Sci-Tech Information: Eating White Bread Encourages Growth Of Beneficial Gut Bacteria
While many health experts advise against eating white bread due to a lack of nutritional value, new research appearing in Wednesday's edition of the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry suggests it could benefit our health by encouraging the growth of beneficial gut bacteria.
Furthermore, Sonia Gonzlez of the University of Oviedo's Department of Functional Biology and colleagues from the Instituto de Productos Lcteos de Asturias - Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Cient±ficas (IPLA-CSIC) found it is essential to look at a person's entire diet and not just individual parts of it when analyzing the impact of food on his or her microbiomes.
According to the American Chemical Society (ACS), which publishes the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry, Gonzlez and her team report that a person's gut bacteria plays a key role in his or her health. When there is a decrease in some populations of those bacteria, men and women become more prone to disease.
Eating right is one of the most effective ways to keep our microbiomes healthy and well-balanced, the organization explained. Experts have analyzed the impact of individual fibers and probiotics to determine what dietary ingredients promote helpful bacteria, but there has been little research into the role polyphenols play in this phenomenon.
Polyphenols are micronutrients that are common in many of the foods that we eat, including fruits, vegetables, spices and teas. Gonzlez and her associates wanted to see what impact they had on our gut bacteria, both alone and in combination with fibers, so they recruited 38 healthy adults to take part in a pilot study.
Each participant answered questions about their diets and agreed to have the bacteria present in their stool samples analyzed by the research teams. The study authors discovered pectin, a compound typically found in citrus fruits, decreases the levels of some helpful bacteria when interacting with other substances contained in oranges.
€A negative association was found between the intake of pectins and flavanones from oranges and the levels of Blautia coccoides and Clostridium leptum,€ the study authors wrote. €By contrast, white bread, providing hemicellulose and resistant starch, was directly associated with Lactobacillus.
€Because some effects on intestinal microbiota attributed to isolated fibers or polyphenols might be modified by other components present in the same food, future research should be focused on diet rather than individual compounds,€ they added.
The new paper comes just days after research presented as part of the 21st annual European Congress on Obesity (ECO 2014), which reported that consuming white bread instead of whole-grain bread could increase a person's chances of becoming overweight or obese.
In that study, author, nutritional expert and University of Navarra professor Miguel Martinez-Gonzalez, analyzed the dining habits of more than 9,000 Spanish university graduates. In order to measure the impact of bread type in a culture where it is a dietary staple, he had each participant complete a food questionnaire and then monitored all of them over the next five years.
Martinez-Gonzalez discovered those who consumed a minimum of three slices of white bread each day were 40 percent more likely to gain weight than those who ate just one portion per week. Whole-grain bread consumption was not linked to obesity or weight gain, since it contains dietary fiber and complex carbohydrates that make people feel full longer, and mixing both bread types did not increase a person's risk of becoming overweight.
Struggling to shift your rolls of fat? White bread may be to blame
Just three slices of white bread a day raise the odds of becoming overweight or obese by almost half, a large-scale study found.
Wholegrain bread, however, doesn't lead to weight gain, the European Congress on Obesity, in Sofia, Bulgaria heard.
The researchers, from the University of Navarra in Spain, tracked the weight of almost 10,000 people for five years.
They found that those who ate 120g or more of white bread a day were 40 per cent more likely to pile on the pounds than those who ate 60g a week or less.
As one slice of bread roughly weighs 40g, just three pieces could put someone in the danger zone.
The finding will dismay the millions of Britons who regularly start the day with two slices of white toast - and then have a sandwich for lunch.
Nearly 12million loaves of bread are sold in the UK each day - and nearly three-quarters of those are white.
The weight gain seen couldn't be explained by the white bread lovers having a less healthy diet in general.
Instead, it is thought that lack of satiety-inducing fibre in it takes its toll on the waistline.
Professor Jason Halford, chairman of the UK Association for the Study of Obesity, said: €I would say white bread is a concern because it is generally lower in useful nutrients such as fibre and it can contain added sugar and sometimes contains higher levels of salt.'
'Pampshade' is a Series of Lamps Made from Real Bread!
Using actual bread made from hard flour, weak flour and yeast, Japanese designer Morita Yukiko has created an unusual series of lamps called €Pampshade€.
The Pampshade lamps look incredibly realistic because they're made from actual bread€"a simple recipe that calls for hard flour, weak flour, and yeast. The bread is probably not the most appetizing, though, especially since it's coated in a layer of protective resin after it cools for extra durability.
Illuminated by a battery-powered LED lamp inside, the Pampshade lamps don't have to be tethered to a wall outlet. So they can be used as soft lighting anywhere in your kitchen, or even placed on a bedside table as a nightlight as long as you're sure you won't be tempted to snack in the wee hours of the morning.
Weather-Displaying Lamp Shade Offers A New Type Of Hackable Decor
An Instructables member built a living room lamp that uses an Arduino and a Bluetooth module to display the current weather on its surface.
Instructables member Tall-drinks built a living room lamp that uses an Arduino and a Bluetooth module to display the current weather on its shade. A smartphone transfers the data to make the correct weather icon show up.
The design is a pretty genius way to imagine new uses for typical home decor. It was a two hour project he worked on to learn how to use a new Bluetooth LE 4.0 module he picked up at redbearlab.com.
He modded the lamp to display weather updates from OpenWeatherMapAPI, using various pieces of tech including an Arduino, Bluetooth module and servo. A smartphone communicates with the Arduino to let it know the correct servo position and a piece of cardboard rotates to display the right weather icon on the lamp shade.
Furthermore, Sonia Gonzlez of the University of Oviedo's Department of Functional Biology and colleagues from the Instituto de Productos Lcteos de Asturias - Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Cient±ficas (IPLA-CSIC) found it is essential to look at a person's entire diet and not just individual parts of it when analyzing the impact of food on his or her microbiomes.
According to the American Chemical Society (ACS), which publishes the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry, Gonzlez and her team report that a person's gut bacteria plays a key role in his or her health. When there is a decrease in some populations of those bacteria, men and women become more prone to disease.
Eating right is one of the most effective ways to keep our microbiomes healthy and well-balanced, the organization explained. Experts have analyzed the impact of individual fibers and probiotics to determine what dietary ingredients promote helpful bacteria, but there has been little research into the role polyphenols play in this phenomenon.
Polyphenols are micronutrients that are common in many of the foods that we eat, including fruits, vegetables, spices and teas. Gonzlez and her associates wanted to see what impact they had on our gut bacteria, both alone and in combination with fibers, so they recruited 38 healthy adults to take part in a pilot study.
Each participant answered questions about their diets and agreed to have the bacteria present in their stool samples analyzed by the research teams. The study authors discovered pectin, a compound typically found in citrus fruits, decreases the levels of some helpful bacteria when interacting with other substances contained in oranges.
€A negative association was found between the intake of pectins and flavanones from oranges and the levels of Blautia coccoides and Clostridium leptum,€ the study authors wrote. €By contrast, white bread, providing hemicellulose and resistant starch, was directly associated with Lactobacillus.
€Because some effects on intestinal microbiota attributed to isolated fibers or polyphenols might be modified by other components present in the same food, future research should be focused on diet rather than individual compounds,€ they added.
The new paper comes just days after research presented as part of the 21st annual European Congress on Obesity (ECO 2014), which reported that consuming white bread instead of whole-grain bread could increase a person's chances of becoming overweight or obese.
In that study, author, nutritional expert and University of Navarra professor Miguel Martinez-Gonzalez, analyzed the dining habits of more than 9,000 Spanish university graduates. In order to measure the impact of bread type in a culture where it is a dietary staple, he had each participant complete a food questionnaire and then monitored all of them over the next five years.
Martinez-Gonzalez discovered those who consumed a minimum of three slices of white bread each day were 40 percent more likely to gain weight than those who ate just one portion per week. Whole-grain bread consumption was not linked to obesity or weight gain, since it contains dietary fiber and complex carbohydrates that make people feel full longer, and mixing both bread types did not increase a person's risk of becoming overweight.
Struggling to shift your rolls of fat? White bread may be to blame
Just three slices of white bread a day raise the odds of becoming overweight or obese by almost half, a large-scale study found.
Wholegrain bread, however, doesn't lead to weight gain, the European Congress on Obesity, in Sofia, Bulgaria heard.
The researchers, from the University of Navarra in Spain, tracked the weight of almost 10,000 people for five years.
They found that those who ate 120g or more of white bread a day were 40 per cent more likely to pile on the pounds than those who ate 60g a week or less.
As one slice of bread roughly weighs 40g, just three pieces could put someone in the danger zone.
The finding will dismay the millions of Britons who regularly start the day with two slices of white toast - and then have a sandwich for lunch.
Nearly 12million loaves of bread are sold in the UK each day - and nearly three-quarters of those are white.
The weight gain seen couldn't be explained by the white bread lovers having a less healthy diet in general.
Instead, it is thought that lack of satiety-inducing fibre in it takes its toll on the waistline.
Professor Jason Halford, chairman of the UK Association for the Study of Obesity, said: €I would say white bread is a concern because it is generally lower in useful nutrients such as fibre and it can contain added sugar and sometimes contains higher levels of salt.'
'Pampshade' is a Series of Lamps Made from Real Bread!
Using actual bread made from hard flour, weak flour and yeast, Japanese designer Morita Yukiko has created an unusual series of lamps called €Pampshade€.
The Pampshade lamps look incredibly realistic because they're made from actual bread€"a simple recipe that calls for hard flour, weak flour, and yeast. The bread is probably not the most appetizing, though, especially since it's coated in a layer of protective resin after it cools for extra durability.
Illuminated by a battery-powered LED lamp inside, the Pampshade lamps don't have to be tethered to a wall outlet. So they can be used as soft lighting anywhere in your kitchen, or even placed on a bedside table as a nightlight as long as you're sure you won't be tempted to snack in the wee hours of the morning.
Weather-Displaying Lamp Shade Offers A New Type Of Hackable Decor
An Instructables member built a living room lamp that uses an Arduino and a Bluetooth module to display the current weather on its surface.
Instructables member Tall-drinks built a living room lamp that uses an Arduino and a Bluetooth module to display the current weather on its shade. A smartphone transfers the data to make the correct weather icon show up.
The design is a pretty genius way to imagine new uses for typical home decor. It was a two hour project he worked on to learn how to use a new Bluetooth LE 4.0 module he picked up at redbearlab.com.
He modded the lamp to display weather updates from OpenWeatherMapAPI, using various pieces of tech including an Arduino, Bluetooth module and servo. A smartphone communicates with the Arduino to let it know the correct servo position and a piece of cardboard rotates to display the right weather icon on the lamp shade.
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