Food is a very common source of toxicant exposure to humans. An unknown number of naturally occurring contaminants find their way into food. The most ominous are products of mold growth called mycotoxins, which include the carcinogenic aflatoxins. On the other hand, more than 2500 chemical substances are added to foods to modify or impart flavor, color, stability, and texture, to fortify or enrich nutritive value, or to reduce cost. In addition, an estimated 12,000 substances are used in such a way that they may unintentionally enter the food supply. The term “food additive” is a regulatory term that encompasses any functional substance that is normally neither consumed as a food itself, but is intentionally added to food (usually in small quantities) to augment its processing or to improve aroma, color, consistency, taste, texture, or shelf life. Additives are not considered “nutritional” even if they possess nutritive value. The purpose of the present review is to give an overview of the approaches to, and procedures involved in ensuring the safety of the US food supply in the context of food additives, with particular reference to the existing and emerging scientific and regulatory landscape and consumer perceptions.

At first blush, methanol poisoning may be seen as an arcane problem generally associated with rapid ocular neuropathy. The emerging clinical reality is that methanol poisoning around the globe has claimed increasingly large numbers of deaths largely due to the press of poverty and the delay in suspecting and diagnosing methanol toxicity. With the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, false beliefs about methanol’s preventive potential vs viral infection of have arisen. In March of this year, more than 300 Iranians died and 1,000 became ill after consuming methanol in the hope that it would protect them against the novel coronavirus. We review the context and magnitude methanol toxicity, pathophysiology, principal medical issues, and human variability in metabolism. While toxicologists and clinicians may need to be especially attentive to this problem, it is becoming clear that the social and economic underpinnings of the methanol poisoning crisis must be actively and urgently explored and managed as vigorously as its toxicologic and pathophysiologic components.

The complex cellular mechanisms and inter-related pathways of cancer proliferation, evasion, and metastasis remain an emerging field of research. Over the last several decades, nutritional research has prominent role in identifying emerging adjuvant therapies in our fight against cancer. Nutritional and dietary interventions are being explored to improve the morbidity and mortality for cancer patients worldwide. In this review, we examine several dietary interventions and their proposed mechanisms against cancer as well as identifying limitations in the currently available literature. This review provides a comprehensive review of the cancer metabolism, dietary interventions used during cancer treatment, anti metabolic drugs, and their impact on nutritional deficiencies along with a critical review of the following diets: caloric restriction, intermittent fasting, ketogenic diet, Mediterranean diet, Japanese diet, and vegan diet.

Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) triggered by Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2) infection has been declared a pandemic by the World Health Organization (WHO) on March 11, 2020. Oxidative stress and its related metabolic syndromes are potential risk factors in the susceptibility to, and severity of COVID-19. In concert with the earliest reports of COVID-19, obstetricians started to diagnose and treat SARS-CoV-2 infections during pregnancy (“COVID-19-Pregnancy”). High metabolic demand to sustain normal fetal development increases the burden of oxidative stress in pregnancy. Intracellular redox changes intertwined with acute phase responses at the maternal-fetal interface could amplify during pregnancy. Interestingly, mother-to-fetus transmission of SARS-CoV-2 has not been detected in most of the COVID-19-Pregnancy cases. This relative absence of vertical transmission may be related to the presence of lactoferrin in the placenta, amniotic fluid, and lacteal secretions. However, the cytokine-storm induced during COVID-19-Pregnancy may cause severe inflammatory damage to the fetus, and if uncontrolled, may later result in autism spectrum-like disorders and brain development abnormalities in neonates. Considering this serious health threat to child growth and development, the prevention of COVID-19 during pregnancy should be considered a high priority. This review summarizes the intricate virulence factors of COVID-19 and elucidate its pathobiological spectrum during pregnancy and postpartum periods with a focus on the putative and complex roles of endogenous and exogenous lactoferrin in conferring immunological advantage to the host.