– 1 out of 4 obese school-aged children suffers metabolic syndrome

One out of every four obese school-aged children (6 to 12 years old) develops an illness typically associated with adults that are nearly 40 years old, metabolic syndrome, due to one clear reason: child obesity. It has been revealed in a study carried out by the department chair of the Institute of Food Nutrition and Technology of the University of Granada, Ángel Gil Hernández, who warns that this syndrome provokes arterial hypertension in children, insulin resistance, and, in the long term, type two diabetes, an illness associated with numerous cardiovascular pathologies and whose treatment will mean an elevated cost for the Spanish Health Service in the future.

According to the expert, child obesity affects nowadays 17% of Spanish children, who suffer clinical consequences (hypertension) and biochemical consequences (a high level of triglycerides in plasma) because of it. The appearance of cardiovascular illnesses associated with obesity and diabetes will mean a grave problem in only a few years, postulates Gil Hernández.

A pandemic of the 21st century

The ill-fated combination of inadequate nutrient intake and a sedentary lifestyle, or cases of physical inactivity, can be found among the causes of child obesity (one of the pandemics of the 21st century). Contrary to what most parents believe, affirms the university chair, physical exercise is the key to combat obesity, child or adult: we could say that, along with the genetic predisposition, 70% of our figures are owed to exercise and only the remaining 30% correspond to diet. Gil Hernández recalls a Spanish saying that asserts that the secret of a good diet is a little food and lots of foot.

According to the estimations of the study group directed by the University chair, if present day pattern continues, the cases of type-two diabetes in child population will have quadrupled by 2020. Ángel Gil Hernández is the UGR Professor with more articles published in nutrition journals with a high-impact rate. Among other scientific journals, his papers have been published in Clinical Science, British Journal of Nutrition, and International Journal of Obesity.

Reference

Ángel Gil Hernández. Institute of Food
Nutrition and Technology of the University of Granada.
Phone numbers: +34 958248322 – +34 958246139.
E-mail: agil@ugr.es

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– Scientifics develop computer software that permits tourists to customize their visits

Luis Castillo Vidal, computer engineer of the University of Granada and one of the authors of the study, points out that, in order to design the customized visit plans, they have used Artificial Intelligence techniques, a science that provides computers with abilities to solve problems which, in principle, can only be solved by humans. This technology, researcher adds, is open and interoperable, and therefore it is very appropriate to be integrated in existing systems, such as web sites.

Users must have access to the internet, either through a computer, a mobile phone or a PDA, in order to be able to access a web where they can define their preferences and needs, such as their artistic, cultural and gastronomic preferences, their lifestyle and favourite hours, whether they are disabled or not and the spending capacity.

The software compares these personal requirements with information from a tourist database and offers the client a tailor-made visit plan excluding all those details he is not interested in. The system is available in the so-called Service Oriented Architecture (SOA), software design that allows interoperability between different platforms in an efficient way and with flexibility before changes.

Participation of five institutions

Researchers of the Universities of University of Granada, Technical College of Valencia, UNED (Spanish Open University), Carlos III of Madrid and the Research Institute on Artificial Intelligence of the CSIC have entirely financed the SAMAP project. Castillo states that the technology developed to carry out the prototype has started to be transferred to a spin-off of the University of Granada called IActive Intelligent Solutions for its possible commercialization.

The new adaptive user-focused system to plan tourist visits, as their authors describe it, means step forward in the current trend of tourist activities automation, such as the online payment of transport tickets and accommodation, or the use of audio-guides in the monuments tours .

Artificial Intelligence, says Castillo, can play an important role in future, as it combines computers capacities of memory and fast execution with faculties as human as common sense, intuition and imagination.

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– Scientists from Granada drastically reduce the wait time for new teeth implant

The use of the growth hormone in oral implantology implantología has managed to regenerate the bone and hasten the integration between the bone base and the dental implant. The process allows to reduce from six months to two weeks the wait time to place the crown which replaces the lost tooth on the oral implant.

This advance has been the resulto f the research of the doctoral thesis Growth hormone and osteointegration in the oral cavity by Cecilia Vander Worf Úbeda, supervised by Professors Antonio Cutando Soriano and Gerardo Gómez Moreno (School of Odontology of the University of Granada, Spain).

We must consider –says Cutando- that a dental impant is successful when it is possible to get a firm, stable and lasting joint between the bone substratum and the crown constructed on it, in which we call prosthetic restoration. That was the goal of this research work, which has also managed to improve the patients quality of life reducing the wait period to receive a new tooth.

The Works were developed all through three years with a methodology applied to 13 dogs, with the authorization of the Ethical Committee of the University of Granada.

Hastened biointegration

The research carried out by Cecilia Vander Worf obtained a good and fast biointegration, which consists of the direct biochemical joint between the raw bone and the surface of the implant, demonstrable through electronic microscopy, irrespective of any mechanical joint mechanism.

Osteointegration requires the formation of new bone around the implant, a process resulting from remodelling the interior of the bone tissue. The process –says Vander Worf- starts with the osteoclasts, the cells responsible for reabsorbing the necrotic area originated by bone milling during the preparation of the bone recipient bed. Together with them, vascular neoformation will provide the cell elements, the osteoblasts, which will create new bone able to interact with the titanium oxide layer f the implant for the biological integration of it.

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The doctoral thesis has been carried out in the Framework of the Research Project tudy of the synergism between Melatonin and Growth Hormone (GH) on the processes of osteointegration in dental implants and bone regeneration in the oral cavity, financed by the Spanish Ministry of Health and Consumptiom, the Spanish Ministry of Education and Science, the Carlos III Health Institute and the Andalusian Council.

The results of this work have been published in different papers in the last years; the most recent are:

Cutando A, Gómez Moreno G, Arana C, et al. Melatonin stimulates osteointegration of dental implants. J Pineal Res. 2008 Feb 19; Vol. 49.

Cutando A, Gómez-Moreno G, Arana C, et al. Melatonin reduces oxidative stress because of tooth removal. J Pineal Res. 2007 Apr; 42(4):419-20.
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