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Experimentation with Food Preservatives
Several studies have been done on food preservatives, both on proving its effectiveness in maintaining our health and its role in deteriorating our health. Amongst them, the lantibiotic nisin has been noted as an effective tool for preventing food-borne pathogens over the course of 40 years. Particularly for the Bacillus series, nisin is shown to inhibit its spore growth by preventing its energy production and membrane potential, thus keeping them from germinating. On the other hand, the nisin does not prove to effect the discontinuation of the outer spore structures. Alongside this, the Center for Veterinary Medicine of the US Food and Drug Administration has recently pinpointed an application of nisin against other varying bacteria. The experiment included the structure of a lantibiotic termed geobacillin I, produced heterologously in Escherichia coli (E.Coli) with its ring topology specified by NMR spectroscopy. This compound proved to be more active than nisin by a threefold increase, specifically against Streptococcus dysgalactiae.

Another useful preservative has been under study for relatively safe food consumption are purified recombinant peptides. They can be taken from more than 2000 species of mammals, amphibians, insects, plants, and mycetes in the form of antimicrobial peptides (AMPs). AMPs play an important role in the inborn immunity of insects with its inhibitory action against protozoons, viruses, and cancer cells. Along with this aspect, the low molecular weight, thermal stabilization, good water-solubility and broad-spectrum antimicrobial activities of these AMPs opens possibilities of having it as a new food preservative. With this in mind, procedures have been done in order to ascertain its effectiveness and the results have proven AMPs’ ability to successfully purify Escherichia coli. The crecopin, in particular, seems to suggest an important role in its significant antimicrobial activity against gram-positive and gram-negative bacteria.

On the other side of the spectrum, two common food preservatives—sodium sulphite (SS) and sodium benzoate (SB)—has been linked to an increased chance for obesity and, by extension, the activation of low-grade inflammation. The role in SS and SB in this is the contribution to the increase of lipopolysaccharide (LPS), which initiates and maintains a chronic state of pro-inflammatory pathways within the central nervous system. This is parallel to another study published in BMC medicine associates, where unprocessed red meat was linked to a higher risk for cardiovascular disease (CVD) versus processed red meat. With over ten European countries altogether involving 228,568 participants, those who consumed unprocessed red meat was not associated with CVD on a significant level, but 30% of those who consumed processed meat were found to have a 95% higher interval risk for CVD.