Antioxidant Responses in Copepods Are Driven Primarily by Food Intake, Not by Toxin-Producing Cyanobacteria in the Diet

The association between oxidative processes and physiological responses has received much attention in ecotoxicity assessment. In the Baltic Sea, bloom-forming cyanobacterium Nodularia spumigena is a significant producer of various bioactive compounds, and both positive and adverse effects on grazers feeding in cyanobacteria blooms are reported. To elucidate the effect mechanisms and species sensitivity to the cyanobacteria-dominating diet, we exposed two Baltic copepods, Acartia bifilosa and Eurytemora affinis, to a diet consisting of toxin-producing cyanobacteria N. spumigena and a high-quality food Rhodomonas salina at 0–300 μg C L−1; the control food was R. salina provided as a monodiet at the same food levels. The subcellular responses to food type and availability were assayed using a suite of biomarkers – antioxidant enzymes [superoxide dismutases (SOD), catalase (CAT), and glutathione S-transferases (GST)] and acetylcholinesterase (AChE). In parallel, we measured feeding activity using gut content (GC) assayed by real-time PCR analysis that quantified amounts of the prey DNA in copepod stomachs. As growth and reproduction endpoints, individual RNA content (a proxy for protein synthesis capacity), egg production rate (EPR), and egg viability (EV%) were used. In both toxic and nontoxic foods, copepod GC, RNA content, and EPR increased with food availability. Antioxidant enzyme activities increased with food availability regardless of the diet type. Moreover, CAT (both copepods), SOD, and GST (A. bifilosa) were upregulated in the copepods receiving cyanobacteria; the response was detectable when adjusted for the feeding and/or growth responses. By contrast, the diet effects were not significant when food concentration was used as a co-variable. A bimodal response in AChE was observed in A. bifilosa feeding on cyanobacteria, with up to 52% increase at the lower levels (5–25 μg C L−1) and 32% inhibition at the highest food concentrations. These findings contribute to the refinement of biomarker use for assessing environmental stress and mechanistic understanding of cyanobacteria effects in grazers. They also suggest that antioxidant and AChE responses to feeding activity and diet should be accounted for when using biomarker profiles in field-collected animals in the Baltic Sea and, perhaps other systems, where toxic cyanobacteria are common.

Pemberian Makanan Tambahan pada Ibu Hamil KEK di Puskesmas Karya Wanita Pekanbaru

Chronic Energy Deficiency in pregnant women is a condition of pregnant women due to an imbalance in the intake of energy and protein nutrients, so that the substances the body needs are not fulfilled. Incident chronic energy deficiency in pregnant women have a risk of abortion, bleeding, prolonged labor, infection, low birth weight baby, birth defects, and causes of death indirectly. An attemt to resolve the incidence of malnutrition in pregnant women in chronic energy deficiency with supplementary food. Type of qualitative research. Research informants were pregnant women chronic energy deficiency, nutrition staff, midwives, health promotion officers, and cadres. Research results are the knowledge of pregnant women in chronic energy deficiency about supplementary feeding is stil lacking, the attitudes of pregnant women in chronic energy deficiency and their husband’s support about supplementary feeding are already good, compliance of pregnant women in chronic energy deficiency is still lacking, acceptance of pregnant women in chronic energy deficiency about supplementary feeding is stil lacking, delivery of information when counseling needs to be improved by using the contemporary method, distribution of supplementary feeding for Puskesmas officers in collaboration with cadres. Advice doing technical guidance to health workers about supplementary feeding, health workers increase again in providing information related to supplementary feeding, provide information using digital media such as video, made a special trick of setting an alarm as a reminder to consume supplementary feeding, make derivate technical guidelines from the ministry of helath according to conditions in the field.

Consumer Perception and Attitude toward Insects for a Sustainable Diet

The main objective of this research paper is to understand consumer knowledge and perception of insects for food. Primary data was collected using a questionnaire conducted in Rome, and the data was analysed using a probit model in order to understand consumers’ attitudes to include insects as a sustainable solution to meat consumption in their diet. We connected the participants with a willingness to consume insects with those that are critical, informed, and concerned about the environment. This study shows that insects’ consumption and social acceptance is very low even for people who have a greater sensitivity to sustainable diets. Suggestions are included to improve the communication of this food type to raise awareness in the consumers’ minds. This research continues the debate on sustainability and global food security.

Is Your Food Organic? Examining the Role of Food Aesthetics in Restaurant Marketing

Many restaurants believe that an aesthetically pleasing food presentation can help attract customers and elevate their evaluations. Yet the effectiveness of expressive aesthetics and the psychological processes associated with its use are not well understood in hospitality research. This study adopts a consumer behavior lens to explore how expressive aesthetics affects consumers’ decision making about organic versus conventional food in the restaurant setting. Findings reveal that the expressive aesthetics strategy is effective when marketing conventional, nonorganic food; however, such a strategy decreases consumers’ purchase intentions when the food is described as organic. Furthermore, an investigation of the underlying psychological mechanism indicates that anticipated pleasure and food temptation serially mediate the impacts of expressive aesthetics and food type on purchase intention.

The Influence Exerted by Time Frames on Consumers’ Willingness to Buy Nearly Expired Food

With the development of Internet e-commerce channels, online shopping platforms have become the main channel for consumers to buy nearly expired food. Date labels, as one of the main external clues, play a decisive role in nearly expired food purchasing. Therefore, based on attention-related theory, this study attempts to explore the influence exerted by different time frames on consumers’ willingness to buy and its mechanism. The results show that compared with the date, consumers have a higher willingness to buy nearly expired food when the expiration time is framed by delay. More specifically, compared to the date, the delay causes the individual to have a longer time perception, thus more preference for nearly expired food. Meanwhile, the mediating effect of time perception is moderated by food type. The conclusion of this research is helpful to expand the theoretical framework of time frames and related fields on nearly expired food, as well as provide practical guidance for marketers to effectively promote nearly expired food.

Overview of Usual Food Leftovers in Inpatients at the Jailolo Regional General Hospital, West Halmahera Regency

Hospital nutrition services are part of a complete health service. Each hospital provides nutritional services, not only providing food for patients and staff, but the most important thing is the provision of food that meets the needs of human metabolism for recovery during treatment. Food waste is the amount of food that is not eaten or not consumed by the patient. The purpose of this study was to determine the type of food and the amount of leftover food that was not consumed by patients who received regular food at the Jailolo Hospital. The type of research used is descriptive with sampling using purposive sampling as many as 20 respondents. The results showed that of the 20 respondents using the Comstock method, the average patient leftover food left a lot (> 20%) in the staple food type 40%, animal side dishes 35%, vegetable side dishes 30%, vegetables 30% and fruit 40%. Based on the results of the study, it can be concluded that most of the respondents still left a lot of food and it is recommended for nutrition installations to improve the quality and taste of the food served so that there is no more food left.

Food preference and food type innovation of surface- vs. cave-dwelling waterlouse (Asellus aquaticus) after 60 000 years of isolation

Behavioural innovativeness is important for colonising new habitats; however, it is also costly. Along the colonisation event of a simple, stable and isolated habitat offering only new food sources, one could hypothesize that the colonising individuals are more innovative than the average in their source population, showing preference to the new resource, while after colonisation, the adapted population will lose its innovativeness and become specialised to the new resource. To test this hypothesis, we compared food preference and food type innovation of a cave-dwelling waterlouse (Asellus aquaticus) population (genetically isolated for at least 60 000 years) to three surface-dwelling populations, also sampling individuals that have recently entered the cave (‘colonists’). In the cave, the only food sources are endogenous bacterial mats, while surface populations feed on various living and dead plant material together with their fungal and bacterial overgrow. We assayed all populations with the familiar and unfamiliar food types from the natural habitats and two novel food types not occurring in the natural habitats of the species. We found that all populations preferred surface to cave food and consumed the unnatural novel food types. Surface populations avoided cave food and colonists spent the most time with feeding on surface food. We conclude that the cave population maintained its preference for surface food and did not lose its food type innovativeness. We suggest that adapting to the special cave food was a major challenge in colonising the cave. Significance statement Behavioural innovativeness is a key trait for adapting to environmental changes or to colonise new habitats. However, it has developmental and maintenance costs due to the high energy need of the necessary sensory and neural organs. Therefore, we asked whether behavioural innovativeness decreases after colonising an isolated, stable and highly specialised habitat. By comparing food type innovativeness of surface-dwelling populations of waterlouse (Asellus aquaticus) to a population that has colonised a cave at least 60 000 years ago, we found that the high innovativeness towards unnatural food was retained in the cave population. Further, all populations preferred surface food (decaying leaves), with surface populations almost completely avoiding cave food (endogenous bacteria mats). We suggest that (i) food type innovativeness is evolutionary rigid in our system and (ii) the cave food was rather an obstacle against than a trigger of cave colonisation.

Dietary Intake of the Italian PHIME Infant Cohort: How We Are Getting Diet Wrong from as Early as Infancy

Unhealthy dietary habits established in early infancy may lead to under or over nutrition later in life. This paper describes the energy, nutrients and food-type intake of 18-month-old infants belonging to the Italian PHIME cohort (n = 389) and evaluates adherence to the Italian dietary reference values (DRVs). Infant dietary data were collected using 7-day dietary records. Mean energy, macro and micronutrient intakes were estimated and compared with the DRVs. The percentage contribution of 19 selected food groups to total energy and macro- and micronutrient intake was determined with the aim of establishing the main food sources. Most infants’ diet shared common characteristics: poor variety, excessive intake of proteins (16.5 E% vs. 8–12 E% DRV) and saturated fatty acids (SFAs) (13.8 E% vs. <10 E% DRV), mainly derived from milk and dairy products, and low intake of total fats (33.2 E% vs. 35–40 E% DRV), polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFAs) (3.1 E% vs. 5–10 E% DRV), vitamin D (1.1 vs. 15 µg/day DRV) and iron (4.5 vs. 8 mg/day DRV). The unbalanced distribution of macronutrients was reflected in energy intakes outside DRV ranges for more than half the infants. Public health interventions promoting healthy eating habits from early on, even from pregnancy, could yield significant short- and long-term health benefits.

Twist and chew: three-dimensional tongue kinematics during chewing in macaque primates

Three-dimensional (3D) tongue movements are central to performance of feeding functions by mammals and other tetrapods, but 3D tongue kinematics during feeding are poorly understood. Tongue kinematics were recorded during grape chewing by macaque primates using biplanar videoradiography. Complex shape changes in the tongue during chewing are dominated by a combination of flexion in the tongue's sagittal planes and roll about its long axis. As hypothesized for humans, in macaques during tongue retraction, the middle (molar region) of the tongue rolls to the chewing (working) side simultaneous with sagittal flexion, while the tongue tip flexes to the other (balancing) side. Twisting and flexion reach their maxima early in the fast close phase of chewing cycles, positioning the food bolus between the approaching teeth prior to the power stroke. Although 3D tongue kinematics undoubtedly vary with food type, the mechanical role of this movement—placing the food bolus on the post-canine teeth for breakdown—is likely to be a powerful constraint on tongue kinematics during this phase of the chewing cycle. The muscular drivers of these movements are likely to include a combination of intrinsic and extrinsic tongue muscles.

Role of DNA Methylation in Mechanisms of Anterograde Amnesia

Previously, we found that impairment of conditioned food aversion memory consolidation or reconsolidation in snails by NMDA glutamate receptors antagonists led to the induction of amnesia changing over time. In particular, at the later amnesia stages (10 or more days), repeated aversion training for the same food type that was used in the initial training did not induce long-term memory formation. In these animals, long-term aversion memory for a new food type was formed. We characterized this amnesia as specific anterograde amnesia. In the present work, using DNA methyltransferases (DNMT) inhibitors, the DNA methylation processes role in mechanisms of anterograde amnesia and recovery from amnesia was investigated. It was found that in amnestic animals, DNMT inhibitor administration before or after repeated training led to the rapid long-term conditioned food aversion memory formation. It depended on proteins and mRNA synthesis at certain time windows. Thus, protein synthesis inhibitors administration before or immediately after repeated training, or RNA synthesis inhibitor injection after training, prevented memory formation induced by the DNMT inhibitor. The effects of DNMT inhibitors were specific for certain conditioned stimulus, since these inhibitors did not affect amnestic animals training for a new food stimulus. DNMT inhibition during second training removed blockade of these genes' expression, opening up access to them for transcription factors synthesized during training. Thus, this work was the first to study the molecular mechanisms of anterograde amnesia, as well as memory recovery, which can be important for search for pharmacological correction of this neuropsychic pathology.