What are Probiotics? #Pint2014

My Dear Sexy Readers,

We are all so conscious about what we ingest, what we put on and in our body, but still... Liver diseases, Obesity and Type II diabetes are on the increase!

Last week I went to a pub talk on Probiotics. That's right, I went down to the pub, and I listened to a scientist talk about her research using Probiotics to relieve liver disease. 

If you have followed my recent posts (HERE and HERE), you know that #Pint2014 was in full swing 19th-21st May all over the world! An international Science festival happening over 3 nights in the UK, Ireland, France, Switzerland, Australia and in the US! 

I already covered the first pub talk I went to, which was on the liver. 
That same evening, Dr Jane Macnaughtan was sharing with us the latest results on her research sponsored by Yakult (Oh yes, but before you say anything, Yakult didn't commission the research, the research lab contacted Yakult for advice and funding). 

Why is this important? Because more and more, I see scientific articles claiming that this or that disease is controlled by the bugs residing in our gut linings, that they are the real brain in our body. 

So I'll start with some basic info, and I will include Dr Jane talk in "quotes".

Our gut bacteria

Humans are now thought as super-organisms on the basis of the genetic potential encoded within our resident microbial populations in addition to our own genome. 

"If our body is composed of about 10 trillion cells, we also contain 100 trillion bacteria!"

There are varying levels of bacteria living all over and in our bodies - mostly in our intestines.
They are known as commensal bacteria, which under normal circumstances cause no harm. 

It has been noted that although there is a great inter-individual variation in the composition of the gut microbiota, there are conserved set of encoded functions shared between individuals referred to as the core gut microbiome.  

Functions of this microbiome are thought to confer the greatest benefit to the host and are probably essential for the correct functioning of the gut.

Benefits:

• Modulation of the host immune system  from early life
• Protection against potential pathogens by depriving polluting and dangerous bacteria of food and inhibiting their growth.
• Production of essential vitamins and hormones
• Digestion of sugars and regulation of fat storage

Other functions include:
They facilitate the process by which food and wastes move through the system to avoid constipation, they look after the mucus membranes by stimulating the production of proteins that lubricate and protect our 'inside' skin, they secrete nutrients that are used for tissue repair, they improve the balance of friendly flora to reduce the risk of bladder or vaginal infections. 

However, our natural prebiotic levels are easily damaged by factors such as poor diet, stress, alcohol, hormonal fluctuations, cigarettes, surgery and drugs. 

"'All Diseases begin at the gut' - Hippocrates"

Many diseases have been associated with a dysfunctional microbiota: Obesity; Type II Diabetes; Cardio Vascular Diseases; infection with Clostrodium difficile; Crohn's disease, Ulcerative Colitis and Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS) (bowel diseases), Asthma, Eczema, Liver disease, Colorectal Cancer.

"Bacterial DNA fragments can be found in the blood of patients suffering from cirrhosis and are representative of its severity."

"The role of gut bacteria in liver disease include the metabolic breakdown of alcohol into acetaldehyde which damages the gut and liver, and the bacterial migration from the gut to other organs."

"Different strategies exist to modulate the Gut-Liver axis: Antibiotics but the whole resistance problem arises, or Probiotics which have shown to reduce inflammation."

It is evident that the gut microbiota plays a large role in intestinal health and disease and therefore manipulation or modulation is a clinical option. According to a review by Walsh in 2014, this modulation of the gut microbiota could be achieved by:

1. Diet: the amount, type and balance of proteins, carbohydrates and fat have a profound impact on the gut microbiota.



From Walsh et al 2014. Beneficial Modulation of the gut microbiota.

2. Antimicrobials: research is ongoing as to choose the best characteristic of antibiotics and avoid strain resistance.
3. Probiotics
4. Faecal microbiota transplantation: 'It does what it says on the tin' - most commonly used to treat recurrent C.difficile infection but could be extended to IBD, IBS, obesity,..

What are Probiotics?

They are living microscopic organisms, also called micro-organisms. Most often they are bacteria (friendly bacteria), but they may also be other organisms such as yeasts. The World Health Organization (WHO) defines probiotics as "live micro-organisms which when administered in adequate amounts confer a health benefit on the host".

Each group of bacteria has different species and each species has different strains. This is important because different strains have different benefits for different parts of your body. For a list of these, please visit this website for info (no affiliation/sponsor, your clicks from there are your responsability and the subsequent info does not necessarily represent my views.)

"Strains of probiotics work differently and could be interchanged but we don't know if it would work because not all combinations have been tested scientifically so we generally stick to what the trial results have shown."

The most common probiotic bacteria come from two groups, sometimes mixed together: Lactobacillus and Bifidobacterium. Lactobacillus Casei Shirota is what's in Yakult.The name of the strain "Shirota" comes from Dr Shirota (Yakult's founder) who isolated this strain.

Note = Did you Know that Yakult is the universal language Esperanto translation of Yoghurt?

4 flavours of Yakult

For a probiotic to successfully exert its benefit on the host's gut microbiota it should be able to remain viable during storage and also be capable of surviving, and potentially colonizing the host's intestinal environment.

Studies on special mice have shown so far that a diet supplemented with probiotics are beneficial to treat/prevent obesity, type II Diabetes, liver damage, IBS, IBD, C. difficile infection.

"We tested a diet supplemented with 3 bottles of Yakult/day on 8 human patients who had severe liver damage with activated innate immunity response ie. abnormal levels of neutrophils (serve as a biomarker). After 4 weeks of supplemented diet, no patient experienced side effects and all showed normal blood levels of neutrophils... A new study is underway to see how long this effect lasts (on 92 patients; randomized, double blind, 6-months study)."

As a conclusion, I think it was quite extraordinary to learn about the amazing effects of these probiotics.
Now, of course, I'm not saying you should rush to the shop and buy Danone bifidus or Yakult.

What we know is that with our Western diet, our gut is highly susceptible to imbalance, and it wouldn't be stupid to take some probiotics once in a while, especially after a good night out ;).

If you are suffering from bowel disease or Diabetes, please do not take this as a medical advice, I am not "medically" trained, I'm just a scientist, so please do see your GP.

See you Soon for more Sexy Science,

References and further reading 
Pint Of Science - Dr Jane Macnaughtan
Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Probiotics

American Gastroenterological Association
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24681100 - Kindly provided by future Dr Nirmesh Patel

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20920376 

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24583612

Become a Liver Lover! #Pint2014

My Dear Sexy Readers,

What wonderful treats we got this week with 3 beautiful nights at the pub, filled with exciting and interesting facts from "real" Scientists!
For recap', Pint of Science is a Science festival for everyone - especially non scientists - covering anything and everything in these 4 categories: Matters of the Mind, Understanding our Bodies, Physics and Chemistry, and Planet Earth!
I was lucky to be able to take 2 nights off from mummy's duties to go down the pub and listen to amazing talks, funny at times, and full of info easy to remember.

Pint of Science coasters - I would like to apologise to the organisers for 'stealing' these

On Tuesday 20th May, I went to the Oneill's in Earl's Court to listen to Dr Nathan Davies's talk entitled "Loving your liver, why we should all become hepatophiles", followed by Dr Jane Macnaughtan and her talk on "Better bacteria for a better you" (future post coming up - Now Ready HERE).
I chose these 2 talks because, bizarrely, I've been preparing blog posts on these exact same 2 subjects, so I thought "Well, well, well, my source of relevant literature can't be better than this!". I've already added some of the info on my first #MyBodyDoesWhat? infographic on the Liver which focuses on the liver's functions (not covered in this article). Also don't forget to check out #DYK 10 about Jaundice!

Loving your Liver - Why we should all become hepatophiles (= liver lovers)
Nathan was a very enthusiastic and lively Pint Of Science speaker. From his first power point slide, he got us all interested in wanting to know more about the amazing liver! Here are a few facts that he shared with us:

The Liver is an amazing organ and the most active in our entire body. Its filtering and detoxifying cycle occur up to 20 times per hour! It can function at only 20% of its capacity, and most amazingly, it is capable of regenerating itself in a matter of weeks, sometimes days.
Unfortunately, when a person suffers from a liver disease, he often cannot recognize the signs that are often dismissed as benign, such as tiredness and flu-like symptoms, until it's too late!
Nathan was telling us about those street check ups they performed on volunteers (e.g. blood test). Surprisingly, a quarter of this tested population had alarming state of liver damage and required immediate further check ups. It would seem as though we are not taking very good care of our liver!
In fact, liver disease is the only killer disease with rising numbers.
The number one cause of liver disease death is, would you believe it, obesity!!! The second and third causes are undiagnosed Hepatitis viral infection and alcoholism, respectively.

Units for typical drinks

• Obesity: What I didn't know is that, under a microscope, the damage that fat and alcohol do to a liver tissue is identical!

• Astonishingly, 90% of the Hepatitis-infected European population doesn't know it is infected by the Hepatitis virus. One in 3 person is exposed at one time or another to the Hepatitis B virus, of course not everyone will get infected as encounter doesn't mean infection.

• Dr Nathan Davies also approached the subject of alcoholism and binge drinking, which is worse? It is quite clear that constant and regular drinking is not making it easy on the liver to regenerate itself if it is constantly under "attack". And it's not very clever to binge drink, even if it's occasional, your gut bacteria hate it. As a consequence, they can leak out of your gut, provoking inflammatory responses and causing damage. So beware, don't count too much on your liver's regeneration power!!

As a conclusion, let's treat our liver right by doing these 3 simple things:

1. A Healthy BMI. This is so easy to check if you are in the right range
2. In case of doubt, get checked for Hepatitis infection. There are vaccination programmes!
3. Limit your alcohol intake: Here are the NHS recommendations on your unit allowance:

• Men should not regularly drink more than 3-4 units of alcohol a day
• Women should not regularly drink more than 2-3 units a day

I hope you enjoyed reading this article as much as I enjoyed going to the pub to get these facts for you ;) If you are interested in coming to this Science festival next year, do bookmark the Pint Of Science website, I will, of course, update you in time with their #Pint2015 programme.


I'll do a recap on Dr Jane's talk very soon, in the meantime you can check out this Twitter Storify for pictures from these 124 pub events happening all over the world - almost - at the same time over 3 nights!

 See you Soon for more Sexy Science,

#MyBodyDoesWhat? - The Liver Chapter

My Dear Sexy Readers,

As promised, I'm starting this brand new Sexy mini-series 'My Body Does What?' - Don't forget to say 'What?' on a higher pitch ;) with the amazing Liver! Because it's kind of boring stuff to read, I decided to make it into an infographic so you can Pin it, Tweet it, tumblr it for future reference ;). If you are a student, this won't make up for the studying you're supposed to do, but I think it's a nice basic help you can pin on your wall, and I really do mean print and pin it with a pin on a cemented wall, but Facebook wall is cool too ;)
I also would like to mention that last night, a few weeks after preparing the first version of this infographic, I went down the pub for the Pint Of Science festival! The event that I attended was in 2 parts. The first one by Dr Nathan Davies focused on the amazing roles and functions of the liver, what happens when it goes wrong, what should we do to avoid it. The second one by Dr Jane Macnaughtan focused on probiotics and their potential to heal the liver (future Sexy post coming up - Now ready HERE).
Yes, that's right, you can drink a pint and learn about what it does to your body - Enlightening ;).

For recap, I went to the +PintOfScience website, chose my city - London, my topic - Understanding our Bodies, and off I went to the pub to learn about the liver and probiotics. It was that easy, and if you missed your chance, there's always next year ;) I CAN'T WAIT to see what the organisers are going to prepare for us!! Watch this space! 

Alright, here it is the #Pint2014-modified version of our Sexy first #MyBodyDoesWhat? infographic:

#MyBodyDoesWhat? The Liver Chapter

BTW, I've just created a new Pinterest board for our Sexy Infographics, so feel free to connect with me.

Of course, let me know what you think, and what would you like me to cover next? I'm thinking more obscure but vital organs such as Spleen and Pancreas, what do you think?

See you Soon for more Sexy Science,

References
Wikipedia
National Liver foundation
SkepticRD
Dr Nathan Davies - Pint Of Science talk 20th May 2014

Did You Know? - Where does the word Jaundice come from?

My Dear Sexy Readers,

To celebrate the preparations for our brand new Sexy series 'My Body Does What?'. Here is a teaser for you:
For this new Sexy Short Subject, I would like to mention a Super fact I learned from someone I met at a job interview! I know, quite a random thing, but hey that's how we roll at Science So Sexy ;)

Did You Know that it was thought that Jaundice could be cured by gazing at a Yellow bird? #DYK10
Bilirubin is a yellow waste product that remains in the bloodstream as part of our normal metabolism and is cleared by the liver.When you are affected by a liver disease, it cannot do its job properly and the concentration of bilirubin in your blood increases, leading to a yellowish coloration of your skin. From the French/Greek, Jaune is Yellow, Jaunisse is Yellowness, hence the English word: Jaundice.
Interestingly though, the medical term for jaundice is Icterus, a Latinized form of the Greek word "ikteros" and to the ancient Greeks signified both "jaundice" and "a yellow bird". It was thought that jaundice could be cured if the patient gazed at the bird. The disease would transmigrate from the jaundiced patient to the hapless bird.

A beautiful Yellow bird

If you are interested in knowing more about our Liver and what it does in our body, stay tuned on Science So Sexy for next week's first chapter on the Liver, alternatively you can catch up the infographic on Pinterest if this is more convenient for your device.

See you Soon for more Sexy Science,

References
Medterms
Wikipedia

Wanna be an honorary Scientist? Crowdfunding and Citizen Science

My Dear Sexy Readers,

From HERE

If there is something that the majority of the public doesn't know is that it's difficult to find a long term job as a research scientist, let alone a lab job - as a matter of fact at the moment - any job!!! Most people are surprised when I tell them this. Choosing a career in research is actually very very short term for most scientists, simply because they are governed by grants and these can be anything between 6 months and 5 years, with an ideal length of 3 years. Unfortunately, at the moment due to budget cuts and the sheer amount of competition, finding a grant on your subject is very very difficult. I'm glad those days are over for me, I definitely hang my labcoat up, and am now happily focusing on scientific and medical communication.
However, if a doctoral candidate chooses to stay in academia, it is understood that he can only do a maximum of 3 postdocs after which he'd better have good publications to his name and a solid research plan+funds to establish himself as a PI (Principal Investigator).
A lot of researchers have turned to the internet and the generosity of the general public to gather the essential money required to achieve an experiment (the "last" one needed for publication) or a project:
Crowdfunding is not new and didn't start with the Sciences, according to Sexy Wiki: "Crowdfunding is the collection of finance from backers—the "crowd"—to fund an initiative and usually occurs on Internet platforms. The initiative could be a nonprofit campaign (e.g. to raise funds for a school or social service organization), a political campaign (to support a candidate or political party), a charitable campaign (e.g. emergency funds for an ill person or to fund a critical operation), a commercial campaign (e.g. to create and sell a new product) or a financing campaign for a startup company.

Whenever you see this logo, it means that you get to be a Scientist ;)

Crowdfunding - Researchers in need of extra funds
What I did here is I gathered a list of crowdfunding spaces where you can browse categories and projects. There are a lot of projects out there, all over the world. If you hesitate, think about the fact that researchers usually get their money from the governement, among other sources of course such as charities. The governement decides the budget, representatives (scientists most likely) decide on behalf of the governement what project to fund. But where do you think the governement get their money from? That's right, you! Since it cannot fund everything, why not choose your own project to fund then?

From Experiment crowdfunding space

Go ahead, take your pick:
Experiment.com is a platform for enabling new scientific discoveries in Biology, Medicine, Engineering, Chemistry, Computer Science, Physics, Paleontology, Ecology, Education, Psychology and Economics

Petridish focuses in Animal Behaviour, Archeology, Astronomy, Biology, Conservation, Ecology, Genetics, Geology, Health, History, Marine Biology, Paleontology and Social Science.

RocketHub is a platform for the Arts, Sciences, Social and Business that helped fund project sin 1500 cities in 100 countries

Consano is a platform that enables you to donate any amount (small or large!) directly to a medical research project that matters to you.

The SciFund Challenge is about the massive gap between science and society. SciFund Challenge exists to do something about this problem, by helping to close this gap in three distinct ways. We train and encourage researchers in their science outreach activities. We also help connect the public directly to science and scientists. Lastly, we run science crowdfunding drives to help fund research.

SciFlies's popular projects are on Alzheimer's, Aquatics, Brain disorders, Climate, Compulsive Behaviour, Deforestation, Fish, Humans, Oceans, Physics and Stars.

Go get funding is a platform for any crowdfunding with a section on medical and healing subjects.

Endeavorist is another platform focusing on biology, medical projects, physics, etc..

Crowdsourcing - Researchers in need of extra help
Also, most scientists spend about 80% of their time analysing results. Sometimes, some of these are just observational and could well be done by anyone. This sparked the idea of crowdsourcing and Citizen Science. If you are curious about this, why not check out https://twitter.com/CitizenScience_ They are tweeting all sorts of info from crowdsourcing help to initiatives.
The first time I heard about Citizen Science is when I was looking through the Cancer Research website and found that I could help scientists analyse their data. It gives a straight insight into the not so glamourous life of a cancer researcher and shows you a side of their job which is very different from mixing two tubes of coloured liquids!:

Be a CRUK citizen science at http://www.clicktocure.net/

But there are other initiatives you can give a hand to:
Crowdcrafting is an online assistance in performing tasks that require human cognition, knowledge or intelligence such as image classification, transcription, geocoding and more!

Zooniverse is home to the internet's largest, most popular and most successful citizen science projects ranging from individual, serendipitous discoveries to those using classifications that depend on the input of everyone who's visited the site.

Sci Starter is a platform where you can help by recording the growth of your plants, the bees flights, etc...

Xperimental tribe is a web platform for gaming and social computation. It helps researchers to realize web games/experiments and it let people join, while enjoying, the scientific research.

Project Noah is a tool to explore and document wildlife and a platform to harness the power of citizen scientists everywhere.

Project Noah

So, what do you think my Sexy Readers? Would you help funding an academic science project? Or be a citizen science?

See you Soon for more Sexy Science,

#MyBodyDoesWhat?

My Dear Sexy Readers,

Time for a new SSS mini-series called "My body does what?", which will be a collection of small articles/infographics summarizing the main functions of our organs and different parts of our body. I mean, yes I am a scientist and have had countless biology lectures covering all this, but do you know what? I'm the first to admit, I do not remember half of what I learnt, in fact it could be close to 2%. So this new mini-series is as much for you as it is for me :). So here it is, our brand new Sexy logo for our brand new Sexy Series - My body Does What? - with the 'What?' on a higher pitch ;) :

I could have started with the Heart, but I will start with the Liver! Don't ask me why!

If you are a student and looking for detailed information, this mini-series won't in any case be a substitute for your course, I'll refer you to my beloved Pubmed.
It will be sort of like a question mark check list!
Where is it?
What does it do in our body?
Why is it important?
Who is affected by a related disease?

So Keep your eyes peeled for our first installment coming up next week,

See you Soon for more Sexy Science,

Are you a Calorie or a Chemical counter?

My Dear Sexy Readers,

I know it is not possible to argue with everything and anything scientifically inaccurate that is happening on the net and especially on Facebook, but really... It IS difficult to let it go! Now I love social media, I love blogging, I love how all international communities come together, but with the amount of information that we are absorbing everyday, I think we are all guilty of forgetting to, once in a while, stop in our tracks and wonder 'Is it really true?'. Now, this article is certainly not a post about debugging some fact or another but about using my beloved Sexy blog to do just what its primary functions are supposed to be which are to 1. rant about something and 2. share information I deem useful/interesting/Sexy for my beloved Sexy readers! And now that I've finished 1. Let's get on with 2.:

The image that sparked this ranting is this one ==>

I'm sure all of you have seen it and I know from the number of Sexy requests I get that the majority of us are concerned about chemicals, whatever anyone refers to when using this word.
Also, my Sexy followers are Sexy because they are concerned about adopting a healthy lifestyle.
And as a Sexy note, I would like to define Sexiness as the level of confidence one can exhube when feeling healthy through whatever mean one employs to reach one's desired healthy state.

As a community blogger, I would like to share with you a couple of blog articles I particularly enjoyed and found most interesting and relate to this picture:

On the subject of calories
Everyday, I receive updates from the ScienceBlog. It's a very interesting and efficient way to keep up to date with the latest news on diverse subjects and be sure these are scientifically treated and accurately reported. A few months ago, I came across a particularly intriguing post on the confusing science behind weight loss. The concepts explained challenge what we know or think about weight loss-inducing diet as well as the relation between exercise and weight loss. If we are all interested in improving our health by adopting a healthy lifestyle, we are not so very good at implementing common sense in our quest. This article is certainly food for thought But beware it is not for extreme senseless decision making such as 'no point exercising then'.
As always, all in good measure!!

On the subject of chemicals
I wrote many articles on chemicals, notably a mini-series on chemicals in our make up as well as a mini-series on chemicals in shampoos with a special focus on Parabens and SLS.
Time and time again, we are getting confused by the scary nature of the word itself 'Chemicals', but do we really need to make a hotch potch of it all? That is precisely what I'm worried about when I read all these articles and see these pictures on FB/Pinterest.
To make sense of it all, I call upon a fellow #scienceblogger but also a #nailblogger well recognized on the blogosphere who is Michelle aka Lab Muffin.
She wrote a well explained article on the very nature of the word 'Chemical' that should highlight a few concepts that unfortunately get lost among the vast information pool that is Internet.

Let me know your thoughts on all these pseudo Scientific facts that you can encounter and how do you do to make sense of it all? And of course, are you a calorie or a chemical counter?

See you Soon for more Sexy Science,

More Reading
The Confusing Science Behind Weight Loss
Chemicals vs Natural