Chitosan
What is Chitosan?
Chitosan is a “modified carbohydrate polymer derived from the chitin component
of the shells of crustacean, such as crab, shrimp, and cuttlefish.”
The chitin is “deproteinized, demineralized and de-acetylated” (Razdan, A., and Pettersson, D 1996, 387). It is a dietary fiber, meaning that it cannot be digested by the digestive enzymes of a person (Razdan, A., and Pettersson, D. 1996). Chitosan is composed of a NH4+ (ammonium) group attached to a polyglucosamine chain.
Claims of the Companies
What do the companies selling the Chitosan claim about their product?
The companies claim that the purpose of Chitosan is to help a person lose weight. Along with aiding a person in losing weight, they claim that Chitosan reduces high cholesterol, reduces high blood pressure, increases the absorption of calcium, eliminates heartburn, alleviates the symptoms of IBS, and kills Candida, yeast in the colon that causes cancer.
Companies selling Chitosan claim that some patients have lost 8% of their body fat in 4 weeks, that it reduces blood cholesterol by 66%, that it has 55% greater fat absorption than other fibers, that it lowers the LDL (bad) cholesterol while increasing the HDL cholesterol, and it decreases the risk of colon cancer. It has also been related to slowing down the increase in blood glucose, which in turn controls hunger. The Grassroots Natural Products claims “Chitosan is so attracted to fat, that it actually absorbs six to ten times its own weight in fat.”
How do the companies selling Chitosan claim that it works?
The companies claim that chitosan works by absorbing fat intake in the stomach before it is metabolized. This inhibits...
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...ibliography
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Hirvela, T., Wuolijoki, E., and Ylitalo, P. (1999). Decrease in serum LDL cholesterol with microcrystalline chitosan. Methods Find Experimental Pharmacology, Jun, 21 (5), 357-361.
Kaplan, Robert, Sallis, James, and Patterson, Thomas. Health and Human Behavior. New York: McGraw-Hill Inc., 1993.
Pittler, M., Abbot, N., Harkness, E., and Ernst, E. (1999). Randomized, double-blind trial of chitosan for body weight reduction. European Journal of Clinical Nutrition, 53, 379-381.
Razdan, A., and Pettersson, D. (1996). Hypolipidaemic, gastrointestinal and related responses of broiler chickens to chitosans of different viscosity. British Journal of Nutrition, 76, 387-397.
Mark Twains The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is one of the greatest American novels ever written. The story is about Huck, a young boy who is coming of age and is escaping from his drunken father. Along the way he stumbles across Miss Watson's slave, Jim, who has run away because he overhead that he would be sold. Throughout the story, Huck is faced with the moral dilemma of whether or not to turn Jim in. Mark Twain has purposely placed these two polar opposites together in order to make a satire of the society's institution of slavery. Along the journey, Twain implies his values through Huck on slavery, the two-facedness of society, and represents ideas with the Mississippi River.
The weight loss industry is a multi-billion dollar machine, perpetually fueled by not only new information, but also data that have remained true for decades. Although it is unsurprising that the human body will lose weight when it expends more calories than it consumes, new findings lead to several alternative diets and weight loss methods that gain much more popularity than the basic concept of eating less and exercising more. For
It forms from the outer skeleton of insects and crusta-ceans like lobster, crabs, and shrimp [26]. In chitin, the compound structure which is like cel-lulose, every monomer having one hydroxyl grouping which is substituted with an acetyl amine gathering (Figure 2). The extraction of chitin followed by a deproteinization (removal of proteins) which involves the removal of an acid calcium carbonate (demineralization), done mostly through the hot reaction with HCl, HNO3 etc., This step generally achieved by alkaline treatments (e.g. With NaOH) [27]. Chitin has an extremely well-arranged crystalline structure in its extracted crude form which is shining, strong and quite tough. But it has low reactivity and poor
...lavery” and face the punishment for helping Jim, when he was actually doing the right thing (250). Huck learns to love Jim, despite his differences, and goes against what society thinks because he knows what is best for others, especially his friends.
For many years people all over the world have struggled to regulate weight loss and weight gain. Through research and experimentation, doctors can now provide people with methods of doing this. One widely used weight loss product is chromium picolinate. This is the main ingredient in capsules that are designed to reduce appetite and cravings and help convert fat to lean body tissue. Although there is no proven evidence that is one hundred percent accurate, the general opinion of consumers nationwide is that chromium picolinate is effective in aiding weight loss. The general opinion of doctors and scientists, however, is that chromium picolinate does not effectively aid weight loss, and may be harmful due to side effects. This serves as a forewarning to consumers that advertisements may be false, and caution is necessary.
Chaucer is best known for his works which included the Parliament of fouls. He is also believed to have written many famous poems, but also containing the most famous and obvious, The Canterbury Tales. The Canterbury Tales is Chaucer’s best known work. His plans were to write 120 tales but only reached 24. Sadly the famous English poet died October 25...
Geoffrey Chaucer is a writer from the late middle ages who is most famous for his poetic narrative, The Canterbury Tales. Chaucer, however, was not writing simply to entertain his fans, but also to speak through his characters. During the Middle Ages freedom of speech was not a conceivable concept, if someone did not agree with either the state or the church their time on Earth would be quite limited. These were unfortunate circumstances for Chaucer as his ideas were not particularly welcome with the people of power in his country. To express his opinions and stay away from the gallows Chaucer wrote stories in which he used the characters to express his philosophy. One such character in the Wife of Bath who Chaucer uses to express his egalitarian views and critique patriarchy.
Poets' Corner has gained other poets since Chaucer's time such as Edmund Spenser, Charles Dickens, and Percy Bysshe Shelley. Other poets had memorials made in their place even though they rested elsewhere. Shakespeare, buried at Stratford-upon-Avon in 1616, had a memorial finally placed in Poets' Corner in 1740.
An increasing number of people are using products to enhance their diets. A recent estimate indicates, “Americans are spending some $6 billion annually on nutritional supplements, and the market is growing by 20% every year” (Zahn, 1997). Of these supplements, the increase in herbal remedy use is most dramatic. Zahn holds that the increase can be attributed to the widely held belief that herbal substances are healthy and harmless because of their natural origins (1997). Unfortunately, research on these supplements, herbal or otherwise, has not transmitted to the public as quickly as the diet enhancers themselves. The phenomenon leaves many consumers misguided by skewed advertising and uninformed about the potential risks involved in ingesting these seemingly harmless, over the counter substances. The following is an attempt to look at one particular herbal supplement, Ma-Huang (active ingredient, ephedrine), more critically.
In today's society, everybody wants a quick fix to all of their cosmetic problems. Whether we want better faces, better bodies, whatever, we want it now and we surely do not want to work for results. Due to this incredible demand for immediate self-improvement, the weight loss market has turned into a multi-billion dollar industry preying on people who are uniformed about weight loss and the body's capabilities. Many products and programs such as Jenny Craig, Weight Watchers, and the like are useful to many people and teach them how to maintain their entire lives in addition to their weight. Unfortunately, there are also products on the market today that offer false claims about individuals' ability to lose weight. One such product, the topic of this investigation, is called Biotrim. In the following paragraphs, we will look into its claims for weight loss and make an educated conclusion about the possibility of success by using this product.
In order to understand the importance of the function of dietary fiber in the diet of monogastric animals, one must first understand dietary fiber. Dietary fiber is the sum of all plant derived carbohydrates that are indigestible to digestive enzymes in the gastrointestinal tract (GIT) of mammals. The simplest definition of dietary fiber is that it is composed of plant derived polysaccharides that are not degraded by digestive enzymes in the small intestine of monogastric animals (Urriola, 2016; Hunag et al., 2016). The variation of ingredients in overall dietary fiber including crude fiber, neutral detergent fiber, acid detergent fiber, and the total dietary fiber content are what create the physiological affect in the diet of monogastrics’ such as the pig.
Foster ef al. (2003) also published a research paper based on a randomised-controlled trials of HPLC. Foster et al. (2003) argued that HPLC diet pro...
How the social networking influents young people’s psychological well-being? Since the World Wide Web appeared in the world in the year of 1991, the internet has significantly changed people’s life on almost every level. Especially when the social media sites, such as Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, became popular during the last decade, people’s lifestyles have greatly changed by this form of communication, which consequently brings many psychological effects on the young people. As the result, according to the recent researches, the teenagers and the young adults in this era are bearing many mental health problems, such as depression, anxiety, and addiction, due to the social
beginning in 1998, surf the Friends lists.”( qtd. in Boyd, Ellison) On the other hand a timeline display of the history shows that in 1969 “CompuServe was the first major commercial Internet service provider for the public in the United states…” In 1971, “the first email was delivered.” I agree that the first step to the whole explosion began with the email. Through email people were primarily communicating with each other through the internet and having the ability to use the Short Message Service (SMS) to be ...
Weight control is a concern of most individuals, and as a person ages weight becomes more difficult to manage. When this problem occurs, the majority of people look to exercise or diet change for answer. In order to manage one’s weight a person must eat fewer calories than they expend, which can be completed by consuming foods with lower energy density, high fiber, and high water content. When it comes to research and diet it is common knowledge that fruits and vegetables are superior in nutrition when compared to the other food groups. According to the Center for Disease Control, “consuming a diet high in fruits and vegetables is associated with lower risks for numerous chronic diseases including cancer and cardiovascular disease” (Can, n.d.,