Tuesday, July 7, 2015
Thursday, July 2, 2015
Our Inner Garden: The Gut Is Our Largest Sensory Organ
Giulia Enders, microbiologist and author of Gut: The Inside Story of Our Body's Most Under-rated Organ, explains just how the gut works and why it is so important.
This video a US interview on The Agenda
Interview on Lateline (excerpt)
TONY JONES: Indeed. Let's look at some of the areas you focus on in your book and the first one is the possible link between obesity and gut bacteria. Are there studies which show the difference between the gut bacteria of obese and normal weight people?
GIULIA ENDERS: Yes, there are plenty of studies, actually. And we see, for example, that there are some bacteria that can be found in people with higher weight. I would - I like to call them the "chubby bacteria" because we see that they can actually harvest more calories out of the food you eat. And we see that overweight people, they - when they go to the toilet, there are less calories that they excrete and other people, they just excrete more of the calories they take and up and - and then we see that there are things like diversity. Having a more diverse ecosystem will actually be a very protective thing for people struggling with overweight. We see that some diets, when they work on a person and they don't work in another person, there was a study that showed that it worked when it altered the gut flora. So all those things are interesting and I think in terms of diversity, also interesting when we think about the definition of what is clean and what is cleanliness, because we see it's more diversity and not trying to sheltering off things that might be not good all the time. It's really more a balance thing of trying to get the good stuff just as well as protecting from the bad. (Lateline ABC July 2015)
TONY JONES: Now, from early on in your book you looked at the connections between the gut and some mental illnesses and you were inspired in fact by the suicide of a fellow student, who, as it turned out, also had very bad halitosis and I think you made a connection with that person and wondered whether that sort of connection might exist with other forms of mental illness, whether there was a genuine connection between the gut and the brain. Is there real science around this now?
GIULIA ENDERS: There is and I was really surprised because this was an event that of course touched me and it really didn't - those things, they stick with you. And it was the reason why I got into reading more about this area and then I found that there was already a huge area and people doing great research on this topic. And I think the idea behind it is not so crazy when you think that the brain is very isolated. It has a bony skull and a thick skin around and it needs to get information to know how am I doing, to put together this feeling of how am I doing. And it gets information from eyes, ears, from all sensory cells around the body it can get it's information, but the gut really is our biggest sensory organ. It has - it knows all the molecules from the food, knows the hormones in our blood, it can test them with receptors, then it is the host to those trillions of bacteria and to all the things they produce. There's two-thirds of our immune system. So it really has a lot of information to gather and send up to the brain. And we see especially with people with irritable bowel syndrome or also inflammatory bowel disease that they have a higher risk of having anxiety or depression. And I think this is information that we are now really researching how much can it influence, how big is the piece of the cake. But I think the information that we are already have this as a theory that we are looking into that, that's pretty neat and that's a very new thing to follow up. (Lateline ABC July 2015)
GIULIA ENDERS: There is and I was really surprised because this was an event that of course touched me and it really didn't - those things, they stick with you. And it was the reason why I got into reading more about this area and then I found that there was already a huge area and people doing great research on this topic. And I think the idea behind it is not so crazy when you think that the brain is very isolated. It has a bony skull and a thick skin around and it needs to get information to know how am I doing, to put together this feeling of how am I doing. And it gets information from eyes, ears, from all sensory cells around the body it can get it's information, but the gut really is our biggest sensory organ. It has - it knows all the molecules from the food, knows the hormones in our blood, it can test them with receptors, then it is the host to those trillions of bacteria and to all the things they produce. There's two-thirds of our immune system. So it really has a lot of information to gather and send up to the brain. And we see especially with people with irritable bowel syndrome or also inflammatory bowel disease that they have a higher risk of having anxiety or depression. And I think this is information that we are now really researching how much can it influence, how big is the piece of the cake. But I think the information that we are already have this as a theory that we are looking into that, that's pretty neat and that's a very new thing to follow up. (Lateline ABC July 2015)
You can find the interview with Tony Jones at ABC here (If it is still available)
The Truth About Population: Statistics In 2015
What's the story about population really?
“Overpopulated” – BBC Documentary by Hans Rosling
We live in a world of relentless change. Huge migrations of people to new mega-cities filling soaring skyscrapers and vast slums, ravenous appetites for fuel and food, unpredictable climate change... and all this in a world where the population is still growing. Should we be worried, should we be scared, and how to make sense of it all?
Seven billion people now live on this planet of ours. Isn't it beautiful? When some people think about the world and its future they panic, others prefer not to think about it at all, bit in this documentary Professor Hans Rosling will show you how things really are.
Rosling is statistician and he'll show you the world in a new way. He'll tell you how world's population is changing and what today's data tell us about the future of the world we live in. We undeniably face huge challenges, but the good news is that the future may not be quite as gloom and that mankind already is doing better than many of you think.
Many people think population growth is out of control, some even talk about the population bomb, but are they right? Most of the population growth in recent years has been in Asian countries, like in Bangladesh, where the population has tripled during Rosling's lifetime from 50 to more than a 150 million. It's now one of the most densely populated countries in the world.
However people in Bangladesh, whether in the city or the countryside, are intensely concerned about the size of families. There is a cultural shift away from big families and there is actual success in reducing the fertility rate, which is the number of babies born per woman. In just 40 years Bangladesh has gone from 7 to 2.2 children per family. But is it only in Bangladesh? According to the Rosling's stats the trend is worldwide. In 1963, the average number of babies born per woman in the world was 5... and today the average is 2.5.
“Overpopulated” – BBC Documentary by Hans Rosling
We live in a world of relentless change. Huge migrations of people to new mega-cities filling soaring skyscrapers and vast slums, ravenous appetites for fuel and food, unpredictable climate change... and all this in a world where the population is still growing. Should we be worried, should we be scared, and how to make sense of it all?
Seven billion people now live on this planet of ours. Isn't it beautiful? When some people think about the world and its future they panic, others prefer not to think about it at all, bit in this documentary Professor Hans Rosling will show you how things really are.
Rosling is statistician and he'll show you the world in a new way. He'll tell you how world's population is changing and what today's data tell us about the future of the world we live in. We undeniably face huge challenges, but the good news is that the future may not be quite as gloom and that mankind already is doing better than many of you think.
Many people think population growth is out of control, some even talk about the population bomb, but are they right? Most of the population growth in recent years has been in Asian countries, like in Bangladesh, where the population has tripled during Rosling's lifetime from 50 to more than a 150 million. It's now one of the most densely populated countries in the world.
However people in Bangladesh, whether in the city or the countryside, are intensely concerned about the size of families. There is a cultural shift away from big families and there is actual success in reducing the fertility rate, which is the number of babies born per woman. In just 40 years Bangladesh has gone from 7 to 2.2 children per family. But is it only in Bangladesh? According to the Rosling's stats the trend is worldwide. In 1963, the average number of babies born per woman in the world was 5... and today the average is 2.5.
Wednesday, July 1, 2015
Watch This Bird Go Fishing. Really!
Ever seen a bird fishing? Using bread for bait? Me neither... at least until today
Posted by If the Devil Had a Wife
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