Free Republic

An ancient human foraging instinct, fueled by fructose production in the brain, may hold clues to the development and possible treatment of Alzheimer's disease (AD), according to researchers. "We make the case that Alzheimer's disease is driven by diet," said Richard Johnson, MD. Johnson and his team suggest that AD is a harmful adaptation of an evolutionary survival pathway used in animals and our distant ancestors during times of scarcity. When threatened with the possibility of starvation, early humans developed a survival response which sent them foraging for food. Yet foraging is only effective if metabolism is inhibited in various...

Scientists are looking more closely at a brain structure involved in motivation, called the nucleus accumbens. This small region drives reward-seeking behaviors underlying the pursuit of sex, recreational drugs like nicotine and alcohol, and food. "Brain motivation centers help us survive," said Carrie Ferrario, Ph.D. Previous research from Ferrario's lab pinpointed differences in the nucleus accumbens in obesity-prone and obesity-resistant rats. Their latest study tracked what was happening in the brain when these animals were presented with glucose, a type of sugar, labeled with a tracer. Sugar is the brain's main fuel source, and once there, the molecule is broken...

Artificial Pancreas Successfully Trialed for Use by Type 2 Diabetes Patients Scientists at the University of Cambridge have successfully trialed an artificial pancreas for use by patients living with type 2 diabetes. The device – powered by an algorithm developed at the University of Cambridge – doubled the amount of time patients were in the target range for glucose compared to standard treatment and halved the time spent experiencing high glucose levels. Around 415 million people worldwide are estimated to be living with type 2 diabetes, which costs around $760 billion in annual global health expenditure. According to Diabetes UK,...

Survivors of childhood cancer who consumed more total sugar, added sugar, and sugar-sweetened beverages had more aging-related health conditions than survivors who consumed less sugar. Children with cancer are often treated with harsh regimens such as chemotherapy and radiation, which can damage growing tissues and cause health problems later. One pattern that researchers have recognized is the propensity for childhood cancer survivors to develop aging-related health conditions at a younger age than the general population. Lan and colleagues identified 3,322 patients from the St. Jude Lifetime Cohort who provided information about their typical diet using a food frequency questionnaire. They...

From our Bureau of Great Moments in Socialist Agriculture with some assistance from our Bureau of Lethal Nostalgia They’ve done it. Castro, Inc. has managed to destroy Cuba’s sugar industry. This is quite an accomplishment, given the fact that 63 years ago Cuba was the world’s leading producer and exporter of sugar. Destroying the one agricultural industry that made Cuba one of the most economically successful nations in all of Latin America was not easy, since Cuba has such fertile soil and the infrastructure for sugar production in 1959 was arguably the world’s finest and most impressive. Once upon a...

As most Americans plan to celebrate Halloween on Monday night, many Christian parents will try to keep their children from being exposed to occultic ideas like witchcraft, demons and evil spirits. But other Christian families will embrace the time for candy, costumes and fun. Many pastors and churches urge members to avoid the annual observance altogether or suggest alternative activities like harvest festivals. However, others are less bothered by Halloween even though they acknowledge its pagan origin. In a series of interviews, The Christian Post asked pastors with children of their own about how their families approach Halloween. Most of...

Daniel Greenfield August 15, 2022 In June, the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction’s office (SIGAR), dispatched letters to Secretary of State Blinken and Samantha Power complaining that the State Department and USAID were stonewalling its investigation of waste, corruption and terror cash. "Two SIGAR audits are also being hindered by a lack of cooperation from State and USAID. The first evaluates your agencies’ compliance with the laws and regulations prohibiting transfers of funds to members of the Taliban and the Haqqani Network," the letter to Power complained. The Haqqani Network, which is allied with Al Qaeda, gained control of...

New research points to a novel way to prevent the death of insulin-producing beta cells A study led by researchers from the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai has homed in on a newly discovered molecular mechanism that could prevent insulin resistance in type 2 diabetics. The research indicates disrupting the expression of a certain protein could protect beta cells and prevent patients from becoming insulin resistant. Type 2 diabetes can develop when insulin-producing beta cells in the pancreas become dysfunctional, often following long-term high blood glucose levels. Eventually, those crucial beta cells begin to die, with the body...

Those who are habitually inclined to consume burgers, fries and soda may think twice about their dietary choices following scientists' latest findings about high-fat, high-fructose diets. A team discovered that a high-fat diet can increase fructose metabolism in the small intestine, leading to release of a fructose-specific metabolite called glycerate into circulation. Circulating glycerate can subsequently cause damage of the insulin-producing pancreatic beta cells, increasing the risk of glucose tolerance disorders, such as Type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM). Past research has shown that fructose produces deleterious effects in the liver. However, additional research has shown that these effects are normally...

Kazakhstan’s president on Thursday blasted his government for its handling of a sugar crisis as shortages and price spikes contributed to chaotic scenes in supermarkets. Rising living costs since the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic have helped fuel unrest in Central Asia, including in the region’s richest country, Kazakhstan, where bloody turmoil in January left 238 people dead. Demonstrators attend a rally in memory of victims of the recent country-wide unrest in Almaty on February 13, 2022. Hundreds gathered in Kazakhstan’s largest city Almaty on February 13, 2022 to commemorate victims of the deadly unrest last month, defying an official...

When a male cockroach wants to mate with a female cockroach very much, he will scoot his butt toward her, open his wings and offer her a homemade meal — sugars and fats squished out of his tergal gland. As the lovely lady nibbles, the male locks onto her with one penis while another penis delivers a sperm package. If everything goes smoothly, a roach’s romp can last around 90 minutes. But increasingly, cockroach coitus is going really, weirdly wrong Back in 1993, scientists working at North Carolina State University discovered a trait in the German cockroach, a species that...

One of the mysteries of the Hunter Biden matter is how the resident's son, with no obvious sources of income, manages to maintain a grand lifestyle. For the last year or so, he has been living in a $20,000-a-month rental house in Malibu, California. (The taxpayers are footing the bill for the Secret Service to pay even more, $30,000 a month, to rent the house next door while protecting Hunter.) The younger Biden also likes nice cars; a 2020 photo showed him arriving for lunch at the Waldorf Astoria in a Porsche Panamera GTS, which costs six figures. Federal prosecutors...

It may have a new name, but everything inside the bottle is remaining the same.Bottles of Snapple peach iced tea and Diet Snapple peach iced tea on a store shelf As a teenager, I remember traveling to Italy and seeing that, instead of Diet Coke, grocery stores sold Coca-Cola Light. It's the first time I really thought about this use of "diet" and how, yeah, it's a bit odd. According to CNN, "diet" drinks were born out of the success of Diet Rite which launched in 1958 as an option for people who needed to limit their sugar intake. But...

People who consume sugar and other carbohydrates in excess over a long period of time have an increased risk of developing an autoimmune disease. In affected patients, the immune system attacks the body's own tissue. Their work (shows) excessive consumption of glucose directly promotes the pathogenic functions of certain cells of the immune system and that, conversely, that a calorie-reduced diet can have a beneficial effect on immune diseases. Based on these findings, they also identified new targets for therapeutic interventions: A specific blockade of glucose-depended metabolic processes in these immune cells can suppress excessive immune reactions. Martin Väth explains...

More than 100,000 Americans died from diabetes in 2021, marking the second consecutive year for that grim milestone and spurring a call for a federal mobilization similar to the fight against HIV/AIDS. The new figures come as an expert panel urges Congress to overhaul diabetes care and prevention, including recommendations to move beyond a reliance on medical interventions alone. The nation’s toll from diabetes has increased sharply, surpassing 100,000 deaths in each of the last two years and representing a new record. Diabetes-related deaths surged 17% in 2020 and 15% in 2021 compared to the prepandemic level in 2019. …"Type...

A question that puzzled people at the beginning of the pandemic was: Why does diabetes make it harder to fight a respiratory virus? SARS-CoV-2 virus can make blood sugar control worse in the short term and can potentially throw people with diabetes into a very dangerous blood sugar state, studies show. It does this by binding itself to the receptors found on the beta cells of the pancreas, which produce insulin. [H]aving diabetes means you’re in a chronic low-grade inflammatory state, which taxes the body’s innate immune system and makes it slower to jump on pathogens when they enter the...

A sugar additive used in several foods could have helped spread a seriously dangerous superbug around the US, according to a 2018 study. The finger of blame is pointed squarely at the sugar trehalose, found in foods such as nutrition bars and chewing gum. If the findings are confirmed, it's a stark warning that even apparently harmless additives have the potential to cause health issues when introduced to our food supply. In this case, trehalose is being linked with the rise of two strains of the bacterium Clostridium difficile, capable of causing diarrhea, colitis, organ failure, and even death. The...

During the holiday season candy canes are once again omnipresent with all the joy they represent to go with their yummy goodness. But the business behind the production of that candy cane is fraught with trade battles pitting nations against one another as quotas and subsidization distort any sense of an honest pricing model. That is why it is good news that earlier this year, Representatives Kat Cammack (R-FL) and Dale Kildee (D-MI) introduced a new resolution to zero out the foreign subsidies that make sugar the world’s most distorted commodity market. “Time and again, the survival of American sugar...

MANCHESTER, N.H. - Georgia Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan says he’s getting "very little push back" from fellow Republicans over his burgeoning effort to reboot what he hopes will be a post-Donald Trump GOP. Duncan spotlights that other Republicans have quietly come up to him and thanked him for "doing the right thing" and tell him "this means a lot for this country, this means a lot for this party." Georgia’s lieutenant governor made his comments in a national exclusive interview with Fox News and during an address to an audience at the New Hampshire Institute of Politics on Tuesday, where...

This morning I saw a dog in my neighborhood barking. The trash truck had pulled up. A young worker stepped down from the truck with several dog treats in his hand. He tossed the treats onto the pavement inside the nearby yard, and the dog immediately stopped barking and started gobbling up the treats. By the time the dog finished snacking, the guy and the trash truck were gone. They have this thing down to a science! The incident brought to mind a sadly, near-universal truth–a “dog” will stop barking for a treat.” This simple principle explains how we’ve ended...