#BPA (#bisphenol A) is a chemical added to many commercial products, that when mixed with other compounds, produces strong and resilient plastics. BPA-containing plastics are commonly found in food containers, drinks bottles, hygiene products and are used to make epoxy resins that line canned foods. The health effects on the body of BPA products has proved a controversial subject. A new analysis, in the peer-reviewed Lancet Diabetes and Endocrinology Journal, suggests that BPA chemical levels in humans has been drastically underestimated based on a new method for evaluating exposure.

A new study published in Cell Metabolism, by the Salk Institute for Biological Studies, California, offers evidence that limiting your daily eating window to 10 hours can be beneficial to our health, promoting #weight loss, improving #sleep and preventing #diabetes.  #Intermittent #fasting has been rapidly growing in popularity and encompasses everything from skipping one meal a day to fasting a few days a week, in contrast to this, #time-restricted eating  simply requires a person to consume all of their daily calories within a ten hour window.

#Mitochondria are the parts of cells that turn #sugars, #fats and #proteins into forms of chemical energy that the body can use to carry on living. They are #organelles that are found in the cells of every complex #organism and produce around 90% of the chemical energy required for cells to survive. They are the only organelles to retain their own genome and the communication abilities of transcription and translating in order to harvest energy. Their complex communication network allows them to stay in tune with #cellular needs and nuclear transcriptional programs and to alleviate mitochondrial dysfunction. Swiss cytologists have published a review of recent findings on the wide array of different mechanisms that contribute to these mitocellular communication networks.

With #anxiety one of the most prevalent mental health conditions in the UK and more than 45 million working days a year being lost due to it, finding effective, safe treatments is a priority for practitioners.  Whilst psychological therapies can be incredibly effective for patients living with anxiety, they can be very hard to gain access to. The predominant treatments prescribed in general practice are selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (#SSRIs), Serotonin and noradrenaline reuptake inhibitors (#SNRIs), #pregabalin and #benzodiazepines. Whilst beneficial in alleviating symptoms in many, these drugs come with side effects. #Lavender has traditionally been used for its calming benefits, recent research led by Davide Donelli from Careggi University Hospital, Florence, aimed to assess its efficacy, in any form of administration, on anxiety and anxiety related conditions. 

Unraveling the Truth About Antioxidants: ROS and disease: finding the right balance. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24999942

Antioxidant Therapies Address Common Underpinnings of These Chronic Conditions

There is not a day that goes by that healthcare practitioners don’t face challenges. Attending to many complex patients stacked back-to-back, communicating bad news to a patient, working with insurance to cover labs—most physicians encounter at least one of these, if not all three, each and every day. One of the additional challenges we face with complex patients is addressing a long list of diagnoses; as integrative providers, we often find ourselves trying to treat not just one, but often three or four health concerns in a single visit. With our broad education and tolle totum (treat the whole person) vision, it is difficult to avoid this tendency.

Fortunately, there are many nutritional therapies that address conditions we commonly see coexisting. Here, we look at factors in a set of conditions that commonly overlap: chronic fatigue syndrome, depression, and insomnia. More importantly, we discuss some shared solutions that will help the integrative practitioner support patients with these difficulties.

Common Underpinnings

https://science.sciencemag.org/content/360/6391/eaan5931

Research Suggests Bile Acids Have Potential as a Therapy for Dysbiosis, Constipation, and Inflammatory Bowel Disease

Generally, when we think of bile, we first think of the role it plays in digestion. Produced by the liver and expelled into the digestive tract by the gallbladder, bile is the substance that serves to emulsify and break down dietary fats so that they can be absorbed in the small intestine. Thus, supplemental bile acids with meals may be important for individuals post-cholecystectomy or with fat malabsorption for other reasons. However, the effects and potential therapeutic benefits of bile acids in the body go far beyond this.

In the digestive tract, bile acids also affect the balance of flora and gut motility.^[1],[2] Outside of the gut, they regulate many critical facets of physiology, including glucose and cholesterol metabolism; activating farnesoid X receptor (FXR), pregnane X receptor, the vitamin D receptor, and various G-protein-coupled receptors.[5] Evidence also suggests that bile acids affect neurological function, as well as the response of the hypothalamic–pituitary–adrenal axis.[6] Bile acids have even been suggested to be “novel therapeutic modalities in inflammation, obesity, and diabetes.”[7]

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1369527416301813

Passé? Or Something to Consider?

Nowadays, with any mention of digestive symptoms of constipation, diarrhoea, gas, or bloating, and a history of antibiotic or proton-pump inhibitor use, one of the first things most integrative healthcare practitioners will consider in the differential diagnosis list is gastrointestinal dysbiosis with testing for small intestinal bacterial overgrowth (SIBO).[1] SIBO has a lot of hype—and how can it not, with so many conferences, practitioners, and clinics focused on its treatment? Given that the lactulose breath test (LBT), commonly used for the diagnosis of SIBO, has a low sensitivity and frequently gives false-positive results (although sensitivity can be improved via three-hour methane and hydrogen testing), it can be overused for the ease of diagnosing, well, something.[2]^,[3]

The first retrospective cohort study of the #functional #medicine model has recently been published in the Journal of American Medical Association Network Open (#JAMA). The study saw researchers from the Cleveland Clinic’s Center for Functional Medicine examine 1,595 patients they had treated there, as well as 5,657 patients seen in primary care at a family health centre. All patients had their health-related quality of life (#QoL) assessed using a patient-reported outcomes measurement information system (#PROMIS). The National Institute of Health (#NIH) validated questionnaires, measured patients physical and mental health across a period of 12 months.

Preliminary research presented at the American Heart Association’s Scientific Sessions 2019 has shown that women who consume a higher proportion of their daily calorie intake in the evening had a greater risk of developing #cardiovascular disease. Previous studies have suggested that eating meals earlier in the day can aid weight loss, eating later may slow down #metabolism, and that later mealtimes can raise #inflammatory markers usually associated with #diabetes and #heart disease. This new research adds weight to the idea that eating more calories in the evening may negatively affect our health.

Whilst studies have previously been conducted on mice linking processed foods to #obesity and #intestinal #inflammation, human studies have been lacking. Associations have already been made regarding humans and the consumption of ultra-processed foods increasing the risks of developing obesity, #cancer, #autoimmune conditions and even premature mortality, human clinical trials have been needed to prove this link. Scientists from the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases in Bethesda, Maryland, have carried out the first study of this kind and the results showed a weight gain in as little as two weeks.