Yeast Reasearch

Today I read a very interesting article. It was a new research study performed on yeast. Studies have found stress has an effect on telomere shortening, which causes cell death and aging. They found with a particular yeast, one slightly genetically similar to the human genome, that caffeine shortens their cell’s telomeres and alcohol lengthens them.

            When the researchers put the yeast under stressful conditions by changing PH levels and whatnot, they didn’t find any shortening of the telomere. Usually in past studies, putting cells in a stressful environment caused the telomeres to shorten. They continued to performed studies and found there are approximately 400 genes working together that maintain telomere length.

            Findings of this study may be helpful in finding treatments for aging and cancer by finding yeast receptors behavior. However, there is a lot of research that still needs to be done. This isn’t set in stone evidence to whether coffee or alcohol is good or bad. I just found this supper interesting based on past studies I have heard and read.    

Eggs and Cancer

The thought of eggs may remind someone of breakfast, muscle builders, or maybe increase in cholesterol. Has it ever crossed your mind that eggs can cause an increase in cancer progression? I certainly wasn’t aware of that until I read an article by Michael Greger M.D. He explained how it’s the choline in the egg that is causing the problem. Choline makes the production of a TMAO compound which is toxic.

            Harvard conducted a study with men with prostate cancer. They had a group of over a thousand men and analyzed their diet over a few years, looking to see if their diet increased the resurgence of cancer. They found the men that consumed more eggs had an increased risk of the resurgence of the prostate cancer. According to the article, consuming the eggs “doubled the risk of cancer progression.” The Harvard study concluded the choline caused an increase of inflammation. I am not exactly sure what effect an increase of inflammation causes on cancer. I need to research more in on that.

            Choline is also in other foods such as poultry which is actually worse than eggs. There were also milk, liver, and fish. I do not know how much Choline they contain.

            I find this new research very interesting; however, I think there should be more research conducted on this topic.

Coffee

           Coffee is considered essential to some people’s morning. I for one have coffee almost every school morning. So I do wonder, is it good for me to have coffee almost every morning? There have been several studies done, but there isn’t a set in stone agreement whether or not coffee is good for you.

In this article, John Berardi talks about the different effects coffee has. One negative effect everyone will agree with is the withdrawal coffee will leave a person if they suddenly stop drinking coffee after been consuming coffee on a regular basis. I will also say, coffee shouldn’t make you gain weight-unless you drink coffee with lots of creams and sugar. According to Berardi, coffee can either be a “medicine” or a “poison” for coffee drinkers.

            Considering heart disease, the effects coffee has depends on whether your body has the fast CYP1A2 gene or the slow CYP1A2 gene. Basically what this gene does is eliminate caffeine from the bloodstream; quickly or slowly-depending on the gene. Having the fast gene leads to a decrease in heart disease. Sadly, having the slow gene increases the risk of heart disease.

            Depending on your genetic make-up, coffee could be good or bad for you. It affects everyone differently based on your genetic make-up. Coffee may be not good for you when it comes to increasing chance of heart disease, but it will give you antioxidants, possibly lower risk for Parkinson’s disease, energy from the caffeine, and so forth.

            This is what makes health and nutrition so interesting yet frustrating at the same time. One article will say it’s good for you, one will say it’s bad, another will say it might be good might be bad. Overall we really don’t know exactly, we’re just coming up with educational researched conclusions.