Month: January 2018

With their alpine grasslands shrinking due to erratic rainfall and glacier retreat, herders in Peru’s central Andes have decided that the future lies in reviving the past.

To improve access to water and save their livestock, indigenous communities in the villages of Canchayllo and Miraflores have restored abandoned dams, reservoirs and canals that date back over 3,000 years.

Two years on from completion of the project — supported by The Mountain Institute (TMI), a U.S.-based non-profit — there are more and better quality pastures for sheep, cattle and alpaca to graze, and milk, meat, and crop yields have risen.

The project’s success, benefiting 9,600 people in the Nor Yauyos Cochas Landscape Reserve, has raised hopes for thousands of highland communities in Peru and elsewhere who are facing similar climate pressures, said Florencia Zapata of TMI, which works with mountain communities.

It could also have far-reaching impacts along the desert coast, home to almost 70 percent of the population, which receives less than 2 percent of Peru’s available water.

“Water that most of the population depends on comes mainly from the mountains. So, we need to take care of (that water),” Zapata, who oversaw the project, told the Thomson Reuters Foundation in a phone interview.

The western ranges of the “brown” Andes — with a marked dry season — are dotted with remains of ancient infrastructures dedicated to managing water, said Jorge Recharte, director of TMI’s Andes program.

The ranges extend to Bolivia, Chile and Argentina and while some water structures are still in use, knowledge and understanding of them had started to vanish as populations dwindled due to migration to the cities, Recharte said.

Peru’s glaciers are a source of fresh water for millions of people but they have diminished by 40 percent since the 1970s, government figures showed.

The South American country is home to 70 percent of the world’s tropical glaciers, which are “especially sensitive to warming temperatures”, the United Nations warned.

Fears over the melting of an Andean glacier has even led to an intercontinental lawsuit that environmentalists are watching closely.

“As glacier retreat progresses and climate change kicks in … new lands are becoming available for agriculture in the Andes,” said Alexander Herrera, an archaeologist and associate professor at Colombia’s Universidad de los Andes.

“Learning from the past is absolutely crucial for sustainable, low-risk, productive agriculture (of the kind) the Andes have had for thousands of years,” said Herrera, who was involved in the Canchayllo and Miraflores projects.

Grey and green

Peru has a long history of embarking on engineering feats to manage the flow of water for agriculture.

The Incas and the civilisations before them built terraces, cisterns and canals while modern government projects include the $500-million Olmos and the stalled Chavimochic III irrigation projects.

It was at one of the first meetings TMI organised in 2013 that locals raised the possibility of rehabilitating the neglected pre-Inca hydraulic structures.

Designed to slow the movement of water through grasses and soils, they replenished aquifers and springs and helped the grasslands retain more water, allowing biodiversity to flourish.

This way, the ecosystem acted as a buffer against flooding and drought and provided fodder for their animals, who in turn produce cheese and importantly manure, used to cultivate “thousands of native potato, corn, tuber and grain varieties,” Zapata said.

The restoration and adaptation of ancient terraces and canals for modern use has been pioneered by British archaeologist Ann Kendall since the late 1970s.

But other attempts by Andean governments and aid groups in the 1980s to revive these technologies for development failed because the focus was more on techniques and less on the needs of the locals, said archaeologist Herrera.

In Canchayllo and Miraflores, the restoration has combined ancient and modern technologies to meet the demands of herders, after months of consultation.

The restored systems incorporate “grey” infrastructure such as PVC pipes, water valves and fences and “green” elements such as restoration of grasslands and wetlands.

The restoration minimised the need for regular maintenance work since labor is in short supply, with the young and able moving to cities for better jobs.

“It is not enough to just improve their infrastructure or water availability. If people are not organised to manage the infrastructure, it will collapse sooner or later,” Zapata said.

Not another burden

Julio Postigo, a Peruvian expert on pastoralism in high altitudes, said poor, marginalised communities needed support from government to revive the ancient structures — just as families were supported centuries ago.

“We tend to forget, when we romanticise these Inca or pre-Inca or ancient responses, that they were never taken by individual families,” said Postigo, a senior research scientist at the University of Chicago’s National Opinion Research Center. “You’re talking about an empire that decided that that infrastructure was going to be built.”

TMI said it was looking to train and work with the Peruvian government and other organisations to replicate the success of projects in central Peru.

But reviving ancient water systems must be part of a wider plan to help communities cope with climate change, said Postigo.

“The people most vulnerable to climate change effects are those who are poorer, less educated, more marginal, indigenous,” he said in a phone interview. “We should fight poverty and improve living conditions. In doing so, those populations will be on a better foot to respond to climate change.”
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SpaceX is defending its rocket performance during Sunday night’s launch of a secret U.S. satellite, responding to media reports that the satellite codenamed Zuma was lost.

SpaceX President Gwynne Shotwell says the Falcon 9 rocket “did everything correctly” and suggestions otherwise are “categorically false.”

Northrop Grumman — which provided the satellite for an undisclosed U.S. government entity — says it cannot comment on classified missions.

The rocket’s first stage completed its job and landed back at Cape Canaveral following liftoff. But no second-stage information was provided because of all the secrecy surrounding the flight.

The Wall Street Journal quotes unidentified congressional officials as saying the satellite apparently did not separate from the rocket’s upper second stage, and plunged through the atmosphere and burned up.

 
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Children who eat restaurant carry-out, or “takeaway,” meals once a week or more tend to have extra body fat and long-term risk factors for heart disease, suggests a UK study.

In the study of 9- and 10-year-olds, the kids who ate carry-out most often also consumed more calories but fewer vitamins and minerals compared with kids who rarely or never ate carry-out food, the authors report in Archives of Disease in Childhood.

“Frequent consumption of takeaway foods could potentially be increasing children’s risk of future coronary heart disease and type 2 diabetes by increasing their LDL cholesterol and body fat,” lead author Angela Donin told Reuters Health in an email.

“Takeaway outlets are increasing, as is consumption with more than half of teenagers reporting eating takeaways at least twice a week,” said Donin, a researcher at St. George’s, University of London.

In adults, regular consumption of carry-out meals is associated with higher risk of obesity, coronary heart disease and type 2 diabetes, but little is known about the effects it may be having on children’s health, Donin said.

“We, therefore, wanted to see how much takeaway food children were eating and if there were any effects on their health.”

The researchers analyzed data from the Child Heart and Health Study in England, which looked at potential risk factors for heart disease and diabetes in pre-teens. Participants included about 2,000 kids aged 9 and 10 years at 85 primary schools in three cities: London, Birmingham and Leicester.

The children answered questions about their usual diets, including how often they ate carry-out meals purchased from restaurants. Foods purchased at convenience stores or grocery stores were not included in the category. Photos of common foods were provided to help the kids recall and estimate portion sizes.

About one quarter of the children said they never or rarely ate carry-out meals and nearly half said they ate carry-out less than once per week. Just over one quarter said they ate these kinds of meals at least once per week.

Boys were more frequent consumers of carry-out meals than girls, as were children from less affluent backgrounds.

The study team used the kids’ dietary responses to calculate calorie counts and nutrient intake. Among regular consumers of carry-out meals, the foods eaten were higher-calorie and higher-fat, while protein and starch intake was lower and intake of vitamin C, iron, calcium and folate was also lower compared with kids who didn’t eat these types of meals.

Researchers also measured the children’s height, weight, waist circumference, skinfold thickness and body-fat composition. In addition, they measured blood pressure and took blood samples for cholesterol levels.

There were no differences in blood pressure or how well the kids’ bodies used insulin based on who regularly ate carry-out meals. But skinfold thickness, body fat composition and blood fats like LDL (bad) cholesterol all tended to be higher in regular consumers of carry-out meals.

“Children who ate more takeaway meals had higher total and LDL cholesterol (both important risk factors for coronary heart disease) and body fat.,” Donin said.

“Most people who order takeout usually purchase fast food, which is high in sodium, fat, and calories,” noted Sandra Arevalo, who wasn’t involved in the study.

”Fast-food also has low nutritional value, which means it is low in vitamins, minerals, fiber and sometimes protein,” said Arevalo, a registered dietician who directs Nutrition Services and Community Outreach at Community Pediatrics, a program of Montefiore and The Children’s Health Fund, in New York. “If you eat these meals over a long period of time you can start seeing the health consequences associated with it.”

Arevalo recommends parents who need to bring home a meal, call the restaurant ahead of time to order salads, vegetables, brown rice, grilled meats and to provide a healthier meal for their children.

“The price might be a deterrent but you can cut portions in half and get two meals out of one large one,” she said by email. Another idea is to learn to prepare quick and healthy meals.

“For example, hummus, carrots, and crackers make a great lunch, as well as a tuna or turkey sandwich with lettuce and tomatoes. Eggs are an excellent source of protein, you can scramble an egg with spinach, onions, and tomatoes and have it with a toast,” she said.
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From gritty neighborhoods in New York and Los Angeles to clinics in Kenya and Brazil, health workers are trying to popularize a pill that has proven highly effective in preventing HIV but which – in their view – remains woefully underused.

Marketed in the United States as Truvada, and sometimes available abroad in generic versions, the pill has been shown to reduce the risk of getting HIV from sex by more than 90 percent if taken daily. Yet worldwide, only about a dozen countries have aggressive, government-backed programs to promote the pill. In the U.S., there are problems related to Truvada’s high cost, lingering skepticism among some doctors and low usage rates among black gays and bisexuals who have the highest rates of HIV infection.

“Truvada works,” said James Krellenstein, a New York-based activist. “We have to start thinking of it not as a luxury but as an essential public health component of this nation’s response to HIV.”

A few large U.S. cities are promoting Truvada, often with sexually charged ads. In New York, “Bare It All” was among the slogans urging gay men to consult their doctors. The Los Angeles LGBT Center – using what it called “raw, real language” – launched a campaign to increase use among young Latino and black gay men and transgender women.

“We’ve got the tools to not only end the fear of HIV, but to end it as an epidemic,” said the center’s chief of staff, Darrel Cummings. “Those at risk have to know about the tools, though, and they need honest information about them.”

Truvada in the U.S.

In New York, roughly 30 percent of gay and bisexual men are using Truvada now, up dramatically from a few years ago, according to Dr. Demetre Daskalakis, a deputy commissioner of the city’s health department.

However, Daskalakis said use among young black and Hispanic men – who account for a majority of new HIV diagnoses – lags behind. To address that, the city is making Truvada readily available in some clinics in or near heavily black and Hispanic neighborhoods.

“We like to go to the root of the problem,” said Daskalakis, who personally posed for the “Bare It All” campaign.

According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention , Truvada would be appropriate for about 1.2 million people in the U.S. – including sex workers and roughly 25 percent of gay men. Gilead Scientific, Truvada’s California-based manufacturer, says there are only about 145,000 active prescriptions for HIV prevention use.

Under federal guidelines, prime candidates for preventive use of Truvada include some gay and bisexual men with multiple sexual partners, and anyone who does not have HIV but has an ongoing sexual relationship with someone who has the virus.

An international approach 

Abroad, a few government health agencies – including those in France, Norway, Belgium, Kenya, South Africa, Brazil and some Canadian provinces – have launched major efforts to promote preventive use of Truvada or generic alternatives, providing it for free or a nominal charge. In Britain, health officials in Scotland and England recently took steps to provide the medication directly through government-funded programs, though in England it’s in the form of a trial limited to 10,000 people.

Truvada was launched in 2004, initially used in combination with other drugs as the basic treatment for people who have HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. It is primarily spread through sex.

Controversy arose in 2012 when the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved Truvada to reduce the risk of getting HIV in the first place, for what’s called pre-exposure prophylaxis, or PrEP. It blocks the virus from making copies and taking hold. Critics warned that many gay men wouldn’t heed Truvada’s once-a-day schedule and complained of its high cost – roughly $1,500 a month.

Gilead offers a payment assistance plan to people without insurance that covers the full cost. Some cities and a few states – including Illinois, Massachusetts and Washington – also help cover costs. Activists have pressed Gilead to make its copay program more generous in light of its profits from Truvada.

“There’s no reason it has to cost so much,” said Krellenstein.

Gilead spokesman Ryan McKeel, in an email, said the company is reviewing the copay program.

“Like those in the advocacy community, we are committed to expanding access to Truvada for PrEP to as many people as possible,” he wrote.

In June, the FDA approved a generic version of Truvada, which is likely to push the price down, but it won’t be available in the U.S. for a few years.

The Truvada debate has taken many twists, as exemplified by the varying stances of the Los Angeles-based AIDS Healthcare Foundation – a leading HIV/AIDS service provider. In 2012, the group unsuccessfully petitioned the FDA to delay or deny approval of Truvada for preventive use. The foundation’s president, Michael Weinstein, belittled Truvada as “a party drug” and warned it would increase the spread of sexually transmitted infections by encouraging men to engage in sex without condoms.

But last year, the foundation, while still skeptical about some Truvada-related policies, urged Gilead to cut its price to make it more available.

“We have no dispute about its ability to prevent HIV transmission,” said spokesman Ged Kenslea. He noted that the organization’s 40 pharmacies across the U.S. handle many Truvada prescriptions.
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