New publication by our team

 

Nutraceutical potential of caprine milk products: emerging cardiometabolic health perspectives

Highlights

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  Caprine dairy products are a rich source of bioactive peptides and lipids.
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  Emerging evidence suggests cardiometabolic and anti-inflammatory benefits.
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  Robust, adequately powered trials are needed to establish health associations.

Abstract

Recent research trends indicate that dairy products may have several cardiometabolic health benefits, contrary to previous beliefs. 

Epidemiological studies, including the Prospective Urban Rural Epidemiology (PURE) study, have associated greater than 2 servings of overall dairy/day with a 22% lower relative risk of major CVD events versus non consumers. 

In this context, moderate consumption of dairy product has increased over the years due to their purported nutritional value. 

While considerable research has focused on bovine milk products and their development into cardiometabolic functional foods and nutraceuticals, there has been an effort to expand into goat dairy product research. 

Goat dairy products are widely consumed in the Mediterranean, Middle Eastern, and African nations, which has been associated with favourable health outcomes such as improvements in inflammatory markers, blood pressure, and glycaemic response. 

These effects are attributed to goat’s milk components including peptides and bioactive lipids exhibiting potential anti-inflammatory and cardioprotective effects in experimental studies.

 However, human studies are limited with clinical studies generally involving fewer than 60 participants, which remains a major gap in the literature. 

Goat’s milk and dairy products are growing in popularity in Europe and North America beyond their artisan product status. Despite their popularity, research on goat dairy products has lagged behind bovine dairy research. 

This narrative review critically appraises the emerging research on the nutritional value of goat dairy products and their potential use in functional foods and nutraceuticals for cardiometabolic health.

Sixty years of fighting hunger yielded results but another food crisis looms

 T

he world is facing a food crisis in late 2026 and well into 2027. Three key factors are responsible.

Nearly 300 million people suffer from severe food insecurity as a result of protracted conflicts, with Sudan the most notable example, and climate change.

The Russia-Ukraine and Middle East conflicts are disrupting flows of grain, fertiliser and energy which will impact on the production of crops of wheat, maize and rice in 2027.

The coming El Niño is likely to be the most severe in recorded history. The 2023-24 El Nino led to the worst Southern African drought in more than a century, with more than 60 million people requiring humanitarian assistance.

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High-density lipoprotein cholesterol and all-cause mortality by sex and age: a prospective cohort study among 15.8 million adults

 

A Korean Study of 15 Million People Just Blew a Hole in the “Lower LDL Is Always Better”

Story Imagine tracking almost 15 million adults for nearly nine years and counting every death from heart disease and stroke. That’s exactly what Korean researchers did with 14.9 million people who weren’t even taking cholesterol drugs. What they found doesn’t match the simple message that “the lower your LDL, the safer you are.” Instead, the risk formed a U-shape. People with very low LDL died more often from cardiovascular causes, people with very high LDL also died more often, and the sweet spot sat right in the middle.

For overall cardiovascular death the lowest risk landed between about 90 and 149 mg/dL. Below that range or well above it, deaths went up. The pattern changed depending on the exact problem. For heart attacks and blocked arteries the best zone was lower (around 70–114 mg/dL). For some types of brain bleeds the risk kept falling only when LDL stayed higher. In plain terms, driving LD as low as possible protected against one kind of death while raising the risk of others.

When the scientists looked only at the higher range (100 to 300 mg/dL) they still saw a clear rise in heart-attack deaths as LDL climbed. Each jump of about 40 mg/dL raised the chance of dying from ischemic heart disease by roughly 26 percent. But that rise was weaker in women and in older adults than in younger men. Even people in their late 70s and early 80s still showed some extra risk from higher LDL for heart attacks and ischemic strokes, yet the overall picture never became “lower is always safer.”

The study is huge, it followed real people instead of just guessing from lab tests, and it only looked at folks who were not already on statins. That makes the U-shape harder to wave away. Doctors still treat high LDL when people already have heart disease or several risk factors, because the top end of the curve is real. But the data also show that pushing every healthy adult toward rock-bottom LDL numbers is not free. Too low carried its own price in this massive population.

The takeaway is simple and uncomfortable: LDL cholesterol is not a one-way street. In nearly 15 million Koreans the safest zone for dying of cardiovascular disease was not the lowest number on the lab report. Both extremes cost lives. That single finding from one of the largest studies ever done keeps forcing the same awkward question—how low is actually low enough, and for whom?

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Our comment:

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Preventing Inflammation and Cardiovascular Diseases

How Food Polar Lipids Can Reduce Inflammation

Sardinian village where more women reach 100 may be new centenarian ‘blue zone’

 The secret to longevity is being a woman – specifically, a woman in one part of Sardinia. At least, that is the conclusion of a study on centenarians in a tiny mountain village on the Italian island.

Sardinia became known as a haven for longevity, especially for long-lived men, in 1999 when a cluster of remote villages nestled in the slopes of its central and eastern provinces were classified among the world’s five “blue zones” – geographic areas with high concentrations of centenarians.

Now Bolotana, located in the Margine area of central Sardinia about 70 miles (110km) from the island’s original blue zone, has emerged as a new potential candidate, researchers say, generating centenarians every year in a trend driven by women.

A study by professors at Sardinia’s University of Sassari and the University of Alabama at Birmingham in the US, published in the scientific journal Frontiers in Aging, found that 13.8% of women in the village who reach the age of 70 will live to 100 – placing it second in the world for female longevity after Hong Kong.

[to continue reading, here]

Communication is an Art!

 

Η νόσος λεύκη και ο ρόλος του ελαιολάδου

Πηγή

Ο Κωνσταντίνος είναι ο Δάσκαλός μου που με εισήγαγε στον πανέμορφο κόσμο των λιποειδών και των αιμοπεταλίων. Πολύτιμος φίλος τώρα.

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Μια νέα υπόθεση για την παθογένεια της λεύκης με πιθανή εμπλοκή του PAF. Ο πιθανός ρόλος του ελαιολάδου

Τί είναι η λεύκη

Η νόσος λεύκη είναι χρόνια, επίκτητη δερματοπάθεια που χαρακτηρίζεται από απώλεια μελανοκυττάρων και αποχρωματισμό. Δεν είναι όμως απλώς “απώλεια χρώματος”, αλλά είναι νόσος όπου η γενετική προδιάθεση και το στρες του μελανοκυττάρου οδηγούν σε αυτοάνοση καταστροφή του μελανοκυττάρου. Στην νόσο αυτή, τα κυτταροτοξικά CD8+ Τ-λεμφοκύτταρα επιτίθενται στα μελανοκύτταρα, και η νόσος προκαλείται μέσα από μια συγκεκριμένη βιοχημική πορεία σηματοδότησης της νόσου, ενώ συγχρόνως εντείνονται οξειδωτικοί μηχανισμοί και αυτοανοσίας, χωρίς όμως να είναι γνωστή η ακριβής χρονική αλληλουχία, δηλαδή προηγείται το οξειδωτικό στρες ή αυτοανοσία. Τελικά η νόσος φαίνεται να προκύπτει από συνδυασμό γενετικής ευαλωτότητας, κυτταρικού οξειδωτικού στρες και αυτοανοσίας.

[η συνέχεια εδώ]

The greats embrace the boredom of consistency

 Derek Jeter shares a masterclass on preparation and mindset.

"My biggest thing in life that makes me most uncomfortable is being unprepared. And that's in anything." "You hear athletes talk about the game speeds up or slows down. Well, it slows down when you're prepared. Speeds up when you're unprepared." That's the difference. Preparation helps you feel ready for what can and will arise. "Every time you're in a situation, I've already gone through it in my head." "If you have the same approach to a spring training game as you do a World Series game nothing changes." The moment doesn't get bigger - you stay the same. That's the secret. The greats embrace the boredom of consistency. They aren't clutch because they rise to the occasion. They're clutch because they've already been there a thousand times in their mind. (Drink Champs )

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