Researchers discover new Blood Test that can measure Dietary Intake of Fats.
It has been a stressful year for healthcare workers and all in that line of work worldwide. The global health crisis has put everyone in a state of urgency to provide a cure and also protect the lives of individuals. Notwithstanding, there are still other deadly diseases lurking around and causing deaths worldwide. Fortunately, scientists are still working round the clock to produce solutions to illnesses plaguing the people of the world. And one of these breakthroughs is the development of a blood test that can measure the amount of fat infested in a meal.
A team of researchers at the McMaster University have developed a test that can accurately measure the amount of fat consumed by an individual in a meal or diet. The test was confirmed to be reliable, and will provide a great deal of assistance in guiding public health decisions and recommendations on healthy eating. This issue of reliable guidelines for eating is one that has plagued the minds of nutritional epidemiologists because before now, guidelines were based on the consumption records of study participants, which were prone to human error and false records.
The results of the study were published in several scientific journals, websites and magazines, all to an excited community. How the rest works is that it detects a special fatty acid: the Non-Esterified Fatty Acids (NEFAs) which is a type of free fatty acid that circulated in the blood stream. Measurement can be carried out by taking small volumes of blood samples from the individual to be tested. Professor Philip McKibbin from the Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology at McMasters was the lead this study.
As stated earlier, to create reliable nutritional guidelines, cats from human reports are often compromised and cannot be used and he understands that. Professor McKibbin also mentioned that as the food people eat is highly complex and difficult to measure when relying on human memory or self-reporting, there was need for the development of an accurate test. The study was a combination of research projects conducted by McKibbin with Sonia Anand in the Department of Medicine and Stuart Phillips in the Department of Kinesiology. This research was a very extensive one, and the process of identifying the NEFA factor as the basis for a test was based on the study of pregnant women in their second trimester.
McKibbin states that armed with information of this test, nutritionists can recommend food and diets that can have a positive or negative impact on the lives of pregnant women and their unborn children.
Lance Armstrong reveals startling new details about his doping activities.
Sports competitions have always been one of the greatest highlights of yearly TV viewing. Viewers are usually interested in watching a contest between their favorite sportsmen and others. Competitions like the IAAF league, World Cup, Tour de France, and the biggest of them all, the Olympics attracts fans and enthusiasts from all over the world. They are watched both in person or via satellite or internet viewing. Names like Usain Bolt, Carl Lewis and so on have become folk names and heroes to people globally. And unfortunately, to maintain success, some sportsmen go to illegal lengths to boost their performance and give them an undue advantage over their opponents.
Lance Armstrong is one of those 'fallen angels', a sport hero whose outstanding career suffered a great blow after it was discovered that he was involved in using performance enhancing drugs during competitions. He began his career as a cyclist professionally in 1992, and was a great sportsman. Lance had a brief break in his career when he was diagnosed with testicular cancer in 1996, and fortunately recovered and was declared cancer-free in 1997.
The sportsman, obviously revved for a return to cycling, continued in 1998 and retired in 2005. That was a successful spell as he picked up a few Tour de France titles and an Olympic Bronze Medal in the 2000 Summer Olympics held at Sydney, Australia. Perhaps, the thrill of cycling was still addictive, as he returned in early January 2009 for a brief two-year spell, finishing third in the 2009 Tour de France. He retired again in 2011 ending as a cycling legend, or so it seemed.
Armstrong was facing doping allegations for much of his career, beginning when he won the 1999 Tour de France. For years, he denied any involvement in doping, once referring to himself as the most tested athlete. rong never contested the charges, but continued to maintain his innocence. The final ruling was devastating: he was stripped of all his achievements from 1998 till his retirement in 2011, making him one of the most disgraced athletes in the world.
In 2013, Lance Armstrong finally admitted he was involved in doping and 5 years later, he settled a 5 million dollar lawsuit with the United States Justice Department, bringing an end to the whole fiasco. And now, he has made startling new revelations about his doping activities. Lance was in an interview for an ESPN documentary titled "Lance" which will be broadcasted in May 2020, and when asked when he started using drugs, he replied "probably at 21". This proves that he had indeed used drugs for the greater part of his cycling career. He also said it was probably the cause of his cancer disease back in 1996.
Also, there has been no love lost between him and former teammate Floyd Landis. Obviously still bearing animosity towards Landis, he said that although his situation was bad, it could be worse, and he could be "waking up a piece of (expletive) everyday like Landis". Landis was the person whose whistleblowing led to Armstrong's downfall and Armstrong has obviously not gotten over it
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I won't be active today - I have an exam in the afternoon which is my Anatomy Practical and I'll spend most of the day in the lab with bones and organs of dead people (✝️🕊️) .
Please wish me luck, thanks!
