News – News by Nature

3Oct

By CatherineNo Comments

Botanicals

Ohio Banning Sales of Kratom and CBD

At a time when many pain sufferers are turning to natural supplements to relieve their pain, the state of Ohio is moving to ban two of the most popular ones. The Ohio Board of Pharmacy voted Monday to classify kratom as a Schedule I controlled substance alongside heroin, LSD and other dangerous drugs. The move came two months after the board issued an advisory warning that sales of CBD-infused products are illegal under Ohio’s new medical marijuana program. The pharmacy board considers kratom – which come from the leaves of a tree that grows in southeast Asia – a “psychoactive plant” that can cause hallucinations, psychosis, seizures and death. State health officials have identified six recent deaths in Ohio in which kratom "was indicated as the primary cause of death." You can fin...

Ketogenic Diet: Does It Make You Feel Athlete?

12Mar

By CatherineNo Comments

Diet

Ketogenic Diet: Does It Make You Feel Athlete?

A recent study, published in the journal Sports, poses a different question: Can the ketogenic diet make you a better athlete? A team based at the School of Kinesiology at Auburn University asked 12 participants to partake in a 12-week study to measure body composition, metabolic, and performance parameters in CrossFit practitioners. The researchers wanted to better understand how the ketogenic diet affects resistance training, as a previous study with mice demonstrated that a low-carbohydrate diet reduces muscle mass. The authors addressed this controversy by pointing to their own six-week study with mice, noting that a ketogenic diet does not impair muscle glycogen levels or affect muscle protein synthesis in comparison to an isocaloric Western diet (consuming the same quantity of cal...

23Feb

By CatherineNo Comments

Genetically Modified Foods

Debate Over GM Foods Continues

According to Dick, there thousands acres of land being farmed within 25 miles of Fort Morgan. The need for food in Colorado is rising higher as the population grows, but the understanding of what that takes to produce enough food for all, according to Dick, is shockingly low. "A lot of people don't realize what it takes to get the food on their plate. They just think it comes from the grocery store," said Dick. "The bottom line is that there is no particular reason to believe that currently available GMO crops pose any health risk, or that they are different with regard to their safety and nutrition from their conventional analogues. There is also nothing about the current processes used to generate GMOs that would theoretically pose a unique health risk," state a report by the Nationa...

Genetically Modified Organisms Can Help With Food Security

11Feb

By CatherineNo Comments

Genetically Modified Foods

Genetically Modified Organisms Can Help With Food Security

Abu Dhabi: Despite the controversy surrounding it, genetically modified organisms (GMOs) used for food can play a big role in meeting the world’s future food security needs, with scientific studies thus far showing that genetically modified foods pose no harm to humans, said a distinguished researcher in Abu Dhabi on Wednesday. Held at New York University Abu Dhabi, the talk was given by Nina Fedoroff, a molecular biologist who has served as science adviser under former US secretaries of state, Condoleezza Rice and Hillary Clinton. During her talk, Fedoroff acknowledged that a public mistrust towards GMO foods existed, but pointed out that the use of GMOs was growing around the world. “GM crops were grown by roughly 18 million farmers in 26 countries on 457 million acres [of land in ...

9Feb

By CatherineNo Comments

Remedies

Do Household Remedies Really Work?

Do household remedies really work? Whether it’s superstitions, family remedies passed down through the generations, or simply little tricks that you swear on, almost everyone has some unusual methods for fighting off common illnesses. Indeed, many of us have anecdotes of strange things our parents made us do because they promised it would rid us of our ailments. Others resolutely believe there are items in their kitchen cupboards better at fighting off the common cold than anything you can buy from a pharmacy. A mouthful of salty water One of the standout findings was that over half of Britons – 56%, to be exact – have tried gargling salty water to get rid of a sore throat. And of this sizeable group, 68% say it does the trick. But does it work? Well, gargling warm salty water can...

Why We Cannot Gamble On Genetically Modified Foods

1Feb

By CatherineNo Comments

Genetically Modified Foods

Why We Cannot Gamble On Genetically Modified Foods

It is nevertheless also important to recall the many instances where for-profit scientific breakthroughs have brought humanity dangerous products marketed by those with financial interests in them as silver bullets to our many problems. Think asbestos, think DDT, think plastics and hundreds of other products. Think also of such disasters as Bhopal, Chernobyl, Fukushima and similar catastrophes whose damaging effects will last for thousands of years. And nothing can be scarier than handing our food security to the ones whose abiding interest is to maximize their own profits, without any concern for the externalities they generate in pursuit of that narrow self-interest. In falsely claiming no adverse health effects from GMOs (when they have done everything in their considerable pow...

Can A GM Banana Solve Uganda’s Hunger Crisis?

17Dec

By CatherineNo Comments

Genetically Modified Foods

Can A GM Banana Solve Uganda’s Hunger Crisis?

Trials for a GM banana variety, which is resistant to wilt and contains vitamin A, have been ongoing since 2004 in an effort to improve production. The law will mean this crop can be released to the public. “Now that the law has been passed, we’re able to go for open-field trials [of the technologies] before releasing them to the public,” says Priver Namanya Bwesigye, a plant biotechnologist at the National Agricultural Research Organisation. She adds that GM bananas could be released for public use in 2021. Other GM trials include developing cassava resistant to brown streak, drought-resistant maize, and bollworm-resistant cotton. Critics say GM crops will make farmers beholden to big agribusiness by having to buy seeds every season. Farmers in Uganda produce between 80% and 85% ...

12Dec

By CatherineNo Comments

Diet

Want More Brain Energy? Try this Diet!

What doesn’t kill brain cells might make them stronger. The brain cells of mice who regularly fast may grow more than usual once they get food again, according to research presented at the Society for Neuroscience’s annual meeting in November and first reported by New Scientist. One particular protein may be behind the growth: brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF). In humans, BDNF may be involved in learning and memory. Levels of this protein tend to decline as a person gets older, especially if someone is diagnosed with a disease that can affect cognitive functions like Alzheimer’s. However, levels of this protein increase in mice that have been fasting by up to 50 percent. In theory, Mattson said, BDNF might be stimulating cells to produce more mitochondria. Mitochondria are oft...

How Cargill is addressing GMO concerns, and looking to Asia for growth

20Apr

By CatherineNo Comments

Genetically Modified Foods

How Cargill is addressing GMO concerns, and looking to Asia for growth

American agribusiness Cargill has its sights set on moving up the food chain and focusing on the aquaculture and meat segments, with Asia expected to be a key market. Since the company spent $1.5 billion acquiring Norwegian salmon-feed manufacturer EWOS in 2015, it has realigned its portfolio to focus on its core food production business, Cargill Chairman and CEO David MacLennan told CNBC's "Managing Asia." "(T)he rate of growth of fish consumption in the world greatly exceeds pork consumption in the world. We see that trend and we're getting on it," MacLennan said. MacLennan expressed interest in the prospects Asia offers, adding that Cargill has made recent investments in the region. Among them are a chocolate facility in Indonesia, feed mills in Vietnam and South Korea, and joi...