Consequently, this study can serve to reveal the effect, if any, of a continued and rigorous diet consisting of all colors of the rainbow on the physical and mental health of a randomized sample of the adult human population in a given demographically comparable community.The current study is a small-scale secondary application of some of the methods used in a previously conducted study that has been reported elsewhere. The primary study used a randomized controlled trial to compare the effect of daily consumption of probiotic versus low-fat conventional yogurt on weight loss in healthy obese women; the outcomes tested were changes in anthropometric measurements . In our study, we measured hand grip strength and stress levels in addition to some of the parameters mentioned that were tested in the primary study. We created a Rainbow Diet Pack that consisted of the following fruits and/or vegetables in the respective quantities: raspberry , orange , baby carrots , corn broccoli floret , blueberry , and banana . The choice of each kind of fresh produce was based on the specific nutritional facts and molecular composition of the phytonutrients in each . As per the personal choice of its members, procona valencia the intervention group received daily administration of RDP during a 10-wk intervention period. Measurements were taken of both the study and the control groups twice: at baseline and at the end of the intervention period.
Our study design was in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki.Twenty-four normally healthy human adult volunteers who belonged to the same demographic identity and had similar dietary backgrounds were recruited by word-of-mouth from the local community of the student investigators and screened for health. A total of eight were chosen to participate. Individuals were eligible for the study if they were nonsmokers, free of known disease, not allergic to items in RDP, not taking medications and were identified as being healthy according to the following criteria: body mass index between 18.5 to 24.9 kg/m2 and a self-report of no diseases/illnesses in the previous 6 months. Randomization A computerized random number generator was used to assign individuals chosen to participate to either the control or the intervention group. At the end of the baseline screening, a message containing the participant’s number assignments was sent via email to the participants. Participants and the student investigator were aware of group assignment during the intervention phase. Before analysis, the primary investigator received an anonymized data set and was no longer aware of group assignment post data collection; no data can be traced back to the individual participant.The aim of this study was to assess the effects of eating a diet consisting of all the colors of the rainbow in the form of an RDP once a day on weight loss, stress levels, and other indexes of health in normally healthy volunteers during a 10 wk intervention program. We found that consumption of RDP as lunch may result in positive changes in waist circumference, weight loss and stress levels as measured during the program.
This was despite finding no significant differences in observed hand grip strength between the study and control groups. In spite of evidence for the beneficial effects of eating various naturally colorful produce on obesity and health, to our knowledge, this was the first randomized controlled trial that investigated the effect of consuming the RDP as a whole on weight loss and stress levels in healthy human subjects. Te present study showed no significant difference in hand grip strength in this observational study with lifestyle intervention. Overall, a decline in anthropometric measurements and cardiometabolic risk factors, including weight gain and high stress levels was observed, to a degree that would be expected with an energy-restricted diet intervention . The total weight and waist circumference decreased to a significantly greater extent in the RDP group than in the control group. Nevertheless, future long-term trials are required to present evidence-based recommendation regarding the beneficial effects of RDP on further body profiles. Finally, regarding the effects of RDP on hand-grip strength, despite similar changes in HGS in both groups, the study group presented slightly greater improvements in strength when compared with the control group over 10 wk. However, further comprehensive RCTs are necessary in order to institute a quantifiable implication of RDP consumption on carbohydrate absorption because statistical differences have been seen. There were some draw-backs to this study. Although the sample size of eight was enough to verify the statistically significant effects on the fundamental outcomes, this number was not representative of the general population as a whole, particularly because it did not include individuals from dissimilar demographic and dietary backgrounds. Furthermore, the study was of a relatively short duration . Longer-term studies are required to establish whether the effects can be sustained over a longer period. This would require continued consumption of the rainbow diet for a longer duration.Perhaps one of the most critical yet understudied factors affecting the decline of global pollinator populations and pollination services are alterations in local and regional climatic conditions. In the past few decades, humans have significantly altered climatic conditions due to the emissions of aerosols, and of greenhouse gases, including CO2, and from land management practices consequently impacting wild species distributions and population dynamics across the world . Because most pollinators are completely reliant on plants for food resources, pollinator populations maybe both indirectly affected by changes in the abundance, spatial distribution, and timing of flowering in plant populations, and directly affected by the climate of the regions in which they occur. Thus, the discussion of climate impacts on pollination services requires an analysis of both direct and indirect interactions between climate, plants, pollinators, and the many threats to plant and pollinator populations . In this chapter, we review scientific literature surrounding four key topics: the ecological interactions related to pollination services and vulnerability, the ecosystem services provided by native pollinators and their potential alteration, mitigation possibilities for improved pollination acquisition, and the resulting policy implications . Given the large scope of this topic, we focus on insect pollinators, which are one of many pollinator groups, but are the most economically important pollinator groups globally . Because very little literature is available on the direct impacts of climate on pathogens, chemical sprays, and other threats to pollinators, we only speculate on these topics and advise that greater research is required for an understanding of these factors. Because one of the objectives of this review is to provide ecologically informed management suggestions for improved pollination services, we focus on native pollinators, which have the potential to provide sustained pollination services. Compared to the services provided by a single species of managed pollinator , species-rich communities of wild pollinators can provide redundancy in terms of pollinator services and thus may provide services that are more stable over time and in the face of environmental change. However, we suggest that climate impacts on managed pollinator communities are topics of great importance and require further study. Overall, by summarizing the literature relevant to climate impacts on native pollinators, we provide generalizable and ecologically informed management suggestions for scientists and policy makers across communities and ecoregions.Ecosystem services are the set of ecosystem functions that contribute to human well-being and include provisioning, supporting, regulating, and cultural services . Pollination of plants by animals is both a regulating and a supporting ecosystem service.
As a regulating service, flower bucket it is essential for the reproduction of pollinator-dependent plants that supply humans with foods, fiber, forage, biofuels, firewood, timber, and medicine. The contributions of pollination services to human well-being may be direct or indirect. Direct contributions include fruit or seed production of pollinator-dependent food, fiber, bio-fuel, and forage crops . Indirect contributions of animal pollination include the reproduction of tree species valued for timber , sown crops in which the vegetative parts are eaten, seed production , vegetatively propagated crops in which animal pollinators are required for breeding only , and pollinator-dependent plants with medicinal properties [e.g., Catharanthus spp., which include the famous Madagascar periwinkle ]. As a supporting service, pollination is essential to maintain populations of pollinator-dependent wild plants that then provide additional ecosystem services, such as erosion control, water filtration, carbon storage, and habitat for biodiversity . Of these various contributions to human well-being, scientists have to date only rigorously quantified importance of pollination services to food crop production . These studies have shown that 75% of all crop species depend on animal pollinators to produce fruits or seeds, either partially or completely, supplying 35% of global crop biomass . Importantly, these crops also supply the majority of certain essential micronutrients in plant-based food, such as dietary lipid , vitamins A , C , E and folate , and minerals calcium and fluoride . Since some crop production from animal-pollinated crops is due to self or wind pollination, the total amounts of biomass and micronutrients due to yield increases from animal pollination will be less than these numbers, but remain substantial . Worldwide, the pollination services for food crop production, including both those provided by managed bees imported to crop fields and those freely provided by wild bees, were recently valued at V153 billion/year , 9.5% of global crop value . Neither the micronutrient nor the economic calculations include the contributions of vegetative crops for which animal pollinators are needed for seed production or breeding. We also lack recent quantitative analyses of the indirect contributions of pollinators to meat and dairy production via forage production , as well as, any calculations of pollinator contributions to fibers, medicinals, botanicals, firewood, timber, and other useful plant species, both cultivated and wild. As 87% of wild plants are pollinator dependent , these contributions are likely to be large. We can conclude that the contributions of pollinators to human well-being are many and varied. To the extent that wild pollinator species provide these services, then growers do not have to pay beekeepers to supply them, reducing input costs for growers, as well as, food prices for consumers . Wild pollinator species still provide sufficient pollination services in certain regions or in favorable environments within regions , but in general, with the intensification of agriculture and the loss of natural habitats, both the magnitude and stability of wild pollinator richness, visitation rates, and pollination services have declined in landscapes around the world . In fact, these declines in pollination services occurred despite no observed declines with intensification in the abundances of the honey bee, Apis mellifera, a managed species which growers frequently import to their fields for pollination services. Declines in the abundance and richness of wild pollinator populations are therefore already having subtle consequences for the human food supply, although these are largely masked by the presence of managed honey bees . Such effects may intensify as managed honey bees have suffered dramatic declines in some regions , probably due to synergistic effects of disease, environmental stress, and pesticides , and wild pollinators are also declining, especially in intensive agricultural landscapes . Declines in wild pollinators will also have large consequences for the reproduction of wild plant populations that are likely to ramify in their effects on food chains and ecosystem services, potentially affecting both wildlife and humans. What are the major factors causing wild pollinator declines? Several recent synthetic analyses focusing on bees, the principal pollinators of most crops and many wild plant species, note the loss or degradation of habitat as the principal factor in declining richness and/or abundance . At the landscape scale, meta-analysis showed that pollinator richness and abundance were significantly affected by extreme habitat loss or simplification, but not by moderate habitat loss ; conversely, favorable management practices in farming or grassland landscapes had significant positive effects on abundance and richness of pollinators only in simplified , but not complex landscapes . Guild characteristics affected the response of bees to different habitat disturbance types, as shown in a quantitative synthesis of 19 studies including over 600 bee species; in particular, above-ground nesters and social species were more sensitive to various types of disturbances than below-ground nesters and solitary species . Social species were negatively affected by pesticide use, but this factor was not significant overall or for other guilds .