Organic Diet Makes Rats Healthier

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A team of European scientists, including one from Newcastle University, has found in an experiment that rats that ate organic food were much healthier than those that ate conventional diets.

Dr Kirsten Brandt (pictured), of Newcastle University’s School of Agriculture, Food and Rural Development, helped colleagues at the Danish Institute of Agricultural Sciences design the experiment.

The scientists found that the organically-fed rats enjoyed several health benefits, in that they slept better, had stronger immune systems and were slimmer than rats fed conventional diets.

Similar tests would need to be carried out on humans to determine if organic food would have the same effect on them.

However, speaking to The Journal newspaper, Dr Brandt said: “What this research shows is that clearly there are links between food and health which is more to do than with just nutrients.

“We used to think that as long as food had adequate nutrients then it was all equally good.

“What this work has shown is that this is not the whole story and we can measure differences and that they are significant. Now we need to understand what is going on.

“If people think that eating organic food makes them feel better then they are probably right," said Dr Brandt, who earlier this month pinpointed the compound in carrots that prevents cancer from developing.

To read the full report, published on the website of the Danish Research Centre for Organic Farming, click on the following web link:

http://www.darcof.dk/research/health.html

To read about Dr Brandt's research into the cancer-preventing properties of carrots, click on this weblink:

http://www.ncl.ac.uk/press.office/press.release/content.phtml?ref=1107939821

Source: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2005/03/050328182123.htm


Excellent. And I want to quote this statement:
"Our research allows us to make a more qualitative assessment of the vegetables we are eating, rather than quantitative. We now need to take it a step further by finding out how much falcarinol is needed to prevent the development of cancer and if certain types of carrot are better than others, as there are many varieties in existence, of different shapes, colours and sizes.
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Yep. Quality do count in many cases, not quantity.
 
Magatsu said:
A team of European scientists, including one from Newcastle University, has found in an experiment that rats that ate organic food were much healthier than those that ate conventional diets.
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Just what we need, healthier rats.

(Just teasing ;) )
 
hahaha. Well, I shared the same sentiment as you do about 'rats' :P
 
ah, even Rats enjoy "tickling" !

Believe it or not, I just got the news today
about this ! Look at:

http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/story?id=626264&page=1


March 31, 2005 — We may know what kinds of things make us laugh — slapstick, a clever pun, an inside joke with an old friend, an April Fools' gag — but just what are those strange sounds we make when laughing?

Scientists are finding there is a long evolutionary trail to our odd noises of amusement, and the latest proof comes from ticklish rats.

You've probably never heard a rat laugh, and there's a good reason.

Jaak Panksepp, of Bowling Green State University in Ohio, and his students found that the rodents emit gleeful "chirps" when playing, but only at ultrasonic tones five times higher than the human ear can hear. Once Panksepp hooked up an ultrasonic detector to listen in on rats in his lab and started tickling the animals, he realized the effect on them was dramatic.

"We used our hands as if they were playmates and pounced and tickled the rats with our fingers. The chirping sounds were out of sight, just out of sight," said Panksepp, who wrote about the studies in this week's issue of the journal Science. "The animals became bonded to you and came back for more. Every possible measure of whether they like it shows yes, they love it."

Not only did the rats respond instantly to the tickling, after awhile, they reacted the way a child often does before a tickling hand even reaches them.

"After a couple of trials, we could just wave our fingers in front of their noses and they would chirp," said Panksepp.

The rats likely keep their chuckles to supersonic levels to avoid detection by potential predators such as hawks, he explains. Sounds of such short wavelengths won't travel far and can be deflected off something as flimsy as a blade of grass. That means the rodents can play, tickle and chirp without fear.



Laughter's Deep Roots

But what do chirping, ticklish rats have to do with human laughter? The fact that rats have a form of laughter suggests it has been around for a very long time. Scientists have estimated that the common ancestor of rats and humans lived some 75 million years ago.
 
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