istock

DuPont launched a product for swine, a combination of enzymes and Bacillus probiotics, at the World Pork Expo in Iowa, US earlier this month.

We spoke to Aart Mateboer, business unit director, animal nutrition at DuPont on the sidelines of last weeks Nutreco run conference, Agrivision 2017, to hear about the benefits of that product, Syncra SWI, for the trade.

He claimed the combination product improves energy and amino acid digestibility for grower and finisher pigs, boosting growth and reducing feed costs.

The company reported that 75% of pig trials with the product showed a feed conversion ratio (FCR) improvement of more than 3% - it added that when the product is applied to a corn/soy/DDGS-based diet for grower-finisher pigs, producers could achieve cost savings per short ton of $5.00 to $13.00.

The enzyme is a protease that helps release proteins and amino acids out of a complex of fiber matrix that is typically in the diet. The probiotic also secretes protease enzymes while it is in the gut. It is the feed composition that triggers the probiotic to make those enzymes, and the composition of those enzymes depends on the feed, so it is a very flexible combination that sort of adjusts itself to get the optimal performance based on the feed composition that the animal is getting, said Mateboer

Our technical team will also work with the farmer to really fine tune the feed composition to optimize cost and performance, he added.

He said the probiotic in Syncra SWI consists of spore-forming Bacillus strains that are highly stable to heat and processing, allowing unstable enzymes, which would not normally survive pelleting or the stomach, to be delivered safely to pigs small intestine, where they are needed to break down substrate.

We have a large library of bacterial strains. We went through our libraries, and we now have this combination of three strains that, in our experience, give the best performance.

The multistrain probiotic, said the company, adapts its enzyme production profile to the available substrate in the pigs small intestine, enabling the same additive to degrade substrate in many different feed ingredients, thus powering the protease component. This solution strengthens gut barrier and stimulates short-chain fatty acid production in the hind gut, contributing to enhanced gut health.

On the poultry side, Mateboer said DuPont is now rolling out its three-strain Bacillus strain probiotic feed additiv, Enviva Pro, on the EU market. It has been very successful in North America, and now registration has been secured for the EU-28, he explained.

The company claimed the product, when used in poultry diets, could maintain a balanced gut microbiota from day one.

Spain is the first port of call for the European launch, France and Italy and other markets will then follow, he said.

View original post here:
DuPont looks to improve amino acid digestibility for grower and finisher pigs - FeedNavigator.com

Abu Dhabi Ports campaign was launched end of May and will run from until 15th September 2017

Abu Dhabi Ports the master developer, operator and manager of commercial and community ports in UAE, has rolled out the annual UAE Ministry of Labour and Abu Dhabi Occupational Health and Safety Center (OSHAD) Working Safely in the Heat campaign across its ports and Khalifa Industrial Zone Abu Dhabi (KIZAD).

Abu Dhabi Ports Working Safely in the Heatcampaign is being held for the fifth year to raise awareness about the risks of working in the heat and assist in preventing heat-related illnesses during the summer months.

The Abu Dhabi Ports campaign was launched end of May and will run from until 15th September 2017 using the Safety in the Heat campaign messages and awareness in collaboration with OSHAD.

The campaign objectives focus on raising awareness about heat-related illnesses over the summer months amongst Abu Dhabi Ports employees and Abu Dhabi ports users, especially as the Holy month of Ramadan this year also takes places during the same time. The campaign will highlight to truck drivers visiting the ports and KIZAD the risks associated with heat and how to avoid heat stress. In terms of fasting during summer, the campaign also focuses it attention this year on promoting a well-adjusted healthy lifestyle that includes a balanced diet, good sleep and hygiene as well as hydration for workers during the hottest months of the year.

It will also help workers and employees identify early signs of heat-related exhaustion amongst their colleagues, to catch any incidents that may occur and provide them with the required initial treatment as early on as possible. It will include site inspection, management walkabout to Abu Dhabi Ports workplaces to monitor employee welfare in compliance with the Working Safely in the Heat guideline. The assigned team from Abu Dhabi Ports will distribute electrolyte drinks, water bottles and giveaways to the workers to assist them to acclimatise with the hot season.

Commenting on the campaign, Abdulkareem Al Masabi Executive Vice President - Ports, said: We set our target this year to communicate the campaign messages to 4,000 employees and ports users working in Abu Dhabi Ports and KIZAD, including all contractors, tenants and industrial entities operating within our premises. We hope that this campaign will encourage everyone to stay safe and hydrated and comply with Abu Dhabi Ports and OSHADs Health and Safety Guidelines for Working Safely in the Heat. Progress will be monitored to achieve Zero Lost Time Incidents resulting from heat-related illnesses. This campaign will ensure that everyone in our ports as well as KIZAD is well aware of early detection signs of symptoms of heat related illnesses and responsibly act for their individual safety and the safety of their co-workers.

The safety of our employees and all those visiting Abu Dhabi Ports is our top priority. The hot summer months can be very dangerous for anyone working outside who is unprepared or unaware of the risks, he added.

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Abu Dhabi Ports 5th Annual Working Safely in the Heat Campaign Launched - Al-Bawaba

Enlarge / Royal graves at the site of Yinxu.

beibaoke/Shutterstock

During the final two centuries of the Shang Dynasty (1600-1046 BCE) in China, thousands of people were sacrificed at the state capital ofYinxu. Some were dispatched with great fanfare, buried with rich grave goods, while others appearto have been sacrificed with extreme prejudice and mutilated after death. Now, a new study sheds some light on these victims. Simon Frasier University bioarchaeologist Christina Cheung and her colleagues reconstructed these ancient people's' lives by discovering what they ate and when, based on chemical signatures left in their bones.

Human sacrifice was a common ritual among the people of almost every ancient civilization, from China and Europe, to Mesopotamia and the Americas. Though archaeologists have analyzed the graves of these sacrifices, they have many questions about the victims' lives. Were they revered and celebrated before death, or were they outcasts? Were they prisoners from far away, or were they the sons and daughters of their executioners?

Cheung and her team answered a number of these questions with a chemical analysis of the bones of 68 sacrificial victims at Yinxu, which werecomparedwith the bones of 39 locals. All of the victims were male, and most were young.

Sacrifices were buried in the royal cemetery across the Huan River from the palace. Archaeologists have been excavating at this site for almost a century, uncovering more than 3,000 sacrificial victims who appear to have been dispatched in groups of 50 to 350 at a time. In a recent paper for Journal of Anthropological Archaeology, Cheung and colleagues describe two distinct types of sacrificial victim.

In Shang, China, there were two main types of human sacrifice: rensheng () and renxun (). Rensheng literally means "human offerings," and these victims were often buried in large groups, mutilated, and with little to no grave goods. Renxun can be loosely translated as "human companions." They were often buried with elaborate grave goods, individual coffins, and even their own rensheng.

Archaeologists typically find rensheng in mass graves that they divide into "skull pits," "headless pits," and "mutilated pits." As you might guess, these are pits full of skulls, decapitated bodies, and partial bodies, respectively. Unfortunately it's often hard to tell the difference between rensheng and renxun because there has been so much looting and excavation at Yinxu. The practice of mutilating the bodies also makes it difficult for scientists to match skulls with bodies, so they relied entirely on skeletons (headless or otherwise) to identify individuals.

Map of the royal cemetery showing locations of royal tombs and sacrificial ground. Solid black enclosures are royal tombs, and open rectangles are sacrificial pits. Red markers show locations of three sets of samples analyzed in this study.

Journal of Anthropological Archaeology

Knowing what people ate reveals a lot about who they were and where they lived. Cheung and her colleagues analyzed carbon, nitrogen, and sulfur isotopes in the bone collagen from each person. These isotopes give hints about the kinds of vegetables and proteins they ate, as well as where they drank water. By combining all three readings, scientists can get a unique signature that tells them where and what a person ate over an extended period of time.

The most interesting part is that different bones reveal diet and location for varied periods of time. The researchers explain:

As bone collagen turns over slowly, the carbon and nitrogen isotope values measured in bone collagen reflect the long-term averages of diet over an individuals lifetime. Small bones or those consisting mostly of trabecular bone, such as ribs, turn over faster than larger, denser bones such as femora. The general consensus is that rib turnover occurs at approximately 35year intervals, while adult femoral collagen almost never turn over completely... The differing turnover rates in different skeletal elements have enabled archaeologists to look for evidence of migration in the form of drastically changing diets over an individuals lifetime.

Cheung and colleagues analyzed two bones from each individual, looking for these longer-term signatures and shorter-term ones. What they found was that the human sacrifices were clearly not locals. Isotopic signatures in their larger bones were dramatically different from those of local people, so they had grown up in another region, eating different foods. At the same time, many of the sacrifices had similar sulfur readings, indicating that they may have come from the same region, perhaps from the same state or nation.

Smaller bones from the sacrifices show that their diets changed quite a bit in the last few years of their lives, coming to resemble the diets of locals. That said, they were not eating as well as their neighbors. Their meals contained a lot of millet and very little animal protein. Indeed, nitrogen isotope readings show their diets contained less meat protein than even the poorest local people. That suggests they were treated as the lowest members of the community.

Anthropologists have a long-running debate about whether these people were prisoners or actually worked as slaves in the city that surrounded the palace. Obviously we can't know this based on their diets, but it does seem unlikely that the people of Yinxu would have kept these prisoners around for years without making them work. So they probably did some labor, nourished on a diet of gruel and a few bites of deer meat.

These findings fit what we know from written records from Shang Dynasty, which suggest that human sacrifices weren't made simply wheneverprisoners were captured. Instead, there seems to have been a pool of potential sacrifices that nobles could draw upon on request. Cheung and her colleagues explain:

The early Shang scholar Yang reported that on more than one occasion, Shang nobles and vassals had to ask for the kings permission to offer captives to the king for sacrifice, and only after consulting an oracle would the king demand a specific date for the delivery of such captives. Yang thus argued that war captives were offered for sacrifice upon request, not upon availability.

Shang Dynasty writings also say that human sacrifices were prisoners of war. Many records mention sacrificing people from a group called Qiang, though researchers are uncertain whether this was a specific group or just referred to all enemies west of Yinxu. Regardless of who the Qiang were, there is a remarkable homogeneity to the chemical signatures in the bones of Yinxu sacrifices the researchers examined. They were clearly from the same general region.

We can't say for sure what was happening in Yinxu that made human sacrifice seem appealing. Were these early leaders of China trying to build a new state, based on their ruthless strength? Or were they worried that their control was slipping and offering sacrifices to regain an earlier greatness?

All we know is that the Shang Dynasty kept a prison full of outcasts readily available so that at any time the public could be witness to the public sacrifices of people their leaders called foes.

Journal of Anthropological Archaeology, 2017. DOI: 10.1016/j.jaa.2017.05.006

Originally posted here:
The human sacrifice diet | Ars Technica - Ars Technica

Khlo Kardashian is a little bit adventurous when it comes to trying things in the wellness world she's talked about her experiences doing everything from putting vitamin E on her vagina to her hardcore leg workouts. Now she's trying something new with her diet, too. Her nutritionist, Philip Goglia recently told the Daily Mail that Kardashian eats seven meals a day. Well, "meals." Each dish ranges in size from a serving fish with vegetables to just a piece of fruit, but shes pretty much eating every few hours. "We work with each client to determine their metabolic body type," Goglia explains. "Each requires a unique meal breakdown based on how that person's body breaks down proteins, fats, and carbs."

Seven meals seems like a lot, but Julie Upton, M.S., R.D., cofounder of nutrition website Appetite for Health, points out that its really more like three meals and four snacks, all healthy. If you think about it, that's only slightly different from the three main meals and two to three healthy snack most dietitians recommend, she says.

Still, it might seem hard to fit that many food breaks into your day. Some people do well eating more frequently throughout the day, while others are fine with three meals and a snack, explains Alissa Rumsey, M.S., R.D., C.S.C.S., author of Three Steps to a Healthier You. Sonya Angelone, R.D., a spokeswoman for the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics, agrees. This works for some people, but may be too many food interactions for others, she says. If someone is eating that oftenwhich is about every two hours, "they may be eating too many carbs and not enough healthy fats, protein, or fiber to help them stay satisfied, says Angelone. Its also easy to spend a lot of your day thinking about food when youre eating this often, she says, not to mention the prep time you need for all of those meals. And, if you have trouble keeping your portions in check, eating seven meals a day increases the odds youll overeat, Rumsey says.

But the concept works for some people. If you are going to eat more than three times per day, Rumsey recommends making each of those mini-meals smaller than you'd have if you were eating three meals a day. "Pay close attention to your hunger and fullness cues, try to eat only when you are actually physically hungry, and stop when you start to feel full," she says.

As for the different metabolic types Goglia mentioned, Angelone says its not really a thing. There is not a lot of evidence that there are metabolic types that all respond to the same dietary guidelines, she says. There are so many factors that affect weight such as your gut microbiome, genetics, your environment, activity, brain chemistry, sleep patterns, etc. Upton agrees: There is no evidence-based clinical term for metabolic type.

However, Rumsey says most people fall into one of three body typesthe ectomorph, the endomorph, and the mesomorph. Ectomorphs tend to be naturally lean and have a higher metabolic rate, endomorphs have a larger bone structure and tend to more easily store fat, and mesomorphs tend to have athletic body types and easily gain muscle mass, she explains. Ectomorphs typically do well with higher amounts of carbs in their diet, endomorphs do better with lower carbs and more protein and fat, while mesomorphs usually do well with a high protein diet.

Of course, you can easily lose hours wondering about what foods you should be eating for your body type and when, but Upton says the easiest thing to do is make healthy choices. Eat whole foods, go for a balance of protein, fat and carbs, and watch your processed food intake. And if seven meals a day works for you as well as it does for Khlo, well, go for it!

Excerpt from:
Should You Be Eating 7 Meals a Day? - Glamour

(Picture: Bill Hogan/Chicago Tribune/MCT via Getty Images)

You might think that cutting the carbs is the most effective and painful way of losing weight.

After all, No Pizza Before Ibiza must exist for a reason, right?

But new research published in the Journal of the American College of Nutrition claims that the key to shredding might actually lie in a plant-based diet.

Scientistsclaim that dieters not only lose weight more effectively when following a vegetarian diet but that going meat-free also boosts their metabolism.

They looked at a group of 74 type 2 diabetes sufferers who were put on a vegetarian diet of grains, vegetables, fruits and nuts.

And the researchers claim to have discovered that that diet was twice as effective as a meaty one.

On average, the newly veggie dieters lost an average of 14lbs versus 7lbs.

As well as simply losing weight, their plant-based diet helped reduce muscle fat which in turn, heightened metabolism.

This finding is important for people who are trying to lose weight, including those suffering from metabolic syndrome and/or type 2 diabetes, says DrKahleov.

But it is also relevant to anyone who takes their weight management seriously and wants to stay lean and healthy.

Pizza-flavoured ice cream now exists, obviously

A blue gin train is coming to London

An avocado-shaped walkie talkie has been invented

So if youre trying to slim down or maintain a healthy weight, it might not be a bad idea to try and have at lease one meat-free day a week.

Yet more proof that plant-life rules.

MORE: The Sleeping Beauty Diet: Abusing sedatives to get skinny

MORE: Big boned cat to be rehomed after going on a diet

See more here:
Going vegetarian is the most effective 'diet' for losing weight, say researchers - Metro

Watching your weight: 8 ways to sustain a healthy diet

BelfastTelegraph.co.uk

Over the years, there have been endless training and diet packages which offer a quick fix. You could "get the body you want" in as little as 8, 10, or 12 weeks.

http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/life/health/watching-your-weight-8-ways-to-sustain-a-healthy-diet-35842009.html

http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/life/features/article35741716.ece/02dae/AUTOCROP/h342/2016-12-30_lif_27446359_I1.JPG

Over the years, there have been endless training and diet packages which offer a quick fix. You could "get the body you want" in as little as 8, 10, or 12 weeks.

The problem is that these approaches rarely provide any lasting results. A couple of weeks of looking great before you start to see all that progress disappear, all because the practices during your 12-week routine were too extreme to be sustainable long-term (ever wonder why those packages don't last longer than just a couple of months?)

Lasting results come from building daily habits which shape your lifestyle, and which you can sustain day in, day out. The habits which give you results are the same ones which help keep them.

So, how do we start to build those positive dietary habits and reshape our lifestyle? Here are 8 of my top tips to help you do just that:

The habit building process takes time, and it doesn't happen overnight. Instead of trying to implement many changes all at once (which is much more difficult to sustain,) focus on the process of developing just one positive habit which sticks before looking at building another.

Remember, this isn't a quick fix- we need to be willing to invest time into achieving our long-term results.

Trying to stick to a diet filled with foods you genuinely dislike is setting you up for disaster.

Kale might be a superfood, but if you can't stand it then don't eat it! Instead, build your diet based on the foods you enjoy- you'll find it much, much easier to sustain.

It maybe sounds obvious, but you'll have a harder time eating junk if you have more difficulty getting hold of it.

Storing it in less convenient places, or making better alternatives more accessible can make a big difference in how readily you'll reach for it.

Have you, for example, ever found yourself mindlessly snacking in front of the TV, even when you're not hungry?

We often find that weight-gain has been as a result of developing bad habits over time. Instead of sitting in watching TV, which triggers that notion to snack, substituting it for something as simple as going for a walk removes that trigger, and you can often find yourself replacing it with something much more productive.

There's a lot of conflicting advice when it comes to how many meals to eat each day to achieve your goals, but truth is, consuming 6-8 small meals has been shown to provide no more benefit than eating 3-4 large ones.

Some people have more time to eat than others, so structure your eating pattern and meal timing around your own daily routine, including however many meals to best suit your schedule.

Struggling with diet consistency as the week goes on? Consider establishing a weekly food/meal prep routine.

This can not only help to ensure that you have easy access to the foods you want to base your diet around, but also means you're less likely to make poor "spur of the moment" food choices.

When I say to eat the foods you like, I mean to eat all the foods you like.

Cutting out your favourite treat foods can lead to binge cycles, and is much harder to maintain long-term. Instead of cutting them out, practice being able to include them in moderated amounts on a daily basis - it's a much easier way to control those cravings.

Some people find that the time investment into prepping or cooking nutritious meals is too much, so struggle to adhere to their diet.

Consider making things as easy as possible for yourself by including as many convenient or minimal-prep foods as possible.

Frozen, ready-chopped, tinned, or packaged versions of your favourite healthy foods are quick and easy options for throwing together meals when tight for time.

Want to discover more ways to make lasting changes for long-term results? Make sure to check out the Facebook page for daily tips and advice as to how to help you achieve those goals.

Belfast Telegraph Digital

Continued here:
Watching your weight: 8 ways to sustain a healthy diet - Belfast Telegraph

We've all heard the promises: 10 or more pounds of weight loss in just a week or two, simply by going on the latest and greatest diet.

But healthy weight loss doesn't come via a miracle diet it comes with healthy eating, regular exercise and making small lifestyle changes that can be adopted for the long term, health experts said.

Here are four diets that may seem to work, but don't hold their heft for lasting weight loss :

1. The Dukan Diet

"The Dukan Diet" book was released today (April 19) in the United States, and is already a fad-diet phenomenon in France. The diet was devised by French doctor and nutritionist Pierre Dukan and includes four phases.

The first phase allows dieters to eat unlimited protein, the second phase allows dieters to eat protein and vegetables, the third phase lets dieters add starches, fruit, cheese and bread, and the fourth phase allows dieters anything they want, so long as they take the stairs whenever possible, set aside one day of the week as a protein-only day and eat three teaspoons of oat bran a day. Dieters are encouraged to limit intake of carbohydrates throughout the diet.

The bulk of the American diet is carbohydrates, said David Levitsky, professor of psychology and nutritional sciences at Cornell University in New York. Because they make up so much of the typical meal, it's easy to cut out carbs and reduce calorie intake.

Why the effects won't last: By cutting out carbs, a person is really losing water weight, not fat, Levitsky said. Reducing carbohydrates decreases sodium, which leads to an increase in water loss. Water loss is most evident in the face, which can make weight loss appear greater than it actually is, he said.

2. The 17 Day Diet

"The 17 Day Diet " book (Free Press, 2011) was written by California family practice physician Dr. Michael Moreno, and touts a four-stage weight loss plan that involves low carbohydrate intake.

With each 17-day stage, dieters must vary their intake of carbohydrates, fruits, vegetables and protein. Dieters are also encouraged to substitute healthy ingredients for unhealthy ones, such as mustard for mayonnaise, and can't eat certain fruits and carbohydrates after 2 p.m. Dieters must also walk for 17 minutes a day.

Like the Dukan Diet, this diet involves cutting back on carbohydrates, thereby reducing the amount a person eats in a typical meal.

Why the effects won't last: Nutrition experts say the healthy ingredient swaps are examples of small diet changes that can pay off for long-term weight loss. But other aspects such as the 17-day cycles and the rule about no fruit or carbohydrates after 2 p.m. serve no purpose for weight loss and are just "gimmicks," Levitsky said.

3. The Atkins Diet

The Atkins Diet, devised by Dr. Robert Atkins in the 1970s, is one of the most popular low-carb, high-protein fad diets on the market, and claims to help people lose up to 15 pounds in the first two weeks of the diet.

Atkins works by limiting dieters' carbohydrate intake and upping fiber intake, so that the body burns fat instead of carbohydrates. It includes four phases; the first phase has dieters limit carbohydrate intake but encourages liberal consumption of protein-rich meat and fish, eggs, cheese, salad vegetables, butter and oil. With each phase, dieters add in more carbohydrates until they find the balance where they are no longer gaining weight from their diet.

Why the effects won't last: Like other low-carb diets, water loss accounts for much of the weight loss at the beginning of the diet.

Healthy weight loss takes time and should not be drastic, said Stella Volpe, a registered dietitian and professor and chairwoman of the Department of Nutrition Sciences at Drexel University in Philadelphia.

"People need to come to terms with that if they're going to do it right, it will take time," Volpe told MyHealthNewsDaily. "So they might be frustrated, but really one to two pounds a week will mean that they're losing more fat, less muscle and less water."

4. The HCG Diet

The HCG diet involves a combination of calorie restriction consuming anywhere from 500 to 800 calories a day, which is about a quarter to a half of the recommended daily calorie intake and supplementation with human chorionic gonadotropin (HCG), a hormone that is produced during pregnancy. HCG can be injected into the body or taken via a pill supplement.

HCG is not approved by the Food and Drug Administration for weight loss purposes, but is approved to treat fertility problems, according to the Mayo Clinic.

Why the effects won't last: Weight loss comes when a person minimizes the amount of calories he or she eats and that's likely why people lose weight on this diet, the Mayo Clinic said. However, it's hard to maintain that low of a calorie intake over the long term, not to mention it's hard to get the necessary nutrition from that small amount of food to maintain a healthy lifestyle.

The HCG hormone itself isn't likely to have any effect on weight loss, research shows. Authors of a 1995 study, published in the British Journal of Clinical Pharmacology, reviewed the results of 24 studies on HCG and weight loss and found that HCG did not help to combat obesity, did not curb appetite or promote feelings of well-being and did not spur weight loss or fat distribution.

Pass it on: For lasting weight loss, nix the Dukan Diet, Atkins Diet, 17 Day Diet and HCG diet. Instead, opt for healthy eating, small changes and exercise, experts say.

Follow MyHealthNewsDaily staff writer Amanda Chan on Twitter @AmandaLChan.

Link:
4 Fad Diets That Don't Really Work - livescience.com