Prevalence and habits of cooking dinner at home in the USA
We examined national data from 2007 and 2008 that asked 10,149 Americans how frequently they cook dinner at home. On the whole, half of all Americans cook dinner 6 or 7 nights a week, though this varies across different populations. Poorer, less educated households tended to either cook dinner all the time or not at all, while wealthier, more educated households tended to be in the middle, sometimes cooking and sometimes not. It is encouraging that many Americans with lower income and less education cook regularly because these same communities are at the highest risk for poor health. Of course, these findings make sense w...
Source: The Nutrition Society - May 6, 2014 Category: Nutrition Authors: NS Publications Team Source Type: news
Does a diagnosis of Coeliac Disease affect food choice?
This month’s featured paper is from the Journal of Nutritional Science and is entitled 'What happens to food choices when a gluten-free diet is required? A prospective longitudinal population-based study among Swedish adolescent with coeliac disease and their peers.'
The results of a serologic blood sample test can lead a study subject to change their diet. That was true for some of the 12-13 years old adolescents who participated in a large coeliac screening study (‘Exploring The Iceberg of Celiacs in Sweden’ , 2005-2006) and who were diagnosed with coeliac disease (CD) during the study period.
We studied how a diag...
Source: The Nutrition Society - April 3, 2014 Category: Nutrition Authors: NS Publications Team Source Type: news
The way to a man’s heart is through his gut microbiota
It’s no secret that diet plays an important role in cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk. Regulatory agencies from around the world recommend we eat more fruit, vegetables and whole-grain cereals or complex carbohydrates for their ability to protect against chronic diseases like CVD. They also recommend we limit our consumption of red meat and saturated fat, which epidemiological studies show can increase CVD risk. However, we still do not fully understand how these foods or dietary habits work in terms of determining disease risk. Recent studies showing that certain probiotic bacteria can lower blood cholesterol levels by ...
Source: The Nutrition Society - March 4, 2014 Category: Nutrition Authors: NS Publications Team Source Type: news
Paper of the month: Iodine deficiency in pregnant women
Why are we concerned about iodine status in pregnancy?Iodine, as a component of the thyroid hormones, is required for brain development, particularly in the fetus, therefore an adequate intake of iodine is very important during pregnancy. The WHO iodine requirement for pregnant women is nearly double that of non-pregnant adults (250 vs. 150 μg/day). While it is well known that severe iodine deficiency in pregnancy can lead to impaired brain development, at the extreme resulting in cretinism, even mild-to-moderate iodine deficiency in UK pregnant women has been associated with reduced cognitive scores in their children (Ba...
Source: The Nutrition Society - February 3, 2014 Category: Nutrition Authors: NS Publications Team Source Type: news
Paper of the month: Anaemia policies in sub-Saharan Africa
This study evaluated the quality of these policies and the extent to which they were based on evidence relevant to the African context. Recommendations are made for improving the policy-making process.
What have we done?
A comprehensive and unrestricted database and website search for guidelines (as defined by WHO). We identified policies which targeted anaemia diagnosis, treatment and prevention in children and non-pregnant adolescents (18 years old) in Africa. Policy quality was assessed using ‘The Appraisal of Guidelines for Research and Evaluation instrument (AGREE II)’ without any adaptation. A search for high...
Source: The Nutrition Society - January 14, 2014 Category: Nutrition Authors: NS Publications Team Source Type: news
Odds and orthogonality
At this year’s Summer Meeting the Theme Leaders were asked to promote an abstract from those Original Communications submitted to their sub-discipline, which particularly strongly represented and showcased excellence in the theme. The session was very popular. I have been asked to write a short piece on the sort of attributes I look for when judging for the Theme prize in Cellular and Molecular Nutrition (CMN), and specifically on aspects which may differ from other areas of nutrition.
Distinguishing FeaturesOne key hallmark of molecular approaches is the high reliance on, and expectation of, orthogonality. To my mind th...
Source: The Nutrition Society - December 17, 2013 Category: Nutrition Authors: CMNThemeLeader Source Type: news
Food: can it affect your mood?
Food is a primary requirement to live. Yet, in Western societies where food is abundantly available, food could also be used as a powerful tool to increase mental wellbeing. Stress-related mental disorders like mood or anxiety disorders are the most prevalent and burdensome psychiatric disorders. They are characterised by low mood states and cognitive impairments like reduced learning and memory. Thus, the exploitation of resilience or mood/cognition enhancing food is of extreme value.
According to the world-wide web, high tryptophan (Trp) containing foods (e.g. chicken, soybeans, cereals, tuna, nuts, and bananas) improve ...
Source: The Nutrition Society - December 2, 2013 Category: Nutrition Authors: NS Publications Team Source Type: news
Paper of the Month: Nudge children to eat more vegetables
Do you remember the last time you were at a buffet and regretted not trying everything? All of the tempting varieties of foods to try make resistance difficult! Researchers from the ETH Zürich have now shown that exactly this effect can be used strategically to improve children’s food choices: variety truly is the spice of life, even when it comes to vegetables! When given a variety of healthy choices, children choose a more balanced and nutrient-rich meal.
For this recent study, 100 children aged 7 to 10 years old were invited to the laboratory to select and serve themselves a meal from a small buffet of fake foods (Th...
Source: The Nutrition Society - November 1, 2013 Category: Nutrition Authors: NS Publications Team Source Type: news
British Science Festival Student Bursary Winner 2013
Earlier this year the Nutrition Society gave one lucky Student Member the chance to attend the British Science Festival, which takes place in September each year. The winner, Lucy Bain, describes her experience and how she benefitted from it. Lucy is a PhD student at University of East Anglia, researching how our diet can influence stroke risk and risk factors such as blood pressure and cholesterol levels.
This year’s Festival was held in Newcastle, which some members may remember from this year’s Nutrition Society Summer Meeting. On arrival on the Friday the weather wasn’t quite what graced us during that week in Ju...
Source: The Nutrition Society - October 15, 2013 Category: Nutrition Authors: NS Publications Team Source Type: news
Practical application of nutritional science
http://www.nutritionsociety.org/training-and-educationSlide Text: Practical application of nutritional scienceShow on sidebar: Don't showSidebar Banner: Background Color: #8cb2c0Font Color: #ffffff (Source: The Nutrition Society)
Source: The Nutrition Society - October 8, 2013 Category: Nutrition Authors: DEV Source Type: news
Paper of the Month: Food choice, plate waste and nutrient intake of US school students
Elementary and middle school students, eating school lunch, do not frequently select vegetables and waste considerably more fruits and vegetables than the entrée or milk, a new study, published in Public Health Nutrition, from Colorado State University (CSU) shows.
Plate waste was assessed for a 5-day period in each of three Northern Colorado elementary schools and two middle schools to determine what foods students were choosing for lunch and what foods they were wasting. We also compared the students’ average nutrient intake from lunch with the recently implemented and stronger standards mandated by the Healthy Hunger...
Source: The Nutrition Society - October 1, 2013 Category: Nutrition Authors: NS Publications Team Source Type: news
Sign up for our Winter conference
#Slide Text: Sign up for our Winter conference (Source: The Nutrition Society)
Source: The Nutrition Society - September 12, 2013 Category: Nutrition Authors: DEV Source Type: news
Paper of the Month: Disparity in salt reduction initiatives
A new review published in Public Health Nutrition links salt intake reduction policies across EU member states to the socio-economic status of those countries and their citizens.
The study found that countries with no national salt reduction initiatives had lower levels of inequality-adjusted human development. A lack of coordinated efforts to address this disparity could lead to widening social and health inequalities.
Evidence from low- and middle-income countries (LMIC) and across the EU member states has confirmed that the quality of food intake is affected by socio-economic variables. Studies have shown that ...
Source: The Nutrition Society - September 2, 2013 Category: Nutrition Authors: NS Publications Team Source Type: news
Paper of the Month: Vitamin D in serum is influenced by diet and season in North Greenland
Strong evidence links vitamin D status in man to skeletal health and muscle strength, and epidemiological data have further associated vitamin D deficiency with a number of inflammatory, infectious, cardiovascular and metabolic disorders, and with cancers. Vitamin D status is assessed by serum 25-hydroxy vitamin D (25OHD) that has dietary and dermal sources. Dermal 25OHD production depends on exposure to sunlight and varies with latitude and season. The seasonal difference in sunlight increases with latitude. This emphasises the importance of sun exposure during summer to compensate for the long Arctic winter night. Howeve...
Source: The Nutrition Society - August 1, 2013 Category: Nutrition Authors: NS Publications Team Source Type: news
Paper of the month: Slow pace of dietary change in Scotland
The original call for the work described in this paper came from the Working Group convened by the Food Standards Agency Scotland and the Scottish Executive in 2004 to investigate how to assess progress towards the Scottish Dietary Targets (Table 1). These targets had been formulated in 1996 but there had been no attempt to monitor progress. The group was faced with the fact that whilst Scotland had dietary targets we were unlikely to know if we had reached them unless we could utilise robust survey data. Reviews were commissioned to see what was available and 4 possibilities were noted (Table 2). The full report of th...
Source: The Nutrition Society - July 23, 2013 Category: Nutrition Authors: NS Publications Team Source Type: news
