Best Diet Plans

Low-income Women Living In Small Cities Have Higher Chance Of Obesity

admin — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 16:59:16 +0000

A recent Kansas State University study found that the availability of supermarkets — quite than the lack of them — increased the risk of obesity for low-income women living in small cities. This suggests that policies to increase healthful eating behaviors might need to be tailored based on geographic location.

K-State researchers studied the availability of food stores for low-income women in Kansas to see whether there was a link to obesity. The findings showed that limited availability of grocery stores did not contribute to an increased risk of obesity in metropolitan or rural areas, but it was related with an increased risk of obesity in micropolitan areas in Kansas, defined as cities with fewer than 40,000 people.

“This study was one of the first to look at supermarket availability across the urban-rural continuum, and the findings propose that policies to increase healthful food availability may need to differ depending on urban influence,” said David Dzewaltowski, K-State professor and department head of kinesiology.

Dzewaltowski and Paula Ford, helper professor of public health sciences at the University of Texas at El Paso, published the study in the January issue of Obesity, a research journal. Ford led the project as a doctoral student at K-State.

Research has shown that a lack of close by food stores that offer healthful items contributes to higher incidences of obesity for consumers. Studies also have shown that low-income residents have an improved quality of diet when larger grocery stores and supermarkets are available. That's because these stores frequently supply consumers with healthful foods at a lower cost compared to small grocery and convenience stores.

Dzewaltowski said most studies that have investigated links between food environments and obesity have relied upon census tracts or ZIP codes for analysis. However, this can lead to defective results. The K-State study used a statewide, geographically referenced dataset of Kansans participating in the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children from October 2004 to December 2006.

“Previous research assumes that most people shop within their own census tract or ZIP code,” Ford said. “However, other studies have found that most people shop outside of their census tract. By examining the number of stores within a 1- to 3-mile radius of these women's homes, we were capable to get a more exact and realistic assessment of supermarket availability.”

To be eligible for the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program, a receiver have to be a pregnant, breastfeeding or postpartum woman with children younger than 5 years aged and a household revenue less than 185 percent of the federally designated poverty level. The researchers' information involved each woman's body mass index.

The study involved just socioeconomically disadvantaged women because they are at greater risk of obesity than are wealthier women. They also are probable to be more dependent on close by grocery stores and supermarkets because of limited transportation options and fewer financial resources, Ford said.

The researchers looked at the availability of food stores — specifically convenience and grocery stores and supermarkets — located within a radius of 1, 3 or 5 miles of the women's residences. The women's homes also were categorized as being in a rural, micropolitan or metropolitan area. The first item the researchers examined was the availability of these stores in the different areas.

The findings showed meaningful geographic disparities regarding the availability of supermarkets. However, the more than half of the women lived within 1 mile of a small grocery store. Dzewaltowski said this is significant because prior studies have indicated that rural areas are food deserts where low-income residents ought to travel far to access healthful foods.

The number and types of stores accessible differed in the metropolitan, micropolitan and rural areas. Rural low-income women had 74 percent fewer supermarkets and 55 percent fewer small grocery stores accessible within a 1-mile radius as compared to women in metropolitan areas. Yet the number of convenience stores per 10,000 residents was highest in rural areas.

The researchers also looked at how the availability of different food stores contributed to space residents' obesity. They found that the availability and density of food stores was not related with obesity in metropolitan and rural areas. However, contrary to prior studies, the findings showed that the presence of a supermarket is not protective against obesity for women in these areas. Women who resided in micropolitan areas in Kansas had an 18 percent increase in obesity risk when living within a 1-mile radius of a supermarket. The presence of small grocery and convenience stores also was related with an increased risk of obesity.

Dzewaltowski said the findings denote that the selection of supermarkets may be a more relevant issue than the availability of supermarkets. The findings also propose that most of the low-income women reside within the urban cluster of the micropolitan areas and are probable to be exposed to multiple quick food restaurants and other high-caloric density eating opportunities, which are frequently absent in rural areas.

The researchers said policies that increase the accessibility of healthful foods at small grocery stores might be a promising tactics for reducing the higher prevalency of obesity in rural areas.

The research was supported by a grant from the Sunflower Foundation: Health Care for Kansans.

The Air Diet: Why Eat When You Can Pretend!

admin — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 13:59:06 +0000

Brace yourself for the silliest fad diet yet — it's called the Air Diet!

A French-created weight loss plan where you consume, well you've very likely guessed it, nothing at all!

The diet was apparently made popular by a Dolce & Gabbana campaign, which featured Madonna and other celebrities holding food up to their mouths, but not eating it.

It's been referred to as “L'Air Fooding.” Here is Grazia's journal spread on it:

The rules are simple: eat nothing, except for the water and salt soup — yum!

You do however, get to go through all of the motions of eating — placing food on your plate, cutting it, putting it on your fork or spoon, holding it up to your lips, only don't let it touch your mouth. In other words pretend to eat it.

I'm not confident if this is about fooling your body, or others, into thinking you're really eating something.

And there I was thinking the 5 Bite Diet was the craziest thing around. That's tame in comparison to this!

My main issue with fad diets in common is their potential to promote binge-eating, and a weight loss-regain cycle. Also, they commonly encourage unhealthy messages about food, specially for young women. But, the Air Diet doesn't even come close to a diet!

I was sincerity beginning to assume this was a joke, but then I come across a almost the same practise known as breatharianism. A breatharian is:
A person who believes that it is possible, through meditation, to reach a level of consciousness where one can achieve all sustenance from the air or sunlight.

Now I'm easily amazed!

First Time Research On Long-term Consequences Of Intravenous Nutrition On Children's Health

admin — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 12:59:11 +0000

No work is known in the literature to date which provides a long-term and generalised valuation of the health of children fed intravenously in their own home. There have been, for example, articles that have made mention of a concrete case of a child who had received such treatment and had suffered a pulmonary thromboembolism but there has not been any work investigating the relation between the treatment and this illness. These are some of the essential tenets of the PhD thesis of Mr Irastorza, entitled Domiciliary parenteral nutrition at paediatric age: long-term prognostic factors.

Warfarin appears to fight unexpected death

Some children ought to be fed intravenously, given that they have intestinal problems that impede digestion. These problems can be of three kinds: having undergone an operation for a birth malformation and hence having an intestine that is overly small (the most usual case); or the intestine is incapable of absorbing foods; or the intestine does not move appropriately in digestion. Mr Irastorza investigated 64 children who, due to having one of these three problems, were being fed at home intravenously. 39% of these developed pulmonary thromboembolism, confirming that there exists a relationship between this problem and the treatment.

Mr Irastorza also confirmed that warfarin, and anticoagulants in general, are effective in avoiding unexpected dying caused by thromboembolism. The 64 children were tested for thromboembolism on initiating the research and those who tested optimistic were given warfarin-based treatment. None of these children under treatment suffered unexpected death. Nevertheless, 13% of the children who did not receive warfarin died a unexpected death. Mr Irastorza believes that these children also had thromboembolism, but had not been detected.

Giving the lie to certain suppositions

For his thesis Mr Irastorza also investigated a number of beliefs about the health of children with serious intestinal problems and who are fed intravenously. He came to the conclusion that these beliefs are rather wrong.

To start with, as one of these beliefs held that these children do not have appropriate growth, he analysed 18 children who had been more than five years with parenteral nutrition. Mr Irastorza observed that 40% of these enjoyed fine scores as regards weight, height and bone mineral density. Nevertheless, he also saw that 50% of the children analysed were particularly small for their age (below p3). He concluded that having an intestine with problems in absorbing food (enteropathy) is the principal factor of risk for height, weight and bone mineralisation. In any case, Mr Irastorza managed to prove that numerous of the children fed intravenously had grown without any problems, hence contradicting the aforementioned belief.

Apart from this, Mr Irastorza has completely refuted another conviction that intravenous feeding is poisonous for the liver, confirming in fact that the treatment had improved greatly over the past few years. He analysed 32 patients who had begun intravenous feeding at a neonatal stage, and just 4.5% of these developed hepatic cirrhosis. Nevertheless, the mortality rate was very high amongst those who had, in fact, suffered from this illness; of those who developed serious hepatic dysfunction between three and six months after starting treatment, 75% died victims of hepatic cirrhosis.

The system in Cruces Hospital

Based on the optimistic piece of the conclusions of this innovative research and so that children with serious intestinal problems might have a more normal life, the system of domiciliary parenteral nutrition was adopted final year at Cruces hospital. Cruces has been pioneer in the use of this technique, both in the Basque Autonomous Community and in the Spanish State, thanks to Mr Irastorza's research work.

New Survey Finds Out What Americans Are Truly Paying Attention To When Choosing Foods

admin — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 16:59:18 +0000

Americans recognize things need to change in the grocery aisle, and they support Uncle Sam's efforts to overhaul what is involved in their food and on the packages. The more than half also believe they are individually responsible for making the right food choices to avoid obesity, but will readily admit the government's aid to be successful, on the authority of a new survey by FoodMinds.

“In light of all the recent attention around food labeling and nutrition guidance programs, we wanted to get a sense of what the consumer really thought,” said Grant Prentice, FoodMinds' director of Strategic Insights. “We heard distinctly they believe things need to change – and that it makes sense for the government to lead that charge.”

Americans Want Uncle Sam""Involved in Food Labels

Eighty-six percent of consumers are curious in the government implementing objective front-of-pack labeling that calls out calories and advantageous nutrients such as vitamin D or fiber

Seventy-seven percent of shoppers are curious in front-of-package labels designed to warn them of products with high calories, low nutrients

And, 64 percent said if their favorite food had a caution mark on it, they would either eat less or stop buying the product entirely

"To Help Educate, Mitigate and Motivate

Seventy-four percent favor government-sponsored nutrition teaching programs to aid them better identify the “good” versus the “bad” foods

Fifty-eight percent support the government banning advertising of “unhealthy” foods to children and young adults

Half are in favor of the government allowing employers to award healthier employees while levying higher costs or fines to penalize those who engage in unhealthy behaviors

"But Not His Taxes

Rejected by 65 percent of shoppers are proposed taxes on soft drinks and foods high in sugar and calories, but low in nutritional value

Just the (Nutrition) Facts, Ma'am

Consumers love food-related data – and want more of it, in specific basic, factual data.

The Nutrition Facts panel ranks first with 93 percent of shoppers saying it's a very or somewhat useful tool, followed by front-of-pack data (low fat, high in fiber, etc.) at 88 percent

Not rather as popular are marketing-oriented claims such as “helps lose weight,” “helps construct mighty bones,” with 71 percent of shoppers discovery them useful

Three quarters of shoppers like seeing where their food comes from (”organic,” “natural” and “sustainable farming practices”)

Not It! Significant Minority Believes Others Responsible for Individuals' Eating Habits

When asked who holds the primary responsibility to make confident the public makes right food choices to avoid obesity, 38 percent chose: 14 percent said food companies, 12 percent said the government, nine percent said the health care system and three percent pointed to the academic systems

Nutrition Services For Elder Adults At Home And In Communities

admin — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 15:59:19 +0000

The Society for Nutrition Education (SNE) has partnered with the American Dietetic Association (ADA) and American Society for Nutrition (ASN) to publish a position paper, “Position of the American Dietetic Association, American Society for Nutrition, and Society for Nutrition Education: Food and Nutrition Programs for Community-Residing Older Adults,” focusing on access to safe and adequate food and nutrition services, including nutrition education, for the increasing number of elder adults who receive health care in their homes or communities quite than in nursing homes or other residential facilities.

The position paper is published in the March/April issue of SNE's Journal of Nutrition Education and Behavior and the March issue of Journal of the American Dietetic Association. It was written and issued jointly by SNE, ADA and ASN, and represents all three associations' official stance on this health issue:

Given the federal cost containment policy to rebalance long-term care away from nursing homes to home- and community-based services, it is the position of the American Dietetic Association, the American Society for Nutrition and the Society for Nutrition Education that all elder adults should have access to food and nutrition programs that ensure the availability of safe, adequate food to promote optimal nutritional status. Appropriate food and nutrition programs involve adequately funded food assistance and meal programs, nutrition education, screening, assessment, counseling, therapy, monitoring, valuation and outcomes documentation to ensure more healthful aging. The growing number of elder adults, the health care focus on prevention and the global financial situation accentuate the fundamental need for these programs

“We are pleased to have the possibility to join both ADA and ASN in establishing a position on nutrition services for elder adults,” says Geoffrey Greene, PhD, RD, LDN of the University of Rhode Island and SNE President. “With an increase in life expectancy, it is important that elder adults have the possibility to remain independent at home and in the community.”

The joint SNE, ADA and ASN position paper focuses on access to safe and adequate food for elder adults in communities and addresses issues associated to food insecurity, starvation and malnutrition, and food and nutrition programs serving elder adults in community settings. According to the paper, almost 13 percent of the U.S. population is age 65 and elder and is living longer and growing in absolute numbers, with those old 85 years and elder the fastest-growing segment. Projections for 2030 estimate an increase to 72 million or 20 percent of the population.

With rising costs representing a meaningful factor for elder people in making decisions about health care, the paper addresses food assistance programs, which may aid reduce these costs by helping people stay in their homes. The paper asserts that some food assistance programs can support more people living healthfully and independently at home than those elder adults living in a nursing facility. Recommendations for elder adults involve promoting healthful aging and optimal nutritional status as well as seeking out resources in their communities to aid them remain independent as they age.

Citation: Kamp BJ, Wellman NS, Russell C. Position of the American Dietetic Association, American Society for Nutrition, and Society for Nutrition Education: Food and Nutrition Programs for Community-Residing Older Adults. J Nutr Educ Behav. 2010; 42:72-82. doi:10.1016/j.jneb.2009.12.001.

New Syndrome Identified By Busm Researchers

admin — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 14:59:15 +0000

Researchers from Boston University School of Medicine (BUSM) have identified a new syndrome affecting potentially thousands of hospital inpatients. Coined SHAKE (Supplement-associated Hyperammonemia After C(K)achetic Episode), the condition, which results in altered mental status and difficulty walking, can be prevented by excluding high protein dietary supplements in a patients' diet if they have skilled poor eating for more than a week previous to their admittance. The condition is described in the March issue of the Archives of Internal Medicine.

Altered mental status describes a disorder of impaired cognition, diminished attention, reduced awareness or an altered consciousness level. Ten to 50 percent of hospitalized patients will experience sharp altered mental status which accounts for a meaningful portion of neurological inpatient consultation.

In the study, the neurology researchers characterize two cases in which both patients were admitted to the hospital (medical sick for different reasons) after a period of poor eating for more than a week. The first patient was put on high-protein dietary supplements three times everyday on day three of his stay. By day five, this patient had slowed cognition and an unstable gait requiring assistance. The patient's ammonia level had doubled from baseline but his liver function tests were normal. Typically, patients exhibiting high ammonia levels present with liver illness but this patient had no history of it. On day seven the high-protein supplements were discontinued and within 24 hours his symptoms disappeared.

The second patient was also put on high-protein dietary supplements three times everyday on day three. By day six, her family noticed that she seemed confused and would fall when walking. On day seven, her supplements were discontinued. She overly had high ammonia levels but normal liver function tests and had no history of liver disease. Within 24 hours of stopping the supplements, her mental status, capability to walk and ammonia levels had returned to normal. Both patients resumed a regular diet with normal protein intake and returned to normal activity after hospital discharge.

After excluding for other causes, the researchers concluded that the confused mental status and high levels of ammonia in the blood were due to introducing high amounts of protein overly rapidly into the patients' diet after weeks of poor eating.

“When an altered mental status occurs in the inpatient setting, numerous feasible causes are considered. However, in these two medically complicated patients, the initiation of high-protein dietary supplements was very likely discounted, if even noticed,” said senior author Michael Perloff, MD, PhD, a fourth year resident in the department of neurology at BUSM. “With advances in nutritional teaching and supplements, this syndrome probable occurs thousands of times per year in hospitals across the United States. We believe it may account for more than 10,000 hospital days, countless morbidity and even some mortality,” added Perloff.

Funding for this study was provided by the Boston University Department of Neurology Residency Education Fund.

Light To Moderate Drinking Linked To Less Weight Gain In Mid Old Women

admin — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 13:59:25 +0000

A new study from the US found that normal weight women in their 40s and elder who drank a light to moderate amount of alcohol gained less weight and had a lower risk of becoming obese and overweight compared to their non-drinking counterparts.

The researchers, from the Brigham and Women's Hospital, and the Harvard School of Public Health in Boston, Massachusetts, have written about their study in a paper published online in the 8 March issue of Archives of Internal Medicine.

At 7 calories per gram (equivalent to 199 calories per ounce), alcohol is potentially a meaningful source of dietary calories, and majority of adult Americans are alcohol drinkers. Meanwhile obesity is approaching epidemic proportions in the US, yet proof on the extent to which alcohol consumption contributes to this public health critical time is patchy, suggested the authors.

For their prospective cohort study, which was sponsored by grants from the National Institutes of Health, lead author Dr Lu Wang, of Brigham and Women's Hospital, and colleagues examined information from 19,220 women living in the US who were old 39 and over, had no traces of cardiovascular disease, cancer, or diabetes, and whose body mass index (BMI) was in the range classified as normal (18.5 to less than 25). BMI is calculated as weight in kilograms divided by height in meters squared.

At the start of the study the women filled in a questionnaire that asked them about their everyday alcohol consumption. After that they filled in questionnaires about their weight every year for an medium of 13 years.

The results showed that:

At the start of the study, 38.2 per cent reported drinking no alcohol, 32.8 per cent reported drinking less than 5 grams a day, 20.1 per cent reported drinking 5 to less than 15 grams, 5.9 per cent reported drinking 15 to less than 30 grams, and 3 per cent reported drinking 30 or more grams of alcohol a day.

Over the 13 years of come after up, the women's medium weight went up steadily.

41.3 per cent of the women became overweight (BMI of 25 or more), and 3.8 per cent became obese (BMI of 30 or more).

After adjusting for potential confounders like baseline BMI, smoking, other calorie sources, exercise, and other lifestyle and dietary factors, there was an inverse union between the amount of everyday alcohol the women said they drank in their initial questionnaires and the weight gained over the come after up.

Compared with women who did not drink at all, those who consumed some but less than 40 grams of alcohol a day had a lower risk of becoming overweight or obese.

Women who drank 15 to less than 30 grams of alcohol per day had the lowest risk, which was almost 30 percent lower than that of their non-drinking counterparts.

The authors also looked at four types of alcoholic beverages and found the links to be the same for all, with maybe the strongest being for red wine.

They concluded that:

“Compared with nondrinkers, originally normal-weight women who consumed a light to moderate amount of alcohol gained less weight and had a lower risk of becoming overweight and/or obese during 12.9 years of follow-up.”

However, the authors stressed that given the potential medical and psychosocial problems of alcohol consumption, recommendations about its use should be made on an individual by individual basis.

They also suggested more studies are needed to discover the organic mechanisms of the role played by alcohol in power metabolism, and whether any physiological and genetic factors are involved.

“Alcohol Consumption, Weight Gain, and Risk of Becoming Overweight in Middle-aged and Older Women.”
Lu Wang; I-Min Lee; JoAnn E. Manson; Julie E. Buring; Howard D. Sesso.
Arch Intern Med., Vol. 170 No. 5, pp 453-461, March 8, 2010.

Poll: Mommy's Milk Cheese Anyone?

admin — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 13:59:16 +0000

In this age of political correctness and the outcry for the humane treatment of animals, some are truly thinking outside the box.

Chef Daniel Angerer has been serving up cheese made from his wife's breast milk in his New York City restaurant.

The chef said that he is every time interested about new flavors so he determined that he would see what cheese from his wife's breast milk tasted like. Well apparently it was a hit with his taste buds because he began serving it on the menu calling it “Mommy's Milk Cheese”.

His recipe isn't exclusive and David proudly lists it on his blog for you to attempt at home. Well, you will need a willing milk donor of course.

My Spouse's Mommy Milk Cheese Making Experiment(basic recipe using 8 cups of any milk – yields about "½ pound cheese)

4 cups mother's milk

1"½-teaspoon yogurt (must be lively cultured yogurt)

1/8-tablet rennet (buy from supermarket, normally located in pudding section)

1 teaspoon sea salt such as Baline

Save the cows, milk the mommies………

Source: Inhabitots.com

Would you attempt “Mommy's Milk Cheese”?

Sure, why not? No way! Maybe, but just if I knew the donor.

View results

checkVote(22);

Higher Quick Food Prices Lead To Lower Weight, Diabetes Risk

admin — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 12:59:12 +0000

A new study that followed participants for 20 years shows both weight and risk for diabetes decreased for people in communities where quick food prices increased.

The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill study, published in the March 8, 2010, issue of Archives of Internal Medicine, also showed the reverse when quick food prices fell, then consumption, weight and diabetes risks rose.

“These results denote that increasing the fee of quick foods and sodas can affect adult behavior, and steer them towards healthier diets, lower weight and less risk of diabetes,” said senior author Barry Popkin, Ph.D., the Carla Smith Chamblee Distinguished Professor of Nutrition at UNC's Gillings School of Global Public Health.

Popkin said taxes have been proposed on quick foods and soft drinks in some states, such as New York. In a number of countries, including Denmark and others in Europe, they are used to discourage consumption and encourage healthy diets.

“This study gives us mighty scientific proof that fee policies, including taxes, could really be effective at helping control obesity and the resulting long-lasting diseases, like diabetes,” Popkin said. “Our results furnish robust proof to support the potential health benefits of taxing selected foods and beverages as a way of improving public health.”

Popkin and his colleagues used information from more than 5,000 participants in the Coronary Artery Risk Development in Young Adults (CARDIA) study. When it started in 1985, CARDIA participants lived in four U.S. cities. In the intervening years, participants have moved to 48 states. Researchers collected data on the medium prices of products, including restaurant pizza, burgers, soft drinks and entire milk in the counties in which each participant lived. Prices were adjusted to 2006 levels.

When researchers analyzed the diet, weight and insulin levels of study participants, they found that when prices of quick foods and sodas went up only 10 percent, participants consumed on medium 7.1 percent fewer calories from soda and 11.5 percent fewer calories from pizza. That translates to about 56 calories a day less, which corresponds to a reduction of about 3 to 4 pounds a year per person, Popkin said. The participants who found their quick food prices rose also gained less weight and had a lower risk for diabetes based on a test for fasting insulin (HOMA-IR).

Taxation, specially in the form of an excise tax, could be helpful as such measures were successful in the case of smoking cessation efforts, Popkin said.

“For these quick foods, taxes would represent the most effective way to reduce adult obesity that we have today, based on this research,” Popkin said. He also noted that cigarette taxes have been found to have a much larger effect on teenage versus adult smoking and he would anticipate that quick food taxes on children and teens would similarly have a larger effect than on adults.

Other study authors are Kiyah Duffey, Ph.D., postdoctoral companion at the UNC Interdisciplinary Obesity Center; Penny Gordon-Larsen, Ph.D., UNC associate professor of nutrition; David Guilkey, Ph.D., Boshamer Distinguished Professor of Economics in the College of Arts and Sciences; James Shikany, Dr.P.H., associate professor of preventative medicine, University of Alabama at Birmingham; and David R. Jacobs, Jr., Ph.D., epidemiology professor, University of Minnesota, Minn. Popkin, Gordon-Larsen and Guilkey also are fellows at the UNC Carolina Population Center and Duffey is a graduate research helper there.

Food Allergy-related Disorder Linked To Master Allergy Gene

admin — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 14:59:16 +0000

WHAT: Scientists have identified a region of a human chromosome that is related with eosinophilic esophagitis (EoE), a recently recognized allergic disease. People with EoE regularly have difficulty eating or may be allergic to one or more foods. This study further suggests that a suspected so-called master allergy gene may play a role in the development of this rare but debilitating disorder.

EoE is characterized by inflammation and collecting of a particular type of immune cell, called an eosinophil, in the esophagus. Symptoms of EoE vary with age: In young children a major symptom is spitting up food, while in elder children and adults, the condition may cause food to become stuck in the esophagus. These symptoms may improve when a person with EoE is restricted to a fluid formula diet that contains no protein allergens or is placed on a diet that lacks six highly allergenic foods (milk, soy, eggs, wheat, peanut and seafood). EoE is not the same as more usual food allergies, which also have serious consequences. Little is known about what causes EoE, but the illness runs in families suggesting that particular genes may be involved.

Investigators led by Marc Rothenberg, M.D., Ph.D., at Cincinnati Children's Medical Center Hospital, and supported by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases, both piece of the National Institutes of Health, performed a genome-wide union investigation in children with EoE and healthy children. This type of study detects markers of genetic variation across the whole human genome and allows researchers to zero in on a region of a chromosome to identify genes that influence health and the development of disease.

In this study, the investigators identified changes in genes within a region on chromosome 5 that were highly related with EoE. One of the genes in this region encodes a protein called thymic stromal lymphopoietin (TSLP). When the investigators measured the expression levels of this gene in children with EoE, they found it was more highly expressed than in children without the disorder. This outcome suggests that TSLP plays some role in EoE.

TSLP is made by epithelial cells, which line internal and external surfaces of the body. It has already been described as a master switch that may turn on other allergic diseases, such as asthma and atopic dermatitis (eczema).

Future research is needed to decide if these findings might lead to a genetic test for TSLP and whether drugs that block the production or function of TSLP might be useful in treating EoE.

ARTICLE: ME Rothenberg et al. Common variants at 5q22 associate with pediatric eosinophilic esophagitis. Nature Genetics DOI: 10.1038/ng.547 (2010).

WHO: Matthew Fenton, Ph.D., Chief, Asthma, Allergy and Inflammation Branch, NIAID Division of Allergy, Immunology and Transplantation.