Kombucha is a fermented tea that many folks believe offers numerous health benefits — and new research suggests they may be right. Though the study was small — 12 participants — it found that kombucha may help lower blood sugar levels in people with type 2 diabetes. Fermented with bacteria and yeasts, the drink has been consumed in China since 200 B.C. but it has been embraced in the United States only since the 1990s, researchers said. “Apple cider vinegar was really taking off and people were talking about it all the time and kombucha,” said study author Dr. Daniel Merenstein, director of family medicine research at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C. “And they have a farmers market at Georgetown where they sell kombucha, so we just thought, this kombucha is more tasty, easier to drink than apple cider vinegar … so that’s really what got us to do this study.” Not only was it easy to take, participants who drank kombucha had significantly lower average fasting blood sugar levels after drinking it for four weeks — 116 versus 164 at the study’s start, researchers found. Participants who drank a similarly flavored placebo also saw their blood sugar drop — from 162 to 141 — but researchers said that change was not statistically significant. For the study, participants downed 8 ounces of kombucha or a…  read on >  read on >

Children who have a chronic immune system disease that can prevent them from eating may eventually have a new treatment, decades after the condition was first identified. “Parents and doctors may not be aware of this, but this is a very prominent and serious disease in the pediatric population, and it is increasing in number because it is directly related to food allergens, which are also on the rise,” said lead study author Dr. Anil Mishra, director of the Eosinophilic Disorder Center at the Tulane University School of Medicine in New Orleans. “In this study, we show that after treating the disease in animals, the disease is gone and completely in remission,” he said in a university news release. Eosinophilic esophagitis (EoE) can be triggered by food or airborne allergies. This causes eosinophils, which are white blood cells, to build up in the lining of the esophagus. This reaction causes the esophagus to shorten and the esophageal wall to thicken, which can make it difficult to swallow and cause food to get stuck in the throat. The study, conducted in mice, found that the disease is caused by interleukin-18 (IL-18), a protein involved in the innate immune response. It can cause inflammation if produced in excess. An allergen entering the body activates a pathway that leads to the release of pro-inflammatory proteins like IL-18 and…  read on >  read on >

A micronutrient in human breast milk may provide significant benefit to developing newborn brains, according to new research that sheds light on the link between nutrition and brain health. Scientists looked at this sugar molecule in rodents and in human neurons. They said the micronutrient, called myo-inositol, may lead to improved infant formulas. “The current research does indicate that for circumstances where breastfeeding is not possible, it may be beneficial to increase the levels of myo-inositol in infant formula,” said study co-author Thomas Biederer. Myo-inositol may also play a part in the aging brain, according to the research conducted at the Jean Mayer USDA Human Nutrition Research Center on Aging (HNRCA) at Tufts University in Boston. “Forming and refining brain connectivity from birth is guided by genetic and environmental forces as well as by human experiences,” Biederer, a senior scientist on the neuroscience and aging team at the HNRCA, said in a Tufts news release. He is also a faculty member at the Yale School of Medicine. “As a neuroscientist, it’s intriguing to me how profound the effects of micronutrients are on the brain,” Biederer said. “It’s also amazing how complex and rich human breast milk is, and I now think it is conceivable that its composition is dynamically changing to support different stages of infant brain development.” The researchers compared human milk samples collected…  read on >  read on >

Too little fiber in Mom’s diet during pregnancy may slow a baby’s mental development, Japanese research suggests. Animal studies have found that a low-fiber diet during pregnancy slows brain nerve function in offspring. The new study, published July 27 in the journal Frontiers in Nutrition, shows the same effect in humans. “Most pregnant women in Japan consume far less dietary fiber than what is the recommended intake,” said study leader Kunio Miyake, an assistant professor of environmental genetics at the University of Yamanashi. “Our results provided reinforcing evidence that undernutrition during pregnancy is associated with an increased risk of neurodevelopmental delay in children,” Miyake said in a journal news release. For the study, the researchers compared the development of children whose mothers ate the most fiber to those of mothers who consumed less fiber. The study included 76,000 mother-infant pairs who were part of the Japan Environment and Children’s Study. Compared with children whose mothers ate the most fiber during pregnancy, those whose moms ate the least were more likely to show neurodevelopmental delays. The delays affected communication, problem-solving and personal-social skills. Researchers also saw delayed development of movement and coordination. In Japan, the recommended daily dietary fiber intake is 18 grams; in the United States and Canada, it is 28 grams. “Our results show that nutritional guidance for pregnant mothers is crucial to reduce…  read on >  read on >

Tick bites can cause crippling infections like Lyme disease in humans, but new research suggests they can also trigger a serious meat allergy in far more Americans than thought. Called alpha-gal syndrome, the condition may affect hundreds of thousands of Americans, U.S. health officials announced Thursday, but many doctors are not familiar with the condition, or how to diagnose or treat it. According to one of two studies from researchers at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, there were more than 110,000 suspected cases of alpha-gal syndrome reported between 2010 and 2022. But because diagnosis requires a diagnostic test and a clinical exam, many people may not get tested. On that basis, the CDC researchers estimated that as many as 450,000 Americans might be affected. In that study, researchers looked at lab results from 2017 to 2022 from a laboratory that, until August 2021, was the primary commercial lab offering such testing in the United States. More than 300,000 samples were tested, and more than 30% showed AGS infection. “Alpha-gal syndrome is an important emerging public health problem, with potentially severe health impacts that can last a lifetime for some patients,” CDC researcher Dr. Ann Carpenter said in an agency news release. “It’s critical for clinicians to be aware of AGS so they can properly evaluate, diagnose and manage their patients, and also…  read on >  read on >

People looking to stay mentally sharp as they age might want to swap out margarine for olive oil, a preliminary study suggests. The study, of more than 90,000 U.S. health professionals, found that olive oil lovers were less likely to die of dementia over the next three decades. Compared with their counterparts who rarely used olive oil, those who consumed more than a half-tablespoon a day were 28% less likely to die of dementia. Based on the researchers’ estimates, a small diet change could make a significant difference: Trading in one daily teaspoon of margarine for the same amount of olive oil might trim the risk of death from dementia by up to 14%. The findings were being presented Monday at the annual meeting of the American Society for Nutrition, in Boston. They’re considered preliminary because they have not been published in a peer-reviewed journal. And, experts said, studies like this can only show correlations — and not proof that olive oil protects the aging brain. “That said, omega-3 fatty acids are known to provide anti-inflammatory benefits, and olive oil is a good source of omega-3s,” said Connie Diekman, a St. Louis-based nutrition consultant who was not involved in the study. Inflammation is believed to be involved in the dementia process, and that’s one plausible way that regularly eating olive oil could be beneficial, according…  read on >  read on >

You’ve likely heard that “you are what you eat,” but a new study suggests what you eat also has something to do with who you are — genetically speaking. Researchers have identified nearly 500 genes that appear to directly influence what someone eats. These insights could help improve personalized nutrition to boost health or prevent disease, they said. “Some genes we identified are related to sensory pathways — including those for taste, smell and texture — and may also increase the reward response in the brain,” said research team leader Joanne Cole. She is an assistant professor in the biomedical informatics department at the University of Colorado School of Medicine. “Because some of these genes may have clear paths toward influencing whether someone likes a food or not, they could potentially be used to create sensory genetic profiles for fine-tuning a person’s dietary recommendations based on foods they like to eat,” Cole added in a news release from the American Society for Nutrition. For the study, the researchers used data from the UK Biobank, which has information from 500,000 people, to do a phenome-wide association study. That enabled them to identify genes more strongly associated with diet than with any health or lifestyle factor. “The foods we choose to eat are largely influenced by environmental factors such as our culture, socioeconomic status and food accessibility,”…  read on >  read on >