Firstly, one must eat health food and drink lots of water. This will keep your skin internally good. Eating unhealthy junk food and oily food will definitely lead to pimple on your face making your skin look bad. Include health food items like leafy vegetables and other nutritious food items that will regulate your blood and keep your skin healthy. There are a number of small tips that one should follow to keep the skin beautiful. Clean your hands properly before touching it to your skin. If you’re applying any cream to your face or your face is undergoing any kind of skin treatment, do it with cleaned hands. The dirt on your hands might infect your skin and can even cause breakouts. Clean your skin immediately after you come home. If you apply make-up on the skin, it might cause irritation on the skin if it is not washed.

Your skin is exposed to sunlight every day. Make it a habit of applying sunscreens to your face and hands before you go out of the house. The chances of sunburns tremendously reduce due to this. Use a cleanser every morning you wake up. In the night, while sleeping, your face comes in contact with the pillow which might have some bacteria or hair product residue. Thus, clean your face with the cleanser in the morning. Also, wash your face in the night before you sleep. The whole day you are exposed to dust, sunlight, bacteria etc. which can cause infections on your skin. Thus, prefer cleaning your face at the end of the day. Prefer warm water to wash your face. Warm water opens pores. Once you wash your face, rinse it with cold water then. Cold water will close your pores. Provide steam to your face. It makes the skin healthy.

Exercise is also one way of keeping skin health. Cardio exercise will enable regular flow of blood thus leading to healthy skin. Exfoliate your skin weekly or monthly to remove the dead skin cells. The most important thing is avoid pricking your pimple on the face. If you prick one, it might spread creating another pimple. Stressed mind also leads to a dull skin and pimples. Make your mind free and keep tension away. Also, provide yourself with enough sleep.

One more important thing is to know your skin type. To treat your skin in a better manner to get immediate results, use products as per your skin type. This will never cause infection to your skin due to the treatment products. There are numerous such things that lead to beautiful skin. One must take care of their skin.

Vitamin C is best obtained from citrus fruits and juices. They are the richest source of Vitamin C. In vegetables, broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage, tomatoes, potatoes, beans, etc. have comparatively high content of Vitamin C. It is said that the Kakadu plum and camu camu contain the highest amount of Vitamin C. In meat, liver contains the maximum content on Vitamin C. In market, there are a number of Vitamin C tablets, syrups, juices, capsules etc available.

Studies have proved that how important role Vitamin C plays in maintaining good health, cardio vascular, cancer, stroke and eye health. Vitamin C also provides the human body with immunity to stay alive longer. It is said that Vitamin C also reduces the severity or intensity of common cold. One important function on Vitamin C is collagen production which is useful for healing of the wounds faster and easier. Vitamin C also plays a role in cancer prevention. It protects the cells and DNA strands from getting damaged. It makes the body more immune. If you consume vitamin C ideally, the chances of cataracts in your eyes become less. Diabetic patients should consume vitamin C as Vitamin C helps in maintaining blood sugar level in human body.

The deficiency of Vitamin C mainly causes the disease Scurvy. Scurvy leads to development of brown spots on your skin, spongy gums, and also there is bleeding from mucous membranes. There are a number of small health problems that may be caused to you. Yhus, have an ideal intake of Vitamin C.

Artistry has a wide range of cleansers available as per the skin type. For normal to dry skin, Artistry has “Essentials Hydrating Cleanser” which cleans and exfoliates your skin. For combination to oil skin, they have “Essentials Balancing Skin” which not only cleanses the skin but also acts as a shine control therapy throughout the day. Artistry’s “Time defiance cleansing treatment” is the best for aging skin. It provides firmer skin within 20 minutes. There are various toners for your skin for different types. For normal to dry skin, they have essentials hydrating toner and for combination to oily skin, they have essentials balancing toner. Made for all skin types, there is a product “Time Defiance Conditioning Tower”. If you want smooth, soft and silk skin there is “Treatage Skin Lotion”. For instant hydration of your skin, there is a Pure White Toner I.

Artistry also has good quality moisturizers. For a young and fresh skin, you can use “Time Defiance Night Recovery Creme”. Artistry has a special “Essentials Hydrating Botanical Spa Collection”. This is a collection of 3 things that is body wash, body scrub and body butter. Artistry has a cream specially meant for eye treatment. Applying this cream around the eyes will make the skin around eye firmer. This eye cream helps in reduction of wrinkles and loose skin around the eye. Artistry also has a number of serums for skin care, facial mask for dry and normal skin, cleansing mask etc. They also have special care cosmetic products such as “Pure White Spot Corrector”, “Essentials anti-blemish”, “Intensive Skincare Anti-wrinkle Firming serum” etc.

They also have cosmetic products for your eyes, cheeks, face and lips. Artistry has a wide range of colour cosmetics for eyes which include colourful eye pencils, total mascara, eye shadows colour, eye liner, eye brow definer, set of make-up brush set etc. they have different colours and designs’ make up palettes for your cheeks look more beautiful. They have good quality face powder, foundations of SPF 18/PA+++, pressed powder, hydrating foundation, time defiance firming crème foundation etc. Artistry also has lip products which will make your lips look for beautiful and luscious. They have a colourful range of lip gloss, lip definer, lipsticks, lip shine, etc.

Artistry has great products under the brand name. They have quality products and hence people rely on Artistry skin care and cosmetic products. They have fruitful results on your skin. Your skin is precious and you must keep it beautiful by taking care of it under proper treatment.

Firstly, bring to your knowledge the exact reason for your less weight. Sometimes, a serious medical illness is responsible for body weight reduction considerably. Once you clear this thing, you are ready to undergo diet and treatments to gain weight in a systematic manner. Make a diet chart for yourself. Include all the food items that have more calories. Consume more calories than you actually burn them in regular activities. Yes, we know that you cannot eat each and everything that comes in front of you. But on the other hand, have a healthy 3-time meal that is a healthy breakfast, lunch and dinner. Also, while preparing your diet chart see to it that there a gap of 3 hrs between all your meals for the purpose of digestion.

Gaining weight doesn’t mean you stop exercising. You must exercise even while gaining weight. Resistance training exercises help in building of your muscles and increased metabolism rate as well. Your gym instructor will give your exercises which are required while gaining weight. Have protein rich food items after exercising and work out. Protein rich food items are fish, low fat dairy products, milk, meat, almonds etc. Just because you want to gain weight, don’t eat junk foods and fatty food items. They can in fact spoil your health and you will lose more weight. Include food items in your diet which are rich in protein, carbohydrates and fats. A healthy breakfast is a part of a good diet chart. Try and drink milk along with a banana and dry fruits every morning. You can also have curd, cheese sandwiches, chicken sandwiches, salads, fruits whenever you feel you are hungry.

Also, there is a major misconception that beer increases your weight. But it is wrong. Beer will give render nothing but just a beer belly to you. Thus, have a proper knowledge about what food items you consume. This will help you in gaining weight more easily and quickly.

There are a number of ways for losing weight. You can opt for the suitable methods but in an organized manner. The first thing you must clear about yourself that whether you are really gaining weight or it is just an obsession. Start it with knowing your BMR i.e. Basic Metabolic Rate. BMR will give you the amount of calories that you need to consume every day activities like breathing or digestion. Get a calorie calculator and see how many calories you burn during your daily activities like walking, talking, sitting, exercising etc. The next thing you should know the amount of calories you consume every day. The last step to know whether you are gaining weight or losing is weight is to add BMR and calories you burn in everyday activity. Subtract the amount of calories you consume every day from the resultant addition amount. If you consume more calories than your BMR + calories burnt i every day activity, then be aware because you are on the track of gaining weight.

You can opt for any of the methods for losing your weight. Firstly, have a control on your diet. Check your diet for the food items which contain lots of fat and are responsible more increase in weight. You can reduce or even stop eating red meat. If you wish to continue consuming red meat then cook them in a diet-friendly manner. Avoid eating fried foods. Prefer food items which are grilled, roasted, boiled or baked. Another weight loss tip is to begin your lunch or dinner with salads and soup. At home, starting with soup and salad before the main course is a good way that will contribute to weight loss. How? If you eat salad and soup before your food, it will cure your hunger; prevent you from eating more than required and controlled intake of proportionate food. Replace your high calorie dessert ice-creams and brownies with fruits. This will not only prevent the intake of high calories from ice creams and brownies but also provide your body with nutritional elements such as vitamins, minerals and fiber.

Exercise daily! Your body needs exercise anyhow even if you want to lose weight or you don’t want to. The proper functioning of body needs regular bodily movements. Simple sitting at one place and just eating will lead to many health problems like obesity, digestion issues etc. You can exercise in whatever way you like to. There are a number of interactive and interesting exercises like aerobics. You can easily lose weight through aerobics. People who love to dance can reduce their weight by dancing. Dancing is one of the best exercises. Besides, there are yoga techniques and many other physical exercises too.

A proper combination of diet and exercise will lead to a fruitful weight loss in short time period. Thus, systematically work on your body and stay fit.

However, the incidence rate for colon cancer has apparently not changed much since 1978, according to 2011 data from the SEER Cancer Statistics Review from the National Cancer Institute.

“It was proposed that N-nitroso compounds in hot dogs and other processed meats can cause colon cancer,” said Sidney S. Mirvish, Ph.D., professor emeritus at the Eppley Institute for Research in Cancer and Allied Diseases at the University of Nebraska Medical Center in Omaha. “We found that the level of total apparent N-nitroso compounds in hot dog links prepared in our laboratory fell as increasing levels of sodium erythorbate were included in the hot dog links.”

Mirvish and colleagues discussed the view that colon cancer was induced by components of the apparent nonvolatile N-nitroso compounds that occur in processed (nitrite-preserved) meat. Hence, Mirvish and colleagues investigated the effect of varying the erythorbate level on the N-nitroso compound content of hot dogs.

They found that the current level of erythorbate (500 milligrams per kilogram) added to hot dogs reduces the N-nitroso compounds to 2 nanomoles per gram compared with 180 nanomoles per gram when erythorbate was not used.

“When erythorbate was not added, 80 percent of the apparent N-nitroso compounds were found to be due to nitrosothiols, which are probably harmless, still leaving 40 nanomoles per gram that were attributed to possibly carcinogenic N-nitroso compounds,” Mirvish said.

If the level of N-nitroso compounds was an important cause of colon cancer, “the drop in N-nitroso compound content caused by the mandated changes in processed meat should have been accompanied by a drop in the incidence of colon cancer,” Mirvish said.

In fact, since the mandated changes were introduced 33 years ago, the death rate for colon cancer has dropped sharply. “This may have been due mostly to earlier detection and better treatment of this disease,” Mirvish said.

Mirvish concluded that the role of hot dog-derived N-nitroso compounds in the causation of colon cancer remains unclear.

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The study, published online the week of Oct. 24 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, brings science one step closer to the goal of using the vascular system to personalize cancer therapy, as well as fight obesity, heart disease and other disorders. Researchers also found that some addresses are shared in vasculature across the board instead of always being organ-specific.

The study is part of ongoing research to identify specific and unique addresses, or ZIP codes, within the body’s vascular system and use them to develop diagnostic, imaging and therapeutic strategies. Husband-and-wife research team Wadih Arap, M.D., Ph.D., and Renata Pasqualini, Ph.D., professors at the David H. Koch Center for Applied Research of Genitourinary Cancers at MD Anderson, pioneered the concept and were senior authors of the paper.

“By identifying vascular ZIP codes, we bring medicine closer to the ultimate goal of targeted therapies,” Pasqualini said.

Innovative methods help investigation

This study supports the Arap-Pasqualini lab’s ongoing research to show blood vessels are more than a uniform and ubiquitous “pipeline” that serves the circulatory system.

More than a decade ago, the group pioneered a screening technique that employs billions of viral particles, called phage, to discover, validate and use blood vessel diversity. The particles are packaged with small fragments of proteins called peptides that act as ligands. When injected into the body, they bind to specific receptors in the blood vessels and organs.

“This process is like a ‘molecular mass mailing’ to all addresses in the body,” Arap said. “The peptides travel until they find a target and bind to it, then with our novel technology we recover and identify them. Knowing the characteristics of the peptides and where they attach can help us understand the vascular system’s molecular makeup and develop therapies focusing on disease sites.”

This new study was the first in which researchers evaluated the molecular repertoire of protein diversity in several patients, targeting multiple organs at once.

In three cancer patients, serial rounds of peptide collection were followed by biopsies from various tissues to determine where and how the peptides homed, which enabled the enrichment of targeting peptides for identifying ligand-receptors. After systemic delivery of a peptide library to the first patient, phage were recovered from organs, pooled and serially screened in two subsequent patients. Large-scale sequencing was then performed.

“This uncovered a new twist for the vascular map,” Pasqualini said. “To this point, we had seen mainly addresses that were organ and tissue specific. Because of this synchronized method, we discovered some markers are vascular-associated at multiple sites.”

Shared addresses surprise researchers

Analysis revealed four native ligand-receptors, three of which were previously unrecognized.

Two are shared among multiple tissues (integrin a4/annexin A4 and cathepsin B/apolipoprotein E3) and the other two have a restricted and specific distribution in normal tissue (prohibitin/ annexin A2 in white fat tissue) or cancer (RAGE/leukocyte proteinase-3 in bone metastases).

The discovery of shared addresses especially intrigued researchers.

“No one knew about the novel aspect surrounding these particular proteins, and the fact that they can interact and come together to serve a common purpose,” Pasqualini said. “There are likely to be many more.”

A tissue-specific vascular-targeting system, comprising ANXA2 and prohibitin, was found as a ligand-receptor in human white adipose (fat) tissue vasculature. In earlier research, targeting of prohibitin with an apoptotic agent caused dramatic weight loss in obese rodents. The lab is applying to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to conduct a clinical trial for a new drug that will test this principle for weight loss in humans. Moving the impact forward This project establishes that large-scale study of the human vasculature can uncover many unidentified or unique molecular networks that can contribute to the treatment of many diseases.

“This endeavor and the applications of our findings are exciting,” Arap said. “There are going to be many more receptors and many levels of diversity. We’ve just scratched the surface.”

Translational applications, such as first-in-man clinical trials, have started within MD Anderson. The FDA has granted a safe-to-proceed status for the first vascular-targeted Investigational New Drug (IND). Three other drugs are in pre-IND stage, and several others are in pre-clinical laboratory phase.

“I believe these strategies to identify therapeutic targets on the vasculature are truly innovative both from a scientific and clinical perspective,” said David Cheresh, Ph.D., associate director for Translational Research at the University of California, San Diego Cancer Center and noted authority on angiogenesis and cancer metastasis. “Identifying such targets will ultimately pave the way for the next generation of smart/targeted cancer therapies.”

MD Anderson and some of its researchers, including Arap and Pasqualini, have equity positions in drug-development companies Alvos Therapeutics and Ablaris Therapeutics, which are subjected to certain restrictions under institutional policy. MD Anderson manages and monitors the terms of these arrangements in accordance with its conflict-of-interest policy.

Co-authors from MD Anderson’s David H. Koch Center are first authors Fernanda Staquicini, Ph.D., Marina Cardó-Vila, Ph.D., and Mikhail Kolonin, Ph.D. Additional authors include Julianna Edwards; Diana Nunes, Ph.D., and Emmanuel Dias-Neto, Ph.D., Eleni Efstathiou, M.D., Ph.D.; Jessica Sun, and Christopher Logothetis, M.D.

Other MD Anderson contributors include Anna Sergeeva, Ph.D., Department of Stem Cell Transplantation; Shi-Ming Tu, M.D., Department of Genitourinary Medical Oncology; Jeffrey Gershenwald, M.D., Department of Surgical Oncology; Jeffrey Molldrem, M.D., Department of Stem Cell Transplantation; Anne Flamm, J.D., Department of Clinical Ethics ; Erkki Koivunen, Ph.D., Department of Leukemia; Rebecca Pentz, Ph.D., Department of Clinical Ethics; Patricia Troncoso, M.D., Department of Pathology; Kim-Ahn Do, Ph.D., Department of Biostatistics; Gregory Botz, M.D., Department of Critical Care; and Michael Wallace, M.D., Department of Diagnostic Radiology.

Additional contributors included Martin Trepel, M.D., University Medical Center of Hamburg; Nalvo Almeida, Ph.D., and João Setubal, Ph.D., Virginia Bioinformatics Institute and Department of Computer Science, Virginia Polytechnic University; Stan Krajewski, M.D., Ph.D., at The Sanford-Burnham Medical Research Institute; Richard Sidman, M.D., (corresponding author), Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and Harvard Medical School; Dolores Cahill, Ph.D., and David O’Connell, Ph.D., Conway Institute of Biomedical and Biomolecular Science, University College Dublin.

This work was funded by grants from the National Institutes of Health, National Cancer Institute, the U.S. Department of Defense, AngelWorks, the Gillson-Longenbaugh Foundation and the Marcus Foundation.

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US lawyers have successfully argued in the past that a defendant accused of murder had diminished capacity as a result of switching to a junk food diet, a legal precedent that subsequently became known as the “Twinkie Defense” — a twinkie being a packaged snack cake with a creamy filling.

The researchers base their findings on 1,878 teens from 22 public schools in Boston, Massachusetts. The teens were part of the Boston Youth Survey, a biennial survey of 9th to 12th graders (14 to 18 year olds).

The teens were asked how many carbonated non-diet soft drinks they had drunk over the past seven days. Intake was measured in cans (355 ml or 12 ounces), and responses categorised according to quantity.

The responses were divided into two groups: those drinking up to four cans over the preceding week (low consumption); and those drinking five or more (high consumption). Just under one in three (30%) respondents fell into the high consumption category.

The researchers then looked at potential links to violent behaviour in this group, by asking if they had been violent towards their peers, a sibling, or a partner, and if they had carried a gun or knife over the past year.

Responses were assessed in the light of factors likely to influence the results, including age and gender, alcohol consumption, and average amount of sleep on a school night.

Those who drank 5 or more cans of soft drinks every week were significantly more likely to have drunk alcohol and smoked at least once in the previous month.

But even after controlling for these and other factors, heavy use of carbonated non-diet soft drinks was significantly associated with carrying a gun or knife, and violence towards peers, family members and partners.

When the findings were divided into four categories of consumption, the results showed a clear dose-response relationship across all four measures.

Just over 23% of those drinking one or no cans of soft drink a week carried a gun/knife, rising to just under 43% among those drinking 14 or more cans. The proportions of those perpetrating violence towards a partner rose from 15% in those drinking one or no cans a week to just short of 27% among those drinking 14 or more.

Similarly, violence towards peers rose from 35% to more than 58%, while violence towards siblings rose from 25.4% to over 43%.

In all, for those teens who were heavy consumers of non-diet carbonated soft drinks, the probability of aggressive behaviour was 9 to 15 percentage points higher — the same magnitude as the impact of alcohol or tobacco — the findings showed. “There may be a direct cause-and-effect-relationship, perhaps due to the sugar or caffeine content of soft drinks, or there may be other factors, unaccounted for in our analyses, that cause both high soft drink consumption and aggression,” conclude the authors.

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1. Sara J Solnick, David Hemenway. The ‘Twinkie Defense’: the relationship between carbonated non-diet soft drinks and violence perpetration among Boston high school students. Injury Prevention, 2011; DOI: 10.1136/injuryprev-20011-040117

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After receiving citalopram, a serotonin-selective reuptake inhibitor (SSRI), during this critical period, long-distance connections between the two hemispheres of the brain showed stunted growth and degeneration. The animals also became excessively fearful when faced with new situations and failed to play normally with peers — behaviors reminiscent of novelty avoidance and social impairments seen in autism. The abnormalities were more pronounced in male than female rats, just as autism affects 3-4 times more boys than girls.

“Our findings underscore the importance of balanced serotonin levels — not too high or low — for proper brain maturation,” explained Rick Lin, Ph.D., of the University of Mississippi Medical Center, Jackson, a Eureka Award grantee of the NIH’s National Institute of Mental Health.

Lin and colleagues report on their discovery online during the week of Oct. 24, 2011, in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Last July, a study reported an association between mothers taking antidepressants and increased autism risk in their children. It found that children of mothers who took SSRI’s during the year prior to giving birth ran twice the normal risk of developing autism — with treatment during the first trimester of pregnancy showing the strongest effect. A study published last month linked the duration of a pregnant mother’s exposure to SSRIs to modest lags in coordination of movement — but within the normal range — in their newborns.

“While one must always be cautious extrapolating from medication effects in rats to medication effects in people, these new results suggest an opportunity to study the mechanisms by which antidepressants influence brain and behavioral development,” said NIMH Director Thomas R. Insel, M.D. “These studies will help to balance the mental health needs of pregnant mothers with possible increased risk to their offspring.”

Earlier studies had hinted that serotonin plays an important role in shaping the still-forming brain in the days just after a rat is born, which corresponds to the end of the third trimester of fetal development in humans. Experimental manipulations of the chemical messenger during this period interfered with formation of sensory-processing regions of the cortex, or outer mantle, and triggered aggressive and anxiety-related behaviors in rodents.

There is also recent evidence in humans that serotonin from the placenta helps shape development of the fetal brain early in pregnancy. Disrupted serotonin has been linked to mood and anxiety disorders. SSRIs, the mainstay medication treatment for these disorders, boost serotonin activity.

Lin and colleagues gave citalopram to male and female rat pups prenatally and postnatally and examined their brains and behavior as they grew up. Male, but not female, SSRI exposed rat pups abnormally froze when they heard an unfamiliar tone and balked at exploring their environment in the presence of unfamiliar objects or scents. These behaviors persisted into adulthood. The male pups especially also shunned normal juvenile play behavior — mimicking traits often seen in children with autism.

A key brain serotonin circuit, the raphe system, known to shape the developing brain during the critical period when the animals were exposed to the drug, showed dramatic reductions in density of neuronal fibers. Evidence of stunted development in the circuit coursed through much of the cortex and other regions important for thinking and emotion, such as the hippocampus.

The researchers also discovered miswiring in the structure responsible for communications between the brain’s left and right hemispheres, called the corpus collosum. Extensions of neurons, called axons, through which such long-distance communications are conducted, were deformed. A protective sheath, called myelin, that normally wraps and boosts axons’ efficiency– like insulation on an electrical wire — was reduced by one-third in the treated animals. This damage was three times worse in male than in female pups and would likely result in abnormal communication between the two hemispheres, say the researchers.

Moreover, the perinatally exposed animals showed evidence of neurons firing out of sync and other electrophysiological abnormalities, suggesting faulty organization of neuronal networks in the cortex.

The research also was supported by the NIH’s National Center for Research Resources, National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke and National Institute of Child Health and Human Development.

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1. Kimberly L. Simpson, Kristin J. Weaver, Etienne De Villers-Sidani, Jordan Y.-F. Lu, Zhengwei Cai, Yi Pang, Federico Rodriguez-Porcel, Ian A. Paul, Michael Merzenich, Rick C. S. Lin. Perinatal antidepressant exposure alters cortical network function in rodents. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2011; DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1109353108

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“I’m not implying that drinking disinfected water will give you Alzheimer’s,” said Michael Plewa, lead scientist and professor of genetics in the U of I Department of Crop Sciences. “Certainly, the disinfection of drinking water was one of the most significant public health achievements of the 20th century. But the adverse effects of disinfection byproducts (DBPs) that are unintentionally formed during this process are causing concerns as researchers unveil their toxicity.”

More than 600 DBPs have been discovered. Although researchers know some DBPs are toxic, little biological information is available on the majority of these water contaminants. The Environmental Protection Agency regulates only 11 of these DBPs, he said.

Plewa’s laboratory investigated the biological mechanism, or the cellular target that leads to toxicity, in the second-most prevalent DBP class generated in disinfected water — haloacetic acids (HAAs).

“The EPA has regulated HAAs for nearly 15 years. However, we did not know how they caused toxicity before this study,” he said. “Now that we’ve uncovered the mechanism for HAAs, we can make sense of past data that can lead to new studies relating to adverse pregnancy outcomes, different types of cancer, and neurological dysfunction.”

Plewa believes this will assist the EPA in establishing regulations based on science. Their research will also help the water treatment community develop new methods to prevent the generation of the most toxic DBPs.

“It’s fairly simple,” Plewa said. “To increase the health benefits of disinfected water, we must reduce the most toxic DBPs. If we understand their biological mechanisms, we can come up with more rational ways to disinfect drinking water without generating toxic DBPs.”

In this study, researchers focused on three HAAs — iodoacetic acid, bromoacetic acid and chloroacetic acid. After they rejected their first hypothesis that the HAAs directly damaged DNA, they looked at research in a different area — neuroscience. Plewa’s graduate student, Justin Pals, discovered an amazing connection, Plewa said.

In neurotoxicology, iodoacetic acid reduces the availability of nutrients or oxygen in neurons by inhibiting glyceraldehyde-3-phosphate dehydrogenase (GAPDH).

“Researchers are interested in understanding how to prevent damage after a stroke or other neurological damage,” Plewa said. “Iodoacetic acid kills these cells. One of the targets they found was that iodoacetic acid inhibited GAPDH.”

Plewa’s lab conducted quantitative GAPDH enzyme kinetics and discovered that the data were highly correlated with a diversity of adverse health markers.

“All the pieces of the puzzle fell into place in an instant,” Plewa said. “We had discovered our cellular target — GAPDH. Never before had this type of research been done with this level of precision and associated with a large body of adverse biological impacts.”

They discovered that the HAA disinfection byproducts were toxic because the cells cannot make ATP, and this causes oxidative stress.

“Cells treated with HAAs experience DNA damage,” Plewa said. “So they start expressing DNA repair systems. HAAs are not directly damaging DNA, rather they are inhibiting GAPDH, which is involved in increasing the oxidative stress that we are observing.”

A growing body of information has shown that GAPDH is associated with the onset of neurological diseases.

“If you carry a natural mutation for GAPDH and are exposed to high levels of these disinfection byproducts, you could be more susceptible to adverse health effects such as Alzheimer’s,” he said.

More research is needed to study iodinated disinfection byproducts because they are the most reactive in inhibiting GAPDH function and are currently not regulated by the EPA, Plewa said.

“We replaced the standard working model of direct DNA damage with a new working model based on a cellular target molecule,” he said. “This discovery is a fundamental contribution to the field of drinking water science.”

This research was published in Environmental Science Technology. Scientists include Michael Plewa, Justin Pals, Justin Ang and Elizabeth Wagner, all of the University of Illinois. Research was supported by the WaterCAMPWS Center NSF Award CTS-0120978.

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1. Justin A. Pals, Justin K. Ang, Elizabeth D. Wagner, Michael J. Plewa. Biological Mechanism for the Toxicity of Haloacetic Acid Drinking Water Disinfection Byproducts. Environmental Science Technology, 2011; 45 (13): 5791 DOI: 10.1021/es2008159

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