All posts by medical

Physiology

Maryland fishing competition aims to collect invasive fish for research – CBS News

BALTIMORE -- An assistant professor of physiology at Salisbury University has received a grant to host a fishing competition from the Maryland Department of Natural Resources, according to state officials.

Dr. Noah Bressman will use the money to host a blue catfish and snakehead tournament on the Nanticoke, Marshyhope, and associated tributaries on July 30, state officials said.

Entry into the tournament is free and there will be prizes for participants, according to state officials.

The goal of the tournament is to collect specimens for research.

Bressman's lab will study the diet, growth, and reproduction habits of the fish. Also, his lab will conduct experiments on the fish bodies, according to state officials.

The state grant aims to educate the public on invasive species and encourage people to catch, kill, and eat them, state officials said.

People can fish wherever they like along the tributaries but the weigh-in for the event will be in Sharptown at the Cherry Beach Boat Launch, according to state officials.

A Maryland Tidal Fishing License is required for participants 16 years old and older, according to a flyer advertising the competition.

The CBS Baltimore Staff is a group of experienced journalists who bring you the content on CBSBaltimore.com.

Read this article:
Maryland fishing competition aims to collect invasive fish for research - CBS News

Physiology

The Unexpected Ingredient That Will Majorly Upgrade Your Fish Recipes – Mashed

Unless you're lucky enough to eat fish straight off the dock, it will have a certain level of "fishiness." But the odor isn't synonymous with the fish going bad; it's just science. Thanks to the physiology of fish, a compound called trimethylamine (TMA) is produced when fish die, which is responsible for that "fishy" smell.

According to Cook's Illustrated, soaking fish in milk for 20 minutes will neutralize and remove the offensive odor. The protein in milk, casein, binds to the TMA. After 20 minutes, the milk is drained, taking the TMA with it and leaving a sweet-smelling filet in its place. Susan Olayinka uses this method when preparing her pan-seared swordfish recipe. She notes that milk also tenderizes dense fish and leaves a mellower flavor. Just pat the fish dry and continue with your recipe.

Although freshwater fish, such as trout and catfish, don't get as "fishy" as ocean fish, they can have a "muddy" smell, which isn't pleasant either. Blue-green algaein surface waters where it's warm, shallow, and sunny can produce a toxin that penetrates the fish's skin, causing that smell. With these types of fish, adding an acid, such as lemon juice or vinegar, should remove any offensive odors, perNutrition.

Try this unexpected ingredient the next time you prepare salmon, shellfish, or even the uber-stinky bluefish. It'll save your home from smelling like fish, and maybe you'll convert your carnitarian at home, too.

See the article here:
The Unexpected Ingredient That Will Majorly Upgrade Your Fish Recipes - Mashed

Physiology

Let’s Talk About Pain | American Council on Science and Health – American Council on Science and Health

All sensation goes through four stages or processes; lets go through them in turn.

Transduction

Unlike localized, aggregated receptors of the eye (retina), ear (nerve endings of the cochlear nerve found in the middle ear), or tongue (taste buds), pain receptors, nociceptive nerve endings, are scattered throughout our body. They are like the proprioceptive receptors of touch and position. They respond to heat, mechanical deformation, and chemicals, often found in inflamed areas. The majority of studies involve pain receptors in the skin where we can create burns, cuts, or inflammation. The majority of our clinically significant pain is musculoskeletal or visceral (from our organs), and those studies are few and far between if they are to be found.

Transmission

The signal from the pain receptors, written like Morse code, as a pattern and frequency, travels from these peripheral sites to the more central spinal cord. At this point, the signal splits into two. One signal, remaining local, initiates a withdrawal reflex, a behavior. Burn your finger, and you withdraw your hand from the heat source. A second signal is sent upwards into areas within our brain. The two major sites are the thalamus and medial reticular formation of the brain stem. We will not be pursuing how those signals move about the brain; it is sufficient to know that further processing of those signals, and ultimately detection and identification of our perception of pain, occurs here.

This split of the signal means that most of our animal studies focus on pain identified as a behavior that reflex to noxious stimuli. But we have no accurate means of quantifying the signal traveling into the brain, no real way of measuring the experience of pain we must always speak in necessarily fuzzy terms, be it emojis or numbers, including morphine milligram equivalents.

Our other senses also create these split signals. For example, the visual receptors in the retina send a signal inward to convert that information about light and color into an image. Meanwhile, like the withdrawal reflex, behavioral reflexes respond to those retinal signals. The vestibulo-ocular reflex coordinates the position of your head with the incoming visual information keeping your image of the world stable despite the movement of your head and eyes.

Our senses also elicit an additional emotional (affective) response, our likes and dislikes regarding art, music, or food. Pain, on the other hand, is unidirectional; we want less of it and want it to go away. Pains emotional component acts more like a deep drive, say hunger, resulting in actions to terminate the noxious stimulus. When we hear music we do not like or a displeasing picture; we do not experience the same emotional, visceral, response. This is a crucial distinction between pain from our other senses

The biological duality between the sensory reflex of withdrawal and the more centrally formed emotional response makes measuring pain difficult. In a laboratory setting, we can define a sensory threshold for pain reception, the reflex; heating the skin between 43-46 C will elicit a pain response. But the tolerance of pain, the affective, emotional component, can vary widely.

The tolerance for pain is a complex function that may be modified by personality traits, attitudes, previous experience, economic factors, gender, and the particular circumstance under which the pain is experienced.

Modulation

As with all senses, our nervous system can up and down-regulate our affective experience of pain.

Consider that perennial summer favorite, the sunburn. The normally warm water of your evening shower on that sunburn is now suddenly more painful you are more sensitized to the experience of pain. When overly active, our sympathetic nervous system, our fight or flight system, causes us to experience a greater degree of pain. Makes sense that when we are already in a heightened state of fear, noxious stimuli will get additional attention and response.

Anxiety and stress are common reasons for sympathetic nervous system arousal. To some degree, this can create a self-fulfilling cycle; fear of pain increases our perception of pain, which in turn increases our fear. This may well explain the therapeutic benefits of adjunctive pain relief, like music, which reduces the sympathetic tone and down-regulates our experience of pain.

Neural pathways rather than pain receptors can also produce pain. Perhaps the most common example would be the pain after an episode of shingles a late result of having had chickenpox. While the acute pain of this often debilitating rash is due to the pain receptors in your skin, the chronic pain, which can last for months, is not. Post-herpetic neuralgia, its medical name, is a longer-term (up to six months or more in those over age 60) inflammation of the nerve pathways that can result in continued chronic pain long after the skin rash has disappeared.

Perception

These three processes, transduction, transmission, and modulation, come together to form our perceptional experience of pain. Because our perception of pain requires all three of these biological processes, all of which may differ from one individual to another. For a given painful stimulus, my experience of pain may well differ from yours, and my experience of that painful stimuli may vary over time.

When the rubber hits the road, What we have here is a failure to communicate.

We can listen to music, view the sunset, or experience a rough surface and have some basis to share and communicate those experiences. Pain, unlike those other senses, remains subjective; it is your experience, not mine. One of the great difficulties we have in medical care is finding a way to communicate our experience of pain. Unlike temperature or blood pressure, there is no convenient instrument or numerical value to quantify pain. Without the ability to quantify pain or at least place it on some shared scale, physicians are without guidance on treating pain effectively. In the not-so-distant past, to fill that communication void, physicians would substitute their experience of pain for the ambiguous description by the patient; or, more commonly, would follow the rule of thumb prescription taught to them by the intern or resident. [1]

Much of the consternation in the community of patients with chronic pain results from our biological inability to readily share our experience of pain. Patients are often left with rigid guidelines, a one-size-fits-all approach that clearly is incompatible with our understanding of pains biology. Or left with a physician, substituting their experience, training, and subjective beliefs about addiction, malingering, doing no harm, and serving the best interests of their patients, in prescribing treatment. That is why pain is both under and overtreated; despite all our scientific knowledge, the experience of pain remains a black box. We are all blind men seeking to describe the elephant.

What we have here is a failure to communicate. It neednt be the case, but getting into the mind of another is more difficult than we might think, especially in a healthcare system driven by the clock. Need proof? Look at how vehement the opposing views on any public concern where there is objective data we can all see, hear and touch

[1] Like an entire generation of physicians, I was taught that the routine treatment for post-operative pain was Demerol 75mg and Vistaril 50mg given every 3 to 4 hours by intramuscular injection. I learned this from my intern when I was a fourth-year medical student writing orders.

Sources: The Anatomy and Physiology of Pain National Library of Medicine

The rest is here:
Let's Talk About Pain | American Council on Science and Health - American Council on Science and Health

Physiology

Westerly Hospital earns accreditation for services in emergency elderly care – The Westerly Sun

WESTERLY With about 23% percent of the town's population estimated to be at least 65, coupled with a nationwide aging trend, officials at Westerly Hospital anticipate the number of seniors seeking emergency care to grow. With that in mind the facility, along with all others in the Yale New Haven Health system, recently earned special geriatric accreditation.

Westerly Hospital and seven other facilities in the Yale New Haven Health system are now among a small group of health systems across the country to receive the American College of Emergency Physicians' Health System Geriatric Emergency Department accreditation designating the eight facilities as senior friendly.

The Westerly Hospital Emergency Department saw 11,234 individuals who were 65 or older in 2021 which accounted for 56% of the hospital's emergency department volume. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, slightly more than 23% of Westerly's population is at least 65. The demographics in Washington and New London counties are similar but both have slightly lower percentages of adults who are 65 or older.

To earn the accreditation staff and emergency department leads at Westerly Hospital and the other facilities underwent training to sharpen their focus on the physiological differences between seniors and other patients. Clinicians in the Emergency Department also learned about and have begun to use the Confusion Assessment Method screening tool for delirium. The tool helps clinicians determine whether a patient is presenting with traits associated with normal aging, dementia, or delirium, which can signal "a new onset illness," said Niki Akaka, a registered nurse and clinical coordinator, during a recent interview at Westerly Hospital.

The Confusion Assessment Method involves clinicians asking patients more than 65 questions. Determining whether a patient is experiencing delirium caused by an underlying ailment can be critical, said Bethany Gingerella, Westerly Hospital nurse manager. "If the result of the screening tool is positive for delirium we dig a little deeper to see if there is an infection that we might not be seeing," Gingerella said.

With individuals 85 and older expected to increasingly make up a major segment of those treated in emergency departments, Dr. Nader Bahadory, medical director of the Westerly Hospital Emergency Department, said physicians and other medical providers look to educate each other on health challenges seniors face.

"They are a special population because their physiology is a little different. There has been a realization at least for a few years that we need to figure out their physiology because we tend to miss subtle things among these elderly patients...they can get really sick fast and it's often a very subtle beginning," Bahadory said.

To attain the accreditation the hospital also worked on establishing an optimal environment for seniors by ensuring room lights can be dimmed to improve vision and reduce anxiety. The facility also ensured an adequate number of walkers and canes are available, and dietary staff were asked to help develop meals that are likely to appeal to seniors. "Eating is a big thing with them. We don't want them not to eat when they are with us," Gingerella said.

Amplification devices are available for doctors and nurses working with seniors whose hearing is diminished and magnifying devices are available for seniors who need the assistance for reading. Clinicians also consult with hospital pharmacists to check for potential problems tied to drug interactions.

In all, the Geriatric Emergency Department program provides specific criteria and goals for emergency clinicians and administrators to target. The accreditation process provides more than two dozen best practices for geriatric care. The goal is successful treatment, returning seniors to their homes, and determining whether they need new support, Bahadory said

As part of the accreditation process the hospitals are auditing charts and sending data to the American College of Emergency Physicians for review and recommendations.

The other facilities in the Yale system to receive the accreditation are Lawrence + Memorial in New London, Pequot Health Center in Groton, Bridgeport (Milford and Bridgeport campuses), Greenwich, Yale New Haven (York Street and Saint Raphael campuses) and Shoreline Medical Center in Guilford.

The designation has been awarded to just 13 health systems nationwide.

Each year in the United States, adults aged 50 years and older make more than 40 million visits to an emergency department, according to a news release from Yale New Haven Health.

"We know that older people seeking care in the emergency department have unique needs to address symptoms and requirements that are specific to their age group, said Dr. Ula Hwang, professor of Emergency Medicine at Yale School of Medicine and an attending physician at Yale New Haven Hospital. "Through this accreditation process our providers are trained to look for signs and symptoms of syndromes and illness in the elderly that could be potentially life threatening if left untreated.

Continued here:
Westerly Hospital earns accreditation for services in emergency elderly care - The Westerly Sun

Physiology

Obesity in America: Seeking answers to nation’s overweight epidemic – USA TODAY

More than 4 in 10Americans now fit the medical definition for having obesity, putting them at risk for serious health problems, including diabetes, heart disease and some types of cancer.The pandemic increased the stakes. In its first year, nearly one-third of severe COVID-19 cases were blamed on excess weight.

USA TODAY decided to take a look at how Americas weight has been changing in recent years, including advances in treatments and the scientific understanding of obesity. We spoke with more than 50 experts in nutrition, endocrinology, psychology, exercise physiology and neuroscience and people who are intimately familiar with the challenges of extra pounds.

The answers arent simple.

But they get to the essence of America: our issues with race, stigma, personal responsibility, economic stability and the power of corporations.

Many people feel shame and guilt when they can't lose weight. Human biology, which evolved to hold onto extra calories, makes it extremely tough to lose weight on your own. Help is hard to find, but it is out there.

Obesity was long considered a personal failing. Science shows it's not.

Despite rising rates of overweight and obesity,the stigma of excess weight remains in virtually every aspect of society. Some people are fighting back, but it isn't easy to counter decades of stereotyping and falsely simple solutions.

Extra weight increases health risk in the long run. Fat shaming hurts now.

Biology makes it hard to lose weight. Our food environment makes it very easy to add excess pounds. What to eat if you're trying to shed that extra weight or avoid unnecessary pounds? Scientists are still searching for answers.

What we eat matters. Researchers are still searching for the 'best' diet.

Extra weight is often considered a personal failing, but lots of factors beyond an individual's power contribute to weight gain,including food deserts, the cost of healthy food, stress and prejudice. The situation isn't hopeless.

Americans don't choose to be fat. Many live within a 'system they don't control.'

Until recently, the only way to lose a substantial amount of weight was through surgery. New medications promise to change that,offering the possibility of shedding 15% to more than 20% of excess pounds. The challenge will be making these medicationsavailable to those who want them.

New drugs and surgery can deliver major weight loss. But they come at a cost.

Any solutionwill have to start with children, experts say. Starting almost from birth, kids learnpatternsthey follow for the rest of their lives, so there's a lot at stake in teaching them to eat healthy, exercise regularly and get enough sleep.

How will the obesity epidemic end? With kids.

Read the original here:
Obesity in America: Seeking answers to nation's overweight epidemic - USA TODAY

Physiology

I used this device to track my metabolism for a month here’s what happened – Tom’s Guide

If youve ever heard someone say, I just have a slow metabolism, chances are they dont actually know that for sure. And really, it may not be slow per se, but ratherto cop Lumens terminology inflexible.

Created by twin sisters and Ironman triathletes, Merav and Michal Mor, both of whom have PhDs in Physiology (total underachievers, right?), Lumen emanated from the Mors desire to help people reach their nutrition, performance, and/or weight loss goals by rejiggering their metabolisms. The premise is that if you know at key moments if youre burning mostly carbohydrates or fat (or a combo platter of both), you can determine what your body needs to function optimallyaka personalized nutrition.

Typically to gauge ones metabolic rate, an individual must undergo expensive testing in a lab setting. However, Lumen says they bring you an equivalentor at least scientifically supported (opens in new tab)at-home option whereby you can measure your own metabolism whenever you want, all thanks to the sleek little breathalyzer you receive when you sign up for the program.

To find out more, I tried Lumen for a month to see whether the claims were correct. Read my full Lumen review below to find out more.

Looking to invest in your health? Check out our best smart scales guide, our best fitness trackers, and the best adjustable dumbbells for working out at home.

To understand what any of this means to you, we need to take a second to explain how the Lumen device harnesses the tenets of metabolic science.

Basically, Lumen measures your metabolism/metabolic rate based on the concentration of carbon dioxide (CO2) in your breath. The higher your CO2 concentration, the more you are burning carbs for fuel. This is because when your cells metabolize carbs, they produce more CO2 compared to when they metabolize fat.

If you went in for a professional lab test to have your metabolism measured, you would get back your Respiratory Exchange Ratio (RER), which is the amount of CO2 exhaled divided by the amount of oxygen (O2) inhaled. That number ultimately lets you know your metabolic efficiency.

With this in mind, its easier to understand the premise of Lumen, which is that you can now get your RER anytime you want by breathing into your Lumen, no lab test required. A high CO2 reading means youre burning carbs, a low CO2 number indicates youre torching fat.

But is it accurate? Lumen says its validity as a metabolism measuring device has been reaffirmed by a San Francisco State University study (opens in new tab). However, this definitely seems to be a product that continues refinement the longer its on the market (it debuted in 2020).

But how do you use your RER number in day-to-day life? This is where the hacking your metabolism part finally comes into play. The ultimate goal of Lumen users is to achieve metabolic flexibility, a term coined by the company that basically means your metabolism becomes more efficient at burning fat and not just carbs for energy. If youre in the Lumen fat-burning mode more often, they claim it becomes easier to lose weight and stay lean.

Just like your muscles become fitter with regular workouts, apparently so does your metabolism if you pay attention to how your body switches between burning carbs and fats. And if you can get yourself into a state of metabolic flexibility, Lumen says youll end up with a whole bunch of rewards, such as:

Easier weight loss and maintenanceBetter lean mass/muscle building Deeper sleepImproved energyStable blood sugar levelsHigher immunity Enhanced physical performance

Lumen is only available as a subscription service through the Lumen website (opens in new tab). You get the Lumen device for free along with your paid subscription. Pricing is as follows:

6 Month Metabolism Booster = $249

12 Month Advanced Fat Burn = $299

18 Month Optimal Health Track = $349

There is a 30-day money-back guarantee and a 1-year warranty on the device.

The small square starter box comes with the Lumen device, its docking station, a USB cable for charging, a travel pouch, and the Lumen App Getting Started Guide.

The latter part is especially important because, without the corresponding app, youre honestly going to be kind of lost. The written directions included with the Lumen are pretty paltry, and this is one Lumen component that could be strengthened. It gives basic instructions for how to charge and turn it on, but it doesnt give you any of the info I just spelled out for you in the first part of the article.

While my Lumen was charging, I turned my attention to getting the Lumen app set up. It links to your device via Bluetooth, so this is an integral step for using the Lumen.

You have to begin by creating an account and then answering a battery of lifestyle and physiology questions. This requires quite a bit of time and must all be done manually. During the setup process, you are not only asked to input things like height and current weight but also estimated hours of sleep and daily exercise habits.

I found this frustrating because while Im super active, my exercise routine changes daily and I dont always know what my workout will entail ahead of time. You can go back and edit some of this later, but as I was filling it out in the beginning, I did feel a little hampered trying to structure my workout schedule.

It is possible to link Lumen to your Apple Health, Google Fit, or Garmin IQ account if you have one (which might give you even more accurate readings for activity levels and such). But since I didnt have any of those, I was left doing everything by hand.

Once all your basic data has been collected, you have to select your track. There are three options: Metabolic Health, Fitness Performance, and Healthy Weight Loss. I decided to select Healthy Weight Loss to start.

The app also allows women to track their monthly cycles, which could be great information to have when examining metabolic shifts. However, with the current restrictions that have just been levied surrounding female reproductive health and privacy, if youre a woman in the United States, unfortunately, you may wish to leave that feature toggled off.

Once my Lumen was fully charged (as indicated by a green light while its cradled in the docking station), I set about pairing it with my Lumen app. Bluetooth capability is required to get these two to talk to each other, but I had no issues once I powered my Lumen on.

Specifications

Weight: 75 gHeight: 10.2 cmMaterials: Soft-touch with a magnetically attached cap over metal mouthpiece

I continued to be impressed by the quality of the actual device. Though admittedly it looks like an oversized vape, its really solid and well constructed. As a portable and hand-held device, it is light while still encasing a pressure sensor and a CO2 sensor within its ergonomic casing.

If you want to keep your Lumen clean, do NOT wash it. Thatll tank the whole device. But since youre blowing into it sometimes several times per day, youll benefit by occasionally wiping down the metallic mouthpiece with an antibacterial wipe. And though you could technically share your Lumen by setting up separate accounts within a family, you probably dont want to (hello, Covid and other shared cooties).

In the app there is a breathing tutorial Lumen advertisements say it takes only 10 seconds to get a measurement, but you have to inhale for 10 seconds, hold your breath for 10 seconds, and then exhale for 10 seconds. Thats 30 seconds by my count. And usually you have to do that twice to get an accurate reading (waiting 15 seconds between each test).

The app has a helpful little bouncing ball you are coached to get in the center of a circle to make sure youre not breathing too hard, too soft, or too fast. I definitely didnt get it right the first few times I tried.

This is probably why they explicitly encourage you to be seated and relaxed before taking a measurement. Rookie tip, dont let out too much air at once when they let you finally exhale or youll run out of air before time is up.

Fortunately, after some practice I got pretty good at it. Mastering this step is vital, however. Because all your subsequent measurements are based on your breathing skills.

Your Daily Measurements

Once you start breathing into your Lumen at regular intervals, each time you take a reading youll be given an assigned score on a five-point scale. That number tells you whether youre burning mostly fat (1, 2), mostly carbs (4, 5), or carbs and fat (3).

Once you take your morning measurement (which should happen before you eat or drink anything), predicated on your goals, the app will also give you an assignment of a low-carb, medium-carb, or high-carb day. It comes with recommendations for the maximum number of grams you should ingest of carbs, protein, and fatyour macros for that day. It also has recipe suggestions in the app, but Id be kind of surprised if most people are trolling the app for recipe ideas.

Theoretically, if you have good metabolic flexibility, fast overnight and have burned off all your carbs from the previous day successfully, you should be fuelling your energetic needs mostly with fat in the morning. If not, then your diet needs adjusting. Or so goes the nutritional logic of this thing.

Lumen definitely encourages intermittent fasting. Though not a keto program (because they believe you sometimes do need carbs to keep your metabolism guessing and not storing them), it also seems to heavily lean towards a prescription for low-carb eating at least if weight loss is your selected track.

Also, to get your most accurate readings, youre supposed to enter every gram you eat at every meal of each macro (which you have to do manually). If counting grams of carbs isnt something you want to partake in, youre probably not going to see much of a shift in your results over time, especially since Lumen seems to be set up such that you get a better score if youre burning more fat than carbs.

Your Flex Score

Nothing about this process is quick and patience is necessary. Lumen has to become a habit, and they say it takes 30 days to create a new one of those, right?

At the very least, its going to take two weeks of consistent measurements before you get your first Flex Score. By Lumens definition, your Flex Score is a number between 0-21 that tells you how well your body is working with what youre putting in your mouth, and also what your metabolic flexibility is at this juncture. Heres what the different scores mean:

0-6 (Low metabolic flexibility)7-14 (Medium metabolic flexibility)15-21 (High metabolic flexibility)

When I started this about three weeks ago, I automatically assumed my metabolic flexibility would be high. Im lean and very athletic, eat well, and workout daily. Oh, how wrong I was.

Part of the issueor so I thoughtwas that the minute I started doing my daily measurements, I had an unexpected work assignment take me out of town. So instead of my usual healthy diet and routine, I was eating haphazardly (not poorly per se, but inconsistently) and sleeping erratically (thanks stress and a crazy schedule). As a result, I didnt feel my first week of measurements were remotely indicative of my bodys usual tempo.

In a panic, I wrote to see if I could reset my Lumen (you can message a Lumen expert any time you want in the Support Chat part of the app, which is admittedly a nice feature). I just wanted to start the whole thing over. Unfortunately, I was told no. I couldnt reset my Lumen, but I was, however, offered a free one-on-one onboarding session with a Lumen representative if I wanted help (every new subscriber can take advantage of that).

I was told I shouldnt worry because my Lumen would continue to learn more about me once I kept taking measurements. But I was worried. Once I was home, I still continued to get no less than a 3 on a morning reading. Ever. And most of the time on subsequent daily readings (like before and after workouts), I was still only in the carb-burning territory. And this felt incredibly frustrating.

Accountability

If youre someone who is ready to make a change in your dietary habits and youre willing to put in the effort, Lumen does make you more aware of what youre eating and how its affecting your body.

But you really have to be dedicated to all of it, not only breathing into the device several times a day. That means keeping a detailed food log, recording every minute you work out, updating your weight, watching how many hours you sleep, etc. And its a lot of work.

For some people, however, unless they have that kind of accountability, they wont ever stick to a diet. Lumen absolutely makes you pay attention to what youre eating, how much youre eating, and how the timing affects your metabolism.

There are also lots and lots of videos in the app to help you learn more about how to get the most out of your Lumen experience. And youll get emails with webinars you can attend on different nutrition topics.

Additionally, it offers a Facebook community users can join with 20,000 other Lumeners. You can think of it like your own Lumen support group. Individuals who want tips and a group they can chat with while working on their diet may find this additionally motivating.

I am a very disciplined human by nature. I was eating clean, working out hard, fasting overnight, sleeping for eight hours, and still waking up with my first measurement at a 3, 4, or 5. Then Id get a message that said Your body is good at burning carbs. Now lets get it to fat burn mode and Id want to throw the thing.

Eventually, I started to wonder if it was partly because I was never entering anything in my food log. But as someone who spent too many years counting every single calorie she ate, I felt really resistant to having to count and record every single gram of food I ingested. While that may help some people with portion control, its not a healthy way of eating for me personally.

However, that undoubtedly affects your ability to achieve Lumens definition of metabolic flexibility. Not paying attention to their macro suggestions will absolutely influence your score and subsequent daily recommendations. In my first three weeks with the Lumen, not once did it tell me I could have anything other than a low-carb day until I switched my track from Healthy Weight Loss to Metabolic Health and got one medium-carb day prescription.

When I got my first Flex Score after weeks of consistent morning measurements, it was barely registering Medium for metabolic flexibility.

None of that felt like I was winning with the Lumen, in spite of the encouraging messages the app kept sending me. And trust me, Im all for a cheerleader, but if youre not getting the results you think you should be getting, well I might be guilty of having said Yeah, whatever Lumen, more than once between breaths.

This is a fancy little device, but know that its not going to automatically fix your metabolism for you just because youre breathing into it on the regular. The Lumen is one piece of an overall program.

Does it work? If were talking about the actual Lumen itself, yes. Absolutely. This machine is the first portable metabolism measurement device on the market, and it seems to have a reasonable degree of accuracy. But if you want to lose weight and not just to see how your body is burning what you eat, then youve got to commit to the whole program. That includes taking breath tests several times a day, but also manually entering all the data it requires and following your personalized dietary prescription to the gram.

In other words, dont expect your Lumen to give you results just because youre good about breathing into it any more than youd expect your scale to suddenly drop in pounds just because you get on it regularly. Its a measurement tool, not a magic wand. Your success with Lumen is completely reliant on what you do with it and how dedicated you are to all the components.

If youre someone who needs accountability, motivation, feedback, and a lot of group support, then this is definitely a novel new way of learning about your body and how what you eat affects it. But dont expect the process to be uncomplicated. If you decide to make the significant investment, plan for a less quick fix and more Lumen long-haul.

Today's best Withings Body BMI Wi-Fi Scale deals

Here is the original post:
I used this device to track my metabolism for a month here's what happened - Tom's Guide

Biochemistry

How Paleo is using biochemistry to bring plant-based mammoth meat to consumers – Food Dive

Meat alternative makers are working to create products that look, feel, taste and smell like the products consumers are already familiar with.

Belgian startup Paleo is developing an ingredient that will create an entirely new taste sensation: plant-based wooly mammoth.

The company creates different animal heme proteins through precision fermentation. Heme, an iron-rich protein found in the muscles of animals, is a substance that helps provide meat with its trademark taste. Paleo can use fermentation to make heme that is normally found in beef, chicken, pork, lamb, tuna and, yes, wooly mammoth.

You can describe it as being more meaty, said Co-founder and CEO Hermes Sanctorum.Mammoth heme has a stronger aroma and taste, he said though it usually depends on the ingredients its being used with, as well as its application.

But Paleo isnt just out there to resurrect tastes from the ancient past and add them to tomorrows soy and pea analogs. Its heme proteins can also customize alternative versions of the food many meat-loving consumers enjoy today, making them more likely to make sustainable and kinder choices, Sanctorum said.

Sanctorum acknowledges he is impatient. A bioengineer and former member of Belgiums Federal Parliament, he left politics because it took too long for things to get done.He said he is a firm believer in the power of cultivated meat, but it will still take years to get to the scale in which it can make a difference in what people eat. Plant-based food is here and available, but making the products taste like something consumers would want is a challenge, Sanctorum said.

Since heme is such an important part of taste in meat, if you want to make plant-based foods taste more like meat,it makes sense to add heme to it, Sanctorum said.

Because Paleo uses precision fermentation, its heme ingredients are identical to whats found in the corresponding animals. (Or, in the case of wooly mammoth, what would be found.) Its patent application was recently published by the World Intellectual Property Organization. Sanctorum said the company is currently talking with some food manufacturers, and its ingredient could be on the market as soon as next year.

Heme protein plays two vital roles in meat, Sanctorum said. It provides the characteristic meaty taste that consumers are used to. But it also makes iron bio-available. Both of those aspects are vital for meat analogs, he said.

It's taste, which is very important for a consumer preference, but it's also about health, nutritional value, so it's a good and healthy protein, Sanctorum said.

A small amount of heme protein can make a great impact on a plant-based products taste and nutrition, he said.

Paleo co-founders Hermes Sanctorum and Andy de Jong.

Courtesy of Paleo

Paleo, which Sanctorum founded with medical doctor Andy de Jong, uses precision fermentation technology to create this protein without any animal. It modifies yeasts to produce these specific heme proteins when fermented. And, Sanctorum said, this method gets around Europes strict restrictions around genetically modified food though whether it would be considered a GMO product by consumers or other groups is an open question.

There are already alternative heme ingredients out there. Impossible Foods has one for its products that comes from soy and is made through precision fermentation, and Motif FoodWorks launched its Hemami ingredient late last year. But Paleo is the only company with a portfolio of different heme choices, Sanctorum said.

Sanctorum said it was important to come out with several heme protein options because customers will be making different products and have different needs. The proteins are generally similar from animal to animal, but Sanctorum said that there are differences in things like amino acid composition or compounds. The work of designing the heme proteins is done through biochemistry, he said, and Paleo is working with potential clients to see how closely the proteins can meet different needs.

The companys biochemistry-based portfolio building is how they got to creating wooly mammoth heme, Sanctorum said.

It started as a challenge, Sanctorum said.We thought, if you can do all the obvious species, could we do it for an ancient protein that has been consumed a long time by humanity, but not any more, right? I mean, it's about 12,000 years ago.

Paleo partnered with paleozoic researchers to see what they could learn about wooly mammoth DNA, which has been preserved in part. It was a real puzzle, Sanctorum said, but they were able to figure it out through using science to figure out some of the missing pieces.

As they worked more on mammoth heme, Sanctorum said they found that the protein was more stable than those found in other animals. When the mammoth heme was cooked, it released more aromatic compounds than other ingredients.

The mammoth heme is more than a demonstration of Paleos tech knowhow, Sanctorum said. Its also not just something wacky that the company can offer.

I know that it's a bit more exotic,he said. I can imagine that not everyone is really into trying something like that. But at least we can show also that we are able to produce something less obvious.Because I can imagine that we sit together with a large potential client and they say, Yeah, but in fact,we need something that is slightly different. Well, we are able to anticipate on that, and we just make the protein that they need.

Paleo is working on its growth and moving toward creating enough ingredients to sell. The company has a partnership with the Bio Base Europe Pilot Plant an independent fermentation lab in Belgium that helps with product development as it is scaling up, Sanctorum said.

The scale-up process should be complete next year, Sanctorum said, but getting the ingredient to market is another story. Because Paleo is Europe-based, it designed its products to get around the EUs provisions dealing with GMO food, but the ingredients still need regulatory approval. Sanctorum said Paleo is working with regulators in Europe, as well as the U.S., Latin America and Asia.

The companys first launch, Sanctorum said, will depend on several things coming together. It will be in a country that grants regulatory approval, and with a manufacturer known for its innovation that is ready to use Paleos heme in a product intended to truly do something different. Sanctorum said his team is talking to about 10 companies who are candidates for a first launch.

Paleo is also working on fundraising. Late last year, the company closed a 2 million euro ($2.26 million) seed round. Those funds were used on R&D and designing future facilities, including its own pilot plant. Sanctorum said Paleo is working on finding investors for its next funding round, which it hopes to close this fall.

Read the original:
How Paleo is using biochemistry to bring plant-based mammoth meat to consumers - Food Dive

Biochemistry

Assistant to Full Professor job with Department of Biochemistry and Structural Biology | 37289513 – The Chronicle of Higher Education

We are seeking outstanding candidates for Assistant, Associate, or Full Professor positions in Biochemistry and Structural Biology with initial appointment level commensurate with experience and accomplishments (tenure-track or tenured). Candidates may complement existing areas of expertise and/or bring exciting new directions to the BSB department (https://lsom.uthscsa.edu/biochemistry/).

We are interested in exceptional candidates in all areas of biochemistry and structural biology with particular emphasis on nucleic acid, virus, and/or cancer biology. The Department houses University-supported core facilities in macromolecular structure and interactions (X-ray crystallography, Cryo-EM, NMR spectroscopy, SPR, ITC/DSC), mass spectrometry (proteomics and metabolomics), as well as a Center for Innovative Drug Discovery (high throughput screening and medicinal chemistry) (https://wp.uthscsa.edu/biochemistry/core-facilities/).

UT Health San Antonio comprises of Medical, Graduate, Dental, Nursing and Health Profession schools. It is also home to the NCI-designated Mays Cancer Center, the Greehey Childrens Cancer Research Institute, the Sam and Ann Barshop Institute for Longevity and Aging Studies, and the Glenn Biggs Institute for Alzheimers and Neurodegenerative Diseases. San Antonio is the seventh largest city in the U.S., with a historical downtown, a vibrant economy, affordable housing, and many recreational opportunities.

Applicants must have strong research and publication portfolios and compelling plans for future work supported in part by extramural funding. Each position offers a generous startup package, a supportive scientific environment, and the potential for additional recruitment funds from the UT STARs Program and the Cancer Prevention and Research Institute of Texas (CPRIT). Successful applicants will be able to develop a competitive research program, form extensive internal and external collaborations, serve as mentors for students and research fellows, and contribute to teaching in graduate and professional programs. UTHSA is committed to a culturally and gender diverse faculty and is a designated Hispanic Serving Institution.

Interested candidates should visit https://uthscsa.referrals.selectminds.com/faculty and enter job number 2100-0985 in the keyword search to apply. Please upload a cover letter, a curriculum vitae, and a two-page description of current and future research interests before August 15th. The search committee will review applications in late August and begin interviews in September. For questions regarding these opportunities, please email: BSB-Search@uthscsa.edu

UT Health San Antonio is an Equal Employment Opportunity/Affirmative Action Employer including protected veterans and persons with disabilities. All faculty appointments are designated as security sensitive positions.

Here is the original post:
Assistant to Full Professor job with Department of Biochemistry and Structural Biology | 37289513 - The Chronicle of Higher Education

Biochemistry

Leap of faith: The people who left science to answer a call from God – ABC News

"Science and religion are incompatible," argues biologist, Jerry A. Coyne, in his 2015 book, Faith Versus Fact.

"They have different methods for getting knowledge about reality, have different ways of assessing the reliability of that knowledge, and, in the end, arrive at conflicting conclusions about the universe."

Coyne believes science and religion are diametrically opposed, locked in an irreconcilable "war between rationality and superstition".

For others, however, science and faith go hand in hand.

Some have even left a career in science to answer a call from God.

Benji Callen, Minister at Burnside City Uniting Church in Adelaide, always wanted to be a scientist a geneticist, like his dad.

"Where some people imagined a trophy for a footy premiership, I would imagine a Nobel Prize sitting on my bookshelf," he says.

"I always loved the scientific world. I loved imagining that I could understand something about the universe that no one else had understood before."

Reverend Callen studied science at the University of Adelaide before completing honours in biochemistry. He then spent five years working on a PhD in molecular biosciences.

He was working in a nanotechnology lab at the University of Liverpool in the UK when he received news that his PhD had been accepted.

His five years of hard work had paid off he'd done well and "got a good paper".

His wife, dad, and colleagues at the lab were all elated on his behalf.

But, despite his success, Reverend Callen's heart was elsewhere.

He realised it wasn't his burgeoning science career that most animated him.

Instead, his mind was drawn to his recent discussion with two other members of his church youth group about the meaning of life.

"I thought, 'My science career is going really well why am I far more excited about this conversation?'"

Reverend Callen had started attending church in his late teens and worked in youth ministry at his church in Australia. In Liverpool, he'd joined a Methodist church whose minister also had a PhD biochemistry. "The minister before him had a PhD in astrophysics," the reverend notes.

One of Reverend Callen's lab colleagues also volunteered at a church youth group. "He was happy being a science educator and doing ministry on the side. It was good to know that was possible."

But Reverend Callen realised he was different. While he "enjoyed the intellectual rigour and creativity" of working in science, he "always had this sense that something wasn't quite right".

So, when he and his pregnant wife returned to Australia, he applied for a role as youth pastor at his old church.

He got the job and started studying for a Bachelor of Theology in 2005.

The unease he had felt throughout his lab career vanished.

"I did feel a little sense of sadness or loss," he acknowledges.

"As soon as you step out of science, particularly research science it's really hard to get back into the game. I knew that there was no turning back."

Reverend Callen is now the minister at Adelaide's Burnside City Church, after spending eight years as a minister in the fishing town of Port Lincoln.

"People talk about it being one of the hardest jobs around, and I'd agree with that," he says. "I enjoy the huge variety no one day is ever the same."

Ann Edwards, Priest-in-Charge at St Mark's Anglican Church at The Gap, remembers always having a sense of faith.

As a child, her grandmother would take her to church.

In the days before women's ordination, she used to joke she would become the first female priest in the Anglican church.

"That idea was always there," she says. "I had a sense of vocation and call even from my early teens."

When a wristinjury prevented Reverend Edwards from pursuing the clarinet after school, she chose a new career path almost at random: speech pathology.

"I fell in love with the science of it," she says. "I loved anatomy and physiology and the psychology of it how brains worked. It captivated me."

Reverend Edwards established a rewarding career working with people with swallowing disorders caused by stroke and neurological disease.

"I had no plans to go anywhere," she says.

Despite the satisfaction she derived from speech pathology, Reverend Edwards still felt a call to God.

"I had this real sense of pull into ordained ministry," she says.

In 2014, she followed the call and began training as a priest.

She felt the skillsets she developed in her life as a speech pathologist, manager and researcher would be of great use in the practical business of running a church, particularly in improving disability inclusion, an issue she was passionate about and the focus of her theology thesis.

At the same time Reverend Edwards was embarking on her theology studies, she took up an academic role in speech pathology at the Australian Catholic University. She now wore "two hats" one "as a researcher in speech pathology, and as a researcher in church access."

As a minister, Reverend Edwards finds the same satisfaction from building relationships that she did in her clinical work.

"All those things that I loved about speech pathology are still here I'm still seeing people succeed, I'm still mentoring people," she says.

Reverend Edwards believes her scientific training is good preparation for the challenge of adapting ministry to a digital world, a prospect she finds exciting rather than daunting.

She sees no conflict between her "absolute belief [in] and love of science" and her faith. "My faith is informed by science," she says.

At Christmas, she delivered a sermon on the religious and scientific conceptions of creation and "how beautifully the two work together it's almost like a tapestry".

"The [Bible] stories have so much depth," she says. "They still speak truth if we don't hold them literally, and we hold them as they were meant to be."

She doesn't feel that her scientific background makes her an outlier in the religious world she now occupies.

"If you look at my community it's full of doctors and nurses and social workers," she says.

"There are more PhDs than you can poke a stick at here I'm not unusual at all."

Like Reverend Edwards, Reverend Callen sees science and faith as "complementary" not contradictory.

"Science does a great job of the 'how' of life, answering those 'how' questions 'How do cells work? How do stars work? How does gravity work?' but it does a pretty rubbish job at the 'why' questions 'Why are we here? Why do we have hope? Why do we love? Why do we hate?'"

He believes Christianity offers answers to those philosophical 'why' questions.

Both ministers talk about the "awe and wonder" they find in equal measure in faith and science.

Reverend Edwards finds affirmation of her faith in the natural world. Observing a "tawny frogmouth standing so still that you couldn't even see it in the tree that was a thing of awe and wonder for me," she says.

Reverend Callen says, "To be a good scientist, you need to have a sense of awe and wonder and curiosity about the universe."

He believes worship requires the same qualities. "For me, going into the lab and discovering something new about the universe was my meditation and prayer. It was my awe and wonder."

Get more stories that go beyond the news cycle with our weekly newsletter.

More:
Leap of faith: The people who left science to answer a call from God - ABC News

Biochemistry

Biological Optical Microscopy Platform Manager job with UNIVERSITY OF MELBOURNE | 302639 – Times Higher Education

Location:ParkvilleRole type:Full time / Fixed-termfor 3 years (with the possibility of extension)Faculty: Faculty of Medicine, Dentistry and Health SciencesDepartment/School:Department of Biochemistry and Molecular BiologySalary: Level B($110,236 - $130,900) or Level C ($135,032 - $155,698) p.a. plus 17% super

The University of Melbourne would like to acknowledge and pay respect to the Traditional Owners of the lands upon which our campuses are situated, the Wurundjeri and Boon Wurrung Peoples, the Yorta Yorta Nation, the Dja Dja Wurrung People. We acknowledge that the land on which we meet and learn was the place of age-old ceremonies, of celebration, initiation and renewal, and that the local Aboriginal Peoples have had and continue to have a unique role in the life of these lands.

About the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology

The Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology is a research and research-lead teaching department of the School of Biomedical Science in the Faculty of Medicine, Dentistry and Health Sciences. The Departments research laboratories are mainly located in the Bio21 Molecular Science and Biotechnology Institute (Bio21 Institute) which is adjacent to the University of Melbourne campus at Parkville and the University of Melbourne, Medical Building. We use our strengths in research to create high-quality courses for our undergraduate and graduate students in biomedicine, science and medicine.

https://biomedicalsciences.unimelb.edu.au/departments/biochemistry

About the Role

This is an academic position with major responsibility for management and ongoing development of the Biological Optical Microscopy Platform (BOMP), which makes state-of-the art fluorescence microscopy equipment available to the staff and students of the University of Melbourne, as well as the wider community. You will be actively involved in oversight of the maintenance of a suite of instrumentation, as well as training and research projects.

You will provide leadership and direction to all users of the BOMP facilities in a collaborative research and teaching environment and will manage a team of application specialists.

Other responsibilities include:

The Department and the Bio21 Institute provides superb training facilities and environment for students, as well as outstanding career opportunities for staff.

Biological Optical Microscopy Platform (unimelb.edu.au)

About You

You are a collaborative researcher, with excellent time management and the flexibility to manage and respond to changing priorities and deadlines. You can demonstrate your high level problem-solving and well as your effective verbal and written communication skills. Your ability to foster relationships will set you up for success in this role.

You will also have:

To ensure the University continues to provide a safe environment for everyone, this position requires the incumbent to hold a current and valid Working with Children Check.

About the University

The University of Melbourne is consistently ranked amongst the leading universities in the world. We are proud of our people, our commitment to research and teaching excellence, and our global engagement.

Benefits of Working with Us

In addition to having the opportunity to grow and be challenged, and to be part of a vibrant campus life, our people enjoy a range of rewarding benefits:

To find out more, visithttps://about.unimelb.edu.au/careers/staff-benefits.

Be Yourself

We value the unique backgrounds, experiences and contributions that each person brings to our community and encourage and celebrate diversity. First Nations people, those identifying as LGBTQIA+, females, people of all ages, with disabilities and culturally and linguistically diverse people are encouraged to apply. Our aim is to create a workforce that reflects the community in which we live.

Join Us!

If you feel this role is right for you, please submit your application including a brief cover letter, your resume and your responses against the selection criteria^ (found in the Position Description) for the role.

^For information to help you with compiling short statements to answer the selection criteria and competencies, please go tohttp://about.unimelb.edu.au/careers/selection-criteria

We are dedicated to ensuring barrier free and inclusive practices to recruit the most talented candidates. If you require any reasonable adjustments with the recruitment process, please contact us athr-talent@unimelb.edu.au.

The University of Melbourne is required to comply with applicable health guidance and directions issued from the Victorian Health Minister. All University of Melbourne employees are to be fully vaccinated against COVID-19, unless an exemption order applies. Applicants must meet this requirement when submitting an application.

Position description:PD_BOMP Platform Manager.pdf

Applications close: 24 AUGUST2022 11:55 PMAUS Eastern Standard Time

See the original post:
Biological Optical Microscopy Platform Manager job with UNIVERSITY OF MELBOURNE | 302639 - Times Higher Education