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- All Subjects: Biology
- Creators: Gadau, Juergen
This feasibility study explored the use of an evolutionary mismatch narrative in nutritional education intervention aiming to reduce ultra-processed foods in the diets of veterans with type 2 diabetes and improve diabetic outcomes. Ultra-processed foods are foods that are primarily manufactured through industrial processes. These foods are high in calories but low in nutritional content. Diets high in these foods have been linked to increased health risks. One of the major health risks is type 2 diabetes. Type 2 diabetes is a chronic disease that is developed when cells become unable to properly utilize insulin. Over time this may lead to additional health conditions such as nerve damage, cardiovascular disease, and renal disease. Evolutionary mismatch narrative nutritional intervention offers a different approach to nutritional education to help reduce ultra-processed foods in diets. This study was a randomized controlled feasibility study at the Phoenix VA. Eleven participants were enrolled and randomly selected to be given either an evolutionary mismatch narrative education intervention or general nutritional education about ultra-processed foods. 24-hour diet recalls and blood chemistry were collected and analyzed. Blood chemistry provided diabetes related measurements which included glucose, HbA1c, insulin, HOMA-IR, and C-reactive protein. Statistically significant findings in this study included percentage of ultra-processed foods decreasing for both control and experimental groups from week 0 to week 4 (p=0.014), and C-reactive protein levels between the control and experimental groups (p=0.042). However, baseline C-reactive protein concentrations were lower in the experimental group such that normalizing for group differences at baseline revealed no significant difference in C-reactive protein change between interventions (p = 1.000). There were no other statistically significant values regarding diabetes related measurements. The results from this study suggest that nutritional education in general may help decrease ultra-processed food consumption.
Vertebrate studies suggest that surviving anoxia requires the maintenance of ATP despite the loss of aerobic metabolism in a manner that prevents a disruption of ionic homeostasis. Instead, the abilities to maintain a hypometabolic state with low ATP and tolerate large disturbances in ionic status appear to contribute to the higher anoxia tolerance of adults. Furthermore, metabolomics experiments support this notion by showing that larvae had higher metabolic rates during the initial 30 min of anoxia and that protective metabolites were upregulated in adults but not larvae. Lastly, I investigated the genetic variation in anoxia tolerance using a genome wide association study (GWAS) to identify target genes associated with anoxia tolerance. Results from the GWAS also suggest mechanisms related to protection from ionic and oxidative stress, in addition to a protective role for immune function.