Zeitschrift fur Ernahrungswissenschaft最新文献

Primary school children's fruit consumption and attitudes, knowledge and preferences towards fruit were investigated using interview techniques in schools in England (Nottinghamshire) and Germany (North East) and analysed on the basis of culture, sex and social class. Children from both countries had strong positive attitudes to increase fruit consumption and differed little in their ability to correctly identify five fruits (including tropical fruits). Fruit preferences also showed many similarities with more than 95% of children from both Germany and England choosing apples as fruits they liked, followed closely by strawberries, oranges, pears, grapes, and bananas. Fruit consumption by German children was, however, higher than English children both at breakfast and during the school break. Strategies for increasing fruit consumption in English children are discussed in relation to the findings obtained.

Nutritional status of men, aged 50, which is considered as a high risk group for noncommunicable heart diseases was investigated. The study showed that the chemical composition of diet could be considered as a risk factor for cardiovascular diseases. This diet is too rich in simple sugars and fats, especially of animal origin, and poor in complex sugars and antioxidants.

Somatostatin and its receptors are widely distributed in the central nervous system and peripheral tissues including those of the gastrointestinal tract (GI tract). The expression patterns of the five known SSTR genes have been analysed in detail by reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction amplifications and in situ hybridizations using tissues dissected from different parts of rat stomach and gut. While SSTR1 mRNA is present at relatively high amounts throughout the gastrointestinal tract, the levels of SSTR2, 3 and 4 mRNAs vary in different regions and SSTR5 mRNA has not been detected. In situ hybridizations revealed the presence of SSTR3 mRNA in enterocytes and in neurons of the myenteric and submucous plexus. These findings are consistent with a role of SSTR3 in the observed somatostatin-mediated inhibition of acetylcholine release from myenteric neurons and of secretomotor neuron activity in the submucous plexus. Sequence analyses of the SSTR1 gene promoter revealed the absence of the canonical TATA and CAAT motifs and the presence of a variety of potential binding sites for transcriptional regulators. Among these are binding sites for GCF, AP-2, AP-4, response elements for somatostatin (SOM-RE), epidermal growth factor (EGF-RE) and cytocines (GAS and NFIL) as well as for tissue-specific factors such as Pit-1 (pituitary) and IDX-1 (pancreatic cells). Mobility shift assays have confirmed that nuclear proteins of pancreatic RIN1046-38 and pituitary GH3 tumour cells bind to oligonucleotides containing the overlapping Pit-1 and IDX-1 binding sites. Thus, the Pit-1/IDX-1 sites may be critical for the activation of the SSTR1 gene in these cell-types.

Severe Mg deficiency changed mineral homeostasis, induced membrane damage, increased lipid peroxidation and cytokine concentrations, and reduced immunocompetence. In order to investigate whether the pathobiochemical effects correlate directly with the degree of Mg deficiency or whether there might be a threshold with no detectable effects above, diets with 70, 110, 208, 330 and 850 ppm Mg were fed to growing Wistar rats. After feeding the diets for 0, 10, 20 and 30 days parameters of free radical action (malondialdehyde and vitamin E content), mineral content (Mg, Ca, Fe) in various tissues (liver, spleen, heart, kidney, muscle) and plasma parameters (Mg, Ca, Fe, alanine- and aspartate-aminotransferase) were measured. After 30 days 6-keto-prostaglandin F1 alpha, thromboxane B2, tumor necrosis factor-alpha, and immunoglobulins (IgG, IgM, IgA) were additionally analyzed. Tissue Mg content was either unchanged or only slightly reduced in severe Mg deficiency. Tissue Fe content rose when the extracellular Mg concentration was below 0.25 mM. There was a close positive correlation between tissue Fe and malondialdehyde content, and malondialdehyde was negatively correlated with vitamin E content. Below a threshold of about 0.25 mM plasma Mg concentration, transaminases increased in plasma. The same threshold could be observed for the increase of tissue Ca content, except in the kidney where calcifications were found already in mild Mg deficiency. Tumor necrosis factor-alpha and 6-keto-prostaglandin F1 alpha were increased when the plasma Mg concentration was below 0.15 mM, and thromboxane B2 was increased when plasma was lower than 0.25 mM. IgG and IgA were significantly reduced below 0.25 mM plasma Mg and IgM below 0.4 mM plasma Mg. Mild Mg deficiency, therefore, can be compensated and might not lead to pathological symptoms if not combined with other pathobiological conditions.

Diet-induced increases in fecal excretion of secondary bile acids (deoxy- and lithocholic acid) and certain neutral sterols (4-cholesten-3-one and 5a-cholestan-3-one) play a role in colon cancer development, whereas dietary fish oil (FO) has been implicated as a protective agent. In the present study the effects of FO and corn oil (CO) on these fecal parameters were investigated in 12 healthy volunteers consuming a low fat (30% of energy) controlled basal diet. After 4 weeks of FO supplementation (4.4 g omega-3 fatty acids/day), daily excretion of lithocholic acid showed a trend to lower values compared to CO consumption (p = 0.2), whereas other bile acids were not different during both study periods. Daily excretion of the putative colon carcinogen 4-cholesten-3-one was significantly lower in the FO compared to the CO period. This may be another biochemical mechanism by which FO exerts its protective effect on colon cancer development.

Infection, inflammation and trauma induce marked changes in the plasma levels of a wide variety of proteins (acute phase response), and these changes are mediated by cytokines. The acute phase response is thought to be beneficial to the host. The host's response to injury also results in dramatic alterations in lipid metabolism and circulating lipoprotein levels which are mediated by cytokines. A large number of cytokines including TNF, the interleukins, and the interferons increase serum triglyceride levels. This rapid increase (1-2 h) is predominantly due to an increase in hepatic VLDL secretion while the late increase may be due to a variety of factors including increased hepatic production of VLDL or delayed clearance secondary to a decrease in lipoprotein lipase activity and/or apolipoprotein E levels on VLDL. In animals other than primates, cytokines also increase serum cholesterol levels, most likely by increasing hepatic cholesterol. Cytokines increase hepatic cholesterol synthesis by stimulating HMG CoA reductase gene expression and decrease hepatic cholesterol catabolism by inhibiting cholesterol 7 alpha-hydroxylase, the key enzyme in bile acid synthesis. Injury and/or cytokines also decrease HDL cholesterol levels and induce alterations in the composition of HDL. The content of SAA and apolipoprotein J increase, apolipoprotein A1 may decrease, and the cholesterol ester content decreases while free cholesterol increases. Additionally, key proteins involved in HDL metabolism are altered by cytokines; LCAT activity, hepatic lipase activity, and CETP levels decrease. These changes in lipid and lipoprotein metabolism may be beneficial in a number of ways including: lipoproteins competing with viruses for cellular receptors, apolipoproteins neutralizing viruses, lipoproteins binding and targeting parasites for destruction, apolipoproteins lysing parasites, redistribution of nutrients to cells involved in the immune response and/or tissue repair, and lipoproteins binding toxic agents and neutralizing their harmful effects. Thus, cytokines induce marked changes in lipid metabolism that lead to hyperlipidemia which represents part of the innate immune response and may be beneficial to the host.

Routine determinations of glutathione peroxidases (GPx) still suffer from poor standardization and usually from lack of specification. The different types of glutathione peroxidases present in cellular homogenates may be differentially estimated by their distinct substrate specificities. Complex lipid hydroperoxides required for this approach, however, are not generally available nor easily standardized due to their molecular heterogeneity and tendency to form micelles. We therefore developed a simple procedure for the differential estimation of the major cellular types of GPx, the cytosolic GPx (cGPx) and the phospholipid hydroperoxide glutathione peroxidase (PHGPx) taking advantage of the peculiar susceptibility of PHGPx to deoxycholate. It proved to reliably determine the activities of both purified cGPx and PHGPx, in mixtures thereof, and in homogenates of tissue samples (e.g., testes), and some (e.g. ECV 304) but not all (e.g. THP-1) cultured cell lines. The method allows the differential estimation of cGPx and PHGPx, if the samples do not contain further types of GPx.

Phenylketonurics display lower arachidonic acid levels in plasma lipids, reflecting the lower intake due to the dietary treatment poor in phenylalanine-rich animal foods. Plasma arachidonic acid levels and serum thromboxane B2 concentrations have been measured in 13 treated phenylketonuric children and compared with those of 12 healthy controls. A direct relationship between plasma arachidonic acid and thromboxane B2 concentrations has been observed only in phenylketonurics, whose plasma arachidonic acid status correlated negatively with their dietary compliance. These results suggest that the low consumption of animal fats may contribute to modulate the production of arachidonic acid-derived platelet eicosanoids.

Brown adipose tissue (BAT) has been proposed to play an important role in the regulation of energy balance. The unique presence of uncoupling protein (UCP) permits BAT to expend calories unrelated to the performance of work with the net result being the generation of heat. The role of BAT in mediating diet-induced thermogenesis had led to the suggestion that BAT activity contributes to metabolic inefficiency and, as such, might provide a cellular and molecular explanation for protection from obesity. In order to directly test this hypothesis, we recently created mice with isolated BAT deficiency by using a suicide DNA transgenic vector in which regulatory elements of the UCP gene were used to drive brown fat specific expression of diptheria toxin A-chain (DTA). Transgenic mice are characterized by reduced energy expenditure and marked obesity, associated with insulin resistance and NIDDM with both receptor and post-receptor components. Feeding of a "Western diet" which derives 41% of its calories from fat leads to a synergistic effect on the development of obesity and its accompanying disorders in transgenics. The results of our studies support a critical role for BAT in the nutritional homeostasis of mice and suggest that the intact thermogenic function of BAT is required for protection from diet induced obesity. Obese UCP-DTA mice have many features in common with obesity as it appears in most humans, and should therefore be a useful model that may aid studies of the pathogenesis and treatment of human obesity, NIDDM and their complications.

Urea and plasma protein differ in natural 15N abundance up to 10%. The origin of this difference is the branched nitrogen metabolism in the liver. One main branch is the protein synthesis pathway, the other the urea synthesis pathway. By this branching 15N of precursor amino acids is depleted in urea while it is enriched in protein. With the 15N abundance of precursor amino acids, which may be taken from jejunum tissue, utilization of amino acids in liver metabolism can be calculated from isotope discrimination in either pathway. This was investigated by feeding different proteins to rats. When feeding high quality protein (whey protein) utilization of amino acids in liver metabolism at requirement intake was better than at zero protein intake (> 85% vs. 70%). From this we conclude that the pattern of amino acids available from the metabolic pool at zero protein intake is characterized by an imbalance. This endogenous imbalance can be complemented by exogenous dietary amino acids so that nitrogen excretion may even be smaller than the so-called "obligatory" losses of intakes not exceeding requirement. Thus, the quality of dietary protein is reflected not only by N balance. It also may be quantified by analysis of isotope discrimination in nitrogen metabolism of the liver. In addition, the quality of amino acid pattern available from the metabolic pool is indicated by this method.