A group of researchers has announced that a phytochemical (plant chemical) found in numerous fruits and vegetables, in particular certain red grapes, appears to create metabolic changes in the human liver and fat cells that may help fight obesity. The authors of the study exposed lab-grown human tissue to four chemicals found naturally in the dark red muscadine grape native to the southeastern US. One of the four, ellagic acid (EA), was found to dramatically decrease the growth rate of existing fat cells, and the creation of new ones.
From the paper (Journal of Nutritional Biochemistry):
Here we demonstrate that EA inhibits adipogenesis and decreases lipid accumulation both in mature human adipocytes and hepatocytes via distinct mechanisms. Our results also suggest that EA may constitute a consumer-friendly dietary strategy that may [be] effective in reducing lipid accumulation both in adipose tissue and liver.
One of the paper's authors, Oregon State biochemist Neil Shay, explained in an interview that the research was, in part, an extension of a previous study in which Shay and others researched the effect of extracts of ellagic acid on mice, using extract of Pinot Noir grapes. In that study, the mice were divided into three groups: a control group fed ordinary (10 percent fat) "mouse chow", a second group administered a high fat (60 percent) diet, and a third group given the high fat diet plus EA supplements. Shay says that at the end of the 10 week study, as expected, the second group exhibited high blood sugar and diabetic symptoms, similar to obese humans. However, the third group had less fat in their livers compared with the second group, and their blood sugar was almost as low as the control group. Shay says the mice in the third group were found to have higher activity levels of PPAR-alpha and PPAR-gamma, proteins which metabolize fat and sugar.
Ellagic acid is a phytochemical present in numerous fruits and vegetables. It is currently sold as a dietary supplement in the USA, but is outside the regulatory jurisdiction of the US Food and Drug Administration; the American Cancer Society warns that the cancer-fighting benefits, and safety for human consumption, of these supplements have not been proven.
(Score: 5, Funny) by JeanCroix on Monday February 09 2015, @05:49PM
(Score: 2) by hoochiecoochieman on Monday February 09 2015, @06:38PM
You mean Gerard The Hut?
(Score: 5, Informative) by VLM on Monday February 09 2015, @05:51PM
1) Missed a disclaimer in the recent news that many name brand dept store supplements were genetically sequenced and found to consist mostly of grass clippings and houseplants and floor sweepings and stuff like that. So you can buy a box with that chemical listed on it, but that hardly proves you'll be eating that listed supplement.
2) How much? Is this like the legendary sweetener tests where rats had to drink the equivalent of 900 gallons of soda per day to get a 1% chance of cancer, or can I just pop one grape per day and be all good? I like grapes, makes a nice desert or snack, but I don't much like drinking (none of my preferred hobbies are ethanol compatible) and the juice tastes sickly sweet to a lower carb / paleo type guy (unless you've grown used to drinking 50 gallons of corn syrup a year, suddenly trying super sweet food will make you gag)
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Geezer on Monday February 09 2015, @06:21PM
To hell with commercially refined supplements and laboratory extracts/concentrates. In this case, an objective empirical study with a nice bottle of Napa Valley red is in order.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 09 2015, @06:22PM
1. Was looking for a follow up on that, found this: http://news.yahoo.com/supplements-industry-derides-ny-attorney-generals-dna-tests-164514558.html [yahoo.com]
DNA can be destroyed. Food for thought..
2. "extract of Pinot Noir grapes" = it's refined rather than 9,000 gallons of wine per day. Of course there was another story about a miracle compound from red wine a few years ago: resveratrol [wikipedia.org]. 60 Minutes and other sources hailed it as a miracle life extension compound, now we hear nothing about it. Ellagic acid may follow a similar pattern.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by VLM on Monday February 09 2015, @06:27PM
DNA can be destroyed. Food for thought..
True AC, but it never fails to amuse me its always the expensive important stuff that has its DNA destroyed and not the cheap fillers. Odd coincidence.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 09 2015, @06:38PM
Devil's advocate here, since I don't take these supplements and see them as scammy, but if you are trying to get many kilograms of "expensive important stuff" to pour into pills, it would make sense that it is highly refined, isolated and any DNA associated with its source destroyed. Then if you put cheap filler into the pill, eg. cellulose, it wouldn't matter how pure it is. It just has to take up the remaining volume of the capsule. As to why there needs to be filler at all, I don't know. Maybe it's cheaper to make one size fits all capsules.
(Score: 1) by anubi on Tuesday February 10 2015, @01:44AM
The customer would be pissed if he bought what appeared to be a bottle of empty pill capsules... so a smart manufacturer fills them up with something harmless that the customer likely won't identify. A mixture of grass clippings and chalk sounds about right. Maybe a tinge of surplus spices to make it taste like medicine.
Print "50% More!" on the side of the bottle to make the customer think he's getting a good deal.
Old-school snake-oil. New-school pills.
The main thing both have in common is they both depend on the faith of the customer to work. No different from the faith healer or shaman. Matter of fact the shaman probably had by far the most potent set of psychoactive chemicals at his disposal... while they likely did little to address the root cause of the malady, they probably worked wonders on the patient's concept of the problem.
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
(Score: 2) by Non Sequor on Tuesday February 10 2015, @04:07AM
They've sequenced the floor sweepings genome? The marvels of the age we live in!
Write your congressman. Tell him he sucks.
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 09 2015, @05:55PM
...you can give the fat man some wine, but those 10 Snickers bars, 5 hamburgers and biggie sized fries he just stuffed in his cake hole, is going to do jack shit for his big pregnant belly.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 09 2015, @06:17PM
Why is it that every time a substance is found in fruits that is a beneficial nutrient, the press focuses on drinking wine? Like the resveratrol nonsense, it seems that the focus is on selling expensive (and harmful to health*) wine rather than less expensive and less harmful fruits.
*The negative effects of alcohol in wine counteracts the purported benefits of resveratrol.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 09 2015, @06:31PM
Actually during the resveratrol hype it was recognized that it would be a better idea to extract resveratrol into doses far larger than you could possibly drink. But the purported health benefits have not been conclusively proven. There has been a separate but also inconclusive line of research suggesting that moderate red wine consumption can be good for the heart.
http://circ.ahajournals.org/content/111/2/e10.full [ahajournals.org]
http://news.tamhsc.edu/?post=compound-found-in-grapes-red-wine-may-help-reverse-memory-loss [tamhsc.edu]
http://www.scripps.edu/news/press/2014/20141222schimmel.html [scripps.edu]
(Score: 2) by Nerdfest on Monday February 09 2015, @07:38PM
... because wine is awesome. Duh.
(Score: 2) by nyder on Monday February 09 2015, @08:34PM
Ya, I don't get that either. I don't drink alcohol, but now am considering eating red grapes a lot.
(Score: 2) by frojack on Tuesday February 10 2015, @02:18AM
Not even sure the benefit extends to table grapes.
They mentioned Pinot Noir, but I suspect it is in most reds blended wines, or perhaps true Grape juice drinks.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pinot_noir [wikipedia.org] is almost black in appearance.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 2) by Yog-Yogguth on Tuesday February 10 2015, @05:05AM
Because that's what whoever is writing it up likes to drink. If they had known their demographics it would have been gin.
(No I don't drink either substance, I'm not in the target group).
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