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1 – 2 of 2Graziele Fonseca Cysneiros, Judith Libertad Chavez Gonzalez, Amanda Alves Marcelino da Silva, Taisy Cinthia Ferro Cavalcante, Omar Guzman Quevedo, Eduardo Carvalho Lira, Juliana Kessia Soares, Eryvelton de Souza Franco, Elizabeth do Nascimento and Héctor Eduardo Flores Martínez Flores
The purpose of this study is to investigate the effect of a 15-week dietary intake of cactus flour on metabolic parameters, body weight and dietary intake of rats.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this study is to investigate the effect of a 15-week dietary intake of cactus flour on metabolic parameters, body weight and dietary intake of rats.
Design/methodology/approach
Male Wistar rats were divided into four experimental groups (n = 8-10): control or westernized diets added or not of cactus flour. The following parameters were evaluated during the period of dietary manipulation: body weight, food intake, glycemic and lipid profile (oral glucose tolerance test, metabolic parameters, hepatic and muscular glycogen dosage), visceral and body fat (relative weight to body weight). Data were analyzed using Graphpad Prism®5, p = 0.05.
Findings
Animals fed on a Western-style diet together with flour cactus presented lower weight gain (335.7 ± 20.0, p = 0.05) over the evaluated period, even when the volume of food intake was not different among the groups. The addition of cactus flour to a Western-style diet appears to lower glucose levels at 30 and 60 min (p = 0.05), as shown in the glucose tolerance curve. There was a downward trend does fat stores, cholesterol levels and triglycerides. Therefore, it was concluded that this addition cactus flour is effective even when the diet is hyperlipidic, demonstrating its ability to attenuate risk parameters for the occurrence of metabolic syndromes such as sub fraction high cholesterol levels and glucose tolerance.
Originality/value
The addition of functional foods to diets may work to improve the harmful effects of this type of diet. Opuntia ficus indica has high nutritional value and has hypoglycemic and hypolipemic properties besides being antioxidant.
Details
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This paper presents a comparative analysis of artwork produced in the context of social movements waged by Mexicans and Chicanos (U.S. inhabitants of Mexican descent) during the…
Abstract
This paper presents a comparative analysis of artwork produced in the context of social movements waged by Mexicans and Chicanos (U.S. inhabitants of Mexican descent) during the two decades between the mid-1960s and the mid-1980s. Despite the fact that activists in these movements shared many elements of Mexican culture and history, were part of the same generation of radical social movements born in the 1960s, and experienced some significant interchange among movement participants from each side of the U.S.-Mexico border, an examination of movement art reveals significant differences in key elements of the movements’ collective identity and expression of political citizenship. Analysis of the artwork also highlights different aesthetic choices made by movement artists, particularly with regard to the deployment of formal elements associated with the “Mexican School” of art made famous by artists associated with the Mexican Revolution of the early 20th century. Variations in the representational strategies developed by movement artists reflect the distinct relationship of movement constituents in Mexico and the U.S. to each nation's prevailing regimes of accumulation and modes of regulation. The analysis is based on an examination of 374 pieces of art.