Aim: Eggs have sometimes been regarded as unhealthy foods due to their relatively high cholesterol content. The aim of this study is to determine contribution of eggs and other    cholesterol containing food to total dietary cholesterol and their influence on serum lipid profile of adults. Study Design: Cross sectional and experimental. Place and Duration of Study: Department of Biochemistry, University of Calabar, Calabar. February to July 2017. Methodology: A cross-sectional survey to determine consumption pattern was carried out on 400 respondents using food frequency questionnaire (FFQ) and 24 hour dietary recall. The respondents were further grouped into four based on their reported weekly egg consumption. A detailed follow-up study was conducted on 50 participants selected from across the 4 groups, using a 3-day repeated 24 hour dietary recall to determine their consumption of egg and other cholesterol-containing foods. Serum blood lipid profile of these 50 participants was also determined using Randox cholesterol test kits. Food composition tables were used to calculate dietary cholesterol intake (DCI). The mean DCI of the 4 groups were cross-tabulated with mean serum cholesterol levels. Percentage contribution of eggs and other frequently consumed cholesterol-containing foods (such as milk and fish) to total DCI was calculated. Statistical significance was accepted at p = .05. Results: For the follow-up participants, it was observed that results of correlations between DCI and the lipid profile parameters showed negative correlation (at p = .01) in both males and females, except slight positive correlations between cholesterol intake and HDL-c (r=0.191) among the males, and cholesterol with TC (r=0.265) among the females. Apart from this, no association was observed between DCI and the lipid profile parameters. Furthermore, the > 5eggs/week group had the lowest TC and LDL-c (4.23±0.19 mmol/L and 2.38±0.10 mmol/L). Based on the respondents’ consumption patterns, eggs (boiled and fried) contributed the highest- 34.8% to total DCI, followed by milk (15.9%); salad cream contributed lowest (0.3%) to total DCI. Conclusion: Increased DCI from cholesterol-containing foods (such as eggs), did not cause an adverse increase in serum cholesterol levels of normocholesterolemic people.

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Phosphorus existing under different forms and status in soils is a significantly important nutrient during the growth and development of trees. Spectrophotometry has been developed with many types of reagents to determine phosphorus in environmental samples. Molybdenum blue reaction with ascorbic acid as a reducing agent and antimony tartrate catalyst in strong acid environment gave maximum absorbance wavelength at 890 nm. Under the optimised conditions, this method gave very high recovery efficiency, accuracy and sensitivity (up to 0.06 mgP/L) in determination of Original Research Article

Matrix metalloproteinases-2 belongs to gelatinase group of MMP family which are endopeptidases involved in the degradation of extracellular matrix proteins such as collagen, elastin, fibronectin or proteoglycans. MMPs play crucial functions in physiological processes such as embryogenesis, wound healing, and pathogenesis of many diseases such as cancer inflammatory, liver and neurological diseases. Scorpion venom peptides are promising drug candidates for cancer treatment, especially chlorotoxin commonly extracted from Israeli Leiurus quinquestriatus scorpion giant. Chlorotoxin specifically binds to the surface of glioma cells through its principal Cltx receptor

Aims: To determine the snack consumption pattern of adults and the effect of consumption of certain snacks on the health status of adults in the University of Calabar. Study design:  Cross-sectional survey. Place and Duration of Study: University of Calabar, Calabar - Nigeria. June to July, 2017. Methodology: After a multi-staged random sampling technique, a cross-sectional survey was carried out on 400 adult respondents using a well-structured questionnaire. Food frequency questionnaire (FFQ) and 24hour dietary recall were also administered to the respondents. The data obtained from the survey instruments were analysed with the aid of Microsoft excel. For the dietary intake assessment, Food and Agricultural Organisation’s (FAO) ‘Guidelines for Measuring Household and Individual Dietary Diversity’ was used to calculate individual’s dietary diversity score (DDS) before recording. Results: It was observed that 84% of the respondents skipped meals and breakfast was the most skipped meal followed by lunch. Most people (46%) skipped breakfast because they left early for work while majority who skipped lunch did so because they had no time for food at work (53%). Only 8.6% of the respondents did not eat snacks, and most of those who consumed snacks did so because they preferred snacks to food (32%). The most commonly consumed snacks among the respondents was pastries (36.5%), followed by biscuits (25.7%) while the least consumed snacks were vegetables (1%) followed by sweets and gums (1.1%). Consequently, pastries contributed the most snack calories to the study population. Conclusion: Most people skip meals; and snacks serve as a substitute for such skipped meals. Only few people frequently consume healthy snacks such as fruits and vegetables. Most people were discovered to eat pastries as snacks and these pastries (such as cakes and pies) are highly processed foods which could increase the risk of non-communicable diseases (NCDs) in their consumers.

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Obesity is associated with an increased risk of metabolic syndromes such as type 2 diabetes, insulin resistance, dyslipidaemia and non-alcoholic fatty liver disease. Obesity occurs as a result of an imbalance between food intake and energy expenditure leading to excessive accumulation of adipose tissue. NAFLD is the most common liver condition and related to the resistance of insulin. Insulin resistance is associated with an increased influx of lipid into the liver promoting accumulation of hepatic triglyceride. This study aims to develop an experimental model of hepatic steatosis with lipid over-accumulation. HepG2 cells were cultured for 24 hours in free fatty acid media (1:2 palmitic acid and oleic acid respectively). Intracellular lipid content and lipotoxicity were determined by oil red O staining followed by colorimetric detection. This experiment was accomplished by defining the experimental conditions of lipid exposure that leads to significant intracellular fat accumulation in the absence of lipotoxicity with 1 mM of free fatty acid media. As a result, oleic and palmitic acids could be over-accumulated in HepG2 cells. 1 mM free fatty acid media did not affect the cell integrity and did not cause lipotoxicity of the cells.