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Thursday, May 2, 2024
Coronavirus

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The federal government has facilitated the release of 3,789 inmates in prisons nationwide as part of measures to curb the spread of coronavirus since the discovery of COVID-19 in the country.

The Minister of Justice and Attorney General of the Federation (AGF), Abubakar Malami made this public yesterday while speaking at an event meant to highlight the achievements of the Presidential Committee on Correctional Service Reform and Decongestion (formerly, Presidential Committee on Prisons Reform and Decongestion).

“As part of measures to decongest the custodial centres nationwide in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic and the dangers posed to the centres, my office, the Ministry of Interior in collaboration with Presidential Committee on Correctional Service and Decongestion, the Presidential Advisory Committee on Prerogative of Mercy and State Executives and other relevant stakeholders were galvanised to develop measures to overcome the challenges.

“The initiatives adopted have so far led to the release of about 3,789 inmates, while simultaneously reducing the instances of unnecessary test and we intend to sustain this momentum.”

Malami noted that the Presidential Committee has since its establishment in October 2017 aided the release of a total of 7,713 from 39 prisons in 18 states that it has visited and appraised.

The AGF said the Presidential Committee, headed by the Chief Judge of the High Court of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Justice Ishaq Bello has also identified many challenges in the nation’s correctional centres and is working ways to address them.

He noted that the inadequacy of the nation’s correctional facilities now compels them to currently operate at over 150 per cent of their capacity.

He said part of measures to address the inadequacy in the correctional centres was the ongoing construction of 3000-capacity maximum security custodial centres in Karshi, Abuja and Janguza in Kano State.

The AGF said, “undoubtedly, the COVID19 pandemic has posed its own peculiar challenges in the light of the worrisome and dilapidated state of our correctional centres nationwide.”

He said his office will work with the Ministry of Interior and other relevant agencies “to urgently decongest the correctional centres of awaiting trial inmates.

“Also, to be revisited is the issue of condemned convicts on death row for over 10 years with a view of getting relevant authorities to commute the sentence to life imprisonment

“This is based on the provisions of Section 12 (2) (c) of the Nigerian Correctional Service Act, 2019. A review of cases of inmates awaiting trial for upwards of five (5) years will also be considered.

“We are very mindful of the increasing number of sexual assault and kidnapping; and with respect to the public interest, those who are charged or convicted for such offences will not be considered for release during the proposed exercise.”

Justice Bello said his committee, during its visits to correctional centres, found that a number of facilities were in dire need of urgent rehabilitation and made recommendations as a matter of urgency to the relevant authorities for the renovation/construction of these facilities.

He said his committee, after a review of cases of inmates eligible for prerogative of mercy and condemned convicts on death row for over 10 years, wrote to several State Governments to act on some special cases identified and to exercise their powers of clemency in deserving cases or commute to life sentence those condemned to death.

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A laboratory study has found that the asthma drug salbutamol prevents the formation of tangles of fibrous protein that are a hallmark of Alzheimer’s disease. The next step will be to test the drug in animal models of the disease.

About 50 million people worldwide have dementia, and every year, there are nearly 10 million new cases, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).

They note that the most common form of dementia is Alzheimer’s disease, which accounts for 60–70% of all cases.

In the United States, the National Institute on Aging estimate that more than 5.5 million people have Alzheimer’s disease. Most of them are over 65 years of age.

The disease is a neurological disorder in which the death of brain cells results in progressive memory loss and cognitive decline.

While existing drug treatments help reduce the symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease and improve people’s quality of life, they neither slow its progression nor cure it.

The brains of people with the condition contain distinctive plaques between nerve cells, as well as clumps of fibers known as neurofibrillary tangles inside the cells.

The plaques consist of a protein called beta-amyloid, while another protein called tau makes up the tangles.

Promising drug target

After clinical trials found that drugs that clear beta-amyloid from the brain failed to slow the disease’s progression, attempts to find a treatment have shifted to tau.

Researchers at Lancaster University in the United Kingdom believe that tau could be a more promising drug target for Alzheimer’s disease. They point to previous research, which found that in the absence of the tau neurofibrillary tangles, beta-amyloid does not seem to harm nerve cells.

Also, the number of tangles in the brain appears to be a much better indicator of the severity of the disease than the number of amyloid plaques.

In healthy brain cells, tau proteins help stabilize the internal network of microscopic tubes, or “microtubules,” that transports nutrients and other molecules around nerve cells.

In Alzheimer’s disease, these tau molecules break away from the microtubules and begin to stick together to form threads and, eventually, tangles. In turn, these disrupt the microtubule transport network.

The scientists from Lancaster University believe that compounds that prevent tau molecules from aggregating in this way could make promising treatments for Alzheimer’s disease.

Giant microscope

To screen more than 80 compounds for their ability to block the formation of tangles, the researchers used a powerful technique — synchrotron radiation circular dichroism — for imaging structural changes in proteins.

This technique involves illuminating samples with beams of light 10 billion times brighter than the sun. The U.K.’s Diamond Light Source (DLS) in Oxfordshire, which experts have likened to a giant microscope, generated this light for the study.

One of the compounds that the DLS identified was the hormone epinephrine, which stabilized tau proteins and prevented them from forming tangles.

The body rapidly metabolizes epinephrine, however, so the researchers went on to screen four existing drugs with very similar chemical structures.

Of these, two were effective: a drug called dobutamine, which doctors use to treat heart attacks and heart failure, and salbutamol (also known as albuterol), which is available under the brand name Ventolin for treating asthma.

The scientists ruled out dobutamine as a practical treatment for Alzheimer’s disease because it requires injection, and its effects are very short-lived.

Further tests on salbutamol suggested that it binds to individual tau molecules, preventing them from forming “nuclei” around which other protein molecules can aggregate.

The researchers published their findings in the journal ACS Chemical Neuroscience.

Early days

“This work is in the very early stages, and we are some way from knowing whether or not salbutamol will be effective at treating Alzheimer’s disease in human patients,” says Prof. David Middleton, one of the authors.

“However, our results justify further testing of salbutamol and similar drugs in animal models of the disease and, eventually, if successful, in clinical trials.”

Salbutamol is on the WHO’s Model Lists of Essential Medicines and is the 10th most commonly prescribed medication in the U.S.

Dr. David Townsend, who led the research, says that it demonstrated the potential benefits of finding new applications for existing drugs with proven safety records:

“Salbutamol has already undergone extensive human safety reviews, and if follow-up research reveals an ability to impede Alzheimer’s disease progression in cellular and animal models, this drug could offer a step forward, whilst drastically reducing the cost and time associated with typical drug development.”

The researchers note that only a small amount of salbutamol reaches the brain when people use asthma inhalers, which deliver the drug to the lungs.

If further research in animals proves successful, a new delivery method will be necessary.

Future research could also focus on other asthma drugs in the same class — beta-adrenergic agonists — that circulate in the bloodstream for longer.

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As witnessed during the West African Ebola epidemic of 2014-16 and in today’s novel coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, disease outbreaks can spread rapidly, resulting in unprecedented social and economic costs and tragic loss of life.

In response to these health crises, new digital approaches to disease surveillance have emerged, aimed at speeding up the transfer of epidemiological data and increasing countries’ preparedness for future outbreaks.

Several studies have also shown that one effective and complementary strategy to slow the spread and reduce the impact of COVID-19 is to trace the primary and secondary contacts of confirmed cases using contact tracing technology.

According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), contact tracing is an essential public health measure and a critical component of comprehensive strategies to control the spread of COVID-19. Contact tracing breaks the chains of human-to-human transmission by identifying people exposed to confirmed cases, quarantining them, following up with them to ensure rapid isolation, and testing and treatment in case they develop symptoms.

When implemented systematically and effectively, these actions can ensure that the number of new cases generated by each confirmed case is maintained below one.

What is Nigeria using for contact tracing of COVID-19 patients? “Our Surveillance, Outbreak Response Management and Analysis System (SORMAS) platform for digital surveillance is also used for contact tracing. With this, we have an integrated system to keep track of new cases and also identify and follow up with their contacts,” Director General of the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC), Dr. Chikwe Ihekweazu, told The Guardian.

Ihekweazu said this has been built as fit for purpose within Nigeria’s context, as the NCDC recognises the difficulty of limited Internet connectivity in some parts of the country. “With SORMAS, our health workers can continue their work with or without Internet access, and there is an automatic synchronisation as soon as they reach an area with Internet access,” the epidemiologist said.

He added: “Our goal is to adapt tools that can be used in our context, and build on these. We will continue to strengthen our use of SORMAS for case-based surveillance as well as for contact tracing.”

SORMAS software is an initiative of the Helmholtz Centre for Infection Research (HZI) in cooperation with the NCDC. SORMAS grew directly out of the experience of tackling Ebola in Nigeria. It is one of few programmes to provide comprehensive disease surveillance and outbreak management in a single digital platform, processing real-time data critical for tackling deadly disease outbreaks.

SORMAS was designed to improve the efficiency and timeliness of disease control measures. The entry of a suspected or confirmed case by a health worker at any level of the system automatically triggers a series of actions to ensure that it is managed quickly and efficiently. This system also allows different actors in the national surveillance and response system to receive and share new information which is immediately accessible to all those who need to see it.

Using this data, the platform is able to generate early warnings of potential outbreaks and activate response measures using real-time data to help manage and control the outbreak.
Elsewhere

The Go.Data software application, created by WHO with partners of the Global Outbreak Alert and Response Network, was designed specifically for field workers and has been implemented in many countries for COVID-19.

Proximity tracing tools, also known as proximity tracking tools, use location-based (GPS) or Bluetooth technology to find and trace the movements of individuals to identify people who may have been exposed to an infected person.

Many regions that have made contact tracing a key part of their COVID-19 playbook — including China, South Korea, Taiwan and Israel — have empowered contact tracers with sensitive details of infected people, including CCTV footage, credit-card transactions and location data from mobile-phone carriers. Australia was among the first countries to launch a national contact-tracing app. But in places where such solutions are likely to be incompatible with privacy expectations, Bluetooth tracing has proved alluring.

During the past two months, several research groups have developed privacy-minded protocols, including the TraceTogether team in Singapore, the Private Automated Contact Tracing (PACT) group led by researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Cambridge, and the largely European consortium Decentralized Privacy-Preserving Proximity Tracing (DP-3T).

These three teams have embraced a basic common concept. A smartphone regularly broadcasts a random string of characters that serves as a pseudonym to other phones using Bluetooth’s low-energy specification for sending short bursts of data.

The phone adopts a new string every 15 minutes or so to further anonymises the pseudonyms. At the same time, it logs every ‘chirp’ it hears from other phones, as well as information about the signal strength to estimate how close they are.

In the United States, US $500 million of the US $2 trillion economic stimulus bill recently signed into law has been allocated to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to launch a new surveillance and data collection system to monitor the spread of COVID-19. This move is a first for the United States since stringent patient data privacy and security regulations have hampered the adoption of contact tracing as a countermeasure for epidemic control in the past.

Similarly, the state of Massachusetts has announced the launch of what it calls the “first contact tracing” call center with 1000 virtual assistants to call and trace contacts of COVID-19-positive persons.

In China, a mandatory smartphone app “Health code” that leverages a mesh network for infected persons contact tracing and notification.

In Italy, Germany, and Austria, telecommunications providers allow for the sharing of location data with health authorities to check whether people are remaining at home. The data is aggregated and anonymous, mapping concentrations rather than individuals to respect Europe’s privacy laws.

In South Korea, the government created a map of cell phone data provided by telecommunications and credit card companies. The map was made public, so everyone could track his or her level of exposure.

In Israel, the government is using GMS call detail records in addition to patient mobile phone position data to locate contacts and trace their movement patterns.

Iranian authorities developed a mobile app with government endorsement for COVID-19 self-diagnosis checks. It, however, also discretely collects user’s location data.

Singapore is using a mobile app that uses a Bluetooth-based mesh network to detect people’s proximity to those who have been exposed to COVID-19 and warns them to get tested if they come in close contact.
Challenges

However, there are concerns over the use of contact tracing apps in efforts to stop the spread of COVID-19.

A vaccinologist, virologist and Chief Executive of Innovative Vaccines Limited, Keffi, Nasarawa State, Dr. Simon Agwale, told The Guardian: “The NCDC is not using any App for contact tracing. They are still using the traditional method of tracing contacts of the index case using field officers.”

Singapore’s TraceTogether app was developed by the country’s health ministry and technology agency, and was released on March 20. Although groundbreaking, it exposed one glaring technical limitation to this general approach: because of the privacy measures imposed on Bluetooth function by Apple’s operating system, for the app to be useful, iPhones must remain unlocked all the time with the app open, a major inconvenience and a drain on the battery.

Indeed, as health departments weigh competing app designs and prepare their pitches to privacy-conscious citizens, they will have to define success. It will be hard to prove an app has slowed the rate of infections and changed the course of an epidemic. But teams of epidemiologists, engineers, and behavioral scientists have many ways to put them to the test.

Also, according to the WHO, although several countries and areas have deployed digital tools for their COVID-19 response, there is currently limited evidence to evaluate the effectiveness and impact of these tools. As such, digital tools should not be considered as ‘single solutions’ for contact tracing, but rather as complementary tools.

Additionally, the implementation of digital technologies in contact tracing carries the potential to do harm through privacy breaches, provision of incorrect medical advice based on self-reported symptoms, and the systematic exclusion of some members of society who cannot access such technologies. It is therefore important to have sufficient regulatory oversight of digital tools for contact tracing.

Ethical issues surrounding privacy, security, transparency and accountability also need to be considered throughout the design and implementation of digital tools for contact tracing.

Marginalised and disadvantaged groups will be more likely to be excluded, particularly in low-and middle-income settings. In humanitarian and conflict settings, mobile phones can present opportunities for theft and violence.

The timing of introduction of digital tools for contact tracing also needs careful consideration; ideally, the tool should be introduced during the preparedness phase in trainings. During response, refresher training can facilitate the timely launch of digital contact tracing.

Digital tools also incur developer costs, hardware and software costs, training costs, and require continuous user support.

Also, several digital contact data capture solutions; including the SORMAS require a field epidemiologist or their representative to visit every contact.

A recent study titled “COVID-19 Mobile Positioning Data Contact Tracing and Patient Privacy Regulations: Exploratory Search of Global Response Strategies and the Use of Digital Tools in Nigeria” concluded: “Mobile positioning data can significantly improve the capacity and scope of timely outbreak response and will help governments as well as other responders in Nigeria. When implemented early, there are opportunities to leverage positioning data to break the chains of disease transmission in community clusters. It can improve the efficiency of currently used field data collection and outbreak investigation platforms when used in synergy.

“While mobile positioning data can be used within the current regulation, guidelines for data handlers must include measures to curtail misuse and unauthorized access. Future research should design and implement models for mobile position contact tracing.”

The study was published in the journal JMIR Mhealth Uhealth.

The surveyed strategies for digital contact tracing for the COVID-19 pandemic and presented how using mobile positioning data conforms with Nigeria’s data privacy regulations.

The researchers conducted an exploratory review of current measures for COVID-19 contact tracing implemented around the world and analysed how countries are using mobile positioning data technology to reduce the spread of COVID-19. They made recommendations on how Nigeria can adopt this approach while adhering to the guidelines provided by the National Data Protection Regulation (NDPR).

The researchers said despite the potential of digital contact tracing, it always conflicts with patient data privacy regulations. “We found that Nigeria’s response complies with the NDPR, and that it is possible to leverage call detail records to complement current strategies within the NDPR,” they noted.

According to the WHO’s Ethical considerations to guide the use of digital proximity technologies for COVID-19 contact tracing (Interim Guidance), “Digital tools offer opportunities to strengthen contact tracing for COVID-19. Digital tools should be considered a way to augment and optimise contact tracing rather than a replacement of contact tracing teams. As such, it is necessary to have a clear understanding of the steps and requirements of the contact tracing process and clearly identify which are being optimised by digital tools.

“Integration of digital tools for contact tracing needs to carefully identify and address technical, cost, and ethical issues. WHO recommends that users of digital tools should participate on a voluntary basis and that written consent is always obtained. Privacy concerns about the disclosure of personal data need to always be addressed. Data processing agreements must disclose which data are transmitted to third parties and for what purpose.

“Further research is needed to assess the effectiveness of digital tools for contact tracing, and on the feasibility and thresholds required for implementation at scale. WHO encourages public health authorities to conduct evaluations of their digital tools for contact tracing to contribute to the global knowledge base about new technologies in public health. This should be further supported by the use of standard performance indicators through which different digital tools and approaches can be assessed.”
Going forward

The NCDC reported that it is currently conducting contact tracing of over 10,111 contacts of confirmed cases in an attempt to effectively contain the spread of the disease, in line with the recommended measures for pandemic response.

Although the NCDC’s approach has been commended for its compliance with WHO guidelines for large-scale containment and contact tracing, there remain options that may yet be explored. Given the inadequacy of testing kits, it is believed that the number of confirmed cases may be far lower than the actual number of cases in Nigeria and most African countries. This is fueling speculations of a real, catastrophic-level pandemic if isolation, containment, quarantine, and contact-tracing mechanisms are not urgently implemented. In a country with an already weak health care system occasioned by poor health investment choices, managing such an outbreak will become impossible.

There is, therefore, a need to develop and adopt new strategies, particularly digitally enabled strategies, to facilitate a more extensive, accurate, seamless, and timely response in line with the high frequency of new infections among contacts of confirmed cases (that is, the secondary infection rate).

The adoption of digital solutions in Nigeria has been focused on electronic forms for contact data collection and visualization for follow-up. Digital technologies can do more than be a tool for field data collection or serve as an outbreak investigation platform. Data on households and general population movement patterns can be extracted through digital technologies.

Farrahi et al showed that over a nine-month period, 72 participants made 10,992 phone calls and 9432 SMS records representing communication flow; additionally, these participants made 1,973,547 Bluetooth interactions representing physical proximity movements. When extrapolated for three cases in Abuja, the capital city of Nigeria, their movement can result in thousands of interactions. In the case of an infection, these three cases can initiate an exponential number of contacts through these interactions. The registered quarantine address can be visualized on the map and movement of quarantine subjects can be monitored with notifications enabled.

The GSM Association puts the total number of mobile subscribers at five billion unique subscribers and seven billion connected devices. Nigeria has 184 million active mobile subscriber lines. Mobile telecommunications subscriber communication and movement data was used for contact tracing during the Ebola outbreak.

Many countries are currently using mobile data for a more rapid response to the COVID-19 pandemic. There has been a 90 per cent increase in the number of countries implementing digital tracking measures and a 100 per cent increase in reports of censorship. These approaches range from the use of anonymised aggregate data to monitor the general mobility of people and track the mobile phones of confirmed cases to tracking suspected patients and their contacts. In some cases, these approaches were individualised and mandatory while, in others, they were aggregated and anonymised. In all cases, there were collaborations between the government, mobile network operators (MNOs), and other data controllers such as technology companies and financial services providers.

At any time, each mobile subscriber is connected to a segment of the MNO base station tower. For simplicity, we have presented a cell tower and a subscriber.

In order for the NCDC to effectively conduct the current large-scale contact tracing of over 11,000 contacts of confirmed cases, use of digital technology is inevitable. The number of contacts may even be more than this number considering the frequency of new infections.

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Encephalitis is a rare condition that is most often caused by viruses (viral encephalitis). It can also be caused by non-infectious diseases, such as systemic lupus erythematous and Behcet’s disease (an autoimmune disorder). The leading cause of severe encephalitis is the herpes simplex virus.

Other causes include: enterovirus infections or mosquito-borne viruses; Eastern equine encephalitis (EEE); Western equine encephalitis (WEE); Venezuelan equine encephalitis (VEE); Japanese encephalitis; and Zika virus.

The very young and the elderly are more likely to have more severe encephalitis.

Exposure to viruses can occur through breathing in respiratory droplets from infected people, certain insect bites, and direct skin contact.

What are encephalitis symptoms and signs?
The signs and symptoms of encephalitis can range from very mild flu-like symptoms to potentially life-threatening events. Signs and symptoms of encephalitis include: sudden fever, headache, vomiting, visual sensitivity to light, stiff neck and back, confusion, drowsiness, unsteady gait, irritability, loss of consciousness, poor responsiveness, seizures, muscle weakness, sudden severe dementia, and memory loss.

How do health care professionals diagnose encephalitis?
A health care professional diagnoses encephalitis after performing a thorough history and exam. The exam will incorporate special techniques to look for signs of inflammation of the membranes that surround the spinal cord and brain (meninges). The doctor will order specific tests to help determine the diagnosis.

Tests that evaluate individuals suspected of having encephalitis include cerebrospinal fluid analysis, brain scanning such as computerized tomography scan (CT or CAT scan)/ Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scan, and an evaluation of the blood for infection and the presence of bacteria.

The most common method of obtaining a sample of cerebrospinal fluid (or CSF) for examination is a spinal tap. A spinal tap, or lumbar puncture (LP), involves the insertion of a needle into the fluid within the spinal canal. The needle goes between the spine’s bony parts until it reaches the CSF. A medical professional then collects a small amount of fluid to send to the laboratory for exam. Evaluating the CSF is necessary for a definitive diagnosis of encephalitis and to decide on the best treatment options.

Abnormal spinal fluid results confirm the diagnosis and, in the event of an infection, by identifying the organism that caused the infection.

What is the treatment of encephalitis?
People require urgent treatment with antibiotic and/or antiviral medications if a physician suspects that person has encephalitis. Patients may need to take sedatives for irritability or restlessness. Doctors may administer other medications to decrease the fever or treat headaches.

Prevention

Basic steps to avoid spread of infections (hand washing, covering mouth when coughing, etc.) can help prevent encephalitis.
*Dr. Nwaoney is an epidemiologist, Chief Executive Officer (CEO) and Medical Director of Richie Hospital and El Shaddai Group.

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The coronavirus, COVID-19 is the Pandemic currently ravaging the world. Being a Virus, treatment has been elusive. There have been various treatments that have been proposed including hydroxychloroquine and chloroquine and there have been many pros and cons including endorsements by some individuals, groups and Regulating body.

My own candid opinion is that hydroxychloroquine or chloroquine should not be considered as a first line drug, at the moment. In the eighties and nineties, there were publications on fatalities from chloroquine therapy, including some experimental studies by my group in Lagos. These were few reports, which were probably not considered then to be significant, as some deaths may have been ascribed to the malaria infection rather than as a possible side effect of chloroquine. In some of the reports, administration of chloroquine resulted in deaths in some children and adults especially from injections. Some of these fatalities were probably accentuated by the fever. In many cases death was by cardiac arrest. In our experiments we showed that chloroquine caused fall in blood pressure, electrocardiogram (ECG) abnormalities that can lead to cardiac arrest and death. It is possible that some fatalities were occurring with chloroquine administration then, but were not appreciated because it was so widely used for treating malaria and no one thought that it might be dangerous, which may be part of its side effects.

More recent studies in year 2020 have indicated that hydroxychloroquine causes derangements of heart activity and rhythm-causing irregularities in heart beat which can be fatal and this may even be worsened by the use of Azithromycin. It is therefore being advocated that an ECG should accompany its use. This has led the American College of cardiologists to recommend the stopping of its use in COVID-19 patients. Recently in May 22, 2020, the Lancet published a report of large-scale study, though now retracted, suggesting hydroxychloroquine may not be effective. However recent reports also doubt the usefulness of the drug in the treatment of COVID-19.

However one’s belief is that it is not wise, at the moment, to allow for the therapeutic use of hydroxychloroquine. There must be proper clinical and randomised drug trial and well controlled to prove or disprove the effectiveness of the drug, which is not the case as at now. This assertion also applies to the use of the anti viral drug, Remdesvir. It is when we collate all these data that we can give a verdict. But for now, it is my humble suggestion that it is a drug that must be used with caution under supervision, not ‘Off the Counter’ pending the verdict from the several on-going clinical trials worldwide. The extent of the Covid-19 is a big worry and so we should hasten the trials of all the candidate therapy, also bearing in mind the need to provide safety guidelines while conducting the trials.

*Sofola is a Fellow of the Nigerian Academy of Science (FAS) and Emeritus Professor of Physiology, College of Medicine University of Lagos

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In the short-term, eating too much sugar may contribute to acne, weight gain, and tiredness. In the long-term, too much sugar increases the risk of chronic diseases, such as type 2 diabetes and heart disease.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), people in the United States consume too much added sugar. Added sugars are sugars that manufacturers add to food to sweeten them.

In this article, we look at how much added sugar a person should consume, the symptoms and impact of eating too much sugar, and how someone can reduce their sugar intake.

How much sugar is too much? 

According to the Dietary Guidelines for Americans 2010-2015, on average, Americans consume 17 teaspoons (tsp) of added sugar each day. This adds up to 270 calories.

However, the guidelines advise that people limit added sugars to less than 10% of their daily calorie intake. For a daily intake of 2,000 calories, added sugar should account for fewer than 200 calories.

However, in 2015, the World Health Organization (WHO) advised that people eat half this amount, with no more than 5% of their daily calories coming from added sugar. For a diet of 2,000 calories per day, this would amount to 100 calories, or 6 tsp, at the most.

Symptoms of eating too much sugar

Some people experience the following symptoms after consuming sugar:

  • Low energy levels: A 2019 study found that 1 hour after sugar consumption, participants felt tired and less alert than a control group.
  • Low mood: A 2017 prospective study found that higher sugar intake increased rates of depression and mood disorder in males.
  • Bloating: According to Johns Hopkins Medicine, certain types of sugar may cause bloating and gas in people who have digestive conditions, such as irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) or small intestinal bacterial overgrowth (SIBO).

Risks of eating too much sugar 

Consuming too much sugar can also contribute to long-term health problems.

Tooth decay

Sugar feeds bacteria that live in the mouth. When bacteria digest the sugar, they create acid as a waste product. This acid can erode tooth enamel, leading to holes or cavities in the teeth.

People who frequently eat sugary foods, particularly in between mealtimes as snacks or in sweetened drinks, are more likely to develop tooth decay, according to Action on Sugar, part of the Wolfson Institute in Preventive Medicine in the United Kingdom.

Acne

A 2018 study of university students in China showed that those who drank sweetened drinks seven times per week or more were more likely to develop moderate or severe acne.

Additionally, a 2019 study suggests that lowering sugar consumption may decrease insulin-like growth factors, androgens, and sebum, all of which may contribute to acne.

Weight gain and obesity

Sugar can affect the hormones in the body that control a person’s weight. The hormone leptin tells the brain a person has had enough to eat. However, according to a 2008 animal study, a diet high in sugar may cause leptin resistance.

This may mean, that over time, a high sugar diet prevents the brain from knowing when a person has eaten enough. However, researchers have yet to test this in humans.

Diabetes and insulin resistance

A 2013 article in PLOS ONE, indicated that high sugar levels in the diet might cause type 2 diabetes over time.

The National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK) add that other risk factors, such as obesity and insulin resistance, can also lead to type 2 diabetes.

Cardiovascular disease

A large prospective study in 2014 found that people who got 17–21% of their daily calories from added sugar had a 38% higher risk of dying from cardiovascular disease (CVD) than those who consumed 8% added sugars. For those who consumed 21% or more of their energy from added sugars, their risk for CVD doubled.

High blood pressure

In a 2011 study, researchers found a link between sugar-sweetened beverages and high blood pressure, or hypertension. A review in Pharmacological Research states that hypertension is a risk factor for CVD. This may mean that sugar exacerbates both conditions.

Cancer

Excess sugar consumption can cause inflammation, oxidative stress, and obesity. These factors influence a person’s risk of developing cancer.

A review of studies in the Annual Review of Nutrition found a 23–200% increased cancer risk with sugary drink consumption. Another study found a 59% increased risk of some cancers in people who consumed sugary drinks and carried weight around their abdomen.

Aging skin

Excess sugar in the diet leads to the formation of advanced glycation end products (AGEs), which play a role in diabetes. However, they also affect collagen formation in the skin.

According to Skin Therapy Letter, there is some evidence to suggest that a high number of AGEs may lead to faster visible aging. However, scientists need to study this in humans more thoroughly to understand the impact of sugar in the aging process.

How to eat less sugar

A person can reduce the amount of added sugar they eat by:

  1. checking food labels for sweeteners
  2. reducing foods with added sugar
  3. avoiding processed foods in general

Checking food labels

Added sugar and sweeteners come in many forms. Ingredients to look out for on a food label include:

  • brown sugar
  • fructose
  • glucose
  • sucrose
  • maltose
  • honey
  • corn sweetener
  • corn syrup
  • high fructose corn syrup
  • raw sugar
  • molasses
  • malt syrup
  • evaporated cane juice
  • agave nectar
  • maple syrup
  • invert sugar
  • fruit juice concentrates
  • trehalose
  • turbinado sugar

Some of these ingredients are natural sources of sugar and are not harmful in small amounts. However, when manufacturers add them to food products, a person might easily consume too much sugar without realizing it.

Reducing foods that contain added sugar

Some food products contain large amounts of added sugars. Reducing or removing these foods is an efficient way to reduce the amount of sugar a person eats.

The Dietary Guidelines for Americans 2010–2015 state that soda and other soft drinks account for around half a person’s added sugar intake in the U.S. The average can of soda or fruit punch provides 10 tsp of sugar.

Another common source of sugar is breakfast cereal. According to EWG, many popular cereals contain over 60% sugar by weight, with some store brands containing over 80% sugar. This is especially true of cereals marketed towards children.

Swapping these foods for unsweetened alternatives will help a person lower their sugar intake, for example:

  • swapping soda for water, milk, or herbal teas
  • swapping sugary cereals for low sugar cereal, oatmeal, or eggs

Avoiding processed foods

Manufacturers often add sugars to foods to make them more appealing. Often, this means people do not realize how much sugar a food contains.

By avoiding processed foods, a person can get a better sense of what their food contains. Cooking whole foods at home also means someone can control what ingredients they put into their meals.

When to see a doctor

People should see their doctor if they experience the symptoms of high blood sugar. According to the NIDDK, symptoms include:

  • increased thirst and urination
  • increased hunger
  • fatigue
  • blurred vision
  • numbness or tingling in the hands or feet
  • unexplained weight loss
  • sores that do not heal

These symptoms may indicate a person has diabetes. A doctor can test for diabetes by taking a urine sample.

People should also speak to a doctor if they experience other symptoms after eating sugar, such as bloating.

Summary

Consuming too much added sugar has many adverse impacts on health, including tiredness and weight gain, and more severe conditions, such as heart disease. Added sugars are present in many processed foods and drinks.

People can reduce their sugar intake by knowing what to look for on food labels, avoiding or reducing common sources of sugar, such as soda and cereals, and prioritizing unprocessed whole foods.

If a person is concerned about weight gain, symptoms that may indicate diabetes, or other symptoms they experience after eating sugar, they should speak to a doctor.

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After examining the link between metabolites in urine and overall health, researchers created a 5-minute test to reveal a person’s nutritional fingerprint.

Research finds a new way to look at the relationship between what we eat and our health.

It might seem obvious that good nutrition is linked to good health. Still, it has proven difficult to identify specific links between foods and health outcomes. Two new studies from scientists at Imperial College London (ICL), United Kingdom, and various collaborators report insights from the analysis of metabolites in urine.

The researchers have created a 5-minute urine test that can capture a person’s “nutritional fingerprint.”

“Diet is a key contributor to human health and disease, though it is notoriously difficult to measure accurately because it relies on an individual’s ability to recall what and how much they ate. For instance, asking people to track their diets through apps or diaries can often lead to inaccurate reports about what they really eat,” explains study author Joram Posma, of ICL’s Department of Metabolism, Digestion, and Reproduction.

“This research reveals this technology can help provide in-depth information on the quality of a person’s diet and whether it is the right type of diet for their individual biological makeup.” — Joram Posma, study co-author

The first study reveals links

Scientists from ICL and their collaborators — from Northwestern University in Chicago, IL, the University of Illinois at Chicago, and Murdoch University in Australia — authored the first of the two studies. It appears in the journal Nature Food.

Metabolites are molecules that the body produces during cellular metabolism, and some are measurable in a person’s urine.

Working with 1,848 study participants in the U.S., the researchers were able to identify associations between 46 different metabolites and food types.

Co-author Paul Elliot, Chair in Epidemiology and Public Health Medicine at ICL, explains:

“Through careful measurement of people’s diets and collection of their urine excreted over two 24-hour periods, we were able to establish links between dietary inputs and urinary output of metabolites that may help improve understanding of how our diets affect health. Healthful diets have a different pattern of metabolites in the urine than those associated with worse health outcomes.”

Metabolites were linked with the ingestion of alcohol, citrus fruit, fructose (fruit sugar), glucose, red meats, and other animal proteins, such as chicken. Nutrients, including vitamin C and calcium, were also associated with metabolites in the study.

Metabolites’ associations with health outcomes also became apparent in the data. For instance, the scientists found that the metabolites formate and sodium were linked to obesity and higher blood pressure.

The second study and the 5-minute fingerprint

For the second research project, which also appears in Nature Food, the ICL team worked again with scientists from Murdoch University, along with researchers from Newcastle University and Aberystwyth University, both in the U.K.

The study reports that the scientists were able to produce an easy-to-administer urine test that could reveal a person’s metabolite profile in the form of a Dietary Metabotype Score (DMS).

Study author Isabel Garcia-Perez, of Imperial College, says:

“Our technology can provide crucial insights into how foods are processed by individuals in different ways — and can help health professionals, such as dietitians, provide dietary advice tailored to individual patients.”

In evaluating the test, the scientists conducted experiments with 19 people whom they instructed to follow one of four types of diets (ranging from very healthful to unhealthful) strictly based on the World Health Organization’s (WHO’s) guidelines. The healthiest adhered 100% to the WHO recommendations, and the least healthy just 25% of them.

The study authors found that even among those who reported following the same diet, there were differences in the DMS.

WHO recommendations contain a great deal of latitude in the choice of specific foods. One recommendation, for example, is, “Fruit, vegetables, legumes (e.g., lentils and beans), nuts, and whole grains (e.g., unprocessed maize, millet, oats, wheat, and brown rice).”

The researchers found that, in general, the more healthful the person’s diet, the higher the DMS. Those with higher scores also had lower blood sugar and excreted an increased amount of energy from the body in the urine.

The study characterizes the difference between high energy urine and low energy urine as meaning that a person with a higher DMS would be losing 4 extra calories a day, which equates to about 1,500 calories a year, and would thus avoid about 215 g of body fat annually.

Next up for the team is investigating the use of this new technology in people at risk of cardiovascular disease.

Rethinking diets

Aside from the obvious value of the 5-minute test, the studies suggest that it may be time to use the new findings to personalize healthful food recommendations.

Newcastle University’s John Mathers says:

“We show here how different people metabolize the same foods in highly individual ways. This has implications for understanding the development of nutrition-related diseases and for more personalized dietary advice to improve public health.”

The link between specific metabolites, foods, and outcomes also raises other considerations, according to ICL’s Gary Frost, another co-author:

“These findings bring a new and more in-depth understanding to how our bodies process and use food at the molecular level. The research brings into question whether we should rewrite food tables to incorporate these new metabolites that have biological effects in the body.”

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Test monkeys infected with the novel coronavirus responsible for the COVID-19 pandemic were protected from reinfection for up to 28 days later, a Chinese study out Thursday in the journal Science said.

While the monkeys displayed initial immunity, it’s unclear how long such immunity will last in humans – it will be necessary to wait months, or even years, to know if the millions of people infected at the start of the pandemic are protected from re-infection.

Scientists from Peking Union Medical College performed an experiment on rhesus macaques, often used because of their similarities to humans, to find out if they have a short-term immunity to the virus.

Six rhesus macaques were infected in their trachea with a dose of the SARS-CoV-2 virus. They developed mild to moderate symptoms and took about two weeks to recover.

Twenty-eight days after the first infection, four of the six monkeys received another dose of virus, but this time, despite a brief rise in temperature, they showed no sign of reinfection, the study authors wrote.

By taking frequent samples the researchers discovered that the peak viral load was reached three days after the monkeys were infected.

The monkeys showed a stronger immune response after the first infection, producing more so-called neutralizing antibodies which may have protected them against short-term reinfection, the scientists wrote.

More experiments are needed to see how long this immune defense remains, the authors said.

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Variation of the novel coronavirus that dominates the world today infects human cells more readily than the original that emerged in China, according to a new study published in the journal Cell on Thursday.

The lab-based research suggests this current mutation is more transmissible between people in the real world compared to the previous iteration, but this hasn’t yet been proven.

“I think the data is showing that there is a single mutation that actually makes the virus be able to replicate better, and maybe have high viral loads,” Anthony Fauci, the United States’s top infectious disease specialist, who wasn’t involved in the research, commented to Journal of the American Medical Association.

“We don’t have a connection to whether an individual does worse with this or not. It just seems that the virus replicates better and may be more transmissible, but this is still at the stage of trying to confirm that,” he added.

Researchers from the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico and Duke University in North Carolina partnered with the University of Sheffield’s COVID-19 Genomics UK research group to analyze genome samples published on GISAID, an international resource for sharing genome sequences.

They found that the current variant, called “D614G,” makes a small but potent change in the “spike” protein that protrudes from the surface of the virus, which it uses to invade and infect human cells.

The scientists first posted their paper to the medical preprint site bioRxiv in April, where it received 200,000 hits, a record.

But it was initially criticized because the scientists had not proved that the mutation itself was responsible for its domination; it could have benefitted from other factors or from chance.

The team therefore carried out additional experiments, many at the behest of the editors of Cell.

They analyzed the data of 999 British patients hospitalized with COVID-19 and observed that those with the variant had more viral particles in them, but without this changing the severity of their disease.

Laboratory experiments meanwhile showed that the variant is three to six times more capable of infecting human cells.

“It seems likely that it’s a fitter virus,” said Erica Ollmann Saphire, who carried out one of the experiments at La Jolla Institute for Immunology.

– ‘This variant is the pandemic’ –
But everything at this stage can only be said to be “probable”: in vitro experiments often do not replicate the dynamics of a pandemic.

As far as we know, although the variant circulating right now is more “infectious,” it may or may not be more “transmissible” between people.

At any rate, said Nathan Grubaugh, a virologist at the Yale School of Public Health who was not part of the research: The expansion of the variant “whether through natural selection or chance, means that this variant now is the pandemic.”

Writing in a commentary piece, Grubaugh added that, for the general public, these results don’t change much.

“While there are still important studies needed to determine if this will influence drug or vaccine development in any meaningful way, we don’t expect that D614G will alter our control measures or make individual infections worse,” he said.

“It’s more of a live look into science unfolding: an interesting discovery was made that potentially touches millions of people, but we don’t yet know the full scope or impact.”

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Athletic young man rubbing muscles of lower back after jogging

Researchers have discovered a possible way to increase levels of natural opioids in the brain. The new approach involves blocking an opioid receptor that normally inactivates these molecules.

Synthetic opioids, such as fentanyl, naloxone, and morphine, are powerful pain relief medications. They can also cause dependence, are highly addictive, and potentially fatal in overdose.

According to the National Institute on Drug Abuse, every day in the United States, 128 people die after overdosing on opioids.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimate that the total economic burden of prescription opioid overdose, abuse, and dependence in the U.S. was $78.5 billion in 2013. The figure includes costs investigators associate with healthcare, criminal justice, and lost productivity.

While efforts to develop a nonaddictive synthetic opioid are making progress, an international team of scientists, which the Luxembourg Institute of Health (LIH) leads, is working on a radically different approach.

They have discovered a potential way to increase levels of the body’s own opioids. These natural opioids help to relieve pain and can also alleviate stress, anxiety, and depression.

Endogenous opioids

There are three types of endogenous opioid — endorphins, enkephalins, and dynorphins. Endorphins are responsible for the ‘runner’s high’ that people can experience after vigorous exercise.

Endogenous opioids inhibit the transmission of pain signals in the central nervous system by binding to one of the four kinds of opioid receptors on nerve cells.

Synthetic opioids, such as fentanyl, bind to the same receptors, but they bind much more strongly than endogenous opioids.

LIH, in collaboration with scientists at the University of Bonn in Germany and the University of Liège in Belgium, has now identified a fifth opioid receptor that behaves differently.

The researchers believe that one of the functions of the receptor known as ACKR3 is to regulate or “fine-tune” levels of opioids in the brain.

In laboratory experiments with nerve cells, they discovered that when opioids bind to ACKR3, the receptor “scavenges” them, dragging them inside the cell.

The researchers believe that by removing opioid molecules and preventing them from binding to the other four receptors, ACKR3 indirectly increases pain signaling.

“Interestingly, we found that ACKR3 does not trigger the distinctive chain of molecular signaling events that results in painkilling effects,” explains Max Meyrath of LIH, who is co-first author of the study.

“Instead, ACKR3 functions as a ‘scavenger’ that sequestrates the opioids that would otherwise bind to the classical receptors.”

Receptor blocker

In further experiments, the team designed a molecule it calls LIH383 to block ACKR3 selectively and prevent it from scavenging endogenous opioids.

Using brain tissue from rats, the scientists confirmed that LIH383 could boost levels of opioids, and hence reduce pain signaling.

“Our findings essentially brought forward a new and previously unknown mechanism to fine tune the opioid system and modulate the abundance of natural opioids by manipulating the fifth member of the opioid receptor family, ACKR3. We, therefore, set about developing a molecule that would be able to tightly bind to and block ACKR3, with the aim of potentiating the natural, beneficial effects of opioids on pain and negative emotions. This is how LIH383 was conceived.” – Dr. Martyna Szpakowska, co-first author

The scientists published their research in the journal Nature Communications.

Dr. Andy Chevigné at LIH, who is the senior author of the study, says: “We expect LIH383 to act as a precursor for the development of a new class of drugs against pain and depression, thus offering an innovative and original therapeutic strategy to tackle the opioid crisis.”

Dual role

Remarkably, LIH383 may also have potential as an anticancer agent.

Long before biologists found ACKR3 to be an opioid receptor, they were familiar with it as a receptor for chemokines. These are a family of immune signaling molecules; some of them are involved in controlling the migration of cells during normal development.

They are also involved in promoting cancer growth and ‘metastasis,’ which is the spread of tumors around the body.

High concentrations of the receptor occur in tumors, such as breast cancer and an aggressive form of brain cancer known as glioblastoma. Scientists associate them with resistance to chemotherapy and poor prognosis.

“As an ACKR3 modulator that interacts and ‘interferes’ with ACKR3, LIH383, therefore, also holds promise for the treatment of metastatic cancers, leveraging on our remarkable discovery of the dual chemokine-opioid ‘scavenging’ activity of this receptor,” says Dr. Chevigné.

The team’s research was a lab-based proof-of-principle study. Much more work remains before they can test a drug that blocks ACKR3 on people in clinical trials.

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