Malnutrition

Malnutrition, inflammation impact cardiovascular events in patients on hemodialysis

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A newly developed malnutrition-inflammation complex syndrome score revealed an association between a high score and increased risks of bone-cardiovascular axis disorders in patients receiving maintenance hemodialysis.

“Literature review suggests that both chronic inflammation and malnutrition are associated with the increased risks of morbidities. However, it remains unknown whether bone-cardiovascular axis is disordered in patients receiving maintenance hemodialysis,” Toshiaki Nakano, MD, PhD, from the department of medicine and clinical science, graduate school of medical sciences at Kyushu University in Japan, and colleagues wrote. “In the present study, we demonstrated for the first time the overall impact of malnutrition and inflammation on the derangement in the bone-cardiovascular axis, by developing a new score for malnutrition-inflammation complex syndrome (MICS) and analyzing the association between the MICS score and the risk of bone fractures, CVD events and the composite outcome in patients receiving maintenance hemodialysis.”

kidney with heart

In a prospective, multicenter, observational cohort study, researchers evaluated 3,030 Japanese patients (median age was 64.4 years; 59.2% were men) receiving hemodialysis registered in the Q-Cohort Study.

Using a new nutrition and inflammation scoring system that measured age, serum levels of creatinine, albumin, C-reactive protein and BMI, researchers determined the correlation between each patient’s score and risk of bone fractures and cardiovascular events. The scoring system was developed with the bootstrapping technique, risk prediction rule and multivariable-adjusted Cox proportional hazard model for all-cause mortality.

A total of 140 patients experienced bone fractures and 539 patients developed cardiovascular events by the 4-year follow-up. The median MICS score was 196 and models revealed a higher MICS score was associated with risks of bone fractures, the composite outcome and cardiovascular disease events in patients receiving hemodialysis.

According to the researchers, limitations of the study included a one-time measurement of the parameters used to create the MICS score.

“In conclusion, we developed an objective score reflecting the concept of MICS in patients receiving hemodialysis and showed that malnutrition and inflammatory status determined by the MICS score was strongly associated with increased risks of bone fractures, CVD events, and the composite outcome in patients undergoing hemodialysis,” Nakano and colleagues wrote. “Further studies are necessary to determine whether interventions for malnutrition and inflammation can decrease the incidence of events related to the deterioration of the bone-cardiovascular axis in patients receiving hemodialysis.”

Malnutrition and death is Yemen.

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Child malnutrition at ‘all-time high’ in Yemen, UNICEF claims in alarming report
Salem Abdullah Musabih, 6, is held by his mother as she sits on a bed at a malnutrition intensive care unit at a hospital in the Red Sea port city of Hodaida, Yemen.
Nearly 2.2 million Yemeni children are in need of urgent aid, as malnutrition is at an “all-time high,” a UNICEF report claims. The figures represent a 200 percent increase from 2014, with severe acute malnutrition affecting 462,000 children.

Physically severe acute malnutrition (SAM) is manifested in grotesquely slim bodies and stunted growth, as is the case in Sa’ada governorate in the northwest, which has the world’s highest stunting rates, according to Monday’s document – eight out of 10 children.

It is joined by four other governorates, all experiencing alarming rates of SAM.

Another 1.7 million children suffer from moderate acute malnutrition.

The report estimates that one child dies every 10 minutes from preventable diseases ranging from diarrhea to respiratory tract infections, as well as malnutrition itself.

“Malnutrition in Yemen is at an all-time high and increasing,” UNICEF Acting Representative in Yemen, Dr. Meritxell Relano, said. “The state of health of children in the Middle East’s poorest country has never been as catastrophic as it is today.”

Yemenis ‘slowly starving’ to death as world ‘turns blind eye’ – aid charityA nurse feeds a malnourished child at a malnutrition treatment centre in the northwestern city of Saada, Yemen © Naif Rahma

“Violence and conflict have reversed significant gains made in the last decade in the health and nutrition of Yemeni children. Diseases such as cholera and measles have spread and, with few health facilities functional, such outbreaks are taking a heavy toll on children.”

Relano was referring to the progress achieved under UNICEF in 2016, when around four million children under five and suffering from SAM were supplemented with life-saving vitamins and food. Funding for the projects has, however, been scant.

Her words come on the heels of an Oxfam report, warning that Yemenis are at risk of running out of food by April – which will mark two years since the start of the current conflict in what is considered to be the poorest country in the Middle East.

On the same day, HRW released a report suggesting the United States may be complicit in the suffering, with numerous other UN reports documenting the worsening situation.

Saudi Arabia began bombing the country in support of exiled president Abdrabbuh Mansour Hadi at the end of March 2015, after Houthi rebels loyal to former president Ali Abdullah Saleh, backed by Iran, took over the capital of Sanaa.

“We call on parties to the conflict to give us unhindered access to children in need across the country so we are able to deliver nutrition supplies, treat malnourished children and support Yemen’s health services,” Relano adds, as UNICEF continues to make impassioned pleas for additional funding – $70 million for 2017 on care for mothers and children.

Accessibility remains problematic, as NGOs and aid agencies cannot reach people trapped in high-risk zones.

Malnutrition and mental illness: Why a healthy diet is crucial for protecting your child’s brain function

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Line up at the nearest Pizza Hut food buffet or McDonald’s trough and look around. While we are eating more than ever, we are starving like never before. Our blood, tissues, organs and every cell in our body is starving for nutrition.

Malnutrition

White bread, made from bleached white flour, is literally stripped of its nutrition, and it’s a huge part of the Western diet. Pizza crust, donuts, bread rolls, biscuits and baked goods, are all edible foods, but they do not deliver nutrition to the body, leaving people bloated but starving. These refined carbohydrates are quickly converted to sugars in the blood, elevating blood sugar levels and then leaving people depleted of energy, fatigued.

Refined sugars are also a nutrient-void staple in the modern Western diet. Refined sugars have been stripped of their vitamins and minerals, leaving behind a substance that cannot be utilized or metabolized by the body. Refined sugars, found in sodas, sweet teas, juices, etc. are basically “empty” calories that act as poison, leaching nutrients from the bones.

How does the depletion of B-vitamins, magnesium, zinc, chromium and selenium from our soil, our foods and our bodies ultimately weaken our ability to think and make rational decisions?

How can the brain function at all if refined sugars and breads are the main ingredients being consumed day-to-day? How does the brain (which is 70 percent fat), function if healthy fats are not present in the diet? Avocados, almonds, pumpkin seeds and the omega-3 fatty acids from chia, flax, hemp, walnuts and wild fish are all important for people who want to think and communicate clearly.

Why aren’t we reaching our hands back into the medicine cabinet of nature to bring back our clarity of thought, concentration and sharpness of memory? Have you ever considered extracting the properties of passionflower, brahmi, Siberian ginseng, ginkgo biloba, maca root, or ashwagandha to obtain their mind-enhancing virtues?

Starving for nutrition: Children with chronic physical and mental problems not getting the nutrition their bodies deserve

As children grow up in first world nations without these important nutrients, fatty acids and complete plant medicines, they become malnourished, constantly sick, sleepless, nervous and irritable. The Australian Child Wellbeing Project (ACWP) now finds that one-in-six Australian children between 8 and 14 years old goes to school and to bed hungry. This increasing subset of malnourished children is also having the greatest problems with headaches, irritability, stomachaches, low energy and sleeplessness. Malnourished Australian children are three times more likely to report two or more of these health issues every week.

It is not normal for kids to routinely experience chronic health issues such as these, but these symptoms are becoming the new norm in developed nations. As children become disconnected from the nutrition in their food, their entire organ systems become suppressed, not operating at their full potential. This suppression ultimately affects children’s ability to learn, behave, think, cooperate and express healthy emotions.

In this survey, malnourished American children from low income families were more likely to suffer from emotional, behavioral and academic problems, when compared to children from low income families who were fed nutritious whole foods. Starved children had the highest levels of aggression and anxiety.

In this American study, childhood hunger was correlated with anxiety and depression. What’s even sadder, is that when malnourished children are diagnosed with depression and anxiety, the root of the problem often goes unaddressed. Psychiatrists may intervene with psychiatric drugs which can elicit violent (sometimes suicidal), side effects.

Nutrient deficiencies can hurt a child’s brain function. For example, iodine deficiency can quickly cause mental retardation. Supplementation with kelp could quickly remedy this deficiency. Depressed states of mind have been linked to low folate levels. Oftentimes parents and educators respond to a child’s behavioral problems with discipline, but all along, the child may simply be trying to cope with nutrient deficiencies. A Bombay study found a correlation between undernourishment of children and lowered IQ, and a ghastly 60 percent rate of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder.

Other studies have shown that vitamin and mineral supplementation programs reduce repeat violent behavior of juvenile offenders by 40 percent. In school-aged children, anti-social behaviors were reduced 47 percent when children were given more nutrient-dense foods to eat.

Learn more: http://www.naturalnews.com/053201_malnutrition_junk_food_diet_children.html#ixzz42CWWh3qP

Scientists identify brain molecule that triggers schizophrenia-like behaviors, brain changes

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Scientists at The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI) have identified a molecule in the brain that triggers schizophrenia-like behaviors, brain changes and global gene expression in an animal model. The research gives scientists new tools for someday preventing or treating psychiatric disorders such as schizophrenia, bipolar disorder and autism.

“This new model speaks to how schizophrenia could arise before birth and identifies possible novel drug targets,” said Jerold Chun, a professor and member of the Dorris Neuroscience Center at TSRI who was senior author of the new study.

The findings were published April 7, 2014, in the journal Translational Psychiatry.

What Causes Schizophrenia?

According to the World Health Organization, more than 21 million people worldwide suffer from schizophrenia, a severe psychiatric disorder that can cause delusions and hallucinations and lead to increased risk of suicide.

Although psychiatric disorders have a genetic component, it is known that environmental factors also contribute to disease risk. There is an especially strong link between psychiatric disorders and complications during gestation or birth, such as prenatal bleeding, low oxygen or malnutrition of the mother during pregnancy.

In the new study, the researchers studied one particular known risk factor: bleeding in the brain, called fetal cerebral hemorrhage, which can occur in utero and in premature babies and can be detected via ultrasound.

In particular, the researchers wanted to examine the role of a lipid called lysophosphatidic acid (LPA), which is produced during hemorrhaging. Previous studies had linked increased LPA signaling to alterations in architecture of the fetal brain and the initiation of hydrocephalus (an accumulation of brain fluid that distorts the brain). Both types of events can also increase the risk of psychiatric disorders.

“LPA may be the common factor,” said Beth Thomas, an associate professor at TSRI and co-author of the new study.

Mouse Models Show Symptoms

To test this theory, the research team designed an experiment to see if increased LPA signaling led to schizophrenia-like symptoms in animal models.

Hope Mirendil, an alumna of the TSRI graduate program and first author of the new study, spearheaded the effort to develop the first-ever animal model of fetal cerebral hemorrhage. In a clever experimental paradigm, fetal mice received an injection of a non-reactive saline solution, blood serum (which naturally contains LPA in addition to other molecules) or pure LPA.

  • Ten weeks after the mice were born, they were tested for schizophrenia-like symptoms. The researchers found that female mice given LPA-containing serum or LPA alone displayed hyperactivity upon stimulation, showed anxiety and had increased numbers of dopamine-producing neurons—all which are characteristic of schizophrenia and other psychiatric disorders.

The real litmus test to show if these symptoms were specific to psychiatric disorders, according to Mirendil, was “prepulse inhibition test,” which measures the “startle” response to loud noises. Most mice—and humans—startle when they hear a loud noise. However, if a softer noise (known as a prepulse) is played before the loud tone, mice and humans are “primed” and startle less at the second, louder noise. Yet mice and humans with symptoms of schizophrenia startle just as much at loud noises even with a prepulse, perhaps because they lack the ability to filter sensory information.

Indeed, the female mice injected with serum or LPA alone startled regardless of whether a prepulse was placed before the loud tone.

Next, the researchers analyzed brain changes, revealing schizophrenia-like changes in neurotransmitter-expressing cells. Global gene expression studies found that the LPA-treated mice shared many similar molecular markers as those found in humans with schizophrenia. To further test the role of LPA, the researchers used a molecule to block only LPA signaling in the brain.

This treatment prevented schizophrenia-like symptoms.

Implications for Human Health

This research provides new insights, but also new questions, into the developmental origins of psychiatric disorders.

For example, the researchers only saw symptoms in female mice. Could schizophrenia be triggered by different factors in men and women as well?

“Hopefully this animal model can be further explored to tease out potential differences in the pathological triggers that lead to disease symptoms in males versus females,” said Thomas.

In addition to Chun, Thomas and Mirendil, authors of the study, “LPA signaling initiates schizophrenia-like brain and behavioral changes in a mouse model of prenatal brain hemorrhage,” were Candy De Loera of TSRI; and Kinya Okada and Yuji Inomata of the Mitsubishi Tanabe Pharma Corporation.

Changing how food aid is allocated ‘may save more lives’.

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Malawi_Food_Aid_Flickr_Peter_Casier_140x140International development agencies may be able to save the lives of a greater number ofundernourished children by changing how they allocate food aid in developing countries, suggests a study published today (4 March) inProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Instead of allocating food based solely on weight-for-height measurements, as is currently recommended, making use of additional ‘height-for-age’ data reduced the effects of malnutrition by nine per cent in the study.

Also, the same end results in alleviating malnutrition were achieved with the new method as with the current one but with a 61 per cent cut in the cost of providing ready-to-use therapeutic and supplementary food, the study found.

The findings are based on mathematical modelling using data from more than 5,600 children from Bwamanda in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

The study also proposes that when making crucial food allocation decisions, aid agencies should prioritise those children most in need — even if it means that others go without.

Lawrence M. Wein, professor of management science at Stanford University, United States, and the corresponding author of the study, says one of the main results is that “relative to the currently used policies, incorporating height-for-age information into the allocation decision improves performance — that is, it saves lives”.

The other key finding is that “the optimal policy is an ‘all-or-nothing’ policy where the most at-risk children receive 500 kilocalories per day and the other children receive nothing,” he says.

But because of the limited scope of the study, the authors do not make specific policy recommendations.

They call for more data that can be used to inform such pressing allocation decisions, and also highlight the scarcity of useful data on the effect of food-based treatment.

“Without better data, policymakers will continue to make these important allocation decisions in the face of very limited information,” says Wein.

However, paediatrician Patricia Wolff, executive director of US-based food aid organisation Meds & Food for Kids, argues that height-for-age is a measure of chronic rather than acute malnutrition.

“Being stunted is not related to acute risk of death, although over a lifetime a stunted person will be less healthy than a non-stunted person,” she says.

“I don’t agree that, in resource-poor environments, this stunted group has an equivalent risk-benefit ratio to those children who are low on the weight-for-height graph,” she adds.

Although wary of the benefits of including height-for-age data in food allocation decisions, Wolff admits that the proposed ‘all-or-nothing’ approach could save more lives.

“If you mean by an ‘all-or-nothing’ policy that you give the appropriate treatment resources to the sickest children first and then look around to see if you can find more resources, then I agree. First, you save lives. Second, you optimise health,” she says.

Source: SciVx