Higher consumption of most ultra-processed foods is linked to a slightly higher risk of death, with ready-to-eat meat, poultry, and seafood based products, sugary drinks, dairy based desserts, and highly processed breakfast foods showing the strongest associations, finds a 30-year US study in The BMJ today. The researchers say not all ultra-processed food products should be universally restricted, but that their findings “provide support for limiting consumption of certain types of ultra-processed food for long term health.” Ultra-processed foods include packaged baked goods and snacks, fizzy drinks, sugary cereals, and ready-to-eat or heat products. They often contain colours, emulsifiers, flavours, and other additives and are typically high in energy, added sugar, saturated fat, and salt, but lack vitamins and fibre. Mounting evidence links ultra-processed foods to higher risks of obesity, heart disease, diabetes and bowel cancer, but few long term… 

A new study led by University of Pittsburgh and UPMC Hillman Cancer Center researchers shows that an enzyme called PARP1 is involved in repair of telomeres, the lengths of DNA that protect the tips of chromosomes, and that impairing this process can lead to telomere shortening and genomic instability that can cause cancer. PARP1’s job is genome surveillance: When it senses breaks or lesions in DNA, it adds a molecule called ADP-ribose to specific proteins, which act as a beacon to recruit other proteins that repair the break. The new findings, published today in Nature Structural & Molecular Biology, are the first evidence that PARP1 also acts on telomeric DNA, opening up new avenues for understanding and improving PARP1-inhibiting cancer therapies. O’Sullivan hypothesizes that ADP-ribose affects telomere integrity by disrupting a protective structure called shelterin that safeguards telomeres, but more…