Metal ions such as iron and copper are among the key nutrients that must be provided by dietary sources. In developing countries, there is an enormous contribution of human activities to the release of toxic chemicals, metals and metalloids into the atmosphere. These toxic metals are accumulated in the dietary articles of man. Numerous foodstuffs have been evaluated for their contributions to the recommended daily allowance both to guide for satisfactory intake and also to prevent over exposure. Further, food chain polluted with toxic metals and metalloids is an important route of human exposure and may cause several dangerous effects on human. In this review we summarized effects of various toxic metals on human health.

Abstract:Biotechnology offers a variety of potential benefits and risks. It has enhanced food production by making plants less vulnerable to drought, frost, insects, and viruses and by enabling plants to compete more effectively against weeds for soil nutrients. In a few cases, it has also improved the quality and nutrition of foods by altering their composition. However, the use of biotechnology has also raised concerns about its potential risks to the environment and people. For example, some people fear that common plant pests could develop resistance to the introduced pesticides in GM crops that were supposed to combat them. Genetic engineering provides a means to introduce genes into plants via mechanisms that are different in some respects from classical breeding. A number of commercialized, genetically engineered (GE) varieties, most notably canola, cotton, maize and soybean, were created using this technology, and at present the traits introduced are herbicide and/or pest tolerance. Gene technology enables the increase of production in plants, as well as the rise of resistance to pests, viruses, frost, etc. Gene transfer is used to modify the physical and chemical composition and nutritional value of food. Gene transfer in animals will play a part in boundless possibilities of improving qualitative and quantitative traits. The yield, carcass composition and meat characteristics the use of nutritive substances ? not sure what is being said here?, and resistance to diseases can be improved. On the other hand, negative effects of gene technology on animals, human, and environment should be considered. The present review article is the compilation of various studies that present both positive and negative impacts of genetically modified food on human health.

Graphene oxide (GO) was prepared by modified Hummer’s method, and chemically converted graphene (CCG) was prepared by further reduction of the aqueous GO colloid. The effect of pH on particle size, particle charge, and light absorption of the aqueous colloids of GO and CCG was studied with titration against HCl or NaOH, to find the ideal characteristics for a stable dispersion. The GO colloid was stable in the pH range of 4–11, whereas the CCG colloid gained stability at a relatively narrower pH range of 7–10. Poor stability of the colloids was observed for both GO and CCG colloids at both extremes of the pH scale. Both of the colloids exhibited average size of ~1 micron in the low pH range, whereas for higher pH the size ranged between 300 and 500 nm. The UV-Vis spectra showed absorption peak at 230 nm for GO colloids that shifted to 260 nm for the CCG colloid. Such shift can be ascribed to restoring of electronic conjugation of the C=C bonds in CCG.

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Abstract:The prevalence and mortality due to multifactorial polygenic diseases; hypertension, coronary artery disease (CAD), diabetes and cancer vary depending upon genetic susceptibility and environmental precursors because they have identifiable mendelian subsets. Rapid changes in diet and lifestyle, may influence heritability of the variant phenotypes that are dependent on the nutraceutical or functional food supplementation for their expression. It is possible to recognize the interaction of specific nutraceuticals, with the genetic code possessed by all nucleated cells. There is evidence that South Asians have an increased susceptibility to CAD, diabetes mellitus, central obesity and insulin resistance at younger age, which may be due to interaction of gene and nutraceutical environment. These populations appear to have enherited predisposition and may have interaction of internal nutritional status and environmental factors. Higher intake of refined starches and sugar increases generation of super oxide anion in the leucocytes and mononuclear cells, and free fatty acids (FFA), as well as higher amount and activity of nuclear factor-kB (NF-kB), a transcriptional factor regulating the activity of at least 125 genes, most of which are pro-inflammatory. Glucose intake also causes an increase in two other proinflammatory transcription factors; activating protein-1 (AP-1) and early growth response protein-1 (Egr-1), the first regulating the transcription of matrix metallo-proteinases and the second modulating the transcription of tissue factor and plasminogen activator inhibitor-1. Refined food, mixed meal induces activation of NF-kB associated with free radicals generation by mononuclear cells. The super oxide anion is an activator of at least two major pro-inflammatory transcription factors, NF-kB and AP-1. Increased intake of linoleic acid, saturated fat, trans fat and refined starches and sugars can increase the generation of free radicals and activate the NF-kB, leading to rapid expression of proinflammatory genes. It is possible that nutraceuticals; antioxidants, micronutrients, minerals, vitamins, coenzyme Q10 and w-3 fatty acids may inhibit the generation of super oxide and suppress NF-kB as well as AP-1, and Egr-1 leading to suppression of phenotypic expressions. It is known that genes are important in determining enzymes, receptors, cofactors, structural components involved in regulation of blood pressure, the metabolism of lipids, lipoproteins and inflammatory and coagulation factors that are involved in determining individual risk for vascular diseases and diabetes. It seems that these phenotypic expressions may be silenced by targeting simple sequence differences known as single nucleotide polymorphisms by nutraceuticals and slowly absorbed wild foods rich in micronutrients and antioxidants.

BackgroundCancer of the oral cavity is the sixth most common malignancy reported worldwide and one with the highest mortality rate among all malignancies. There is a paucity of reliable diagnostic methods to detect early malignancies. This study was performed to evaluate the sensitivity and specificity of brush biopsy in identifying oral premalignant and malignant lesions.MethodsOral brush and scalpel biopsies were performed on 85 consecutive patients presenting with an oral lesion deemed to be minimally suspicious by clinical examination and the results were compared.ResultsOf 79 patients with adequate brush biopsy samples with matching scalpel biopsies, 27 revealed histopathologic evidence of dysplasia or carcinoma, 26 of which were independently identified with the oral brush biopsy (sensitivity: 96.3% - 95% CI, 87%-100%). 52 oral lesions did not reveal any histopathologic evidence of dysplasia or carcinoma and of these, brush biopsy reported 47 as "negative" and 5 as "atypical"(specificity of "positive" brush biopsy result is 100%- 95% CI, 93%-100%; specificity for "atypical" brush biopsy result is 90.4%- 95% CI, 82%-97%. The positive predictive value of an abnormal oral brush biopsy was 84% and the negative predictive value was 98%.ConclusionOur study demonstrated that the oral brush biopsy is an accurate test in identifying oral premalignant and malignant lesions, even if minimally suspicious.

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Over last 15 years high-entropy alloys (HEAs) and complex concentrated alloys (CCAs) have gained much appreciation for their numerous superior properties. In this paper we have shown a novel simulation methodology to realistically predict the nanometer level local structural features of complex Ta0.25Nb0.25Hf0.25Zr0.25 HEA. This involves prediction of the morphology of the short-range clustering (SRCs), their quantitative atomic composition at the nano level and the thermodynamic aspects. An alloy structure model containing 11664 atoms was created and this was subjected to structure evolution at 1800 °C. The structure evolution technique is based on a combined hybrid Monte Carlo and molecular dynamics (MC/MD) approach. The simulated results from this work are further validated against experiments and material characterizations reported in literature and done by high-resolution transmission electron micrograph (HRTEM) for the nano-level microstructure, atom probe tomography (APT) for the local chemical compositions and X-ray diffraction at synchrotron sources for the local lattice relaxation effects. This work qualitatively and quantitatively reproduces the materials characterization results reasonably well from the developed simulation methodologies. The structure evolution methods as described in this work are based on independent computer simulations and does not involve any manual intervention for input based on experiments on evolving SRCs. This work shows the potential of utilizing MC/MD based computational methods to reduce the number of costly experimental characterizations and accelerate the pace for materials development.