Scientists from the Quadram Institute and UK Health Security Agency have discovered that bacterial populations remain stable on factory floor despite cleaning efforts in ready-to-eat food production facilities.
In 2019, six people died from a listeria outbreak caused by contaminated ready-to-eat foods served in a number of hospitals across the UK. In light of this, scientists are now performing vital research which helps to understand how these pathogens can persist in ready-to-eat food preparation environments.
Listeria monocytogenes is a foodborne bacterium that causes an illness called listeriosis. Symptoms for healthy individuals include a high temperature, aches and pains, feeling or being sick; but infection in those who are pregnant, elderly or immunocompromised, can lead to death.
The safety of foods is therefore paramount within the food industry. However, even in the face of well-implemented strategies to disinfect facilities and control for microbial risks, microbes such as listeria can occasionally breach food safety barriers and cross-contaminate food products. This is particularly dangerous in ready-to-eat foods where consumers will not kill contaminating bacteria by heating the food before eating it. Despite this danger, very little research has been done to understand the bacteria in ready-to-eat food production environments.
Researchers wanted to understand the potential sources of cross contamination and the factors that contribute to the survival of L. monocytogenes in these environments,particularly the communities of other microbes that support and protect it.
They began by sampling the floor of a ready-to-eat food factory that had recurrently detected L. monocytogenes in specific non-food contact areas of the factory. They sampled different sites: a preparation area, where ingredients were kept at 4°C, and a production area where they assembled and packaged the food, kept at 10°C. They aimed to measure the changes of bacterial communities over time, so they sampled the sites over ten weeks, before and after cleaning. They then cultured and performed genetic analysis on the samples to identify which bacteria were present and in what proportions.
The results showed that the populations of bacteria that coexist with L. monocytogenes were stable over time and have adapted to the conditions on the factory floor, including food safety controls. Maria Diaz from the Quadram Institute and lead of the study explains, “as L. monocytogenes is supported by a stable community of other bacteria, we may now need to develop new strategies to alter the whole bacterial population to effectively eliminate the pathogen.”
While the overall bacterial populations, and proportions of bacteria were stable before and after cleaning, Maria explains that we cannot assume cleaning efforts do not work. “The populations are very stable, and cleaning is not shifting the composition — it’s not letting one bacterium grow over another. After cleaning, the bacteria reduce in numbers and the bacterial load is lower, making cross contamination less likely.”

There was a marked difference, however, between the different areas of the factory at different temperatures; suggesting that the bacterial populations are highly adapted to the different environments within the factory. It also suggests that the bacteria present in the factory are established populations rather than bacteria introduced from outside sources — as despite movement of personnel between them, the populations remained stable.
While the factory had listeria under control at the time of sampling, this new research is important for understanding the different communities of microbes in different environments across ready-to eat-food facilities. Researchers hope that understanding how listeria survives in these environments could inform more accurate laboratory testing of cleaning methods. Maria adds, “thanks to this research, we can better understand the lifestyle of this pathogen and start to develop laboratory models that allow us to investigate new ways of killing listeria.”
Maria Diaz will present her data at this year’s Microbiology Society Annual Conference which will take place at Edinburgh International Convention Centre. Her talk “Deciphering microbial dynamics in a Ready-to-Eat Food production facility: Insights into Listeria monocytogenes persistence” will take place on 11 April.

As Southern states reconsider Medicaid expansion, Gov. Laura Kelly of Kansas is pushing her own plan meant to appeal to conservatives. So far, success has been elusive.As lawmakers in a nearby hearing room debated last month whether to support her legislation to expand Medicaid, Gov. Laura Kelly of Kansas dared the state’s Republican House speaker to hold a vote.“If he thinks he can kill it, bring it,” Ms. Kelly, a soft-spoken moderate Democrat, said in an interview in her sprawling office suite at the State Capitol in Topeka.The next morning, in his own office off the House floor, Speaker Dan Hawkins showed no sign of yielding. He described Medicaid expansion as “almost like the greatest Ponzi scheme ever devised.” The same day, a House committee voted against sending Ms. Kelly’s bill to the floor, derailing the proposal — at least for now.The standoff between Ms. Kelly and Mr. Hawkins represented one fight in a fierce political battle playing out in several state capitals over the future of Medicaid, the health insurance program for the poor. In Kansas and in a handful of Republican-controlled states in the South, supporters of expanding the program under the Affordable Care Act have renewed their efforts to overcome longstanding Republican opposition, generating a sense of headway.Yet neither Ms. Kelly nor backers of Medicaid expansion elsewhere have managed to advance legislation far enough to become law, a reflection of the continuing political power of conservative ideas about the nature of government-subsidized coverage and the people deserving of it.“It’s really the fundamental moral question of where the safety net should be,” said Ty Masterson, the Republican president of the Kansas Senate and a longtime opponent of expansion. “And the safety net should be on the frail and elderly and on the disabled and all the low-income mothers and children.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe.

Published24 minutes agoShareclose panelShare pageCopy linkAbout sharingImage source, Getty ImagesBy Nick TriggleHealth correspondentOne in five people in England are waiting for hospital care, a survey by the Office for National Statistics suggests – a much higher proportion than official NHS figures indicate.The ONS survey suggests there are 9.7 million people waiting for treatment, an appointment or a test.That is more than 50% higher than the 6.3 million recorded by NHS England.But the NHS figures don’t include patients who have started treatment and are waiting for follow-up care.These are dubbed ‘hidden waits’ – an issue which the BBC investigated earlier this year.This poll, which has been carried out by the ONS for the first time, is the clearest indication yet of the total number of people facing hospital waits.One million on more than one NHS waiting listSunak admits he has failed to cut NHS waiting listsNearly 90,000 people were surveyed by the ONS during January and February for NHS England. Some 21% reported they were waiting for care. Of those who were waiting, 14% had been waiting for more than a year. That suggests there are 1.3 million people in this position – again much higher than official figures suggest.’Frustrations’The ONS also asked people about GP services. Of those that had tried to use a GP in the past month, 31% described contacting their surgery as difficult and 20% said their overall experience was poor.Dr Margaret Ikpoh, of the Royal College of GPs, said: “We know how much our patients value the care that GPs and our teams offer, and we share their frustrations when they struggle to access it when they need to.”She said years of underfunding and poor workforce planning were to blame.A spokeswoman for NHS England urged caution when interpreting the findings of the survey, which was carried out as a pilot and relies on people self-reporting their waits. She said progress was being made, pointing out the waiting list had fallen for four months in a row and long waits were well down from their peak.And she said the majority of people were happy with their experience of GP care with more appointments being made available than ever before.More on this storyOne million on more than one NHS waiting listPublished9 November 2023NHS waiting lists hit record high in EnglandPublished13 July 2023Around the BBCPublic satisfaction with NHS at lowest ever level, survey shows – BBC News

The pianist Alice Sara Ott, who makes her New York Philharmonic debut this week, is upending concert culture — and defying stereotypes about multiple sclerosis.The pianist Alice Sara Ott, barefoot and wearing a silver bracelet, was smiling and singing to herself the other day as she practiced a jazzy passage of Ravel at Steinway Hall in Midtown Manhattan. A Nintendo Switch, which she uses to warm up her hands, was by her side (another favored tool is a Rubik’s Cube). A shot of espresso sat untouched on the floor.“I feel I have finally found my voice,” Ott said during a break. “I feel I can finally be myself.”Ott, 35, who makes her New York Philharmonic debut this week, has built a global career, recording more than a dozen albums and appearing with top ensembles. She has become a force for change in classical music, embracing new approaches (playing Chopin on beat-up pianos in Iceland) and railing against stuffy concert culture (she performs without shoes, finding it more comfortable).And Ott, who lives in Munich and has roots in Germany and Japan, has done so while grappling with illness. In 2019, when she was 30, she was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. She says she has not shown any symptoms since starting treatment, but the disorder has made her reflect on the music industry’s grueling work culture.“I learned to accept that there is a limit and to not go beyond that,” she said. “Everybody knows how to ignore their body and just go on. But there’s always a payback.”Ott has used her platform to help dispel myths about multiple sclerosis, a disorder of the central nervous system that can cause a wide range of symptoms, including muscle spasms, numbness and vision problems. She has taken to social media to detail her struggles and to challenge those who have suggested that the illness has affected her playing.She said she felt she had no choice but to be transparent, saying it was important to show that people with multiple sclerosis could lead full lives.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe.

Start-ups are making it easier to get the pills online, but experts warn they should be used with caution.Anxious ahead of a big job interview? Worried about giving a speech? First date nerves?The solution, some digital start-ups suggest, is a beta blocker, a type of medication that can slow heart rate and lower blood pressure — masking some of the physical symptoms of anxiety.Typically a trip to the doctor’s office would be necessary to get a prescription, but a number of companies are now connecting patients with doctors for quick virtual visits and shipping the medication to people’s homes.“No more ‘Shaky and Sweaty,’” one online ad promised. “Easy fast 15 minute intake.”That worries Dr. Yvette I. Sheline, a professor of psychiatry at the University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine.“The first question is: What is going on with this person?” Dr. Sheline said. Are they depressed in addition to anxious? Do they have chronic anxiety or is it just a temporary case of stage fright? “You don’t want to end up prescribing the wrong thing,” she added.In addition, although beta blockers are generally considered safe, experts say they can carry unpleasant side effects and should be used with caution.What are beta blockers?Beta blockers such as propranolol hydrochloride have been approved by the Food and Drug Administration for chest pain, migraine prevention, involuntary tremors, abnormal heart rhythms and other uses.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe.

Published1 minute agoShareclose panelShare pageCopy linkAbout sharingImage source, Getty ImagesBy Noor NanjiCulture reporterAn advert posted by Katie Price on Instagram, which promoted a low calorie diet for The Skinny Food Co, has been banned by the advertising watchdog.In the video, posted last August, the former glamour model detailed her meals adding up to only 755 calories a day.The NHS states the recommended daily intake is around 2,000 calories a day for women and 2,500 for men.The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) said the ad was “irresponsible” and must not appear again.Price has taken the advert down from her Instagram account.Image source, Katie Price/InstagramIn the Instagram Reel for the diet food firm, the TV personality was seen making meals for herself throughout the day and talking about her efforts to lose weight.Her day started with porridge and a “delicious” coffee with zero calorie syrup.For lunch, she had a wrap with zero calorie garlic mayonnaise sauce on top, while dinner consisted of a low calorie chicken tikka curry.The video ended with Price having low calorie chocolate malt balls as a post-dinner snack.In her caption for the video, Price wrote: “All of this was only 755 calories and helping me stay in a calorie deficit to shift some extra pounds when needed.”Price said her children also “loved” the products, adding: “If I have a bad day I like to go in a calorie deficit to ensure it’s not a bad week!”Image source, PA MediaThe ASA said that it had received two complaints that the advert irresponsibly promoted a low calorie diet.In the UK, adverts promoting diets that fall below 800 calories must do so only for short term use and must encourage users to take medical advice before embarking on them.But the ASA found that the The Skinny Food Co advert included no explicit instruction that the diet must only be followed on a short-term basis, nor any reference to the need to take medical advice before embarking on it.It warned that consumers would understand from the ad that they could choose to follow a similar diet, that fell below 800 calories a day, without taking medical advice, until they achieved their desired weight.”For the above reasons, we concluded that the ad irresponsibly promoted a diet that fell below 800 kcal a day,” the ASA said.Katie Price warns about ‘damaging’ plastic surgeryKatie Price declared bankrupt for second timeKatie Price found guilty of driving offencesBankrupt Price to lose 40% of OnlyFans incomeThe ASA also received one complaint that the post was not obviously recognisable as an advert.Not Guilty Food Co Ltd, which trades as The Skinny Food Co, said that the reel included the hashtag #ad. It also said it could not control what Price ate, but that being in a “calorie deficit” was a proven way to achieve weight loss.But the ASA said the hashtag #ad was not visible without expanding the text.Image source, Getty ImagesIt therefore concluded that the label was insufficiently prominent to obviously identify the post as an advert from the outset.It also told The Skinny Food Co and Price to ensure that future adverts were obviously identifiable as marketing communications, and the commercial intent was made clear, and that identifiers such as #ad were clearly displayed.Price subsequently agreed to remove the advert, saying she followed a calorie deficit approach, which she believed many people in the UK did. She also asked for further information on how to make similar posts compliant in future.Nationwide’s Dominic West advert banned Finally, the ASA also found that because the advert made specific health claims that were not authorised on the Great Britain nutrition and health claims register, it broke the rules.”We also told them to ensure that their ads did not irresponsibly promote diets that fell below 800 kcal a day, and to only make weight loss or weight maintenance claims for foods if the claim was authorised on the Great Britain nutrition and health claims register and the foods met the associated conditions of use.”The watchdog concluded the ad must not appear again in the form that that was subject to complaints.The Skinny Food Co and Katie Price have not yet responded to a request for comment from BBC News.More on this storyNationwide’s Dominic West advert bannedPublished8 hours agoKatie Price warns about ‘damaging’ plastic surgeryPublished6 days agoKatie Price declared bankrupt for second timePublished19 MarchKatie Price found guilty of driving offencesPublished12 March

University of New Mexico researchers have found that even low to moderate alcohol use by pregnant patients may contribute to subtle changes in their babies’ prenatal development, including lower birth length and a shorter duration of gestation.
In a new paper published in the journal Alcohol Clinical & Experimental Research, a team led by Ludmila Bakhireva, MD, PhD, MPH, professor and assistant dean for Clinical and Translational Research in the UNM College of Pharmacy, also reported some sex-related differences in the effects of drinking during pregnancy on the developing baby.
“In exploratory analyses, the effect on gestational age was more pronounced in male infants, and for birth length it actually was stronger in females,” Bakhireva said. She cautioned that these effects should be interpreted with caution because of the study’s limited statistical power to conduct sex-specific analyses and the challenges of accounting for other contributing factors.
The paper reported on three prospective studies conducted at UNM over the course of 10 years that followed 281 participants, most of whom were recruited in the second trimester of their pregnancies and then followed, along with their children, for some time afterward, she said.
There is a good deal of research on the prenatal effects of heavy alcohol use, usually defined as 14 drinks per week, or binge drinking, defined as four drinks or more per occasion, Bakhireva said.
“We know quite a bit from these earlier studies of heavy alcohol use about the effect on prenatal outcomes, especially preterm delivery and growth restriction, as well as neurodevelopmental outcomes, but we specifically focused on more moderate alcohol exposure because it’s much more prevalent,” she said.
Early pregnancy is a critical period for the formation of organs in the developing fetus, making it a particularly vulnerable window for alcohol exposure, Bakhireva said.

“Almost everybody drinks before they know they are pregnant, and risky drinking before pregnancy is predictive of drinking later on,” she said. “That’s a unique aspect of the study. We carefully looked at the patterns of drinking around conception and early pregnancy.”
Most of the participants substantially reduced their drinking or stopped altogether once they learned they were pregnant, Bakhireva said. Even with reduced alcohol there were some deficits seen in both male and female infants, however.
She emphasizes that larger studies that combine samples across the country are needed to replicate the findings and examine sex-specific effects further.
Bakhireva is the principal investigator of the HEALthy Brain and Child Development study at UNM, part of a national initiative that will recruit 7,500 parent-child pairs and follow them for up to 10 years. “With that type of multi-site study, we’ll have sufficient power to look at the effects of different patterns and timing of alcohol use in even a more nuanced way,” she said.
The paper underscores messaging from the National Institute of Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism — that no amount of drinking during pregnancy is safe, she said.
“I think this study, as well as prior preclinical studies, show that even moderate alcohol use might have negative effects. The degree of negative effects might vary, and it is important to address alcohol use without the stigma often associated with it, but overall, if we try to encourage abstinence from alcohol during pregnancy, we will maximize positive health and developmental outcomes for the children.”

Big poultry farms have received millions of dollars for their losses. Animal welfare groups contend that aid reinforces inhumane cullings of sick birds.The highly lethal form of avian influenza circulating the globe since 2021 has killed tens of millions of birds, forced poultry farmers in the United States to slaughter entire flocks and prompted a brief but alarming spike in the price of eggs.Most recently, it has infected dairy cows in several states and at least one person in Texas who had close contact with the animals, officials said this week.The outbreak, it turns out, is proving to be especially costly for American taxpayers.Last year, the Department of Agriculture paid poultry producers more than half a billion dollars for the turkeys, chickens and egg-laying hens they were forced to kill after the flu strain, H5N1, was detected on their farms.Officials say the compensation program is aimed at encouraging farms to report outbreaks quickly. That’s because the government pays for birds killed through culling, not those that die from the disease. Early reporting, the agency says, helps to limit the virus’s spread to nearby farms.The cullings are often done by turning up the heat in barns that house thousands of birds, a method that causes heat stroke and that many veterinarians and animal welfare organizations say results in unnecessary suffering.Among the biggest recipients of the agency’s bird flu indemnification funds from 2022 to this year were Jennie-O Turkey Store, which received more than $88 million, and Tyson Foods, which was paid nearly $30 million. Despite their losses, the two companies reported billions of dollars in profits last year.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe.

A recent collaborative study has discovered rare variants in the YKT6 gene as the cause of a new neurological disorder characterized by developmental delays along with severe progressive liver disease and a potential risk for liver cancer. The study, published in Genetics in Medicine, was led by Dr. Hugo Bellen, Distinguished Service Professor at Baylor College of Medicine and Principal Investigator at the Jan and Dan Duncan Neurological Research Institute (Duncan NRI) at Texas Children’s Hospital, and Dr. Wendy Chung, the Chief of the Department of Pediatrics at Boston Children’s Hospital.
“It is known that the YKT6 gene plays important roles in many intracellular vesicular trafficking events in the cells but this is the first time it has been linked to a genetically inherited disorder,” Dr. Bellen said. “This study, using patient samples and fruit flies, provides a solid experimental foundation for future studies to better understand this new disease and to develop therapies.”
YKT6 gene variants disrupt brain development and sometimes, liver function
In collaboration with Dr. Mythily Ganapathi at Columbia University Irving Medical Center, Drs. Paula Hertel and Davut Pehlivan at Texas Children’s Hospital and Dr. James Lupski at Baylor College of Medicine, and by using the GeneMatcher tool and Baylor Genetics clinical diagnostics laboratory, this team of researchers and clinicians found three unrelated individuals with missense (analogous to misspellings in a word) variants in both copies of the YKT6 gene.
All three individuals had early onset of disease (four to six months of age) with failure to thrive. Two of them had an identical missense variant because of which the tyrosine amino acid at position 185 was changed to cysteine (Tyr185Cys). On the other hand, the third child carried a variant that caused the same amino acid change but in a different location (Tyr64Cys) of the YKT6 protein. Interestingly, in addition to developmental delays and neurological defects which were observed in all three children, only the two individuals with the Tyr185Cys variant had liver dysfunction and a potential risk for developing liver cancer.
“Interestingly, both individuals with the Tyr185Cys variant belong to the Syrian/Saint Thomas Christians of Kerala, India, a group currently estimated to be comprised of about 5 million individuals worldwide,” Dr. Mythily Ganapathi said. “Our genetic lineage analysis suggests this variant likely originated from a common ancestor before the community split.”
YKT6 gene variants impair autophagy
To assess how YKT6 variants result in the observed disease pathologies, the Bellen team studied the fruit fly version of this gene which is quite similar to its human counterpart.

“We found that the fly version of this protein is expressed in the fat body and brain which are analogous to the human liver and central nervous system respectively,” Dr. Mengqi Ma, one of the first authors and a postdoctoral fellow in the Bellen lab, said. “Moreover, fly strains with loss of function mutations in this gene were lethal.”
Further, they observed that Ykt6 mutant flies expressing the normal fly version of the Ykt6 gene flies had an average lifespan. However, transgenic flies expressing the fly versions of the disease variants were less effective in restoring lifespan and other symptoms. While Ykt6 mutant flies expressing Tyr65Cys (equal to human Tyr64Cys) had normal lifespan and locomotion, those expressing Tyr186Cys (equal to human Tyr185Cys) had severely reduced lifespan and locomotor defects. “Our results showed that the fly Ykt6 Tyr186Cys cause more severe defects than Tyr65Cys,” Dr. Ma added, “suggesting that the corresponding human YKT6 Tyr185Cys is a more severe variant than Tyr64Cys.”
To understand why these variants behaved differently, they delved deeper into their biology.
YKT6 belongs to the SNARE family of proteins that regulate the flow of protein traffic to various compartments within the cell. In mammalian cells, YKT6 mediates the fusion of two cellular organelles — the autophagosomes and lysosomes to form autolysosomes — within which ‘used’ cellular proteins, lipids, and other molecules are degraded and recycled back for future use. This process called autophagy is critical for the proper function and health of the cells.
The team found that the loss of fly Ykt6 led to an abnormal accumulation of proteins involved in autophagosome formation and autophagic cargo receptor, indicating a block in the autophagy pathway. Further studies revealed that just like lethality and other defects, fly Tyr186Cys (equal to human Tyr185Cys) was less efficient in reverting the symptoms compared to a normal copy of the Ykt6 gene. Furthermore, they observed that while autophagy initiation was normal, the steps involved in the breakdown of cellular waste were impaired in the absence of Ykt6.
“Based on our findings, we recommend the YKT6 gene as a candidate for carrier screening in the Syrian/Saint Thomas Christian community of Kerala,” Dr. Mythily Ganapathi said.

“Our work suggests children diagnosed with YKT6 liver disease will also need to be screened for hepatocellular carcinoma,” Dr. Paula Hertel said.
“In summary, we have discovered YKT6 variants as the cause of a novel developmental disorder affecting brain function and in certain cases, also liver function, providing us valuable insights into a new genetic disease. However, additional studies with more patients will be needed to precisely understand the pathogenesis and to identify potential therapeutic targets for this condition,” Dr. Bellen added.
Others involved in the study and their institutional affiliations can be found here. This work was supported by the Huffington Foundation, the Jan and Dan Duncan Neurological Research Institute at Texas Children’s Hospital, the Office of Research Infrastructure Programs of the National Institutes of Health; the U.S. National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI) and the National Heart Lung and Blood Institute to the Baylor-Hopkins Center for Mendelian Genomics and Neurological Disorders and Stroke. Grant support was also received from the Rett Syndrome Research Trust, International Rett Syndrome Foundation, Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, and Neurological Disorders and Stroke. Confocal microscopy was performed in the BCM IDDRC Neurovisualization Core, supported by the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development.

Cell damage from oxidative stress is a major underlying cause of age-related cognitive and muscle strength decline. Antioxidants can reduce oxidative stress and prevent age-related health decline. A new study has found that mice administered with a blended antioxidant supplement show significant improvements in spatial cognition, short-term memory, and mitigated age-related muscle decline. The study suggests that blended antioxidant supplements hold promise as a dietary intervention for health issues associated with aging.
Age-related decline in cognitive and muscle function continues to be a significant challenge for the field of healthcare. Healthcare costs associated with treating age-related cognitive decline and muscle weakness are expected to increase substantially in the future. One of the primary underlying mechanisms responsible for age-related health decline is oxidative stress, which refers to the progressive damage inflicted by oxygen-free radicals on cells.
Certain compounds in foods, known as antioxidants, are capable of neutralizing oxygen-free radicals. Consuming antioxidant-rich foods is known to reduce cell damage and slow down age-related health decline. In the absence of an antioxidant-rich diet, people often turn to antioxidant supplements that offer comparable or greater health protection. Now, a team of scientists, led by Professor Koji Fukui affiliated with the Shibaura Institute of Technology (SIT) and including Dr. Fukka You from Gifu University found that administering a blended mix of antioxidant supplements to aged mice significantly improves their spatial cognition, short-term memory, and muscle durability. The paper was published in the special Issue ‘Antioxidants in health and diseases’ of the International Journal of Molecular Scienceson February 28, 2024.
“In this study, significant improvements were observed in the spatial learning ability and short-term memory in supplement-treated aged mice. Long term intake of blended antioxidant supplements may be effective, even considering the effects of aging and related increased oxidation in the body,,” explains Prof. Fukui, the lead researcher of the study. Memory loss is associated with several debilitating diseases, such as Alzheimer’s, which disproportionately affect older people. The discovery that blended antioxidant supplements improve memory in mice suggests that they may also be beneficial in preventing memory loss in humans.
Sarcopenia, another age-related disease, results in a progressive loss of muscle strength in older individuals. This condition significantly affects people’s mobility, often leading to social isolation. Moreover, sarcopenia can increase the risk of developing cognitive disorders. If blended antioxidant supplements can enhance muscle strength in mice, they may also hold the potential for mitigating muscle frailty and sarcopenia in humans.
“Frailty and sarcopenia are now serious problems and potent risk factors for dementia. Although the mechanism is unknown, it is groundbreaking that taking supplements may be able to prevent muscle weakness,” notes Prof. Fukui.
Numerous types of antioxidant supplements are available in the market, and determining the right supplements to buy can often be challenging for consumers. The results of this groundbreaking study by Professor Fukui and his colleagues support the use of blended antioxidant supplements to prevent age-related health decline. However, further research is necessary to establish the efficacy and safety of blended antioxidant supplements in humans. Moreover, specific antioxidant blends may have varying effects on the human body, and their use should be ideally based on clinical evidence. The antioxidant blend used in the study was Twendee X, which has a similar composition to the commercially available supplement Oxycut®.
“Although many types of antioxidant supplements are available, the effect is greater if multiple types are taken simultaneously rather than one type. However, it is difficult to know which type and how much to take, as it is possible to take too many of some vitamins,” Prof. Fukui observes. “We recommend only taking multivitamins that are guaranteed to be safe,” he cautions.
Besides choosing the right antioxidant supplement, adopting the right regimen can also confuse consumers. Future research on the individual differences in the effects of antioxidants can reduce confusion around the optimum dose and composition of antioxidant supplements. Over the long term, optimal use of antioxidant supplements may significantly reduce age-related health decline. “In the future, there will come a time when we will provide multi-supplements tailored to each individual. There will be no need to worry about overdosing,” concludes Prof. Fukui.