Olympic-Class Athletes Abound in Animal Kingdom

HealthDay – 13 hrs ago FRIDAY, July 27 (HealthDay News) -- When it comes to speed, strength and endurance, even Olympic athletes can't compete with the animals who are champions in their fields, a British researcher says.

For example, cheetahs and pronghorn antelopes are among the animals that are faster than Usain Bolt, who is currently the fastest person in the world, according to Craig Sharp of the Center for Sports Medicine and Human Performance at Brunel University in London.

The fastest a human can run is 23.4 miles per hour (mph). A cheetah is nearly twice as fast, at 64 mph, while a pronghorn antelope can run at 55 mph.

An ostrich is the world's fastest running bird at 40 mph, or 59 feet per second. The fastest greyhound has been clocked at 43 mph and the fastest thoroughbred racehorse at 55 mph.

When it comes to strength, an African elephant can lift 661 pounds with its trunk and carry 1,807 pounds. A gorilla can lift 1,984 pounds and a grizzly bear can lift 1,000 pounds.

Humans have various features that make them well-suited for long-distance running, such as long legs, short toes, arched feet and ample fuel storage capacity, Sharp said. But the top marathoners would be hard-pressed to beat camels, which can maintain speeds of 10 mph for more than 18 hours, or the Siberian huskies that set a record in 2011, racing for eight days, 19 hours and 47 minutes, covering 114 miles a day.

In long jumping, a red kangaroo has covered 42 feet, compared with the human record of 29 feet. In high jump, the red kangaroo can leap 10 feet, compared with the human record of 8 feet.

However, no single animal species matches the physical versatility of humans, which is what the Olympic Games are designed to showcase to best effect, Sharp concluded.

The article was published July 28 in the journal Veterinary Record.

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New animal model may lead to treatments for common liver disease

ScienceDaily (July 3, 2012) — Scientists at Texas Biomed have developed the laboratory opossum as a new animal model to study the most common liver disease in the nation -- afflicting up to 15 million Americans -- and for which there is no cure.

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The condition, nonalcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH), resembles alcoholic liver disease, but occurs in people who drink little or no alcohol. The major feature of NASH is accumulation of fat in the liver, along with inflammation and functional damage. Most people with NASH feel well and are not aware that they have a liver problem. Nevertheless, NASH can progress to cirrhosis, in which the liver is permanently damaged and no longer able to work properly. NASH-related cirrhosis is the fourth most common indication for liver transplantation in the U.S.

NASH affects 2 to 5 percent of Americans -- roughly six million to 15 million people. An additional 15 to 30 percent of Americans have excess fat in their livers, but no inflammation or liver damage, a condition called "fatty liver" or the non-progressive form of nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD).

The study, published in the July issue of the American Journal of Physiology-Gastrointestinal and Liver Physiology, was supported by the National Institutes of Health and the Robert J. Kleberg, Jr., and Helen C. Kleberg Foundation.

"This is the type of model in which to develop mechanism-based therapies," writes Geoffrey C Farrell, M.D., of the Australian National University Medical School in Canberra, in a journal editorial.

Both NASH and NAFLD are becoming more common, possibly because of the greater number of Americans with obesity and its important health complications, type 2 diabetes, high blood cholesterol levels, high blood pressure and other risk factors for heart attack and stroke. In the past 10 years, the prevalence of obesity has doubled in adults and tripled in children. It was previously reported by other scientists that the prevalence of NAFLD and NASH in a cohort of middle-aged patients in San Antonio is 46 percent and 12 percent, respectively.

"It now seems likely that genetic factors, such as those important for diabetes and high cholesterol levels, are what determines why a small proportion of those with fatty liver develop NASH and its complications of cirrhosis and liver cancer," said Farrell.

In the new study, high responding opossums developed elevated cholesterol and fatty liver disease when fed a high cholesterol and high fat diet, whereas low responding opossums did not. High responders carry a mutated ABCB4 gene, which affects their ability to secrete excess cholesterol from the liver into bile which, in turn, transports the cholesterol to the intestines for excretion from the body. As a consequence, opossums with the mutated gene accumulate cholesterol in the liver and ultimately in the blood.

"We showed that the fatty livers of high responders contain a tremendous amount of cholesterol," said first author Jeannie Chan, Ph.D., of Texas Biomed. "The opossum is a new animal model for investigating the mechanism by which cholesterol mediates liver injury, which will lead to a better understanding of the role of dietary cholesterol in the development of NASH."

Co-authors on the study included Rampratap S. Kushwaha, Ph.D., Jane F. VandeBerg, and John L. VandeBerg, Ph.D., all of Texas Biomed; and Francis E. Sharkey, M.D., of the UT Health Science Center San Antonio.

Texas Biomed, formerly the Southwest Foundation for Biomedical Research, is one of the world's leading independent biomedical research institutions dedicated to advancing health worldwide through innovative biomedical research. Located on a 200-acre campus on the northwest side of San Antonio, Texas, the Institute partners with hundreds of researchers and institutions around the world, targeting advances in the fight against AIDS, hepatitis, malaria, parasitic infections and a host of other infectious diseases, as well as cardiovascular disease, diabetes, obesity, cancer, psychiatric disorders, and problems of pregnancy.

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Raucous Music May Tap Into Your Inner Animal

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FDA Seeks to Limit Antibiotics in Animal Feed

HealthDay – 57 mins ago WEDNESDAY, April 11 (HealthDay News) -- The U.S. Food and Drug Administration unveiled Wednesday a plan to reduce the use of antibiotics in animal feed.

The practice of mixing antibiotics in animal feed to make livestock, pigs and chickens gain weight and become more resistant to disease has been criticized in many quarters. Health experts contend that this overuse of antibiotics has led to an increase of germs that are growing increasingly resistant to antibiotics, threatening human health.

The FDA said it was issuing three documents to help veterinarians, farmers and animal producers use medically important antibiotics "judiciously" by limiting their use only to combat diseases and other health problems. Under this "voluntary" initiative, certain antibiotics would not be used for so-called "production" purposes, which include enhancing growth or improving the effectiveness of animal feed, the agency said in a news release.

These antibiotics would still be available to prevent, control or treat illnesses in food-producing animals under the supervision of a veterinarian, the agency said.

"It is critical that we take action to protect public health," FDA Commissioner Dr. Margaret Hamburg, said in the news release. "The new strategy will ensure farmers and veterinarians can care for animals while ensuring the medicines people need remain safe and effective. We are also reaching out to animal producers who operate on a smaller scale or in remote locations to help ensure the drugs they need to protect the health of their animals are still available."

The FDA said it was publishing three documents Wednesday in the Federal Register detailing its efforts to limit antibiotic use in animal feed:

A final guidance for industry, The Judicious Use of Medically Important Antimicrobial Drugs in Food-Producing Animals, that recommends phasing out the agricultural production use of medically important drugs and phasing in veterinary oversight of therapeutic uses of these drugs. A draft guidance, open for public comment, which will assist drug companies in voluntarily removing production uses of antibiotics from their FDA-approved product labels; adding, where appropriate, scientifically supported disease prevention, control, and treatment uses; and changing the marketing status to include veterinary oversight.A draft proposed Veterinary Feed Directive regulation, open for public comment, that outlines ways that veterinarians can authorize the use of certain animal drugs in feed, which is important to make the needed veterinary oversight feasible and efficient.

Dr. John Clifford, chief veterinary medical officer for the U.S. Department of Agriculture, said in the news release: "USDA worked with the FDA to ensure that the voices of livestock producers across the country were taken into account, and we will continue to collaborate with the FDA, the American Veterinary Medical Association and livestock groups to ensure that the appropriate services are available to help make this transition."

Public health advocates are skeptical about asking drug makers to voluntarily restrict use of their products, the Associated Press reported.

"This is not an issue where trust should be the measure. This is an issue where the measure is whether or not the FDA has fulfilled its authority of protecting public health," Richard Wood, Chair of the Keep Antibiotics Working coalition, said in a statement, the AP reported.

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Compounds dramatically alter biological clock and lead to weight loss, animal study suggests

ScienceDaily (Mar. 29, 2012) — Scientists from the Florida campus of The Scripps Research Institute have synthesized a pair of small molecules that dramatically alter the core biological clock in animal models, highlighting the compounds' potential effectiveness in treating a remarkable range of disorders -- including obesity, diabetes, high cholesterol, and serious sleep disorders.

See Also:Health & MedicineDiet and Weight LossObesityMind & BrainDieting and Weight ControlInsomniaPlants & AnimalsMiceAgriculture and FoodReferenceCircadian rhythmCircadian rhythm sleep disorderJet lagDiabetes mellitus type 2

The study was published on March 29, 2012, in an advance, online edition of the journal Nature.

The study showed that when administered in animal models the synthetic small molecules altered circadian rhythm and the pattern of core clock gene expression in the brain's hypothalamus, the site of the master cellular clock that synchronizes daily rhythms in mammals; circadian rhythms are the physiological processes that respond to a 24-hour cycle of light and dark and are present in most living things.

When given to diet-induced obese mice, these same small molecules decreased obesity by reducing fat mass and markedly improving cholesterol levels and hyperglycemia -- chronically high blood sugar levels that frequently lead to diabetes.

"The idea behind this research is that our circadian rhythms are coupled with metabolic processes and that you can modulate them pharmacologically," said Thomas Burris, a professor at Scripps Florida who led the study. "As it turns out, the effect of that modulation is surprisingly positive -- everything has been beneficial so far."

Burris stressed that these compounds were first generation -- the first to hit their targets in vivo with room for improvement as potential treatments. "In terms of therapeutics, this is really the first step," he said.

In the new study, the team identified and tested a pair of potent synthetic compounds that activate proteins called REV-ERBα and REV-ERBβ, which play an integral role in regulating the expression of core clock proteins that drive biological rhythms in activity and metabolism.

In the study, the scientists observed clear metabolic effects when the synthetic compounds were administered twice a day for 12 days. Animals displayed weight loss due to decreased fat mass with no changes in the amount of food they ate. The animals followed the human model of obesity closely, eating a standard Western diet of high fat, high sugar foods, yet still lost weight when given the compounds.

In one of the study's more striking findings, both synthetic compounds were shown to reduce cholesterol production. Cholesterol in the blood of treated animal models decreased 47 percent; triglycerides in the blood decreased 12 percent.

The circadian pattern of expression of a number of metabolic genes in the liver, skeletal muscle, and in fat tissue was also altered, resulting in increased energy expenditure, something of a surprise. In the study, the scientists observed a five percent increase in oxygen consumption, suggesting increased energy expenditure during the day and at night. However, these increases were not due to increased activity -- the animals displayed an overall 15 percent decrease in movement during those same time periods.

In addition to its impact on metabolism, the two compounds also affected the animals' activity during periods of light and darkness, suggesting that this class of compound may be useful for the treatment of sleep disorders, including the common problem of jet lag.

The first authors of the study, "Regulation of Circadian Behavior and Metabolism by Synthetic REV‐ERB Agonists," are Laura A. Solt and Yongjun Wang of Scripps Research. Other authors include Subhashis Banerjee, Travis Hughes, Douglas J. Kojetin, Thomas Lundasen, Youseung Shin, Jin Liu, Michael D. Cameron, Romain Noel, Andrew A. Butler, and Theodore M. Kamenecka of Scripps Research; and Seung‐Hee Yoo and Joseph S. Takahashi of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center.

The study was supported by the National Institutes of Health and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute.

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