Iodine in plant-based dairy products is not sufficient in the UK: A market survey

BackgroundFollowing a well-balanced diet ensures that a person gets all the essential elements for health sustenance. However, in the United Kingdom an increasing proportion of people are transiting to become vegans who exclude animal-based products in their diets. Consequently, people may have a deficit of essential elements such as iodine which is not present in most plant-based meals, additionally iodide fortified table salt is not commonly used in the UK. Without iodine people consuming a vegan diet risk developing iodine deficiency and diseases like goiter.MethodsThe objective of this study is to determine the difference in iodine content and iodine speciation between plant-based and dairy products. More than 100 market samples of plant-based and dairy milk products were collected in Scotland, UK.ResultsIodine concentrations in dairy milk is ten times higher compared to plant-based milks. Similar differences were also apparent for butter, yogurt and cheese. A total of 20% of plant-based milk products were fortified with iodine, however these products had lower iodine concentrations compare to the equivalent dairy products. In this study we calculated that people with average diet have an iodine intake of 226 + /- 103 μg day⁻¹ from dairy products which satisfies the WHO recommended intake of adults and 90% of the recommend intake for pregnant and breast-feeding women. A diet from substituted dairy products gives only 21.8 µg day⁻¹ for the respective WHO guideline intake values, which accounts only 15% of the iodine intake for adults and 9% for pregnant and lactating women. Iodine fortified diet could increase the iodine intake to 55% or 33% of the WHO recommended daily intake respectively.ConclusionPlant-based dairy consumers are encouraged to use iodine fortified dairy products or use of iodized salt in the UK for home cooking, otherwise there are at risk to get iodine deficient.     

Metabolomics in pharmaceutical research and development

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Vision research: losing sight of eye dominance.

Most people prefer to use their right eye for viewing. New evidence reveals that this dominance is much more plastic than that for one hand or foot: it changes from one eye to the other depending on angle of gaze. Remarkably, sighting dominance depends on the hand being directed towards the visual target.     

Pursuing the leadlikeness concept in pharmaceutical research

Lipinski and others, through concepts such as drug-likeness, re-focussed drug discovery back to the principles of medicinal chemistry in the high-throughput era as key to reducing attrition. More recently, the need to go further in defining what makes a good lead has been recognised with the concept of leadlikeness. Leadlikeness implies cut-off values in the physico-chemical profile of chemical libraries such that they have reduced complexity (e.g. MW below <400) and other more restricted properties. We examine these concepts in the context of Virtual (theoretically possible), Tangible (chemically feasible) and Real (physically available) worlds of molecules. In a thought experiment, we take the HTS concept to the extreme: screening an estimated 60 million 'Global Collection' on 5000 targets and realising that perhaps millions of drug candidates might be found that could not possibly be handled in reality. Sampling of the Virtual and Tangible worlds is therefore a necessity. We show that the world of Reals is significantly under-sampled as the MW of compounds increases. This supports the design and screening of 'reduced complexity' (leadlike) compound libraries, preferably with synthetic handles available for rapid chemical iteration and detected as interesting by careful screening or biophysical assays.     

Natural products as probes in pharmaceutical research

From the start of the pharmaceutical research natural products played a key role in drug discovery and development. Over time many discoveries of fundamental new biology were triggered by the unique biological activity of natural products. Unprecedented chemical structures, novel chemotypes, often pave the way to investigate new biology and to explore new pathways and targets. This review summarizes the recent results in the area with a focus on research done in the laboratories of Novartis Institutes for BioMedical Research. We aim to put the technological advances in target identification techniques in the context to the current revival of phenotypic screening and the increasingly complex biological questions related to drug discovery.     

Atypical scrapie in sheep from a UK research flock which is free from classical scrapie

Background  

Colic could be accompanied by changes in the morphology and physiology of organs and tissues, such as the intestine. This process might be, at least in part, due to the accumulation of oxidative damage induced by reactive oxygen (ROS) and reactive nitrogen species (RNS), secondary to intestinal ischemia. Glutathione (GSH), being the major intracellular thiol, provides protection against oxidative injury. The aim of this study was to investigate whether ischemia-induced intestinal injury could be related with alterations in GSH metabolism.     

Applications of proteomics in pharmaceutical research and development

The significance of proteomics in the pharmaceutical industry has increased since overcoming initial difficulties. This review discusses recent proteomics publications from pharmaceutical companies to identify new trends in proteomics applications to research and development. Applications of proteomics such as chemical proteomics, protein expression profiling, targeted protein quantitation, analysis of protein-protein interactions and post-translational modification are widely used by various sections of the industry. Technological advancements in proteomics will further accelerate pharmaceutical research and development.