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Highly specialized and functionally integrated cognitive systems facilitate hedonistic and healthy foodpreferences. Guided by survival needs, flavor preferences not only select safe, nutritious dietarycomponents, but also those with negligible calorific value but significant health benefits, for example,spices. Feeding behavior, both innate and acquired, is guided not only by taste receptors on the tonguebut also visceral organs. The gustatory cortex receives information from all senses, not just taste, suggesting multiple checkpoints in predicting and evaluating healthy foods. Ayurvedic interpretation of‘rasa’ as chemistry is compatible with medicinal value of diets because, taste and odor are chemosensoryperceptions. As flavor and taste are linked to the chemical structure of compounds, taste might offerclues about pharmacological activity. Ayurvedic idea of vipaka, or post digestive perception of taste,recognizes the extended role of taste receptors beyond the tongue and stretching into the viscera.Ayurvedic wisdom is consistent with evolutionary guideposts that suggest three successive stages ofnutritional appraisal: before, during, and after ingesting food. While olfaction induces affinity orrevulsion even before ingestion, gustatory receptors on the tongue evaluates nutritional value uponcontact, and the chemoreceptors in the deeper metabolic systems probably pronounce the final verdicton the nutritive and health benefits of ingested substances. Alliesthesia, neophobia, and the extremevariation in human T2R genes (coding for bitterness receptors) illustrate the importance of adaptivelearning of dietary preferences. These evolutionary clues are compatible with the Ayurvedic principle of‘rasa’, in facilitating the process of drug discovery.© 2017 Transdisciplinary University, Bangalore and World Ayurveda Foundation. Publishing Services byElsevier B.V. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).
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ABSTRACT Background: World Health Organization estimated that people with diabetes (DM) are at 2-3 times higher risk for tuberculosis (TB). Studies have shown that DM not only increases the risk of active TB, but also puts co-affected persons at increased risk of poor outcomes. Objectives: To determine the protective effect of metformin against TB in DM patients and also, to investigate the relationship between poor glycemic control and TB. Methods: A case-control study was conducted over 8 months, where cases and controls were selected based on the inclusion and exclusion criteria of the study. The diabetics diagnosed with TB were selected as study group (SG = 152) and without TB were as control group (CG = 299). Exposure status of metformin in both groups were analyzed. Results: The mean (SD) age of both CG and SG were 55.54 ± 11.82 and 52.80 ± 11.75, respectively. Majority of the subjects in the study were males. The mean hospital stay of SG and CG were 7 days and 6 days, respectively. Poor glycemic control (HbA1c > 8) observed in SG (51.7%) vs CG (31.4%). HbA1c value <7 is associated protective factor for TB occurrence [OR = 0.52 (95% CI 0.29-0.93)]. The protective effect of metformin against TB was 3.9-fold in diabetics (OR = 0.256, 0.16-0.40). Conclusion: Poor glycemic control among diabetics is a risk factor for TB occurrence. The result shows metformin use is a protective agent against TB infection in diabetics. Hence, incorporation of metformin into standard clinical care would offer a therapeutic option for the prevention of TB.