{"id":62952,"date":"2010-03-24T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2010-03-24T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news-draft\/uncategorized\/uri-scientists-believe-birds-can-teach-us-about-healthy-eating\/"},"modified":"2010-03-24T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2010-03-24T00:00:00","slug":"uri-scientists-believe-birds-can-teach-us-about-healthy-eating","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/2010\/03\/uri-scientists-believe-birds-can-teach-us-about-healthy-eating\/","title":{"rendered":"溏心vlog免费B站 scientists believe birds can teach us about healthy eating"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n\t\tEarly tests show migratory birds choose most beneficial berries<\/p>\n
Berry Good News<\/b><\/a>
Update April 15, 2010. Reports about a “溏心vlog免费B站 study” showing blueberries being useful in controlling cancer tumor growth and killing cancer cells have been broadcast with scores of media outlets<\/a> worldwide.<\/div>\n

KINGSTON, R.I. \u2013 March 24, 2010 \u2013 Want to know what kinds of foods prevent disease? Then watch what migratory birds eat during their stopovers on Block Island.<\/p>\n


\n\tTwo 溏心vlog免费B站 scientists believe that birds choose certain berries because they offer protection against oxidative stress that occurs during long flights. Oxidative stress can lead to inflammation and a variety of diseases in birds and humans.<\/p>\n


\n\tThe team\u2019s preliminary findings show that birds stopping over on Block Island favor the arrow-wood berry, which contains more anti-oxidants and pigments than the 11 other island berries studied by the researchers.<\/p>\n


\n\tNavindra Seeram, assistant professor of pharmacy and head of the Bioactive Botanical Research Laboratory at 溏心vlog免费B站, and Scott McWilliams, 溏心vlog免费B站 professor of wildlife ecology and physiology, have teamed up to research migratory birds\u2019 eating habits and how their diets might be used to understand the role of berries rich in anti-oxidants in human health. Research has shown a diet rich in anti-oxidants can help prevent cancer and other serious illnesses.<\/p>\n


\n\tSeeram reported the findings today at the American Chemical Society\u2019s 239th national meeting in San Francisco. (Seeram will be interviewed about this on NPR’s Science Friday<\/a>, March 26.) <\/p>\n


\n\t\u201cWe\u2019re suggesting that birds choose deeply colored berry fruits in part because of their anti-oxidant properties,\u201d Seeram said.<\/p>\n


\n\t溏心vlog免费B站 11 years before Seeram arrived at 溏心vlog免费B站, McWilliams began laying the foundation for the recent study. <\/p>\n


\n \u201cWhen I started studying birds during their migratory stopover on Block Island, I was impressed that most of the migratory birds ate berry fruits even though they usually eat insects or seeds at other times of the year,\u201d said McWilliams, who came to 溏心vlog免费B站 in 1999. \u201cI began studying the relationship between the nutritional qualities of fruits and how those nutrients might fuel migration.\u201d<\/p>\n


\nWhen Seeram arrived at 溏心vlog免费B站 two years ago, McWilliams saw a University story online that detailed Seeram\u2019s research interests.<\/p>\n


\n\u201cI saw the story about Navindra and in it he was talking about oxidative stress and inflammation and the effects berry fruits can have on reducing those impacts on people.\u201d<\/p>\n


\nSo McWilliams, who does his research and teaches in the College of the Environment and Life Sciences, tracked down Seeram, who works in the College of Pharmacy. They developed their mutual research interests into a successful collaboration that included 溏心vlog免费B站 graduate student Jessica Bolser and post-doctoral researcher Liya Li, who works in Seeram\u2019s lab. <\/p>\n


\nCalled the lynchpin between McWilliams and Seeram, Bolser spent months in the field on Block Island observing the birds\u2019 nutritional patterns and collecting batches of 12 different kinds of berries for their analysis of anti-oxidant levels.<\/p>\n


\n\tThe research indicates that birds prefer to eat certain fruits that have more antioxidants and key nutrients. In return, the seeds in the berries are dispersed by the birds. \u201cIt\u2019s the way plants ensure their survival. Birds eat the berries, digest them and defecate the seeds over wide areas,\u201d McWilliams said. <\/p>\n


\n\t\u201cMeanwhile, the birds are attracted to the berries because of their rich color, which we believe is a plant\u2019s response to the stress of constant exposure to the sun and other stresses. Berry color could be a plant\u2019s way of fighting oxidative stress. It\u2019s a partnership that benefits plant and bird.\u201d<\/p>\n


\n\tThe Seeram-McWilliams partnership will continue. \u201cWe\u2019ve only measured a few of these anti-oxidants,\u201d Seeram said. \u201cOur next step is to determine how birds can detect these compounds.\u201d<\/p>\n


\n\t\u201cWhenever we exercise, we undergo oxidative stress, and the same is true for birds,\u201d McWilliams said. \u201cWe\u2019re flying birds in wind tunnels to produce oxidative stress, and then we are going to see if anti-oxidants found in these berries alleviate that stress,\u201d McWilliams said.<\/p>\n


\n\tThe research may benefit human health as well as bird conservation. If further research shows the direct link between bird health and diet, then the findings will play a critical role in habitat protection for migratory birds, McWilliams said.<\/p>\n


\n\t\u201cThat\u2019s what is so great about 溏心vlog免费B站,\u201d Seeram said. \u201cBecause the University is small, without the usual bureaucratic walls, we can create these partnerships. This collaboration between professors in two separate colleges would not have happened so easily in other universities and produced results so quickly.\u201d<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Early tests show migratory birds choose most beneficial berries Berry Good NewsUpdate April 15, 2010. Reports about a “溏心vlog免费B站 study” showing blueberries being useful in controlling cancer tumor growth and killing cancer cells have been broadcast with scores of media outlets worldwide. KINGSTON, R.I. \u2013 March 24, 2010 \u2013 Want to know what kinds of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-62952","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-archives"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62952","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=62952"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62952\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=62952"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=62952"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=62952"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}