Cyclosporiasis cases surge while new research questions ‘protein maxxing’
Scientific American · LC · trust 34/100
Your salad could make you sick. Your protein obsession might not help, either
By Rachel Feltman , Adam Kovac , Andrea Gawrylewski , Fonda Mwangi & Alex Sugiura
Rachel Feltman: Happy Monday, listeners! And happy August. For Scientific American ’s Science Quickly , I’m Rachel Feltman. We’re finally back with another one of our science news roundups.
I’ll start with a story that pretty much everyone I know has been asking me for science-backed advice on: Cyclospora, otherwise known as the exploding diarrhea parasite. If you’re either living outside of the U.S. or living under a rock, this microscopic parasite has been causing big gastrointestinal issues this summer. As of July 30 , Michigan alone had reported more than 10,000 cases of cyclosporiasis—a disease caused by the parasite that can cause bouts of sudden, watery diarrhea—including 193 hospitalizations. That’s compared with around 40 or 50 cases in a typical year, according to the state’s chief medical executive, Natasha Bagdasarian , and it’s likely that many cases have gone unreported. Another eight states have also seen an uptick in cases that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has tied to the same outbreak.
First, the good news: The cases in those nine states have been linked pretty solidly to iceberg lettuce, specifically shredded lettuce sourced from Taylor Farms de Mexico. But it’s too soon to tell whether or not other, as-yet-unidentified and unrecalled streams of produce have also been contaminated. So just avoiding iceberg lettuce is good but probably not sufficient. And that means while it’s reasonable to hope that cases have peaked, public health experts say those states aren’t necessarily out of the woods yet.
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And now for some more not-so-great news: There does seem to be a second, unrelated outbreak happening as well. Now, we do tend to see spikes in cases of foodborne illness especially those related to pathogens spread by contaminated feces every summer. So, it will be normal to see some number of cyclosporiasis cases regardless. And indeed, as of last week, there were several separate instances of cyclosporiasis outbreaks with no known cause under active investigation by the Food and Drug Administration . But this second cluster is worth noting because it already includes an unusually high number of cases. In North Carolina, where state officials have started actively tracking the outbreak, there have been 718 cases reported since May, most of which have occurred since mid-June. Based on surveys, North Carolina health officials say parsley and cilantro seem to be a common denominator in many, though not all, cases.
For now, the best way to lower your risk is, unfortunately if you love salads not to eat salads. You should cook all produce if you can, and of course you should also wash produce before consuming it. Regardless of how you are going to prepare it. And you should also remember to wash your hands after handling raw fruits and veggies.
Speaking of eating healthy, which for now may mean saying no to that side salad: We’ve talked before on the show about the world’s current obsession with protein. You can go check out our May 13 episode to hear more about why “protein maxxing” can often be unnecessary. But, now new research suggests that easing up on protein could have a positive impact on your lifespan.
Here to tell us more about that story is Scientific American breaking news reporter Adam Kovac .
So this new study is actually a review of a lot of the other studies that have come out over the past few years about what we should be eating, how much protein is good for us. And so a lot of this was conducted in animal models like mice because it’s really hard to adjust somebody’s protein diet for their entire life. And when they reviewed all of it, they found that eating too much protein could actually have a really negative effect on a person or a mouse’s lifespan.
So there’s a few reasons that protein can affect lifespan, and one of them has to do with when you restrict the amount of protein you take in, it can actually lead to a boost in the production of a hormone called FGF21, mostly in the liver.
And so when that hormone reaches your brain, it triggers a process called sympathetic signaling, and that’s where the nervous system can cue white adipose tissue or fat to actually generate more mitochondria, and that in turn leads to the fat getting burned as fuel. So what that means is you actually reduce your chances of developing things like heart disease or diabetes or some cancers.
And there’s other reasons that restricting protein can promote a longer lifespan. One of them is that when protein is digested, the end metabolic product is something called urea, and when you have excess urea, that can actually lead to major kidney problems. But also, one of the other reasons that eating too much protein can be bad for you is foods that have a lot of protein also tend to be high in saturated fats. And as I’m sure a lot of our listeners know, eating too much of those is linked to a lot of nasty side effects like a higher risk of heart disease.
Now, turning to the results, it really varied by animal. If you look at brook trout, for instance, when they were put on a protein-restricted diet, they saw their average lifespan increase by 128 percent.
So keep in mind, this is animal models, so it’s hard to say how this reflects in human beings, but the results are pretty undeniable.
So one thing that I found really interesting is that we often think about eating a lot of protein is connected with, like,…
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