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Gut Bacteria Connection to Leanness and Obesity
Gut Bacteria Connection to Leanness and Obesity
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Gut Bacteria Connection to Leanness and Obesity
It is interesting to learn that intestinal bacteria play a significant role in determining people’s obesity and leanness. Among high percentage of people struggling to fight obesity, their causes are known to be unlucky genes, unhealthy nutrition and to some extent the genetic composition. Recently, it is evident that the gut bacteria play an extra role in assisting in breaking down tough plant fibre. They are essential in altering how fat is stored, how people respond to a hormone that makes them full or hungry as well as hoe the glucose the glucose level is balance in the bold. From the birth moment, wrong microbes’ combination helps to set diabetes and obesity stage from the birth period. The researchers are optimistic in learning the mechanics of healthy and wrong microbe mix that will significantly play a vital role in controlling obesity as well as weight.
It is through gene sequencing methodologies that researchers revealed that most microbiotas reside in the mouth and large intestines. However, the genital tract and the skin also harbours a good number of these diverse bacteria. Some are acquired during birth from the mother’s birth canal while others are gained from the environment as one grows. Research showed that within lean people the microbe species are like a rainforest while in obese people’s gut the microbiome is diverse. The microbes significantly breakdowns the plant fibres and starches into smaller molecules that are readily used by the body as an energy source. Gordon and his colleague research using baby rodents proved the point right as those that received bacteria from the twin obese and with diverse microbe population grew fat than the ones with bacteria from the lean twins (Dao et al. 2015). When sharing the same cage, all the mouse emerged thin as the rodents with microbes from obese human had picked gut bacteria from to other lean rodents through consumption of their faecal matter.
Furthermore, the children born through the caesarian section as well as those feed on artificial milk are more prone to obesity than those that are naturally born through the vaginal tract and feeds on the breast milk. They are also disposed to asthma, allergies, celiac diseases and eczema. It is because they do not acquire bacteria contained in the mother’s genital tract as well as they do not get the immune acquired through breastfeeding that is vital in fighting the susceptible diseases at early ages. Potential treatments for the same has been established where babies born through caesarian section are directly cleansed with a gauze cloth fastened with mother’s vaginal fluids as well as the inhabitant microbiota (Tilg & Moschen 2014). Transfer of faecal matter from lean people to the obese can significantly be used to deal with the disorder leading to weight loss, even though it is not encouraged as it is risky and imprecise. Gordon suggested that enriching food with the required microbes as well as nutrients appropriate to establish them will significantly be a sound treatment for obesity.
In consideration of the past study, obesity is significantly lead by positive energy balance as well as overeating. It is well that the disease is related to the poor balancing of nutrition. For instance, these people tend overfeeding energy sources such as fats and carbohydrates and being inactive when it comes carrying out body exercise (Boulangé et al. 2016). The further research done by the scientist regarding obesity is significant as the addition of the gut bacteria can work well in many people than before.
The article is ethically based are coming up with sound solutions regarding obesity are healthy to the society. Researchers such as Gordon Robert Karp and Dominquez-Bello has played a crucial role in the field of medicine. I agree with them regarding the research and techniques they applied in finding obesity medication. Eventually, the scientists work in treating obesity is useful and will significantly eradicate the disease in the society.
References
Boulangé, C. L., Neves, A. L., Chilloux, J., Nicholson, J. K., & Dumas, M. E. (2016). Impact of the gut microbiota on inflammation, obesity, and metabolic disease. Genome medicine, 8(1), 42.
Dao, M. C., Everard, A., Aron-Wisnewsky, J., Sokolovska, N., Prifti, E., Verger, E. O., … & Dumas, M. E. (2015). Akkermansia muciniphila and improved metabolic health during a dietary intervention in obesity: relationship with gut microbiome richness and ecology. Gut, gutjnl-2014.
Tilg, H., & Moschen, A. R. (2014). Microbiota and diabetes: an evolving relationship. Gut, 63(9), 1513-1521.
Guns, Germs, And Steel
Guns, Germs, And Steel
“Guns, Germs, and Steel” is a fascinating and enlightening book to read. I enjoyed reading this book, but don’t become confused that I agree with everything that is written in this book. The author, Jared Diamond wrote this book in response to a questioned presented to him by a politician named Yali in New Guinea. The question was, “Why is it that you white people develop so much cargo and brought it to New Guinea, but we black people had little cargo of our own?” Diamond attempts to answer this question in this book.
In this book he comes to the conclusion that the rise of agricultural, centralized governments, geography, and animal domestication all played a part in the reason why some countries came to be more powerful than others. He has to trace human roots all the way back to when they first evolved. He runs into problems because some of the weakest countries were one of the first to evolved, but why?
Jared Diamond summarizes his book, and answer to Yali’s question into one simple sentence; “History followed different courses for different peoples because differences among people’s environment’s…” (Pg 25). Of course, this answer is just scratching the surface when the complexity of the question is truly comprehended. However, lets focus on the simple answer for the time being. Diamond is saying that the disparity between the wealth of some countries versus the wealth, or lack of, is essentially caused by the differences among the countries environment. Environments constitute a wide range of things; Climate, animals, crops, social environment, among other things.
This simple answer doesn’t answer Yali’s question because the question is a complex one. I attempt to interpret his findings to the best of my knowledge. The most important thing to remember is the importance of food production by harvesting crops. Throughout the book he attempts to relay the importance of societies that accepted this new way of gathering food. Those societies that managed to switch to growing crops were usually the ones who showed the most success than those societies that stayed hunter-gatherers or those who waited to change their lifestyles.
He compares these societies a lot in his book and that is because it is the backbone to his thesis. Allow us to first look at the hunter-gatherer society. In a hunter-gatherer society every human resource was put to work hunting for food to feed their small community. This kind of society did not promote organized countries, but rather small groups consisting usually of family. Because food was not readily available it did not allow people to come up with inventions, or adopt inventions by other places. Inventions such as new, improved weapons to hunt larger game. The scarcity of food affected birth rates, thus affecting population growth. Members of this society did not try to have babies back to back because it would be difficult for that baby to keep up and would slow the tribe down. These societies for this reason did not expand.
On the other spectrum, were societies that began to adopt crop planting. Crop planting was a major factor for some becoming more powerful than others. Societies that switched to farming first and successfully were the ones that became powerful. How did agriculture allow a country to gain power? Diamond lists several reasons why agricultural would allow a country to become powerful. One is that it allowed food producers the ability to make enough food for the non-producers of the society, mostly the innovators, kings, and priest. Agricultre allowed farmers to store food. Instead of every able body hunting for food this allowed one to produce the food for say ten people. The other nine could use their time trying to invent new things, like technology. Agriculture also allowed centralized governments to form. Centralized governments could distribute food to those non-food producers, and allow the society to be organized especially in the military sense. This allowed their expansion through new weapons and organized military versus small tribes with stone tools.
Another factor in the distribution of power is geography. Particularly where you are located relative to other agricultural societies, if your land is fertile, and how long it would take to get to other places. Also important is whether your location has animals and plants available for domestication. Animal domestication plays a major role in that of diseases spreading. To answer Yali’s question in my opinion is this: the reason why black people of New Guinea had to import was because they were isolated, their land is hard to cultivate crops, and they didn’t have any animals to domesticate.
As I mentioned earlier the rise of agriculture is a major part in answering Yali’s question. Again it shows up here to answer why this book has the title that it does. Also mentioned earlier was that the rise of agriculture caused the rise of populations. These populations became dense because more babies could be born because farmers could feed more than their family. The rise of agriculture caused people to domesticate animals, for other important uses, clothes, mild, and food just to mention a few. Well, for every decision made there are consequences, whether good or bad. The domestication of animals caused the rise of germs. Just like humans evolved so did diseases. These diseases went through natural selection for host sites. These host sites happened to be domesticated animals. Eurasia was the first to domesticate animals. If diseases were evolving how come these first people didn’t die out? Eurasian people eventually grew immune systems to these diseases. Their populations were so dense that it eventually became hard for diseases to continue to kill off populations.
One might be wondering how does the domestication of animal’s show why power is unevenly distributed. Diamond answers this question rather simply. He uses the example of Cortez and his 600 men army conquest of millions of the Aztec Empire on page 210. One man from Spain had smallpox and infected the Aztecs. The Aztecs were not immune to this disease and it killed more of their men the Cortez’s men did. The rest became demoralized by their loss of men through this mysterious disease. So germs or diseases played a part in the reason why some have power. The first to domesticate animals gained immune systems to these new diseases first and could spread to other places that weren’t immune. Therefore, constituting the reasoning behind “Germs” part of the title. Eurasians used diseases, probably unintentionally, to get rid of natives in other territories and take control.
The “Gun” part of the title comes from the evolution of technology. Technology is directly interlocked with food production. Remember that agricultural societies could stockpile food for non-food producers. This allowed those not producers to spend time inventing new things, like guns. Hunter-gatherer societies didn’t have the time luxury, as their members were hunting for food, to make new inventions. However, technology could spread like agriculture did in some areas, but how? The leading factors were when did agricultural begin, how easy it is for others to see the new technology and accept it. It was easier for Eurasians, than for the Americas or New Guinea, to see these new inventions, and thus gave them a head start. Guns allowed for the conquering of other territories. Diseases and guns are two weapons most hunter-gatherers couldn’t defeat because they used stone tools and were easy prey to the disease.
And “Steel” shows in the form of a centralized government. Those earlier agricultural societies allowed for a government to form that could distribute food the non-producers, but more importantly allowed them to organize armies while hunter gatherers were small unorganized groups easily overtook by these new guns never seen, by men on horses, and diseases. When we bring these things together we have the reason why the book was named what it was.
It is believed by the author that Australia actually had a head start of Eurasia, so how come Eurasia became so dominant instead of Australia. There are some important reasons why. One important thing is the geological factors of Australia. It’s separated from the rest of the world. It also didn’t have a selection of animals to domesticate as Europe did. The author attributes it the Great Leap Forward and the large mammals in Australia became extinct. Eurasia being connected to surrounding areas allowed things to be adopted and seen by neighbors, thus spreading.
I think that Diamond did a good with this book. For a long time people have pushed the opinion that one race is better or more intelligent than another based solely on the skin color. At times, I must admit, I felt that he was making excuses for why Europeans ended up with much control of the world. For example, he says that it’s harder for places that are north south to get the new inventions and so on. Places such as the Americas and Africa. When you look at North America it’s now rich and Africa isn’t. He gives a brief explanation that the Africans in the south were less receptive to these new principles. He doesn’t explain why though. Africa is closer to Eurasia than America by far and had a considerable amount of time to see the success of the other people. Also, how come whites control the mining industry in Africa? Other than that problem I think his research is thorough and well thought out. His facts, to me, are straightforward.
I think history is repeating itself. American’s are now the ones trying to expand their power because they realize that Asia sooner or later will become the world power of the future. America is trying to position itself to be just as strong by helping many countries gain freedoms and adopt America’s way of government. We have troops in the Middle East and in Africa among other places. History will repeat itself but it won’t be as easy as it was for Eurasia to expand power because the technology is expanding in all countries. Some places, as Diamond says, do benefit from their geography, such as Middle Eastern countries and oil. The fact that computers, television, and phones will make it even harder to repeat history, because other countries can see what is happening rather quickly, and stop countries from taking peoples land like North Korea invasion of South Korea.
Bibliography:
References
Bradley, Daniel B.; Loftus, Ronan; MacHugh, David E.
2000Animal Domestication. Science Jan. 15, v283 i5400 p.329(1).
Diamond, Jared.
1999Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies. W.W. Norton and Company, Inc.
Duane, Elgin
2003The Self-Guiding Evolution of Civilization. Systems Research and Behavioral Science July-August v20 i4 pg. 323(15).
Kaszycka, Katarzyna A.; Strkalj, Goran
2002Anthropologists’ Attitudes Towards Concept of Race: the Polish Sample.
Current Anthropology, April v43 i2 pg. 329(7).
Shouse, Ben
2001Spreading the Word, Scattering the Seeds: Did Civilization Follow the Plow? Science v294 i5544 p. 9888(2).
Guns Control
Guns Control
Student’s Name
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Abstract
In the United States, Guns are regarded as a sacred symbol which motivated it towards achieving its independence from Great Britain. However, the increase in the latest mass shootings has led to the activation of the gun-control dispute in the United States. The main problem is gun violence which can be defined as the use of firearms to cause havoc and terror through death or harm to groups of people or an individual. Numerous lives have been lost due to gun violence thus creating national disasters in the United States. The key agenda for this issue is in the possession as well as giving out of the unlicensed guns. Therefore for the crime as resultant from gun violence to lessen, the United States administration is required to control the dissemination of guns directly.
The United States citizens are promised the rights to bear arms, and therefore the crime rates are very high in the states which have loose gun control laws like the state of Texas. This state is known to have the entire lenient gun control laws comparing to the other states in America (Spitzer, 2015). Taking guns away from individuals who are registered and approved to possess them with no criminal record is not the solution to the delinquency. This is because Americans are believed to have never reacted well factually to prohibitions. The drive of this paper is to explore the nature of gun control and the contemporary mass shootings in the United States, mainly in Texas which the leading state in gun violence.
Gun Control Issue in the United States
The term Gun control refers to any lawful measures which are envisioned to restrict or prevent the use or ownership of guns, precisely the firearms. The gun control has been a significantly discussed topic mainly in the United States especially after numerous tragic deaths besides other calamities that have happened in the past. In developed countries, for example, the United States gun control is strict besides being controversial. In other developed countries, it is a tense political concern, pitting those who regard it as essential for public protection alongside those individuals who view it as a dangerous breach of personal liberty. The United States is considered as the most controversial country in the world where gun ownership is constitutionally protected but where killings committed with guns are tremendously common; it has the highest homicide by firearm rate compared to the other developed nations so far.
There are individuals as well as civil society groups in the United States who propose limiting the access to guns as it will save many lives and decrease crime. In contrary, there are those opposing this idea claiming that it would do the opposite as it will prevent the citizens who are law-abiding from defending themselves if armed criminals attack them for example in case of robbery with violence (ProCon.org. 2018). Therefore this has resulted in heated debate among the two diverse groups of individuals. The gun control debate also necessarily concerns the proper interpretation of the 2nd Amendment of the United States Constitution.
There are massive mass murders which are committed with guns in the United States to the extent that the immense majority of them goes unmentioned or recognized by the mainstream media outlets all over the states. However, there are those that have happened which involved a large number of individuals, and they were quite enough to be mentioned even in the mainstream media outlets. They include the killing of forty-nine individuals in a nightclub in Orlando in 2016, besides the massacre of twenty children plus six adults in Newtown at an elementary school in 2012. This incidence sparked some outrage among the residents and thus led to short-lived as well as the fruitless debate concerning the prerequisite for firmer gun control.
According to Hamilton and Kposowa (2015), in the United States, per one hundred individuals, one hundred individuals have guns, or generally, the United States has around 398,347,000 guns and is considered as the uppermost total as well as per capita figure globally. This is to say that 22 percent of Americans possess either one or more guns. The percent of gun ownership of men is 35 percent while that of women is 12 percent.
Guns in Colonial and Radical America
During the American colonies the guns were ubiquitous, firstly, they were used for hunting as well as general defense and afterward as weapons in the American Revolutionary War. There were numerous colonies gun laws which entailed the head of households possess guns and moreover that all the healthy men join the militia plus carry individual weapons. Though guns were commonly used in the colonial plus revolutionary America, there were also some restrictions regarding their usage as well as possession. The laws comprised of prohibiting the auction of firearms to Native Americans, forbidding indentured servants as well as the slaves from possessing guns and finally prohibiting a diversity of careers from retaining firearms.
A 1792 federal Act entailed that each suitable for joining the militia activities was obliged to possess a gun, report for regular assessment of their firearms and also register their firearm’s proprietorship on community records (Hamilton & Kposowa 2015, p.87). Most of the Americans possessed hunting rifles instead of appropriate soldierly firearms, and though the punishment penalties were huge, they were imposed incoherently and thus the public essentially ignored the law.
The 1900s, Federal Gun Acts
The St. Valentine’s Day killings which happened in February 1945 in Chicago during Valentine’s Day celebrations, led to the murder of seven gangsters who were associated with “Bugs” Moran. This resulted in a sequence of debates as well as laws to bar the use of machine guns. In reaction to the mafia criminalities, the National Firearms Act was enacted in 1934 which imposes a two hundred dollars tax as well as registration prerequisite on the manufacture and distribution of certain guns, comprising the rifles as well as the shotguns containing of barrels smaller than eighteen inches, silencers, firearm mufflers and specific firearms shortlisted by the NFA. The majority of weapons are therefore omitted from the Act (Skocpol 2016, p.432).
The 1938 Federal Firearms Act of 1938 pronounced it illegal the selling of firearms to a particular group of individuals, and it needed the federal firearms licensees (FFLs) to preserve client records. However, this Act was overthrown by the 1968 Gun Control Act (GCA). On October 1968, President Lyndon Johnson put the Gun Control Act of 1968 into the act after the murder of President John Kennedy in 1963, Malcolm X in 1965, and Martin Luther King in 1968 all who were prominent individuals during that period in the American history (Kleck, 2017). This Act which was introduced controls interstate gun trade by barring federal transfer lest completed among licensed manufacturers, distributors, dealers, and restricts the ownership of guns.
On November 1993 an Act known as Brady Act was signed into law whereby it required to wait five days for a certified vendor to give over the gun to an individual who is not licensed in the states which lacked another background check method. Presently, the five-day duration of waiting has subsequently been substituted by an immediate background check method which takes like three days if there exists some inconsistency. The gun holders who possess a federal weapons authorization or a state-issued authority are exempted from this process.
Federal plus State Gun Laws in the 2000s
In the 2000s, several Acts for controlling guns and other firearms have been initiated. An example was in January 2016 when President Obama declared new exclusive measure on gun control. His actions started immediately, and some of them comprised: addition of two hundred ATF agents, the expansion plus update of the background checks, a new necessity to report gun thefts and amplified mental health care funding (Skocpol 2016, p.434). According to federal gun acts, each state possesses its specific set of gun rules extending from Texas to California which has the greatest restricting gun laws in the United States.
Gun control in the state of Texas
In the past two years, the public concern concerning gun control has grown in Texas and this characterized by the continuous violence instigated by the Mexican drug lords and cartels on the Texas and Mexico border. When the issue of gun control arises, the individuals in Texas exhibits diverse beliefs. There are those individuals who believe that gun control laws are operative in decreasing criminality, those that think that these laws are ineffectual against crime, and those who think that individual ownership of guns crime reduces crime (Spitzer, 2015). The problem of gun violence is high, and with harsh gun control laws pending, the residents of Texas are much concerned about their safety.
A particular survey which was conducted in 2010 by the Census Bureau exposed that Texas, which comprised a populace of 25,145,561 individuals, 22,239,258 of the total populated owned guns (Rossi, 2017). This exhibited a gun ownership rate that was represented the second highest number of the individuals who possessed guns among the fifty states of the United States of America. While examining the gun control Acts in Texas, it is significant to evaluate these Acts from the viewpoints of laws that typically boost the ownership of guns plus the Acts that control their use. Presently, Texas is among the numerous states that have approved a code referred as Stand Your Ground Law that is related with a substantial upsurge in the number of killings. Consequently, there are some Texas laws which are intended at regulating the use of firearms and they comprise of Civil Practice plus Remedies Code and the Texas Penal Code. The Texas Open Carry Gun Law took commenced in January 2016, and it consents the approved gun possessors to openly carry handguns in public places as well as in holsters (Rossi, 2017). It is vital to note that the Texas Second Amendment Preservation Act invalidates the implementation of national gun control Acts in the state regarding the recent push for gun control at the national level. This act exempts the Texas state from the application of federal regulations that typically overstep on the privilege of law-abiding residents to retain guns.
The Present Gun Control Dispute
Generally, the recent public gun control dispute in the United States typically transpires when a significant mass killing occurs. Between January 2000 and July 2014, there were about 126 mass shooting. The advocates of extra gun control habitually need more strict laws to be introduced to curb the mass shooting and also demand for proper background checks and smart gun laws. Contrary to the opponents accuse the proponents of applying a strategy arguing that enactment of additional laws would not have stopped the shootings (ProCon.org, 2018). The Pew Research Survey which was conducted in 2014, showed that 52 percent of Americans believe for the protection of the right to possess guns whereas 46 percent think that gun possessions need to be regulated. A recent poll which was conducted on February 14 by the Quinnipiac Poll agency after the mass shooting at Douglass High school in Florida showed that 66 percent of American electorates are in support of sterner gun control laws.
Conclusion
As seen in the above discussion it is evident that gun control is a vastly disputed subject in the United States as it is not a newly researched matter. Over the past thirty years, several research studies have addressed some attitudes regarding gun control in numerous ways. These studies have examined the resultant causes of increased gun violations are a result of political ideology, racial beliefs, race and the effects of some gun control legislation which were enacted in the initial 1990s. Moreover as elaborated above there exists a different group of individuals who differ regarding the issue of gun control as there are those supporting the implementation of stricter laws to limit the incidences of mass shootings. Accordingly, some opponents dislike the ideas of the opponents, and they also have their underlying reason, for example, the self-protection strategy. Therefore, this poses a stiffer debate on the issue of gun control among the two groups. However, there is a need for proper and firmer laws to be enacted to decrease the increased mass shooting incidences.
References
Hamilton, D., & Kposowa, A. J. (2015). Firearms and violent death in the United States: Gun ownership, gun control, and mortality rates in 16 states, 2005–2009. British Journal of Education, Society & Behavioural Science, 7, 84-98.
Kleck, G. (2017). Targeting guns: Firearms and their control. Routledge.
ProCon.org. (2018, June 29). Background of the Issue. Retrieved from http://gun-control.procon.org/view.resource.php?resourceID=006436Rossi, P. H. (2017). Armed and considered dangerous: A survey of felons and their firearms. Routledge.
Skocpol, T. (2016). Introduction. PS: Political Science & Politics, 49(3), 433-436.
Spitzer, R. J. (2015). Politics of gun control. Routledge.