The University of Alberta is looking for 200 volunteers to add powdered dietary fibre to their diets.
The Alberta FYBER (Feed Your gut Bacteria morE fibeR) study, led by researchers Jens Walter and Edward Deehan, aims to understand how different dietary fibres influence the microbes that live in the gastrointestinal tract and its relation to chronic diseases such as obesity, Type 2 diabetes and heart disease.
Trillions of micro-organisms live in the digestive tract and effect our immune system and overall metabolism. A diversity of bacteria is essential to our health, but modern lifestyles and diets geared towards processed sugar and fat are believed to have eliminated up to 70 per cent of this diversity.
Walter believes this has been leading to detrimental health outcomes.
Participants are asked to add pre-packaged powdered fibre to their meals daily for a period of six weeks and provide blood and stool samples at the beginning and end of the study.
Participants must be between the ages of 19 and 50.
For their assistance, participants will receive an honorarium and a free dietary counselling session with a registered dietitian.
To join the study, contact Alberta FYBER study at 780-492-9506 or [email protected].
The Government of Alberta has been working with the federal government to restrict chemicals used to make fentanyl from entering the country.
On Aug. 31, Health Canada announced it would be moving forward on restricting six chemicals used in the production of fentanyl.
The provincial government asked for this step to be implemented as quickly as possible, after the Alberta Association of Chiefs of Police passed a resolution last year urging the federal government to limit access to the precursor drugs used to produce the deadly opioid.
The province has seen a rapid rise in the number of fentanyl-related deaths over the past five years. From 2011 to 2015 there was a 44.7 per cent increase in the number of Albertans killed by fentanyl – from six to 274.
Canadian surgeons want to see wire-bristled barbecue brushes removed from store shelves and people’s homes.
The issue of barbecue brushes was a topic of discussion at the Canadian Society of Otolaryngology’s annual meeting this summer.
The problem is that the thin sharp wires can break off the brushes, get stuck on barbecue grills and make their way into people’s food without being noticed, causing damage to the throat and epiglottis (a flap of cartilage at the root of the tongue that covers the windpipe when swallowing) if swallowed.
The tiny pieces of metal get embedded deeply into the tissue making it hard for surgeons to remove and can cause serious health issues to the digestive tract if left in the body.
