Glucose

Resumen
Las dislipidemias son cada vez más frecuentes en el ser humano, al igual que la hiperglicemia, debido al  inadecuado estado nutricional de las personas. El presente documento muestra el estado de salud relacionándolo con estas dos variables en un grupo de personas de la zona andina centro de Ecuador, mismo que fue medido considerando el Índice de Masa Corporal, cuyo exceso puede estar correlacionado con  mayor incidencia de hipertensión arterial, enfermedad ateroesclerótica, diabetes tipo II y demás enfermedades crónico degenerativas. Se buscó  determinar en estas personas (afiliados del Instituto Ecuatoriano de Seguridad Social –IESS- de la Unidad de Salud del Parque Industrial de la ciudad de  Riobamba) su perfil lipídico, nivel de glucosa e  índice de masa corporal; el estudio fue de tipo transversal, lo cual permitió a la vez determinar diferentes grupos. Como principal conclusión se puede enunciar que urge contar con un equipo multidisciplinario en este centro que ayude a la población a mejorar su estado nutricional y de salud, el cual por el momento no es el adecuado.

Abstract
Dyslipidemia are increasingly common in humans, as well as hyperglycemia, due to inadequate nutritional status of individuals. This document shows the health status and its relationship with these two variables in a group of people of the central Andean Region of Ecuador, this status was inferred considering the Body Mass Index, whose excess can be correlated with higher incidence of hypertension, atherosclerotic disease, diabetes type II, and other chronic degenerative diseases. We sought to determine in these people (members of the Ecuadorian Social Security Institute -IESS-: Unit of Health at the Industrial Park, Riobamba city) their lipid profile, glucose level and body mass index; the study was cross-sectional, which allowed simultaneously determine different groups. As a main conclusion we can state that is urgently needed a multidisciplinary team in this center that helps people to improve their nutritional and health status, which for the moment is not right.

In this work, the effects of carbon sources and culture media on the production and structural properties of bacterial cellulose (BC) have been studied. BC nanofibers were synthesized using Gluconacetobacter xylinus strain PTCC 1734. Media used were Hestrin-Schramm (H), Yamanaka (Y), and Zhou (Z). Five different carbon sources, namely date syrup, glucose, mannitol, sucrose, and food-grade sucrose were used in these media. All the produced BC pellicles were characterized in terms of dry weight production, biomass yield, thermal stability, crystallinity and morphology by thermogravimetric analysis (TGA), xray diffraction (XRD), and field emission scanning electron microscopy (FE-SEM). The obtained results showed that mannitol lead to the highest yield, followed by sucrose. The highest production efficiency of mannitol might be due to the nitrogen source, which plays an important role. The maximum improvement on the thermal stability of the composites was achieved when mannitol was used in H medium. In addition, the crystallinity was higher in BC formed in H medium compared to other media. FE-SEM micrographs illustrated that the BC pellicles, synthesized in the culture media H and Z, were stable, unlike those in medium Y that were unstable. The micrographs of BC produced in media containing mannitol and sucrose provided evidence of the strong interfacial adhesion between the BC fibers without noticeable aggregates.

Masau are Zimbabwean wild fruits, which are usually eaten raw and/ or processed into products such as porridge, traditional cakes, mahewu and jam. Yeasts, yeast-like fungi, and lactic acid bacteria present on the unripe, ripe and dried fruits, and in the fermented masau fruits collected from Muzarabani district in Zimbabwe were isolated and identified using physiological and molecular methods. The predominant species were identified as Saccharomyces cerevisiae, Issatchenkia orientalis, Pichia fabianii and Aureobasidium pullulans. A. pullulans was the dominant species on the unripe fruits but was not isolated from the fermented fruit pulp. S. cerevisiae and I. orientalis were predominant in the fermented fruit pulp but were not detected in the unripe fruits. S. cerevisiae, I. orientalis, P. fabianii and S. fibuligera are fermentative yeasts and these might be used in the future development of starter cultures to produce better quality fermented products from masau fruit. Lactic acid bacteria were preliminary identified and the predominant strains found were Lactobacillus agilis and L. plantarum. Other species identified included L. bifermentans, L. minor, L. divergens, L. confusus, L. hilgardii, L. fructosus, L. fermentum and Streptococcus spp. Some of the strains of LAB could also potentially be used in a mixed-starter culture with yeasts and might contribute positively in the production of fermented masau fruit products.

Several bottlenecks in the alcoholic fermentation process must be overcome to reach a very high and competitive performance of bioethanol production by the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae. In this paper, a nutritional strategy is described that allowed S. cerevisiae to produce a final ethanol titre of 19% (v/v) ethanol in 45 h in a fed-batch culture at 30°C. This performance was achieved by implementing exponential feeding of vitamins throughout the fermentation process. In comparison to an initial addition of a vitamin cocktail, an increase in the amount of vitamins and an exponential vitamin feeding strategy improved the final ethanol titre from 126 g l -1 to 135 g l -1 and 147 g l -1 , respectively. A maximum instantaneous productivity of 9.5 g l -1 h -1 was reached in the best fermentation. These performances resulted from improvements in growth, the specific ethanol production rate, and the concentration of viable cells in response to the nutritional strategy.