Adventure Ausrama Blog

Genetics: Identification of the genome of the carrot has just been complete by researchers. Though the carrot is a mundane vegetable it is important for a rounded, varied diet. Haven't you heard that carrots are good for your eyesight - I bet you have never seen a rabbit wearing glasses have you? Ah well, a little less of the frivolity! Scientists sequenced the genome of the humble carrot only a week ago. Increasing the level of nutrients in the vegetable is the prime objective. Vitamin A is present in high levels naturally. This does benefit one's eyes. Side issues include disease resistant and greater yields. This does directly improve life for farmers. Overall ,consumers get a better product at a lower price. Ironically, vegetables have more genes than humans: 32,000 compared to 20,000. It seems that Man is nothing special after all. Plants are more complex than us. Carrots are probably more useful than people to the planet - they don't destroy it. ...

The hope of genetic treatment may be scuttled as it is becoming known that we have good and bad genes but their behavior depends on whether they are turned on or off. Apparently this changes throughout the day let alone over the years. A new endeavor to study diabetes and diet could also be a waste of time. Even sufferers know that diabetes type 2 is caused by eating the wrong food. However, few people will change their lifestyle. A genetic predisposition could add to this. Yet, with the number of medications taken today the link between long term prescription use, genetics and food is a hard nut to crack. Including a third factor makes understanding the issue much more difficult. As always, research will be done on mice for the genetic/food duo. Unfortunately, mice may be mammals, but they ain't human. Finding a cure for diabetes 2 is way down the track. Scientists will be messing around in the lab collecting data on mice for at least 10 years. ◆ Genetics ...

Human diet today is absolutely unnatural. It is not what we evolved to eat over millions of years. A drastic change occurred 10,000 years ago when we decided to eat grass seeds: flour is just that! Cows are "made" to eat this but people are not. The amount of carbohydrates we consume is at least 100 times more than that in tubers, berries and meat, our normal foods. It is no wonder that bringing stomach flora back into balance by taking probiotics is having a positive effect on health. Diseases such a Crohn's Disease are common today, a consequence of eating the wrong foods from birth. Probiotics miraculously reduce stomach ache, a symptom of this painful illness. If probiotics are combined with a gluten free regimen the results are even better. Wheat is high in gluten. Celiac disease is four time higher now that in the 1950s. It continues to rise as the third world adopts the Western diet. Carbohydrate give us energy, but it is also toxic to the h...

The big debate - has Man evolved to eat anything? Of course, eating everything is a huge claim. Human beings have only lived in large groups for 10,000 years. Is this time enough to evolve to eat processed foods? Personally, I would say no. Even scientists who claim this are misguided. They are believing their own propaganda. Evolutionary biologist Marlene Zuk says evolution over the last few thousand years has allowed us to digest milk. Don't be fooled by the expertise claimed by this scientist. It should be remembered that many people especially Asians still cannot consume milk without becoming sick. This evolutionary "benefit" is not yet complete. She also says that the hunter-gatherer diet is not known. This is wrong. A great deal is known about the diet of primitive Man. Study of isolated African tribes shows that women collected tubers and berries while men brought home meat every few days. This did not change for hundreds of thousands of years. ...

A revolutionary diet pill has been developed by US and Chinese scientists. However, there is no hope for men - it only works on women. The critical ingredient in the pill comes from the South American primula tree. It works very will indeed on mice. Let us hope trials on humans are just as successful. Apparently, women will be able to eat with impunity and the calories will still be burnt off. Side effects are not known at present. Some promising products in the past had issues.   Chronic diarrhoea was the major problem . The primula molecule mimics the effects of exercise which produces BDNF (brain-derived neurotrophic factor). Some diseases such as Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s, and Huntingdon’s could also probably be treated with the new molecule as BDNF is low in sufferers. Though the pill works effectively on females, for males it is toxic. Male mice got even fatter and became diabetic. If the new molecule is used to treat diseases in men, maybe they will have to put up with weig...

Some scientists are condemning the "Hunter Gatherer" diet. The academics say that the consumption of carbohydrates that comes mainly from "grass" seeds, namely, wheat is normal for humans. This is absolutely incorrect. People only stopped wandering and took up crop farming 10,000 years ago. We have not had time to genetically adapt. Obesity is definitely caused by a high intake of flour from cereal and abnormal consumption of white sugar, particularly by children. Look at schoolchildren today. There isn't a skinny one amongst them. The girls have huge thighs and hardly any waist. The mind boggles just thinking about what their body weight will be when they reach their mid thirties. Only the very old today resemble people seen in the old black and white movies. Before the Second World War, people were very skinny. Mind you they did do a lot of manual labor, many working 12 hour days. If you burn a high amount of calories you can eat what you wa...

It is amazing how little we know about supposedly common animals, ones that are easily seen and in contact with us. Rabbits were thought to be the main diet for the wedge-tailed eagle. However, the bird consumes other things as well. It should be noted that rabbits were introduced and the eagle must have have relied on other prey before the nuisance animal arrived. When viral haemorrhagic disease (VHD) wiped out the rabbit population the wedge-tailed eagle actually fared better. Castings, the vomit of eagles, showed that their diet consisted of 20 bird species, seven reptiles, 19 mammals and a crustacean. Some mammals they ate were large such as the eastern grey kangaroo. The common Galah was a native bird high on the diet. Rabbits are easy to catch when they are plentiful. A fall in rabbit numbers pushed them back to their traditional food sources. Despite the move, native animals have survived. Nature seems to be in balance. ✴ Conservation by Ty Buchanan ✴ h...

Being overweight leads to heart disease but it can also cause osteoporosis. This is due to people cutting out vital elements in the diet in their attempts to lose weight. Dairy products are essential for strong bones. Yet milk, butter and cheese are precisely what it being disregarded in diet by 30 per cent of women. Another danger is the consumption of bread. An astounding 40 per cent of women have stopped eating this food that is calcium fortified.  It must be remembered though that bread has only been part of the human diet for 10,000 years.  It could be the cause of many humans "diseases". Research has shown that the real cause of weight gain is carbohydrates. Yes, it's as simple as that. People who only cut out sugar lose weight very quickly and maintain a low body weight thereafter. People concentrate on eating low fat diets even though research shows this to be the wrong thing to do. Look at movies made up to WWII. Actors and actresses and especially the extras ...

Many people have a guilt complex about Christmas. It is a time to eat to excess. Overeaters plan to suffer later to rip away the pounds gained by Christmas. Unfortunately, future suffering from fasting and exercise won't work. Perhaps people do it to reduce the guilt while knowing that weight reduction will only be temporary. Detox diets are really myths. They can harm your body damaging the liver. Eating a lot doesn't necessarily build up toxins anyway. One's weight is genetically determined. If you reduce what you generally eat your body will slow the metabolism making weight loss more difficult. Ironically, eating less will increase your appetite as the body feels you need to go up to your determined weight level. The best you can hope for is to change the balance of fat and muscle while accepting that your overall weight will not change. Cut out the carbs and eat more vegetables, fruit and lean meat. The real problem today is not really food intake. It is ...

We are consuming sugar in increasingly greater amounts as more of it is being added to processed food. Some blame the obesity epidemic on sugar intake alone because people on high-fat, low-carb diets lose weight. There is an unclear link between high sugar intake on levels of heart disease and diabetes. Whether high-carb causes cancer is even less clear. Half of table sugar is fructose which causes fat to build up on the liver. The liver is put out of balance so the body's insulin level is raised. More palmate is also created by the liver which leads to heart disease. Hypertension is believed to increase breast cancer and cancer of the colon. The combination of high blood sugar, excess body fat and high blood pressure in a patient is called metabolic syndrome. Sufferers ultimately get very sick. Mankind in the natural state has relied on tubers, fruit, meat and fish for sustenance. Sugar is a new substance and human beings do not have natural resistance to cope with it...

People get fat because it is normal. Our ancestors had to go out and find food so they burnt up a lot of energy. It is modern society that is making us fat. Food is readily available, at arm's reach. Our bodies are preparing for the hard times that would inevitably happen in centuries past. Being able to put fat on the body was a key to survival. That is why many dieters today are on a see-saw round of weight loss and weight gain. It is due to our hormones. When the body loses reserves hormones tell us to eat more. If you want to be slim you will have to put up with constant hunger. Work at the University of Melbourne has shown that hormone levels are indeed higher after people go on a ten week diet. It remains high up to a year later even though the dieting stopped nine months earlier. There is hope. New products are coming onto the market that swell up in the stomach thus stopping the craving for food. Whether these are safe is another issue. They do offer money bac...

It would be ideal if obesity could be treated by taking something, instead of drastic dieting. A possible solution has been found in molasses. This sweet substance is rich in polyphenols, antioxidants that seem to change the consequences of a high-fat diet. For 12 weeks mice were given a high-fat diet supplemented with up to 4 per cent molasses extract. The mice lost weight. This was believed to be caused by the molasses reducing caloric absorption. Fat cells make the hormone leptin. This hormone was reduced in the blood. Next year work will be done on humans to see if results are the same. Molasses are inexpensive and capsules could easily be produced. It would be a great leap forward if a simple "cure" like this is effective. http://www.adventure--australia.blogspot.com/ http://www.tysaustralia.blogspot.com/ http://www.feeds.feedburner.com/AdventureAustralia http://www.technorati.com/blogs/ http://adventure--australia.blogspot.com . . . . . . . . . . . . ...

For many years it was believed that pork was fatty and if eaten regularly would lead to weight gain. A new study has shown the opposite to be true. Overweight people were split into two groups. One group was given 1050g of lean pork each week. The other group was provided with 750g a week. Even with this little difference in pork intake, after six months there was a noticeable change in the high-intake group. Those eating more pork actually lost fat from their abdomens. Waists were narrower. Body composition improved over the whole body. So weight can be lost without dieting if you eat more pork. A further benefit from eating more pork is the high thiamine level. Many overweight people have type 2 diabetes which can lead to thiamine deficiency. Tests are now being done with chicken and beef to compare with pork. It could be that the high-protein diet due to eating the pork was beneficial. Maybe similar results in regard to weight loss will eventuate from eating more chicken...