Widely used food additives promotes colitis, obesity and metabolic syndrome, shows study of emulsifi
Date:
February 25, 2015
Source:
Georgia State University
Summary:
Emulsifiers, which are added to most processed foods to aid texture and extend shelf life, can alter the gut microbiota composition and localization to induce intestinal inflammation that promotes the development of inflammatory bowel disease and metabolic syndrome, new research shows.
emulsifiers, which are added to most processed foods to aid texture and extend shelf life, can alter the gut microbiota composition and localization to induce intestinal inflammation that promotes the development of inflammatory bowel disease and metabolic syndrome, new research shows.
The research, published Feb. 25 in Nature, was led by Georgia State University Institute for Biomedical Sciences' researchers Drs. Benoit Chassaing and Andrew T. Gewirtz, and included contributions from Emory University, Cornell University and Bar-Ilan University in Israel.
Inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), which includes Crohn's disease and ulcerative colitis, afflicts millions of people and is often severe and debilitating. Metabolic syndrome is a group of very common obesity-related disorders that can lead to type-2 diabetes, cardiovascular and/or liver diseases. Incidence of IBD and metabolic syndrome has been markedly increasing since the mid-20th century.
The term "gut microbiota" refers to the diverse population of 100 trillion bacteria that inhabit the intestinal tract. Gut microbiota are disturbed in IBD and metabolic syndrome. Chassaing and Gewirtz's findings suggest emulsifiers might be partially responsible for this disturbance and the increased incidence of these diseases.
"A key feature of these modern plagues is alteration of the gut microbiota in a manner that promotes inflammation," says Gewirtz
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/02/150225132105.htm
= new reply since forum marked as read
thanks for posting! 
The students in my evening classes at a community college are often parents, back to work at night on their degrees. I have many students taking four classes, working full-time and being mothers to anywhere from 1-4 children. At least in one case, there is some extended family support, but not in the others. Many, however, are immigrants, so I'm hoping they've not learned to rely on America's processed food ways.
Whenever I broach this topic as a subject for speeches or papers, however, I get "looks." Looks of desperation, like "what now"?
Several years ago, I dropped processed foods from my diet and I now cook everything from scratch. I cannot begin to tell you the time it takes! Fortunately, I enjoy cooking and we recently remodeled our kitchen, so I have a nice space with big counters,windows, and a forest view to look at. I can play my podcasts or watch a DVD while I wash and chop salad greens. I'm pretty sure this is a lot different from the lives of my students, who are probably hounding their kids to do homework while trying to put together an evening meal.
I will take the OPs info, however, and put in my list of topics for public speaking.
Cher
Someone here posted to a page where they had pictures of people from all over the world, standing next to a table of the types of food they ate.
The point is that people from Africa, the Caribbean, Latin America, etc., were standing next to real food: bananas, rice, legumes, etc. Then you looked at the picture of Americans and everything was in a cellophane bag or a box.
Pitiful.
Cher
