Cegah Kanker dengan Biji Anggur

Selama ini orang mengenal anggur sebagai buah yang enak dan menyehatkan. Tahukah Anda, makan anggur sekaligus bijinya ternyata jauh lebih berkhasiat karena kandungan antioksidannya yang mampu meredam risiko kanker kulit?
Sebagian orang pasti berpikir dua kali jika diajak makan anggur dengan bijinya sekaligus. Mungkin terasa aneh karena selama ini orang sengaja membuang bijinya. Bahkan, saat sedang asyik menikmati, akan merasa risih jika ada biji yang tersangkut, dan spontan melepehnya. Tak heran, orang lebih mencari buah anggur dengan sedikit atau tanpa biji.
Mulai sekarang, buang rasa enggan itu. Pasalnya, berbagai penelitian mengungkapkan, selain kaya antioksidan, anggur potensial dikembangkan sebagai solusi alami antikanker, terutama meredam kelainan sel kulit akibat terpapar sinar matahari. Artinya, seperti kulit dan daging buahnya, biji-biji anggur pun berlimpah senyawa berkhasiat.
Itulah kesimpulan peneliti dari Universitas Alabama, Amerika Serikat, terhadap tikus percobaan. Dalam risetnya, sekelompok tikus tanpa bulu diekspos sinar ultraviolet (UV). Beberapa diberi makanan tambahan (ekstrak) mengandung bahan kimia berasal dari biji anggur (grape seed proanthocyanidins/GSPs), sedangkan tikus lain diberikan makanan biasa tanpa suplemen.
Berdasarkan pengamatan dan hasil tes laboratorium, tikus yang diberi tambahan ekstrak GSPs bereaksi positif dan cukup efektif menghambat pengaruh buruk UV, yang bisa mencetuskan zat karsinogenik (pencetus kanker). Tumor yang ada di tubuh tikus-tikus itu 78 persen lebih kecil daripada yang tidak diberi ekstrak biji anggur.
Tekan pembentukan estrogen Dalam presentasi yang disampaikan Dr Santosh K Katiyar dalam suatu konferensi tahunan American Chemical Society, disebutkan bahwa GSPs memiliki antioksidan aktif. Seperti diketahui, sinar UV bisa menghambat sistem kekebalan dan masalah tersebut bisa dihindari berkat GSPs.
Ia menganjurkan konsumsi ekstrak GSPs secara teratur sebagai suplemen harian untuk meningkatkan imunitas tubuh dari serangan radikal bebas sekaligus menekan risiko dan menghindari bahaya kanker kulit.
Sementara itu, peneliti Shiuan Chen PhD dari Beckman Research Institute of the City of Hope menjelaskan bahwa jus anggur (dengan bijinya) efektif menekan pertumbuhan sel kanker dengan mencegah sintesis hormon estrogen yang berperan besar dalam perkembangan kanker payudara.
Melalui tes laboratorium, jus buah dan biji anggur terbukti mampu menghentikan produksi hormon estrogen dalam sel. Penelitian terakhir menggunakan tikus yang ditanami sel tumor menunjukkan, ukuran tumor tikus yang diberi 0,5 mililiter jus anggur selama lima minggu hanya sepertiga dari yang tidak diberi jus anggur. Penelitian tahun lalu menunjukkan, ekstrak anggur merah (bukan anggur putih) mengandung senyawa yang sama dengan yang ada di jus anggur dan dapat menekan pembentukan estrogen.
Pilih warna gelap Di dalam negeri memang belum ada penelitian resmi, barangkali karena negeri kita bukan penghasil dan konsumen anggur besar. Namun, secara empiris, diakui manfaat biji dan buah anggur bagi kesehatan.
Hal itu seperti diungkapkan Pudji Rahayu, pengembang tanaman obat di Depok, Jawa Barat. Sudah lama ia memanfaatkan biji anggur sebagai campuran jus untuk ramuan peningkat daya tahan tubuh.
”Tak usah banyak-banyak, cukup lima sampai sepuluh butir buah anggur jika dijadikan campuran buah atau herba lain. Sebaiknya pilih yang berwarna gelap, seperti ungu dan biru, karena bijinya lebih banyak. Cara ini memudahkan bagi yang kemampuan mengunyahnya mulai berkurang, terutama kaum usia lanjut,” katanya.
Meski begitu, perlu diperhatikan bahwa mengonsumsi anggur bersama kulit buah dan bijinya bisa membuat iritasi pada penderita gangguan lambung. Karena itu, bila pencernaan Anda termasuk sensitif, sebaiknya jangan mengosumsi ketika perut kosong. Latihlah pencernaan Anda dengan mengosumsinya dalam jumlah terbatas sambil mengamati reaksinya.
Jadi, mulai sekarang tentu tak ada alasan lagi untuk menolak makan anggur bersama kulit dan bijinya karena lebih bermanfaat dan berkhasiat.

Why most affiliates fail and what to do bout this...

Written by: Beau Blackwell, Community Manager
It’s no secret that out of the hundreds of thousands of new people who decide to try affiliate marketing every year, only a small percentage ever make enough to quit their day job or significantly change their lifestyle. Is it because affiliate marketing is too competitive, too hard for non-techie people, or just not all it’s cracked up to be?
Having met many successful people in the affiliate marketing world, and knowing what I know from working at ClickBank, I don’t believe that any of those are the reasons why most people don’t make it as affiliate marketers.
In my opinion, success as an affiliate marketer comes down to two factors: dedication and perseverance.

Dedication and Desire

If you were seriously thinking about taking up a new craft or skill, something you’d never really done before, and wanted to get good enough at it to make a living, think about how dedicated you’d need to be.
Let’s take golf as an example—if you wanted to make a living playing golf, do you think you could just go out and hit 100 golf balls a few times a week and expect to be on the pro tour any time soon?
No way! Pro golfers hit literally thousands of shots a day, every single day, whether they want to or not—because that’s what it takes to be great.  They study the game, they try to identify their faults and fix them, and most importantly, they develop or find a training system and stick to it—for months or years on end. Because that’s what it takes to be great.
According to author Malcolm Gladwell, who studied exceptionally talented and successful people in his book Outliers, found that being in the top tier of almost any endeavor, whether sports, business, or the arts, requires incredible dedication and work. He found that people at the absolute pinnacle of their craft have all put in at least 10,000 hours of work over the years.
Hopefully it won’t take you anywhere near 10,000 hours to become a successful affiliate marketer, but you need to approach your efforts as if it will. Many people buy an Internet Marketing training system, read it and get really excited, then either don’t actually follow the system to the letter, or do it for a week or two and give up if they don’t see results.
People that follow marketing systems to the letter, day in and day out, are very rare. But they are often the people who really succeed, and sometimes even develop their own system that works even better.

Pick a System and Follow It

Over the years, I’ve seen many affiliate marketing training systems, and with a few exceptions, their advice is usually very good. However, the techniques they teach can be tedious, repetitive, and usually take weeks, if not months, to start showing results. Just like golf training, or learning a musical instrument, or anything else that requires dedicated effort and perseverance.
I’ve talked to quite a few affiliates over the years that tell me, “I’ve been doing this for months and haven’t made any money! I’m ready to give up.” Sometimes they’ll even tell me they’re using a training system I’m familiar with, and are disappointed in its results.
Whenever I talk to someone like this, I’ll ask questions like:

• How many articles have you written and posted?
• How many niche websites have you built?
• How many hours did you spend researching a niche and keywords before choosing it?
• How many backlinks do you actively try to build each week?

Typically, the answer is “Not many” or “I’ve never really done backlinking” or “I picked a niche in a few minutes.” Having seen many of the top training programs out there, I can guarantee that they don’t promise success if you don’t regularly write articles, do serious niche and keyword research, and consistently build backlinks!
It would be like a golf instructor telling you to hit 300 chip shots every day, but instead you only do 10 shots 3 times a week. Can you blame him that you’re not getting any closer to your goal? Or is it a matter of dedication and desire?

Making the Time

At this point, you might be saying, “That’s easy for you to say. There just aren’t enough hours in the day.” For a very small number of people that might be true, but according to the Nielsen Company, the average American watches more than 4 hours of TV every single day. Imagine how much you could accomplish in your Internet Marketing efforts if you used 1 or 2 of those hours each day to focus on the kinds of tasks I mentioned above!
Remember the 10,000-hour rule? Think about how much quicker you’ll get to that level of success if you dedicate your time and focus to becoming great at affiliate marketing, rather than trying it for an hour or two here and there without a real system or plan.
Fortunately for you, with a high level of dedication and perseverance, it’s not going to take a decade of practice to become great, like it does for athletes or musicians. It can be much quicker (though not overnight or in a few weeks). Depending on the amount of time you spend, it could be anywhere from a few months to a couple of years. In the grand scheme of things, to reach your goals and change your life for the better, isn’t it worth skipping some TV every day?
If you’re really serious about becoming an affiliate marketing success, maybe it’s time to ask yourself, “Have I been doing everything I can to make the dream a reality?” If not, there’s no time like the present to start!

Basic concepts in nutrition: Energy and protein balance

Jens Kondrup

Nutrition Unit-5711, Rigshospitalet University, 9 Blegdamsvej, 2100 Copenhagen, Denmark

Received 5 February 2008; accepted 8 February 2008

Learning objectives

- To know basic concepts in energy and nitrogen balance during health and disease

- To be familiar with terms homeostasis, homeorhesis,adaptation and accommodation.

Basic concepts

- Homeostasis refers to the metabolic regulatory mechanisms that act to keep the body in a    

  constant condition with respect to physiologic function and reserves of energy and other

  nutrients.

- Homeorhesis refers to regulatory mechanisms that allow the body to change from one  

  homeostatic, stable condition to another in a programmed fashion, e.g. growth during childhood

  or the onset of lactation.

The concept can be extended to weight gain after a period of weight loss, and perhaps also to weight loss itself, as far as it follows a programmed pattern. Mild disturbances of homeostasis

or homeorhesis lead to adaptation, without loss of function, e.g. the decrease in resting energy expenditure during starvation, while more severe disturbances lead to accommodation, changes in function, e.g. the reduction in physical activity during prolonged semi-starvation, with the aim of maintaining other more vital functions.

Much is known about the homeostatic regulatory mechanisms, which govern the transition between the fasted and fed states, although less is known about homeorhetic mechanisms. Short term experiments or a prolonged mild disturbance lead mainly to adaptation. More severe stimuli lead to breakdown of these mechanisms causing accommodation, and resulting in disease or aggravation of disease as a consequence of loss of physiological function.

Components of energy balance

Total energy expenditure (TEE) in healthy subjects consists  mainly of resting energy expenditure (REE: about 60% of TEE) and activity induced energy expenditure (AEE: about 30% of TEE). In addition, diet induced energy expenditure (DEE) is about 10% of TEE. REE is the result of homeostatic reactions such as maintaining ion gradients across cell membranes and of substrate cycling, e.g. the constant synthesis and breakdown of protein, glycogen, adipose tissue and intermediates in gluconeogenesis. These cycles serve the purpose of maintaining an alert state of metabolism enabling rapid reactions to external stimuli. If a reaction is simultaneously running in the forward direction at a rate of 100 units and backwards at a rate of

99 units, a regulation by 10% in each direction (up- and down-regulation) will have a 210 times larger effect than a 10% stimulation of a single forward reaction running at a rate of 1 unit.

REE is a product mainly of the metabolism of lean body mass and is therefore dependent on variables related to it, e.g. body weight, height, sex, age. Injury and infection increase REE via neural and cytokine stimuli to the hypothalamus and changes in catecholamine and neurotransmitter secretion. In most cases, the increase is modest and largely offset by immobility. AEE is highly variable, depending on the amount of physical activity, of course, but also on physical capacity since a training paraplegic patient, for instance, may have several fold higher energy expenditure during a specific activity compared to a healthy person.

A fixed value for TEE, e.g. 30 kcal/kg, is useful for clinical purposes as an initial estimate, but it is obvious from the discussion above that this value will vary according to circumstances. One must be prepared, therefore, to adjust the energy intake according to monitoring measures.   

The energy content of food ingested is determined either by bomb calorimetric analyses of foods, or by measuring it’s content of fat, nitrogen (protein), water and ashes and obtaining carbohydrate content by difference. The calorimetric values of fat, nitrogen and carbohydrate are then measured in representative samples of pure macronutrients. By subtracting fecal energy, also measured by bomb calorimetry, the absorption of energy from various foods can be obtained, usually around 95%. The metabolizable energy refers o the actual energetic gain by the organism after absorption. This is different from absorbed energy particularly in the case of protein, since the main product of nitrogen oxidation is urea, which has higher energy content than the bomb calorimetric products (H2O, CO2, N2).

Components of nitrogen balance

The recommended daily intake of protein (0.8 g/kg per day) is based on long-term nitrogen balance studies and consists of three components:

- the average amount of high quality protein needed to maintain nitrogen balance (0.6 g/kg)

- safety factor to ascertain that 95% of the healthy population is covered (0.15 g/kg)

- allowance for the usual intake of proteins that are not entirely high quality protein (0.05 g/kg)

The general acceptance of nitrogen balance as a criterion for adequate intake is only due the lack of a more specific test. Adequacy for several other essential nutrients is based on treatment or prevention of specific disease states (e.g. scurvy and vitamin C) but such a specific abnormality associated with inadequate protein intake is not known. Nitrogen balance is measured by collection of nitrogen losses in urine, feces, skin and miscellaneous losses (sweat,

secretions, etc) and subtracting these losses from measured nitrogen content of protein intake. For determination of requirement, these balances are measured at several levels of protein intake from inadequacy to well above estimated adequacy with the intercept corresponding to zero balance being determined. Each level of intake is tested over several days to assure a metabolic steady state at each intake. Due to the technical problems involved, it is understandable that only few studies are available that have performed such complete analyses, and no lege artis studies have in fact been performed in patients. However, a number of modified procedures have been undertaken in various patient groups giving useful results. From the studies available in healthy subjects, the following values can be derived:

- At an intake of 1 g protein/kg per day, the nitrogen loss in urine will correspond to, approximately, 0.85 g/kg, the loss in feces will be equivalent to 0.1 g/kg per day and the loss from skin and miscellaneous sources will be equivalent to 0.03 g/kg per day.

With varying intakes, the loss in urine will vary while the losses in feces and skin, etc., will not vary substantially on an ordinary Western diet in a temperate climate. Fecal loss, however, is dependent on the fibre content of the diet, since a high fibre content will increase colonic bacterial flora and thereby increase the bacterial nitrogen content of feces. In addition, protein in foods of low digestibility will increase fecal nitrogen losses. Protein of low biological value will also increase urinary nitrogen loss.Digestibility and biological value are combined in the Net Protein Utilization (NPU), which is the fraction of protein retained in the body with an increase in intake of a specific dietary protein.

The amount of protein required to maintain nitrogen balance consists of two major components: essential amino acids (EAA) and essential nitrogen. The latter consists of any form of nitrogen that can enter ammonium metabolism in the body and be incorporated into amino acids by amination or transamination. The amount of essential amino acids required in adult healthy subjects corresponds to about 10% of total protein requirement, while in children it is close to 40% (2 g/kg per day). This reflects that the nitrogenrequirement of the growing subject is largely determined by the EAA composition of the growing tissues, while in the adult depends on the needs for protein turnover of lean tissue, the synthesis of essential compounds such as hormones, as well as the increased requirements for wound healing or response to disease.

In the diseased subject, synthetic reactions require yet another pattern of amino acids, e.g. proline for collagen synthesis, aromatic amino acids for synthesis of antibodies and acute phase proteins, and glutamine for rapidly dividing cells. In such conditions, amino acids that are not usually essential can become conditionally essential due to limited synthetic capacity, e.g. glutamine in the severely ill patient. Similarly, in patients with decreased liver function, cysteine may not be produced in sufficient quantities from methionine, and therefore the requirement for sulphur containing amino acids in these patients may not be covered by provision of methionine alone. In addition, after a period of weight loss, the adult subject may have a requirement for EAA esembling that of a growing child due to the needs for rebuilding of tissue.

The amount and composition of protein required to maintain nitrogen balance in patients may therefore differ substantially from that in healthy subjects. During acute illness, the short term goals of feeding are to restore and maintain function, while limiting further loss of lean tissue. During the weeks of convalescence, the aim is to restore lean mass as well as function. Nitrogen balance may be indicative of loss or gain of body protein but is not a goal in itself. Nonetheless, in the absence of specific tests for adequacy of protein intake, some measure of nitrogen balance is useful in various clinical settings, since a prolonged state of a negative nitrogen balance is not compatible with life.

Energy loss or gain

In the transition from the fed state to starvation, e.g. an over-night fast, energy requirements will be covered mainly by breakdown of glycogen. This is regulated by decreasing plasma insulin (decreasing glycogen synthesis) and rising glucagon (stimulating glycogenolysis). During a more prolonged period of starvation (2e4 days), glycogen stores fall and gluconeogenesis increases. This is accomplished by hepatic formation of glucose from amino acids originating from skeletal muscle, intestine and skin. This process is still governed by low insulin and increased glucagon (promoting gluconeogenesis), but now accompanied by increases in cortisol (stimulating gluconeogenesis and increasing protein breakdown) and growth hormone (increasing gluconeogenesis).

With starvation for longer than 72 h, causing elevated blood ketones, the brain adapts to obtaining 60% of its energy from this source instead of the usual glucose. At the same time, the resting energy expenditure begins to decrease. These changes result not only from the hormonal

changes described above, but are probably also due to decreased concentrations of triiodothyronine (T3) with a rise in the inactive reverse T3. In addition, physical activity isreduced and in more advanced states this is associated with a state of apathy. Muscle function is reduced due to increased relaxation time in neuromuscular function tests, and this is related to decreased electron transport and oxidative phosphorylation in mitochondria. During long-term weight gain, the cost of adding 1 kg body weight is, approximately, 7500 kcal while the energy yield from 1 kg body tissue is, approximately, 5200 kcal. The difference reflects the cost of building lean body mass and adipose tissue. The proportional formation of lean body mass relative to fat mass is dependent on the initial nutritional status. When the subject is underweight,

the main part of tissue gained is lean body mass while it is mainly adipose tissue if the subject is of normal weight. Since the energy cost of gaining adipose tissue is much larger than that of gaining lean body mass, the cost of gaining 1 kg body weight depends on the initial body weight.

The values given above refer to a condition of moderate underweight.

Protein loss or gain

In the transition from the fed to the postabsorptive state, protein degradation increases while protein synthesis largely remains unaffected. The higher the habitual protein intake, the larger is the increase in protein degradation. When no protein is given for a prolonged period, the loss of nitrogen from the healthy subject decreases from, approximately, 1 g/kg per day to 0.4 g/kg per day, as an adaptation to insufficient intake. This is in part due to the switch to fatty acid oxidation mentioned above, but it is also due to an adaptive down-regulation of hepatic degradation pathways of amino acids including EAA. After a brief period of starvation, the body reutilises about 60% of the EAA liberated by protein degradation but the reutilizations increases to about 80% during prolonged starvation. In the patient in intensive care, this loss can be increased to 1- 2 g/kg per day when no protein is given. Immobilization by itself leads to wasting of muscle tissue. In experimental studies of long-term immobilization (with intact innervation), the loss of nitrogen from the body corresponds to only 0.05 g protein/kg per day and therefore the massive loss of nitrogen seen in patients in intensive care, and to lesser extents in other patient categories, is mainly due to the metabolic disturbances associated with disease processes.

Eventually, loss of protein will severely affect the function of a number of organs including muscle, intestine, skin, immune cells, and liver. With the knowledge available, however, the effect of protein deficit per se versus the effect of energy and other deficits cannot be distinguished with certainty. From data available, it appears that immune function is relatively spared compared to physical activity/ muscle function, suggesting that unknown regulatory mechanisms are responsible for a programmed loss of function during starvation alone, although such adaptive mechanisms may be impaired in the presence of illness.

During long-term weight gain, the positive nitrogen balance in undernourished but otherwise healthy adult subjects corresponds to about 40% of the intake at an intake of 1.5 g protein/kg per day. Expressed in another way, nearly 75% of an incremental increase in protein intake is retained in the body. This is not very far from the corresponding figures in infants, suggesting that the efficiency of rebuilding lean body mass is close to that of early growth. The regulation of this programmed change is also not known in detail, but sustained high levels of plasma amino acids and insulin

may play central roles. This rebuilding is an energy demanding process, since protein degradation as well as protein synthesis is increased during recovery, reflecting constant remodeling of the tissues being restructured.

Summary

We describe basic principles of energy and nitrogen balances together with principles of homeostatic and homeorhetic changes of organism. Daily energy and protein balances are supposed to be 30 kcal/kg and 1 g/kg, respectively. However, these can be extended, especially in the condition, when body weight is gained after period of weight loss (e.g. disease related).