Cancer Cell, the study, which focussed on pancreatic cancer, provides new insight into how the mammalian immune system, designed to attack foreign invaders like bacteria, can also recognise cancer cells as abnormal. Exercise-induced increases in levels of the hormone adrenaline cause changes to the immune system, according to researchers at New York University. It includes the activity of cells that respond to signalling protein interleukin-15 (IL-15). The study found that exercise promotes the survival of CD8 T cells sensitive to IL-15, and doubles the number of them homing to pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) tumours in mice. Such "effector" T cells have been shown by other studies to be capable of killing cancer cells. Other tests found that aerobic exercise for 30 minutes five times a week reduced the rate of cancer formation by 50 per cent in one mouse model of PDAC, and reduced tumour weight by 25 per cent in another model, in which mice ran on treadmills for three weeks. In collaboration with The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, the study authors then found that human patients who exercised before surgery to remove their pancreatic tumours had more CD8 effector T cells that expressed a protein called granzyme B, which confers tumour-cell killing ability. Patients who exercised and had more of these cell types, had 50 per cent higher overall survival over five years than patients with fewer of them. "Our findings show, for the first time, how aerobic exercise affects the immune microenvironment within pancreatic tumours," said first author Emma Kurz, a graduate student at NYU Grossman School of Medicine. "The work helped to reveal that activation of IL-15 signalling in pancreatic cancer might be an important treatment approach in the future." (Agency) Read More► Why Not All Obese Patients Develop Diabetes?

Healthy adults who eat a diverse diet, with at least 8-10 grams of soluble fibre such as grains, beans, lentils, nuts and some fruits and vegetables daily, have fewer antibiotic-resistant microbes in their guts, according to a study. Microbes that have resistance to various commonly-used antibiotics such as tetracycline and aminoglycoside are a significant source of risk for people worldwide, with the widely held expectation that the problem of antimicrobial resistance (AMR) - the term that refers to bacteria, viruses, and fungi that are resistant to antibiotics - is likely to worsen throughout the coming decades. Antimicrobial resistance in people is largely based in their gut microbiome, where the microbes are known to carry genetically encoded strategies to survive contact with antibiotics. "And the results lead directly to the idea that modifying the diet has the potential to be a new weapon in the fight against antimicrobial resistance. And we're not talking about eating some exotic diet either, but a diverse diet, adequate in fibre," said research molecular biologist Danielle Lemay at the US Department of Agriculture's Agricultural Research Service. In the study, published in the journal mBio, the researchers found that regularly eating a diet with higher levels of fibre and lower levels of protein, especially from beef and pork, was significantly correlated with lower levels of antimicrobial resistance genes (ARG) among their gut microbes. Those with the lowest levels of ARG in their gut microbiomes also had a greater abundance of strict anaerobic microbes, which are bacteria that do not thrive when oxygen is present and are a hallmark of a healthy gut with low inflammation. Bacterial species in the family Clostridiaceae were the most numerous anaerobes found. But the amount of animal protein in the diet was not a top predictor of high levels of ARG. The strongest evidence was for the association of higher amounts of soluble fibre in the diet with lower levels of ARGs. "Surprisingly, the most important predictor of low levels of ARG, even more than fibre, was the diversity of the diet. This suggests that we may want to eat from diverse sources of foods that tend to be higher in soluble fibre for maximum benefit," Lemay added. On the other hand, those people who had the highest levels of ARG in their gut microbiomes were found to have significantly less diverse gut microbiomes compared to groups with low and medium levels of ARG. "Our diets provide food for gut microbes. This all suggests that what we eat might be a solution to reduce antimicrobial resistance by modifying the gut microbiome," Lemay said. (agency) Read More► 5 Healthy Breakfast Products to Start on A Happy Note

Jerusalem: Israeli scientists have claimed that a special food supplement containing zinc, copper and chemicals that are found in fruit may help fight viruses. A team from Tel Aviv University showed that a mixture of the three food supplements, each approved by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA), appears to be avery capable of inhibiting replication of RNA viruses in a remarkable way', Times of Israel reported. In the study, published in the journal Pharmaceuticals, the team tested the mixture in the lab on cells from human lungs and elsewhere, along with RNA viruses including those that cause flu and the common cold. Scientists found that virus replication was decreased by at least 50 per cent compared to normal circumstances. "We have a mixture of ingredients, each of which is already approved by the FDA as a food supplement, and together appear very capable of inhibiting replication of RNA viruses in a remarkable way," Prof Daniel Segal, from Tel Aviv University's biomedicine school, was quoted as saying. However, he acknowledged that the peer-reviewed research took place in-vitro and gave no firm indication so far of what impact on humans the supplements may have, the report said. Beyond the zinc and copper, the compounds in the supplement are flavonoids, which are found in certain fruits and vegetables and are considered safe as a supplement. Zinc is known to have anti-viral qualities, but also to struggle to enter cells. The other ingredients in the new supplement appear to bolster its ability to do so, Segal said. SARS-CoV-2, the RNA virus that causes Covid-19, hasn't yet been tested, but Segal said he is optimistic its replication may also be slowed given results on other viruses from the coronavirus family. "Such an inexpensive combination of dietary supplements would be highly advantageous to have, alongside vaccines, as a safe prevention method affecting various RNA respiratory viruses," Segal said. "These results are very promising, possibly enabling the development of an orally administered treatment," added Prof. Ehud Gazit, head of Tel Aviv University's Blavatnik Center for Drug Discovery and part of the study. He said that such a product would reflect an "important step forward," as it would be safe, natural, and potentially effective against a range of viruses and variants. (Agency) Read More► 1 in 4 Adults Suffer Missed Liver Disorder Linked to Heart Disease: Study