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The Transgenic Potato
Posted on March 11th, 2010 No commentsThe Transgenic Potato
A novel transgenic potato has been approved in Europe to be cultured and marketed. This potato is patented by BASF, an important German company that is a leader in antibiotic drug for agriculture and veterinary. Transgenic potato has a resistance versus carboxicillin and kanamycin, two antibiotics largely used to fight culture contamination and disruption.
This genetic modification should improve culture yield without interfering with nutritional and biophysical properties of the vegetable. A further improvement has been reported also in the amount of amid that is increased in percentage in this potato. For this reason, OGM potato should be conveniently used in paper manufacturer and animal feeding. This last application has generated a lot of discussion and anxiety. Indeed, since it would be possible to use bigger amount of antibiotics to protect potato culture, animals should be eat more antibiotics and lastly also human that eat meat from animals could ingest more drugs. For this reason, attentive and serious control must be done, in order to preserve human health from future problems related to antibiotic intolerance, resistance or toxicity. In summary, biotechnology could proficiently help to improve culture conditions, but security measures must be kept in mind. -
Role of natural antioxidant elements in cardiovascular disease prevention
Posted on February 27th, 2010 No commentsNatural antioxidant elements consist of carotenoids, vitamins, mineral salt contained in food. These components are important to remove free oxygen derived compounds that are highly reactive and generate lipid peroxidation and DNA damage. Lipid peroxidation is one cause of lipoprotein modifications. In particular low density lipoproteins (LDLs) are intensively modified by free radicals and several forms of altered LDL have been identified.
The overall effect is an increasing likelihood to produce atherosclerotic lesions, followed by an increased risk to have cardiovascular problems. In vitro some evidences about the ability of natural antioxidants to remove free radicals have been observed, but it’s not totally clear what is the significance in human, because clinical studies still are controversial. Even if some studies demonstrated a protective role of natural antioxidants against cardiovascular diseases, it’s quite difficult to evaluate the exact concentration of these components in the serum, and few dose- response studies are available up to date. Vitamin E seems particularly involved in cardiovascular disease protection because low levels of this compound have been measured in patients who had stroke or other cardiovascular problems. Unfortunately, prospective study is a limited tool to evaluate the efficacy of vitamin supplement as a tool to prevent heart failure. Further analyses must be done to ascertain the role of antioxidants in disease prevention; at this time we can still eat a lot of fruit and vegetables for our pleasure. -
Challenging in food safety
Posted on October 26th, 2009 No commentsFood safety is one of most important challenge in our countries. Indeed, adulteration and poising food are often described in newspapers. FDA and ESFA are the organisations issued to guarantee food safety in U.S and Europe, respectively. Which are the most common problems that determine food adulteration. The first cause of this kind of problem is the bacterial contamination: indeed bacteria can provoke food spoilage as well as they are pathogen in some cases.
To decrease the possibility of food spoilage, numerous testing must be performed in food processing company. The safety ideal “from farm to fork” created by FDA can be reached only through an attentive analysis of raw materials, processing and packing procedures in order to assure maximal sterility in each step. Furthermore, some laboratories are specialised in bacterial, toxin and sterility testing: the common goal is to provide consumers with safe and wholesome food at least for all shelf-life of food self. These laboratories usually offer a broad range of services and usually communicate with their clients through LIMS system. LIMS systems, indeed, are able to collect large number of data analysis, reports and general forms and rapidly make them available to clients.
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