The British Dental Association warns there will be “an oral health crisis” without government support.

• Eating more at breakfast and less at dinner was previously seen as beneficial
• Studies were conducted indicating that this could help with weight loss
• Recent research, however, shows otherwise

There are many theories around when and what one should eat in order to lose or maintain weight. One widely-accepted belief is that we must eat breakfast and that most of our daily calories should be consumed at breakfast. 

This idea is backed by numerous studies, one of which concluded: “High-calorie breakfast with reduced intake at dinner is beneficial and might be a useful alternative for the management of obesity and metabolic syndrome.”

Ground-breaking research presented on 13 November at the American Heart Association’s Scientific Sessions 2020, however, proves otherwise.

Author of the study and associate professor at John Hopkins University, Nisa M. Maruthur stated: “We have wondered for a long time if when one eats during the day affects the way the body uses and stores energy.” 

This led Maruthur and a team of her colleagues to conduct a study investigating whether restricting meals to early in the day would facilitate weight loss.

Time-restricted eating patterns

The study involved 41 adults with a BMI that classified them as being overweight. Ninety percent of the participants were Black women who were either diabetic or prediabetic. Twenty-one of the participants were assigned to a time-restricted eating plan which limited them to eating at specific hours only, and they had to eat 80% of their daily calories before 13:00.

The remaining 20 adults ate at usual times but consumed 50% of their daily calories after 17:00. Weight and blood pressure of the participants were measured at four-week intervals.

The researchers hypothesised that participants following a time-restricted feeding pattern would lose more weight than those following a more traditional eating pattern.

Eating times not deciding factors for weight loss

Researchers were stunned by the results of the study, which found that across both groups people lost weight and their blood pressure decreased regardless of when they ate. 

According to Maruthur, “Most prior studies have not controlled the number of calories, so it wasn’t clear if people who ate earlier just ate fewer calories. In this study, the only thing we changed was the time of day of eating.”

These results prove that you won’t necessarily gain weight if you were to eat bigger meals later in the day compared to eating a larger number of calories in the morning.

^{Image credit: iStock}

Compiled by Virginia Van Wyk

• It’s been confirmed that SARS-CoV-2 has mutated in a way that’s enabled it to spread more quickly 
• However, the spike mutation may also make the virus more susceptible to a vaccine
• As the study was not carried out on humans, additional studies are needed to track the consequences of these mutations 

The new coronavirus has a complex biology, and, according to ScienceMag, accumulates about two changes per month in its genome (the genetic material).

Now, a new study by scientists from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and the University of Wisconsin-Madison has revealed that, while SARS-CoV-2 has mutated in a way that’s enabled it to be more infectious than other coronaviruses, the spike mutation may also make it more susceptible to a vaccine.

The findings, published in Science, note that the new strain, called D614G, emerged in Europe and has become the most common in the world. 

Strain more sensitive to neutralisation 

“The D614G virus outcompetes and outgrows the ancestral strain by about 10-fold and replicates extremely efficiently in primary nasal epithelial cells, which are a potentially important site for person-to-person transmission,” study author Ralph Baric, professor of epidemiology at the UNC-Chapel Hill Gillings School of Global Public Health and professor of microbiology and immunology at the UNC School of Medicine, said in a UNC news release.

However, despite the D614G strain replicating faster and becoming the most common worldwide, the research team found that it is slightly more sensitive to neutralisation by antibody drugs.

Baric has studied coronaviruses for more than three decades. He was also integral in the development of remdesivir, the first FDA-approved treatment for Covid-19. 

Why does the strain dominate?

Researchers believe the D614G strain dominates because it increases the spike protein’s ability to open cells for the virus to enter.

“The original spike protein had a ‘D’ at this position, and it was replaced by a ‘G’,” said Yoshihiro Kawaoka, a virologist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.” Several papers had already described that this mutation makes the protein more functional and more efficient at getting into cells.”

The newly discovered mutation causes a flap on the tip of one spike to pop open, the researchers explained, thereby allowing the virus to infect cells more efficiently. It also creates a pathway to the virus’s vulnerable core, they said.

On the bright side, with one flap open, it’s also easier for antibodies, such as the ones currently being tested in vaccines, to infiltrate and disable the virus.

For this study, the researchers ran hamster experiments and performed replication and airborne transmission studies with both the original virus and the mutated version created by the team.

“We saw that the mutant virus transmits better airborne than the [original] virus, which may explain why this virus dominated in humans,” said Kawaoka.

Pathology also examined

In addition to the above, the researchers also looked at the pathology of the two coronavirus strains.

After infection, the hamsters displayed more or less the same viral load and symptoms, suggesting that while the mutant virus is much better at infecting hosts, it doesn’t cause significantly worse illness.

However, the researchers caution that these results may not reflect in human studies.

“SARS-CoV-2 is an entirely new human pathogen and its evolution in human populations is hard to predict,” Baric said.

“New variants are continually emerging, like the recently discovered mink SARS-CoV-2 cluster 5 variant in Denmark that also encodes D614G.

“To maximally protect public health, we must continue to track and understand the consequences of these new mutations on disease severity, transmission, host range and vulnerability to vaccine-induced immunity,” he commented.

READ | Does it matter that the Covid-19 virus is mutating?

READ | Mutation helps coronavirus infect more human cells, study shows

READ | How genetic mutations in healthy young men made them susceptible to severe Covid-19

^{Image credit: Getty/Peter Zelei Images}

Compiled by Zakiyah Ebrahim

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