inglese letture - diet and brain

inglese letture - diet and brain

Consuming a western diet for as little as one week can subtly impair brain function and encourage slim and otherwise healthy young people to overeat, scientists claim.

Researchers found that after seven days on a high saturated fat, high added sugar diet, volunteers in their 20s scored worse on memory tests and found junk food more desirable immediately after they had finished a meal.

The finding suggests that a western diet makes it harder for people to regulate their appetite, and points to disruption in a brain region called the hippocampus as the possible cause.

“After a week on a western-style diet, palatable food such as snacks and chocolate becomes more desirable when you are full,” said Richard Stevenson, a professor of psychology at Macquarie University in Sydney. “This will make it harder to resist, leading you to eat more, which in turn generates more damage to the hippocampus and a vicious cycle of overeating.”

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At the start and end of the week, the volunteers ate breakfast in the lab. Before and after the meal, they completed word memory tests and scored a range of high-sugar foods, such as Coco Pops, Frosties and Froot Loops, according to how much they wanted and then liked the foods on eating them.

“The more desirable people find the palatable food when full, following the western-style diet, the more impaired they were on the test of hippocampal function,” Stevenson said. The finding suggests that disruption of the hippocampus may underpin both, he added.

Stevenson believes that in time governments will come under pressure to impose restrictions on processed food, much as they did to deter smoking. “Demonstrating that processed foods can lead to subtle cognitive impairments that affect appetite and serve to promote overeating in otherwise healthy young people should be a worrying finding for everyone,” he said. The work is published in Royal Society Open Science.

In the longer term, eating a western-style diet contributes to obesity and diabetes, both of which have been linked to declines in brain performance and the risk of developing dementia. “The new thinking here is the realisation that a western-style diet may be generating initial and fairly subtle cognitive impairments, that undermine the control of appetite which gradually opens the way for all of these other effects down the track,” Stevenson said.

Rachel Batterham, professor of obesity, diabetes and endocrinology at University College London, who was not involved in the study, said it was one of the first to investigate whether the western diet impairs memory and appetite control in humans.

“Understanding the impact of a western diet on brain function is a matter of urgency given the current food climate,” she said. “This research has provided data to support detrimental effects on both memory and appetite control after just one week of an energy-dense diet and may suggest a link between poor diet and impairment of the hippocampus, a key memory and appetite-associated brain region. The mechanisms at work remain to be elucidated and will require further research with the application of more sophisticated neuroimaging methods.”

• This article was amended on 26 February 2020 to clarify that the “high fat” levels involved in the study relate to saturated fat.

Previous work in animals has shown that junk food impairs the hippocampus, a brain region involved in memory and appetite control. It is unclear why, but one idea is that the hippocampus normally blocks or weakens memories about food when we are full, so looking at a cake does not flood the mind with memories of how nice cake can be. “When the hippocampus functions less efficiently, you do get this flood of memories, and so food is more appealing,” Stevenson said.

To investigate how the western diet affects humans, the scientists recruited 110 lean and healthy students, aged 20 to 23, who generally ate a good diet. Half were randomly assigned to a control group who ate their normal diet for a week. The other half were put on a high energy western-style diet, which featured a generous intake of Belgian waffles and fast food.

At the start and end of the week, the volunteers ate breakfast in the lab. Before and after the meal, they completed word memory tests and scored a range of high-sugar foods, such as Coco Pops, Frosties and Froot Loops, according to how much they wanted and then liked the foods on eating them.

“The more desirable people find the palatable food when full, following the western-style diet, the more impaired they were on the test of hippocampal function,” Stevenson said. The finding suggests that disruption of the hippocampus may underpin both, he added.

Stevenson believes that in time governments will come under pressure to impose restrictions on processed food, much as they did to deter smoking. “Demonstrating that processed foods can lead to subtle cognitive impairments that affect appetite and serve to promote overeating in otherwise healthy young people should be a worrying finding for everyone,” he said. The work is published in Royal Society Open Science.

In the longer term, eating a western-style diet contributes to obesity and diabetes, both of which have been linked to declines in brain performance and the risk of developing dementia. “The new thinking here is the realisation that a western-style diet may be generating initial and fairly subtle cognitive impairments, that undermine the control of appetite which gradually opens the way for all of these other effects down the track,” Stevenson said.

Rachel Batterham, professor of obesity, diabetes and endocrinology at University College London, who was not involved in the study, said it was one of the first to investigate whether the western diet impairs memory and appetite control in humans.

“Understanding the impact of a western diet on brain function is a matter of urgency given the current food climate,” she said. “This research has provided data to support detrimental effects on both memory and appetite control after just one week of an energy-dense diet and may suggest a link between poor diet and impairment of the hippocampus, a key memory and appetite-associated brain region. The mechanisms at work remain to be elucidated and will require further research with the application of more sophisticated neuroimaging methods.”

• This article was amended on 26 February 2020 to clarify that the “high fat” levels involved in the study relate to saturated fat.

Jonathan Turley - letture in inglese

Jonathan Turley

he was born in Chicago, Illinois.  he received his bachelor's degree from the University of Chicago  in 1983 and his Juris Doctor degree from Northwestern University School of Law in 1987.
He married his wife Leslie, on  New Year's Eve in 1997.
He served as a House leadership page in 1977 and 1978 under the sponsorship of Illinois Democrat Sidney Yates. In 2008 he was awarded an honorary Doctorate of Law from  John Marshall Law School in recognition of his career as an advocate of civil liberties and constitutional rights.
Turley lives in Washington D.C. with his wife and four children.

Turley holds the Shapiro Chair for Public Interest Law at The George Washington University Law School where he teaches torts, criminal procedure, and constitutional law.
 He is the youngest person to receive an academic chair in the school's history. He runs the Project for Older Prisoners (POPS), the Environmental Law Clinic, and the Environmental Legislation Project.^[1]
Prior to joining the George Washington University, he was on the faculty of Tulane University Law school
Turley was also found to be the second most cited law professor in the country. He has been repeatedly ranked in the nation’s top 500 lawyers in annual surveys (including in the latest rankings by Law Dragon) – one of only a handful of academics.In prior years, he was ranked as one of the nation’s top ten lawyers in military law cases as well as one of the top 40 lawyers under 40. In 2016, he was ranked as one of the 100 most famous (past and present) law professors.



He is a critic of special treatment for the church in law, asking why there are laws that "expressly exempt faith-based actions that result in harm."
Turley disagrees with the theory that dealing with bullies is just a part of growing up, claiming that they are "no more a natural part of learning than is parental abuse a natural part of growing up" and believes that litigation could succeed in forcing schools to take bullying more seriously".
He has written extensively about the injustice of thedeath penalty  noting, "Human error remains a principal cause of botched executions. ... eventually society will be forced to deal directly with a fundamental moral question: Has death itself become the intolerable element of the death penalty?"
He worries that the Supreme Court is injecting itself into partisan politics. He has frequently expressed the view that recent nominees to the court hold extreme views.

lettura in inglese - my family

Richard : my family consist of five persons : my father and mother, my sister and myself
Anne : My parents have two daughters, my sisters and me.
R- The wife of my father is my mother, and my farther  is her husband
A- Your parents have three children  two sons and one daughter
R- My father il rather old. He is tall and thin
A mine is strict but patientm and works hard for us all
R- my father is not so strict as yours and he is more patient
A- My sister is the pride of my family  because  she is very beautyful. Her name il Mary  and she has brown eyes and fair hair
R- My Young Brother is  a fat cheerful boy He has brown eyes  and hair and his name is  John
A- I am like my sister but not so Young
R- I am a student  and I have many books to study
A- I have to study very much  too

"OUR HOUSE" LETTURA INGLESE

JOHN : WE LIVE IN HOUSES THAT HAVE A NUMBER OF DIFFERENT ROOM
              EACH ROOM HAS DIFFERENT USE
MARY : THE MAIN ROOM OF THE HOUSE ARE : THE BEDROOM, WHERE WE SLEEP
                THE DINING-ROOM WHERE WE HAVE OUR MEALS
                THE DRAWING-ROOM WHERE WE SPEND OUR EVENING, LOOKING AT THE
                TELEVISION  OR LISTENING TO THE RADIO  PERHAPS WITH OUR
                RELATIVES AND FRIENDS WHEN THEY VISIT US  THE KITCHEN WHERE OUR
                FOOD IS COOKED AND THE BATHROOM
JOHN : SOME HOUSES ARE LARGE SAME ARE SMALL IN THE LARGE EUROPEAN
              CITIES  MANY PEOPLE LIVE IN FLATS INSTEAD OF THE SEPARATE
               HOUSES
               A FLAT  IS A NUMBER OF ROOM ON ONE FLOOR  OF A BUILDING
MARY: OUR HOUSE OR OUR FLAT IS THE CENTER OF OUR AFFECTION : IT IS OUR
               HOME

TRADUZIONE

JOHN NOI ABITIAMO IN UNA CASA CHE HA MOLTE STANZE  OGNI STANZA HA UN
            USO DIFFERENTE
MARY: LE STANZE IMPORTANTI DELLA CASA SONO : LA CAMERA DA LETTO DOVE
              DORMIAMO,  LA SALA DA PRANZO DOVE  CONSUMIAMO I NOSTRI PASTI,
               LA SALA RICREATIVA DOVE  NOI PASSIAMO LE NOSTRE SERATE, 
                 GUARDANDO LA TELEVISIONE  O ASCOLTANDO LA RADIO,  MAGARI CON  I  NOSTRI PARENTI E AMICI  QUANDO VENGONO A TROVARCI LA CUCINA DOVE
                  CUCINIAMO  E IL BAGNO

JOHN       ALCUNE CASE SONO GRANDI ALTRE PICCOLE  NELLE GRANDI CITTA'

              EUROPEE MOLTE PERSONE VIVONO  IN APPARTAMENTI  INVECE CHE IN
              VILLETTE  UN APPARTAMENTO SONO LE STANZE SU UNO STESSO PIANO
              DELL'EDIFICIO
MARY LA NOSTRA CASA O IL NOSTRO APPARTAMNETO I E' IL CENTRO DEI NOSTRI AFFETTI : E' IL NOSTRO FOCOLARE