Thanksgiving dinner can leave the stomach feeling and looking stuffed beyond capacity. The Burmese python goes beyond the post-meal bulge: Its intestines and other organs grow too, and these changes happen within days of eating. A recent study in Physiological Genomics examined how the organs can grow so much so soon. The Burmese python takes … Continue reading A New Meaning for ‘Food Baby’: How the Burmese Python Digests Big Meals
Eating
Hungry, Hungry Hormones: What Keeps You from Saying No to a Second Slice of Pie?
Now is the time of year when family and friends gather together and share large meals. We eat … and keep eating … and keep eating. Our body has a number of signals that tell us to stop eating, but the mashed potatoes and stuffing tempt us to ignore them. What are those signals? The … Continue reading Hungry, Hungry Hormones: What Keeps You from Saying No to a Second Slice of Pie?
Getting the Most out of What You Do: Your Body’s Strategy
Life is hectic. To keep you running, your body absorbs oxygen from the air you breathe and nutrients from the food you eat. How does your body make sure it’s getting the most it can to get you through your day? Your body increases the surface that’s exposed to the air and food. In the … Continue reading Getting the Most out of What You Do: Your Body’s Strategy
How Food Snakes and Shimmies through the Digestive System
Moving food through your digestive system is not a simple process: Food does not just drop down into your stomach when you swallow. It’s actually a controlled journey coordinated by muscle cells that line the digestive tract. These cells are organized in two directions: crosswise, circling around the tract, and lengthwise, along the length of … Continue reading How Food Snakes and Shimmies through the Digestive System
How Consuming Bacteria Keeps Us Healthy
If you've ever been told to eat yogurt or drink buttermilk after taking antibiotics for a bacterial infection, the suggestion might not make sense. The reason for consuming yogurt or buttermilk is to replenish the body’s bacteria that were killed by the antibiotics. But why would we intentionally introduce bacteria after we got sick from … Continue reading How Consuming Bacteria Keeps Us Healthy
Peanut Allergy in a Nutshell
Science has been coming through for peanut allergy sufferers lately. In February alone, researchers announced that yogurt could be a possible cure, a skin patch may be a new treatment and giving kids peanuts during their infant years could help avoid the allergy altogether. Cures for peanut and other food allergies are so sought after … Continue reading Peanut Allergy in a Nutshell
Heart-Healthy Diets: Why the Low Sodium?
Eat less salt. It’s advice often recommended as a way to reduce blood pressure, but why? And if the body needs sodium (salt) to work properly, how does eating too much of it become unhealthy? In the cardiovascular system, excess sodium changes the body’s physiological processes to encourage high blood pressure, or hypertension. Sodium affects … Continue reading Heart-Healthy Diets: Why the Low Sodium?