Friday, January 27, 2017

The deficiency in this vitamin is linked to many deaths?



Living in the northern hemisphere has its perk such as well nothing much.  I mean the winters are long, which leads to less sunlight throughout the day.  Can’t go outside as much especially when you’re older and not a kid.  The only reason why you go outside is to go work and take of the garbage, oh and lets not forget to shovel the driveway and walkway.  What is dangerous I found out through a family member is going back to my first point of having less sunlight in the winter, is the point of lacking vitamin D.

You get most of vitamin D apparently from the sun naturally.  The problem with living up north is that we don’t get as much sunlight in the day and we’ll stay out too long because of the cold.  This leads too many conditions that are caused by the lack of this vitamin.  I found out that many millions of people die from this because they didn’t get the right amount of the vitamin.  This crucial vitamin is important in helping fight against osteoporosis, straightening of the bone and helping with regulating our blood pressure.  Apparently the list goes on forever on the benefits and not it does not help with hair health, but you can read more on that here.

Other ways to get vitamin D

You could get vitamin D from plants but it isn’t comparable to the sun.  The alternative is to take your vitamin D supplements now this is the tricky part.  How much IU should the supplement have?  This is huge debate but if you follow this chart as a guideline you will be in good shape.


What I learnt further is the fact that many people who live in warm climates still have a deficiency.  It could be many reasons such as nowadays people are staying indoors more because of technology but the main culprit is apparently that you can get the daily vitamin D only through a certain timeframe in the day.  If you go out in the morning to get your daily intake, well sorry to say this but this is the worst time to get it.  During the time of the afternoon, which is the best time, people tend to avoid the sun because it is too hot.  

IMPORTANT – DON’T STAY OUT TO LONG IN SUN

Yes it is important that we do not stay out too long in the sun because of cancer risk which is actually really scary and apparently it is gone up in the number of cases each year.  The point is to go out to get sun for only a couple minutes because that is all is needed.  This is dependent also on the skin type.  For example, for you, you may need to stay out just for five minutes in the sun versus someone with a different skin tone who only needs to be in the sun for two minutes and will receive the same amount of vitamin D.

Monday, January 9, 2017

Sequence Human Genome for a Hundred Bucks?

A DNA company is providing a new architectural sequencer that will help improve its cost to decode the genome by becoming cheaper for the public.  In the upcoming years, it should cost around $100 as currently the cost is around $1000 to decode the human genome.  This sequencer of DNA called the  NovaSeq 6000 is apparently 70% much faster than current DNA sequence or technology.  The estimated speed is planned to be six times faster than any of its predecessor.  Currently the business of DNA sequencers are a $2.4 billion.

Only 10 years ago, to sequence the entire human genome roughly cost at the price of $300,000 US.  So even now at $1000, sounds like a good deal and for it to drop further in price in the next coming years is astounding.  The issue lies that the machine cost is still high at around $1 million.

Historically there hasn’t been that many sequenced genomes only until now.  Two years ago, there was only 70,000 genomes were process and now today, over 500,000.  The increases number is probably because of the low price as compared to a decade ago.





The first sequencer came out in the early 70s using chromatography knowledge.  Nowadays there are many other players and companies providing DNA technology and many can be purchased. 

Many are used in research for humans as well as animals such as the following:

•    Meta-genomics
•    Medicine
•    Biology (molecular and evolutionary)
•    Forensics

One example is looking at animal scats to provide information on migration, population health and how one group relates to another group.

A little background on DNA

Friedrich Miescher was the first discovered it in the year 1869.  He also isolated the DNA which was a first as well.  After this period, further research into DNA remain stagnant until after World War II.  The major discovery during that time in 1944 was they were able to change the strain of DNA bacteria into something else.

Along came the 50s, where both Crick and Watson displayed and push a new model of DNA called the double helix.  In this model, picture 2 straws well together that have are linked by bonds of hydrogen.  Later in the 50s, the foundation of using such a technology to sequence proteins was finally discovered by Sanger.  He was able to sequence amino acids, a protein, found in insulin which is secreted by our pancreas