Diet

Posted on Diet

Widely consumed vegetable oil leads to an unhealthy gut

UC Riverside-led mouse study reports diets high in soybean oil decrease endocannabinoids in the gut and can lead to colitis

High consumption of soybean oil has been linked to obesity and diabetes and potentially autism, Alzheimer’s disease, anxiety, and depression. Add now to this growing list ulcerative colitis, a form of inflammatory bowel disease, or IBD, characterized by chronic inflammation of the large intestine.

Researchers at the University of California, Riverside, examined the gut of mice that were consistently fed a diet high in soybean oil for up to 24 weeks in the lab. They found beneficial bacteria decreased and harmful bacteria (specifically, adherent invasive Escherichia coli) increased — conditions that can lead to colitis.

Soybean oil is the most commonly used edible oil in the United States and is increasingly being used in other countries, particularly Brazil, China, and India. In the U.S., soybean production took off in the 1970s for use as animal feed; a byproduct of the increasing trend in growth was soybean oil. Soybeans, a good source of protein, are easy and cheap to grow.

“Our work challenges the decades-old thinking that many chronic diseases stem from the consumption of excess saturated fats from animal products, and that, conversely, unsaturated fats from plants are necessarily more healthful,” said Poonamjot Deol, an assistant professional researcher in the Department of Microbiology and Plant Pathology and a co-corresponding author on the paper published July 3 in Gut Microbes, an open access journal.

Deol explained it is linoleic acid in soybean oil that is the main concern.

“While our bodies need 1-2% of linoleic acid daily, based on the paleodiet, Americans today are getting 8-10% of their energy from linoleic acid daily, most of it from soybean oil,” she said. “Excessive linoleic acid negatively affects the gut microbiome.”

Deol and her co-authors found that a diet high in soybean oil encourages the growth of adherent invasive E. coli in the gut. This bacterium uses linoleic acid as a source of carbon to meet its nutritional demands. Further, several beneficial bacteria in the gut are not able to withstand linoleic acid and die off, which results in harmful bacteria growing out. Adherent invasive E. coli has been identified in humans to cause IBD.

“It’s the combination of good bacteria dying off and harmful bacteria growing out that makes the gut more susceptible to inflammation and its downstream effects,” Deol said. “Further, linoleic acid causes the intestinal epithelial barrier to become porous.” 

The barrier function of the intestinal epithelium is critical for maintaining a healthy gut; when disrupted, it can lead to increased permeability or leakiness. Toxins can then leak out of the gut and enter the bloodstream, greatly increasing the risk of infections and chronic inflammatory conditions, such as colitis. The researchers note that the increase in IBD parallels the increase in soybean oil consumption in the U.S. and hypothesize the two may be linked.

Toxicologist Frances M. Sladek, a professor of cell biology and a co-corresponding author on the research paper, recalled that heart disease was linked to saturated fats in the late 1950s. 

“Since studies showed that saturated fats can be unhealthy, it was assumed that all unsaturated fats are healthy,” she said. “But there are different types of unsaturated fats, some of which are healthful. For example, the unsaturated fat fish oil is well known to have many beneficial health effects. People therefore assumed that soybean oil is perfectly safe and healthier to consume than other types of oils, without actually doing a direct comparison as we have done.”

Sladek noted that linoleic acid is an essential fatty acid. The soybean oil the researchers used in their experiments had 19% linoleic acid. The American Heart Association recommends 5 to 10% of daily calories be from omega-6 polyunsaturated fatty acids, such as linoleic acid, in order for the heart to remain healthy. Many seed oils – safflower and sunflower, for example — are sources of linoleic acid. Animal fat can also be a source.

“Every animal has to get linoleic acid from the diet,” Sladek said. “No animal can make it. A small amount of it is needed by the body. But just because something is needed does not mean a lot of it is good for you. Several membranes in the body, in the brain, for example, require linoleic acid for the cells to function properly. If all we ate was saturated fats, our cell membranes would become too rigid and not function properly. Future studies are needed to determine the tipping point for how much daily linoleic acid consumption is safe.”

According to Sladek and Deol, olive oil, which has lower amounts of linoleic acid, is a healthier oil to consume.

“Olive oil, the basis of the Mediterranean diet, is considered to be very healthy; it produces less obesity and we have now found that, unlike soybean oil, it does not increase the susceptibility of mice to colitis,” Sladek said.

James Borneman, a professor of microbiology and plant pathology at UCR and a co-corresponding author on the paper, is an expert on the gut microbiome. He has collaborated at UCR with several groups on research projects, including studies investigating how gut microbes prevent obese people from losing weight. For the current study, he teamed up with Deol and Sladek to examine the gut microbes of the mice that were fed a high soybean oil diet. 

“Adherent invasive E. coli contributes to IBD in humans, and the fact that we find this E. coli in these mice is concerning,” he said. “Sometimes, it can be unclear how research done in mice translates to humans, but in this study it is fairly clear.”  

The research team was also surprised to find that the mice fed on a high soybean oil diet showed a reduction in the gut of endocannabinoids, cannabis-like molecules made naturally by the body to regulate a wide variety of physiological processes. At the same time, the gut showed an increase in oxylipins, which are oxygenated polyunsaturated fatty acids that regulate inflammation.

“We previously found that oxylipins in the liver correlate with obesity,” Deol said. “Some oxylipins have also been found to be bioactive in colitis studies. The bottom line of our current study is that a soybean oil-enriched diet similar to the current American diet causes oxylipin levels to increase in the gut and endocannabinoid levels to decrease, which is consistent with IBD in humans.”

Most processed foods in the U.S. contain soybean oil, perhaps explaining why many Americans have more than the recommended daily allowance for linoleic acid. Further, most restaurants in the U.S. use soybean oil because it is relatively inexpensive.

“Try to stay away from processed foods,” Sladek advised. “When you buy oil, make sure you read the nutrition facts label. Air fryers are a good option because they use very little oil.”

The researchers use olive oil for cooking and salads. Other healthy options for cooking, they said, are coconut oil and avocado oil. They cautioned that corn oil, on the other hand, has the same amount of linoleic acid as soybean oil.

“We recommend keeping track of the soybean oil in your diet to make sure you are not consuming excessive linoleic acid,” Deol said. “That is our take-home message.”

Posted on Diet

Diet tracking: How much is enough to lose weight?

'You don't need to have perfect tracking every day to lose a clinically significant amount of weight'
‘You don’t need to have perfect tracking every day to lose a clinically significant amount of weight’

Keeping track of everything you eat and drink in a day is a tedious task that is tough to keep up with over time. Unfortunately, dutiful tracking is a vital component for successful weight loss, however, a new study in Obesity finds that perfect tracking is not needed to achieve significant weight loss.

Researchers from UConn, the University of Florida, and the University of Pennsylvania tracked 153 weight loss program participants for six months where users self-reported their food intake using a commercial digital weight loss program. The researchers wanted to see what the optimal thresholds were for diet tracking to predict 3%, 5%, and 10% weight loss after six months.

“We partnered with WeightWatchers, who was planning on releasing a new Personal Points program, and they wanted to get empirical data via our clinical trial,” says co-author and Department of Allied Health Sciences Professor Sherry Pagoto.

Pagoto explains that the new program takes a personalized approach to assigning points including a list of zero-point foods to eliminate the need for calculating calories for everything,

“Dietary tracking is a cornerstone of all weight loss interventions, and it tends to be the biggest predictor of outcomes. This program lowers the burden of that task by allowing zero-point foods, which do not need to be tracked.”

Researchers and developers are seeking ways to make the tracking process less burdensome, because as Pagoto says, for a lot of programs, users may feel like they need to count calories for the rest of their lives: “That’s just not sustainable. Do users need to track everything every single day or not necessarily?”

With six months of data, Assistant Professor in the Department of Allied Health Sciences Ran Xu was interested to see if there was a way to predict outcomes based on how much diet tracking participants did. Ran Xu and Allied Health Sciences Ph.D. student Richard Bannor analyzed the data to see if there were patterns associated with weight loss success from a data science perspective. Using a method called receiver operating characteristics (ROC) curve analysis they found how many days people need to track their food to reach clinically significant weight loss.

“It turns out, you don’t need to track 100% each day to be successful,” says Xu. “Specifically in this trial, we find that people only need to track around 30% of the days to lose more than 3% weight and 40% of the days to lose more than 5% weight, or almost 70% of days to lose more than 10% weight. The key point here is that you don’t need to track every day to lose a clinically significant amount of weight.”

This is promising since Pagoto points out that the goal for a six-month weight loss program is typically 5% to 10%, a range where health benefits have been seen in clinical trials.

“A lot of times people feel like they need to lose 50 pounds to get healthier, but actually we start to see changes in things like blood pressure, lipids, cardiovascular disease risk, and diabetes risk when people lose about 5-to-10% of their weight,” says Pagoto. “That can be accomplished if participants lose about one to two pounds a week, which is considered a healthy pace of weight loss.”

Xu then looked at trajectories of diet tracking over the six months of the program.

The researchers found three distinct trajectories. One they call high trackers, or super users, who tracked food on most days of the week throughout six months, and on average lost around 10% of their weight.

However, many participants belonged to a second group that started tracking regularly, before their tracking gradually declined over time to, by the four-month mark, only about one day per week. They still lost about 5% of their weight.

A third group, called the low trackers, started tracking only three days a week, and dropped to zero by three months, where they stayed for the rest of the intervention. On average this group lost only 2% of their weight.

“One thing that is interesting about this data is, oftentimes in the literature, researchers just look at whether there is a correlation between tracking and overall weight loss outcomes. Ran took a data science approach to the data and found there is more to the story,” Pagoto says. “Now we’re seeing different patterns of tracking. This will help us identify when to provide extra assistance and who will need it the most.”

The patterns could help inform future programs which could be tailored to help improve user tracking based on which group they fall into. Future studies will dig deeper into these patterns to understand why they arise and hopefully develop interventions to improve outcomes.

“For me, what’s exciting about these digital programs is that we have a digital footprint of participant behavior,” says Xu. “We can drill down to the nitty-gritty of what people do during these programs. The data can inform precision medicine approaches, where we can take this data science perspective, identify patterns of behavior, and design a targeted approach.”

Digitally delivered health programs give researchers multitudes of data they never had before which can yield new insights, but this science requires a multidisciplinary approach.

“Before, it felt like we were flying in the dark or just going by anecdotes or self-reported measures, but it’s different now that we have so much user data. We need data science to make sense of all these data. This is where team science is so important because clinical and data scientists think about the problem from very different perspectives, but together, we can produce insights that neither of us could do on our own. This must be the future of this work,” says Pagoto.

Xu agrees: “From a data science perspective, machine learning is exciting but if we just have machine learning, we only know what people do, but we don’t know why or what to do with this information. That’s where we need clinical scientists like Sherry to make sense of these results. That’s why team science is so important.”

No longer flying in the dark, these multi-disciplinary teams of researchers now have the tools needed to start tailoring programs even further to help people achieve their desired outcomes. For now, users of these apps can be assured that they can still get significant results, even if they miss some entries.

Posted on Diet, Weight Loss

Danish experiment reveals: You can satisfy your appetite just by looking at pictures of food on your phone.

The results may lead to a new form of treatment for overeating.
The results may lead to a new form of treatment for overeating.

The internet is overflowing with pictures of food: On news sites, social media and the banner ads that pop up everywhere.

Many of the food images are uploaded to sell specific foods. The idea is that the images on Facebook or Instagram will make us yearn for a McDonalds burger, for example. In other words, the image awakens our hunger.

New research from Aarhus University now shows that the images can actually have the opposite effect. At least if we see pictures of the same product repeatedly. 

A number of experiments reveal that we can get a sense of satiety if we see the same image more 30 times. Tjark Andersen, who recently defended his PhD at Department of Food Science at Aarhus University, explains more.

“In our experiments, we showed that when the participants saw the same food picture 30 times, they felt more satiated than before they had seen the picture. The participants who were shown the picture many times also chose a smaller portion than those who had only seen the picture three times, when we subsequently asked about the size of portion they wanted,” he says.

Tricking your brain into feeling full
It may sound strange that the participants felt full without actually eating anything. But this is really quite natural, explains Tjark Andersen. How we think about food has a large influence on our appetite. 

“Your appetite is more closely linked with your cognitive perception than most of us think. How we think about our food is very important,” he says, and continues:

“Studies have shown that if you make people aware of different colours of Jelly Beans, even if they have eaten all they can in red Jelly Beans, will still want the yellow ones. Even if both colours taste completely the same.”

Within brain research, these findings are explained with so-called grounded cognition theory.  For example, if you imagine putting your teeth in a juicy apple, the same areas of the brain are stimulated as if you actually take a bite of an apple.

“You will receive a physiological response to something you have only thought about. That’s why we can feel fully satisfied without eating anything,” he says.

A large online experiment
Tjark Andersen and his colleagues are not the first to discover that we can get feel full by looking at pictures of food. Other research groups have previously shown this. 

The new research from Aarhus University is that they examined the number of repetitions needed – and whether variation in the images removes the sense of satiety.

“We know from previous studies that images of different types of food don’t have the same effect on satiety. That’s why you can really feel full after the main course but still have room for dessert. Sweet things are a completely different type of food,” he says.

To investigate whether variation in food completely removes the sense of satiety, Tjark Andersen and his colleagues designed a number of online experiments. They ended up getting more than 1,000 people through their digital experiments.

First they showed a picture of just orange M&Ms. Some participants were shown the picture three times, others 30 times. The group that saw most pictures the M&M felt most satiated afterwards, explains Tjark Andersen.

“They had to answer how many M&Ms between 1 and 10 they wanted. The group which had seen 30 images of orange chocolate buttons, chose a smaller amount than the other two groups.”

Afterwards, they repeated the experiment. This time with M&Ms in different colours. The colours did not change the result.

Finally, they replaced the M&Ms with Skittles. Unlike M&Ss, Skittles taste different depending on the colour.

“If colour didn’t play a role, it must be the imagined taste. But we found no major effect here either. This suggests that more parameters than just colour and flavour have to change before we can make a effect on satiety,” he explains.

Could be used as a weight loss strategy
Since 1975, the number of overweight people worldwide has tripled. According to the WHO, obesity is one of the biggest health challenges facing humans. And the reason why we become too fat is that we eat too much food and too much unhealthy food and we do not take enough exercise.

This is where Tjark Andersen’s results come into the play. Perhaps they can be applied as a method to control appetite, he says. 

“Think if you developed an app based on a Google search. Let’s say you wanted pizza. You open the app. Choose pizza – and it shows a lot of photos of pizza while you imagine eating it. In this way, you could get a sense of satiety and maybe just stop wanting pizza.”

Perhaps his results can best be used to ensure that you don’t start a meal. The participants in the study only chose slightly fewer Skittles or M&Ms, corresponding to less than 50 calories.

“You won’t save many calories unless you completely refrain from starting a meal. But perhaps the method can be used for this as well. It’d be interesting to investigate,” he says.

Social media are overflowing with food
Tjark Andersen and a number of other researchers are studying how food advertisements on social media affect us, because we are constantly being confronted with delicious food. 

A few years ago, an American research group tried to find out how many advertisements with food we encounter on average when we are on social media. The researchers monitored a number of young people and mapped out the content they met.

On average, the young people saw 6.1 of food-related posts in 12 hours. The vast majority of the posts were pictures of food – and more than a third were about desserts or other sweet food.

The internet and, in particular, social media can be a contributory factor in our becoming increasingly overweight. But it may also be the solution.

Only the future will tell.

Posted on Diet

Catching food poisoning before it’s too late

Researchers create novel, rapid platform to detect pathogens on produce before reaches stores and restaurants
Researchers create novel, rapid platforms to detect pathogens on produce before it reaches stores and restaurants.

Produce such as lettuce and spinach is routinely tested for foodborne pathogenic bacteria like salmonella, listeria monocytogenes and pathogenic types of E. coli in an effort to protect consumers from getting sick.

Rapid testing of foods may occur, but it still takes time to figure out who is sick and from where the contaminated product originated. That’s far too late for the many Americans who already ate the produce. The current solution, often a multi-state recall, then becomes damage control. 

University of Delaware researchers want to spot these bacteria before anyone ever falls ill. As detailed in an article published in the Journal of Food Safety, UD and Delaware-based startup Biospection are about to speed up testing — a lot. Faculty members Harsh Bais and Kali Kniel, alongside former graduate student Nick Johnson, teamed up with Andy Ragone of Biospection to detect foodborne pathogens in three to six hours. 

A microbiologist by trade, Kniel is an expert on crossover pathogens like salmonella, which gleefully jump to new hosts like that delicious, fresh lettuce. 

“While the produce industry is working diligently to reduce risks associated with microbial contamination, tools like this have incredible potential to improve risk reduction strategies,” said Kniel, professor of microbial food safety who works regularly with industry and government agencies to reduce risk of foodborne illness. “Collaborations like ours between academics and biotechnology companies can enhance technology and impact food safety and public health.”

These pathogens easily find their way into plants, which are unfortunately very welcoming hosts — hosts that can’t tell you where their guests are. 

Just like humans, plants use defense mechanisms to fight disease. But some human-borne pathogens learned to push open a plant’s open-entry gates called stomates — pores in the leaves or stem — and make themselves at home. 

“Because these bacteria are not true pathogens for plants, you cannot physically see early signs that the plant is under stress,” said Bais, UD professor of plant biology. “Biospection’s technology allows us to say, very quickly, if the opportunistic human pathogen is present in the plant.”

As a chemical physicist working in Wilmington, Ragone got to know Kniel and Bais through Delaware’s scientific community and lab equipment sharing. A relationship built over time, culminating when Kniel, Bais and Ragone applied for and received research funding from a Delaware Biotechnology Institute Center for Advanced Technology (CAT) grant for scientific technology and intellectual property.

The researchers married their interdisciplinary expertise to reduce the risk of foodborne illness, a task that industry and academic researchers struggled with for many years. The result? The team created a multi-spectral imaging platform to look at plant sentinel response. A goal is to use this technique directly on a conveyor, scanning your lettuce before it ever heads to the grocery store.

So how do you see a symptom that you can’t see? The researchers’ technique scans leaves via multispectral imaging and deep UV sensing when the plant is attracting these pathogens. When the researchers looked at benign bacteria, they observed little change. But, with harmful, human-borne pathogens, the test can spot differences in the plant under attack. 

“Using listeria as an example, in three to six hours, we see a sharp drop of chlorophyll pigments,” Bais said. “That’s a strong signal that the plant is responding physiologically — a marker of unusual bacteria.”

The new, multi-spectral imaging technique is non-invasive, and lightning fast compared to current tests, where a lab scientist extracts a leaf, grinds it up, plates the bacteria and looks for disease. The current method is not commercially available, but Biospection was awarded a National Science Foundation Small Business Innovation Research grant in 2022 to develop and commercialize it into a real time imaging sensor to inspect plants for disease and other stresses. 

“Harsh and Kali were certainly instrumental in the techniques that we developed with multi-spectral imaging and the use of deep ultraviolet fluorescence,” said Ragone, founder and chief technology officer of Biospection. “We built a portable instrument that could be commercialized.”

Vertical farming is an agricultural sector that stands to reap the benefits of this new technology. Using less water and less space, vertical farms are a vital step towards more sustainable agriculture. But when it comes to disease, these farms are just as vulnerable as traditional, outdoor agriculture. An incidence of E. coli means a vertical farm must throw away an entire harvest. 

Biospection is already working with agricultural companies to embed the imaging sensor into vertical farms’ shelves and, for outdoor farms, crop drones. 

“Working with UD, we’ve laid the scientific foundation to create better instruments,” Ragone said. “We’re working toward an instrument that’s portable, automated and can give an answer in a matter of seconds.”

For future research, Bais has his eye on determining if this technology can differentiate between different microbes.

“If the sentinel response is different from one microbe to the other, that gives us the identity of the microbe based on plant sentinel response. We haven’t gone there yet, but that would be the ultimate achievement,” Bais said. “In one sentinel, then you could differentiate between what benign and harmful microbes does this in terms of one sentinel.”

Posted on Diet

From Inside Out: How Drinking Enough Water Affects Your Skin

Image source

You’ve probably heard it said before that drinking enough water is important for your skin, but do you really know why?

As it turns out, the connection between water and skin health goes deeper than just surface-level hydration. In fact, the amount of water you consume can significantly impact your skin’s appearance and overall health from the inside out. 

In this article, we’ll explore the connection between water consumption and skin health and discuss why drinking enough water is essential for maintaining a healthy complexion.

THE SCIENCE BEHIND IT

Your skin is the largest organ in your body. It has several vital functions, including protecting your body from harmful bacteria and viruses, regulating body temperature, and preventing dehydration. And in order for the skin to function optimally, it needs enough amount of water. 

To give you a better understanding of the importance of hydration to your skincare, let’s take a look at the science behind it.

The first thing to note is that your skin comprises three layers: the epidermis, dermis, and subcutaneous layer, each with its own purpose and structure.

The epidermis is the outermost layer of your skin that acts as a protective barrier for your body. This layer is constantly shedding and renewing itself with brand-new cells that are basically composed of water. However, when this process is interrupted due to dehydration or lack of water, it can cause the skin to become dry, flaky, and prone to irritation. 

Another layer of the skin is the dermis. This layer is responsible for producing collagen and elastin—proteins that help keep your skin firm, elastic, and youthful-looking. It also contains sebaceous glands, which secrete sebum—an oil-like substance that helps keep your skin moist. But, without enough water, these proteins and oil-producing glands can become impaired, leading to dry and saggy skin, wrinkles, and other signs of premature aging.

Lastly,  there’s the subcutaneous layer (hypodermis) that is responsible for insulation, cushioning, and energy storage. This layer helps keep your skin moisturized and healthy if enough water supports it. But, when there’s not enough hydration, the overall integrity of your skin is weakened, leaving it vulnerable to further damage and more prone to skin conditions such as acne, eczema, and psoriasis. 

Overall, the importance of water for skin health cannot be understated. Without it, the skin’s natural protective barrier and ability to keep itself hydrated and healthy are compromised. 

HOW MUCH WATER IS ENOUGH? 

The short answer is: it depends. 

Generally speaking, the average adult should aim to drink eight 8-ounce glasses (64 ounces) of water a day. Yet, this amount can vary depending on age, lifestyle, activity level, climate, diet, and other factors.

For instance, if you’re an active individual who engages in physical activities like running or cycling, then you should aim for even more water to replace the fluids lost through sweat. Likewise, if you live in a hot and humid climate or are pregnant/breastfeeding, you must drink more water than the recommended daily amount.

The best way to make sure you’re getting enough water is to listen to your body. Are you often feeling thirsty? That’s a good sign that it’s time for a glass of H2O. Other signs include dry lips and skin, fatigue, and headaches. Just remember the more active you are, the more water you need to stay hydrated.

If you find drinking enough water difficult, it’s helpful to have strategies in place that will remind you to stay hydrated throughout the day. For example, carrying around a reusable water bottle or setting reminders on your phone every hour can help you stay on track.

Moreover,  try to stay away from sugary drinks, like sodas and juices, that can actually lead to dehydration. Instead, opt for plain or sparkling water with a splash of lemon or lime juice for a natural flavor boost. You can also get creative with your water intake by adding other hydration-promoting foods, like cucumbers and citrus fruits, that are rich in electrolytes. Plus, you can check other plenty of delicious recipes for flavored waters out there to make your hydration routine more enjoyable.

THE BENEFITS OF DRINKING WATER FOR SKIN HEALTH

Now that you’ve got the basics, let’s talk about the benefits of drinking enough water for your skin.

Glowing complexion

When adequately hydrated, the skin retains a healthy glow that can make you look younger and more refreshed, even without makeup. This is because hydrated skin cells are better able to reflect light, giving your complexion a brighter, more radiant appearance.

Improved circulation

Water helps to flush out toxins from your body, allowing your blood vessels to circulate more freely throughout your skin. This improved blood flow can help bring oxygen and vital nutrients to the skin cells that need it the most.

Reduced wrinkles

Increased water consumption can help reduce the appearance of wrinkles and other signs of aging by plumping up your skin to make it look firmer and smoother.

Reduced acne

Water can also reduce oil buildup in the skin, which is a common cause of acne breakouts. When your skin is hydrated from within, there’s less chance for dirt and bacteria to clog up the pores.

Delayed signs of aging

Finally, drinking enough water can help to delay the signs of aging. Since the skin’s protective barrier is improved with added hydration, it can defend itself against environmental damage, such as UV exposure and pollutants.

KEY TAKEAWAY

The key takeaway is that drinking enough water can improve your skin’s overall health and appearance. Staying hydrated through adequate water intake helps to plump up the skin, reduces acne and delays signs of aging, and gives your complexion a healthier glow. 

And while there’s no one-size-fits-all answer for how much water you should drink each day, listening to your body’s cues is the best way to ensure you get the amount of hydration your skin needs. 

So grab a glass of water, and cheers to beautiful skin from the inside out!