The health benefits of cutting down on dietary saturated fatty acids and including higher levels of unsaturated fatty acids are well documented. Nutritional research is focusing on the effects of incorporating these healthier fatty acids, such as conjugated linoleic acid (CLA), into animal and human diets. CLA is present in dairy products and meat from ruminants and in very low amounts in our bodies.

Cows grazing (courtesy of Teagasc)

Health benefits of conjugated linoleic acid (CLA)
Dr Helen Roche, a senior lecturer in molecular nutrition in Trinity College Dublin, has been studying CLA and its biological properties for several years. "CLA seems to protect cells programmed to become diabetic against development of diabetes and it also prevents disease processes that lead to atherosclerosis, chronic inflammation and colon cancer," says Dr Roche.

Classified as a nutraceutical or nutritional supplement, CLA is thought to change the balance between fat cells and muscle cells in the body and is currently on sale in health shops as a supplement to help people improve their body tone.

"The problem is that commercially available supplements contain two forms of the compound known as isomers," explains Dr Paul Evans, a researcher with the Centre for Synthesis and Chemical Biology (CSCB). "Isomers are molecules that have the same molecular formula but the atoms are arranged differently in space. In the case of CLA one isomer known as cis-9-trans-11 CLA has beneficial effects but the other form, trans-10-cis-12 CLA, can be detrimental and could induce a diabetic state."

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The leader of Sun-climate research at the Danish National Space Center, Henrik Svensmark, puts together the findings reported by him and his colleagues in a dozen scientific papers, to tell how the climate is governed by atomic particles coming from exploded stars. These cosmic rays help to make ordinary clouds. High levels of cosmic rays and cloudiness cool the world, while milder intervals occur when cosmic rays and cloud cover diminish.

Cosmic radiation entering the Earth's atmosphere.  Credit:  Danish National Space Center

The review paper entitled ‘Cosmoclimatology: a new theory emerges’ appears in the February issue of Astronomy & Geophysics. Here are some of its salient points.

For more than 20 years, satellite records of low-altitude clouds have closely followed variations in cosmic rays. Just how cosmic rays take part in cloud-making appeared in the SKY experiment, conducted in the basement of the Danish National Space Center. Electrons set free in the air by passing cosmic rays help to assemble the building blocks for cloud condensation nuclei on which water vapour condenses to make clouds.

Cosmic ray intensities – and therefore cloudiness – keep changing because the Sun’s magnetic field varies in its ability to repel cosmic rays coming from the Galaxy, before they can reach the Earth. Radioactive carbon-14 and other unusual atoms made in the atmosphere by cosmic rays provide a record of how cosmic-ray intensities have varied in the past. They explain repeated alternations between cold and warm periods during the past 12,000 years. Whenever the Sun was feeble and cosmic-ray intensities were high, cold conditions ensued, most recently in the Little Ace Age that climaxed 300 years ago.

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