Raw fruit and vegetables provide better mental health outcomes
April 16, 2018
Science Daily/University of Otago
Researchers have discovered raw fruit and vegetables may be better for your mental health than cooked, canned and processed fruit and vegetables.
Seeking the feel good factor? Go natural.
That is the simple message from University of Otago researchers who have discovered raw fruit and vegetables may be better for your mental health than cooked, canned and processed fruit and vegetables.
Dr Tamlin Conner, Psychology Senior Lecturer and lead author, says public health campaigns have historically focused on aspects of quantity for the consumption of fruit and vegetables (such as 5+ a day).
However, the study, just published in Frontiers in Psychology, found that for mental health in particular, it may also be important to consider the way in which produce was prepared and consumed.
"Our research has highlighted that the consumption of fruit and vegetables in their 'unmodified' state is more strongly associated with better mental health compared to cooked/canned/processed fruit and vegetables," she says.
Dr Conner believes this could be because the cooking and processing of fruit and vegetables has the potential to diminish nutrient levels.
"This likely limits the delivery of nutrients that are essential for optimal emotional functioning."
For the study, more than 400 young adults from New Zealand and the United States aged 18 to 25 were surveyed. This age group was chosen as young adults typically have the lowest fruit and vegetable consumption of all age groups and are at high risk for mental health disorders.
The group's typical consumption of raw versus cooked and processed fruits and vegetables were assessed, alongside their negative and positive mental health, and lifestyle and demographic variables that could affect the association between fruit and vegetable intake and mental health (such as exercise, sleep, unhealthy diet, chronic health conditions, socioeconomic status, ethnicity, and gender).
"Controlling for the covariates, raw fruit and vegetable consumption predicted lower levels of mental illness symptomology, such as depression, and improved levels of psychological wellbeing including positive mood, life satisfaction and flourishing. These mental health benefits were significantly reduced for cooked, canned, and processed fruits and vegetables.
"This research is increasingly vital as lifestyle approaches such as dietary change may provide an accessible, safe, and adjuvant approach to improving mental health," Dr Conner says.
* The top 10 raw foods related to better mental health were: carrots, bananas, apples, dark leafy greens such as spinach, grapefruit, lettuce, citrus fruits, fresh berries, cucumber, and kiwifruit.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/04/180416101403.htm
Obesity could be linked to early childhood behavior
February 27, 2018
Science Daily/University of Waterloo
New research has found that it is generally a combination of unhealthy behaviors among youth that could be the greatest predictors of whether or not young people will experience obesity issues in adulthood.
A study led by the University of Waterloo found it's generally a combination of unhealthy behaviours among youth that could be the greatest predictors of whether or not young people will experience obesity issues in adulthood.
The study concluded that public health efforts focusing on obesity prevention must identify and correct poor behaviours that are often developed in early childhood.
"Adolescents with obesity often maintain their weight status into adulthood, increasing their risk of developing cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and high blood pressure," says Rachel Laxer, who formed part of the research team while doing her PhD at Waterloo. "Public health practitioners should be targeting clusters of risky behaviours using a comprehensive and multi-pronged approach."
"Research tells us that while calorie intake has not dramatically changed over time, habits such as exercising, smoking, drug use and alcohol consumption have," said Laxer. "It's increasingly important to target these risky behaviours together, and early, before they become habits."
The study involved Ontario students in grades nine and ten, ranging from 13 to 17 years of age and participating in the COMPASS Study, a nine-year study started in 2012 that is funded by the Canadian Institute for Health Research.
Students reported risky behaviours at the beginning of the study, and their heights and weights were tracked for two additional years. Based on their reported behaviours, the teens were classified as Typical High School Athletes, Inactive High Screen-Users ("Screenagers"), Moderately Active Substance Users, or Health Conscious. The researchers found that although the four groups saw similar increases to their weight status over the years that they were followed, students in the Health Conscious group had the healthiest body weight at the beginning of the study.
"It's important to try to improve behaviours before they become habits, which are much harder to correct," said Laxer. "This could have important implications for public health initiatives. Intervening and modifying unhealthy behaviours earlier might have a greater impact than during adolescence. Health promotion strategies targeting higher risk youth as they enter secondary school might be the best way to prevent or delay the onset of obesity, and might have better public health outcomes over the longer term."
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/02/180227111651.htm
Obesity increases dementia risk
November 30, 2017
Science Daily/University College London
People who have a high body mass index (BMI) are more likely to develop dementia than those with a normal weight, according to a new study.
The study, published in the Alzheimer's & Dementia journal, analysed data from 1.3 million adults living in the United States and Europe. The researchers also found that people near dementia onset, who then go on to develop dementia, tend to have lower body weight than their dementia-free counterparts.
"The BMI-dementia association observed in longitudinal population studies, such as ours, is actually attributable to two processes," said lead author of the study, Professor Mika Kivimäki (UCL Institute of Epidemiology & Health). "One is an adverse effect of excess body fat on dementia risk. The other is weight loss due to pre-clinical dementia. For this reason, people who develop dementia may have a higher-than-average body mass index some 20 years before dementia onset, but close to overt dementia have a lower BMI than those who remain healthy."
"The new study confirms both the adverse effect of obesity as well as weight loss caused by metabolic changes during the pre-dementia stage."
Past research on how a person's weight influences their risk of dementia has produced conflicting results. Some findings have suggested that being obese poses a higher dementia risk, but other studies have linked lower weight to increased dementia incidence.
In this study, researchers from across Europe pooled individual-level data from 39 longitudinal population studies from the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Sweden, and Finland. A total of 1,349,857 dementia-free adults participated in these studies and their weight and height were assessed. Dementia was ascertained using linkage to electronic health records obtained from hospitalisation, prescribed medication and death registries.
A total of 6,894 participants developed dementia during up to 38 years of follow-up. Two decades before symptomatic dementia, higher BMI predicted dementia occurrence: each 5-unit increase in BMI was associated with a 16-33% higher risk of this condition (5 BMI units is 14.5kg for a person 5'7" (170cm) tall, approximately the difference in weight between the overweight and normal weight categories or between the obese and overweight categories). In contrast, the mean level of BMI during pre-clinical stage close to dementia onset was lower compared to that in participants who remained healthy.
In 2015, the number of people with dementia reached almost 45 million, two times more than in 1990. This study suggests that maintaining a healthy weight could prevent, or at least delay, dementia.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/11/171130133812.htm
Brain's appetite regulator disrupted in obese teens
November 30, 2017
Science Daily/Radiological Society of North America
Researchers using advanced MRI to study obese adolescents found disrupted connectivity in the complex regions of the brain involved in regulating appetite, according to a new study.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), obesity has more than quadrupled in adolescents over the past 30 years. It is estimated that more than one-third of children and adolescents in the U.S. are overweight or obese. Obesity in adolescence is associated with a number of health risks, including cardiovascular disease and diabetes.
The study at the University of Sao Paulo in Brazil included 59 obese adolescents between the ages of 11 and 18 and 61 healthy control adolescents matched for gender, age, socio-economical classification and education level. The adolescents were classified by the World Health Organization criterion for obesity. They had no other known chronic diseases or conditions. The study participants underwent diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) of the brain to evaluate white matter integrity.
DTI is a type of MRI exam that measures functional anisotropy (FA), the microscopic motion, or anisotropy, of water molecules within and surrounding the brain's white matter fibers. Low FA values indicate greater disruption within the white matter.
"DTI is a relatively new MRI technique not widely used in clinical diagnosis," said study author Pamela Bertolazzi, a biomedical scientist and Ph.D. student in the neuroimaging laboratory at the University of Sao Paulo.
The results showed loss of white matter integrity in several brain regions in the obese patients. Compared to the healthy controls, the brains of the obese adolescents showed a decrease in FA values in areas of the brain including the amygdala, hippocampus, thalamus, cingulate gyrus, fornix, insula, putamen, orbital gyrus and bilateral hypothalamus. Several of these regions are involved in appetite regulation, impulse control, emotions and reward and pleasure in eating.
"The data reveal a pattern of involvement among brain regions that are important in the control of appetite and emotions," Bertolazzi said. "There was no region of higher FA in obese patients compared to the control group," she added.
The researchers hope that these findings will offer new tools to combat this global public health crisis.
"Childhood obesity has increased 10 to 40 percent in the last 10 years in most countries," Bertolazzi said. "If we are able to identify the brain changes associated with obesity, this DTI technique could be used to help prevent obesity and avoid the complications associated with the condition."
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/11/171130090044.htm
Eating disorder treatments need to consider social, cultural implications of the illness
November 13, 2017
Science Daily/University of East Anglia
People in treatment for eating disorders are poorly served when it comes to addressing the cultural aspects of eating problems, according to new research. This emerges as part of an overall set of findings that suggest contemporary eating disorder (ED) treatment in the UK pays little attention to the cultural contexts for eating problems, such as gender.
This emerges as part of an overall set of findings that suggest contemporary eating disorder (ED) treatment in the UK pays little attention to the cultural contexts for eating problems, such as gender. Although EDs affect people across different genders, ethnicities and ages, women and girls are disproportionately affected by eating problems.
But this quite obvious connection between eating disorders and cultural expectations surrounding femininity is woefully neglected in much treatment, said lead researcher Dr Su Holmes, a reader in UEA's School of Art, Media and American Studies. The research is published in the journal Eating Disorders.
Dr Holmes said that although there is now extensive evidence on how EDs are bound up with cultural ideas surrounding gender, the contemporary focus on evidence-based treatment, and particularly the rise of cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT), has all but forced these issues off the agenda. If cultural elements are addressed, it is through a limited focus on 'body image' work, which often invokes the significance of the media in perpetuating unattainable images of the body.
The paper said more culturally-focused perspectives on eating problems have argued that 'disordered eating may not necessarily be motivated by the drive for pursuit of thinness or any "distortion" of body image, but rather by wider experiences' of gender expectations and pressures.'
Dr Holmes' previous research with people who had received treatment for an ED showed that even when a patient specifically asks to talk about questions of gender, their request may be ignored -- either because such issues are seen as a low priority, or because health professionals have little training in this sphere.
In response to this, Dr Holmes and Ms Sarah Drake, an occupational therapist and lecturer in the School of Health and Social Care at UEA, devised and ran a new treatment intervention at an inpatient clinic that specialises in the treatment of EDs.
The group, which was run over 10 weeks at Newmarket House clinic Norwich, was called 'Cultural Approaches to Eating Disorders', and included all the patients who were resident in the clinic at the time. These were all female, with a diagnosis of anorexia, and their ages ranged from 19-51.
Each week, the programme examined what role culture might play in EDs, including:
· Gendered constructions of appetite
· Cultural expectations surrounding female emotion and anger
· 'Reading' the starved body in relation to cultural prescriptions of femininity
· The dynamics of 'healthy' eating/living and fitness cultures' aimed at women
The group used media, such as television adverts, Disney films, press articles, image bank photography to social media, to stimulate debate about the particular issue being explored. But the media were not consistently positioned as the 'cause' of anorexia, as so often happens in suggestions of how society influences eating problems. The study found that people living with EDs find that the tendency to portray women with anorexia as the passive victims of media influence is often seen as patronising and simplistic by those living with the illness.
One patient said that suggesting seeing "a skinny model in a magazine" influenced the development of EDs "completely trivialises" the many reasons people develop body- and eating distress.
Looking at the wider contexts that shape ideas about gender in society -- such as beliefs about 'appetite' -- was seen as helpful by the participants. This focus took in food advertising aimed at women as well as wider ideas about 'appetite', such as the ways in which girls and women are still expected to exercise more restraint in sexual appetite than boys and men -- and are sex- or slut-shamed if they don't.
Participants in the group said they found it useful to situate their problem within society, thus moving away from the more individualised focus of medical perspectives that may encourage self-blame -- but it also raised questions about recovery.
One patient said: "But then, as the groups went on it's like OK, maybe this society's norms are quite disordered. But then it's like ... if society's norms are disordered ... then ... I don't know, how am I meant to change kind of things?"
Dr Holmes said: "The medical framework may offer the patient a greater sense of personal agency when it comes to feelings of control in recovery. Given that anorexia in particular is seen to be tightly intertwined with issues of control, this is clearly worth some thought."
The research shows, however, that there is room for more work and exploration in this area, and the group is now being re-run with the hope of adapting it for other services in the region.
Dr Holmes said: "It is important to stress that the study does not work on the assumption that issues concerning gender identity are only relevant to the experience and treatment of eating disorders in girls and women. The focus on how eating- and body distress may be used to negotiate dominant ideas about gender and sexuality is similarly applicable to male patients, as well as gender minorities, even whilst the cultural constructions at stake may be different."
Indeed, she said, given that recent research indicates how transgender individuals may be particularly at risk from developing eating problems, this arguably adds credence to the idea that EDs may be bound up with the pressures and difficulties posed by dominant gender norms.
Dr Holmes said: "The bottom line is that, although eating disorders are now widely recognised as being shaped by biological, psychological and social factors, the social aspect of the equation is poorly served."
Get more information at: https://ueaeprints.uea.ac.uk/64112/
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/11/171113095529.htm
Junk food almost twice as distracting as healthy food
October 26, 2017
Science Daily/Johns Hopkins University
When we haven't eaten, junk food is twice as distracting as healthy food or non-food items.
Even when people are hard at work, pictures of cookies, pizza and ice cream can distract them -- and these junk food images are almost twice as distracting as health food pictures, concludes a new Johns Hopkins University study, which also found that after a few bites of candy, people found junk food no more interesting than kale.
The study, which underscores people's implicit bias for fatty, sugary foods, and confirms the old adage that you shouldn't grocery shop hungry, is newly published online by the journal Psychonomic Bulletin and Review.
"We wanted to see if pictures of food, particularly high-fat, high-calorie food, would be a distraction for people engaged in a complicated task, said co-author Howard Egeth, a professor in the Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences. "So we showed them carrots and apples, and it slowed them down. We showed them bicycles and thumb tacks, and it slowed them down. But when we showed them chocolate cake and hot dogs, these things slowed them down about twice as much."
First, Egeth and lead author Corbin A. Cunningham, Distinguished Science of Learning Fellow in the Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, created a complicated computer task, in which food was irrelevant, and asked a group of participants to find the answers as quickly as possible. As the participants worked diligently, pictures flashed in the periphery of the screen -- visible for only 125 milliseconds, which is too quick for people to fully realize what they just saw. The pictures were a mix of images of high-fat, high-calorie foods, healthy foods, or items that weren't food.
All of the pictures distracted people from the task, but Cunningham and Egeth found things like doughnuts, potato chips, cheese and candy were about twice as distracting. The healthy food pictures -- like carrots, apples and salads -- were no more distracting to people than non-foods like bicycles, lava lamps and footballs.
Next, the researchers recreated the experiment, but had a new group of participants eat two fun-sized candy bars before starting the computer work.
The researchers were surprised to find that after eating the chocolate, people weren't distracted by the high-fat, high-calorie food images any more than by healthy foods or other pictures.
The researchers wonder now if less chocolate or even other snacks would have the same effect.
"I assume it was because it was a delicious, high-fat, chocolatey snack," Egeth said. "But what if we gave them an apple? What if we gave them a zero-calorie soda? What if we told the subjects they'd get money if they performed the task quickly, which would be a real incentive not to get distracted. Could junk food pictures override even that?"
Cunningham said the results strikingly demonstrate that even when food is entirely irrelevant, and even when people think they're working hard and concentrating, food has the power to sneak in and grab our attention -- at least until we eat a little of it.
"What your grandmother might have told you about not going to the grocery store hungry seems to be true," Cunningham said. "You would probably make choices that you shouldn't or ordinarily wouldn't."
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/10/171026135327.htm
Physical inactivity and restless sleep exacerbate genetic risk of obesity
Findings reported at ASHG 2017 Annual Meeting
October 20, 2017
Science Daily/American Society of Human Genetics
Low levels of physical activity and inefficient sleep patterns intensify the effects of genetic risk factors for obesity, according to new results.
Andrew Wood, PhD, postdoctoral researcher, who presented the work; Timothy Frayling, PhD, Professor; and their colleagues at the University of Exeter Medical School study the genetics of body mass index (BMI) and Type 2 Diabetes. In the past, Dr. Frayling explained, it has been difficult to measure interactions between genetic risk factors and aspects of environment and lifestyle in a systematic way.
"Until recently, physical activity and sleep patterns could not be measured with as much precision as genetic variants, and we relied on diaries or self-report, which can be very subjective," Dr. Frayling said. In contrast, the new study made use of wrist accelerometer data, which is more objective and quantifiable, and a large genetic dataset from about 85,000 UK Biobank participants aged 40 to 70.
"We wanted to find out if obesity-related genes and activity level have an interactive effect on obesity risk -- if there is a 'double whammy' effect of being both at genetic risk and physically inactive, beyond the additive effect of these factors," said Dr. Wood. The researchers computed a genetic risk score for each participant based on 76 common variants known to be associated with elevated risk of obesity, and analyzed this score in the context of accelerometer data and participants' BMIs.
They found the strongest evidence to date of a modest gene-activity interaction. For example, for a person of average height with 10 genetic variants associated with obesity, that genetic risk accounted for a 3.6 kilogram increase in weight among those who were less physically active but just 2.8 kilograms among those who were more active. Results were similar in analyses of sleep patterns; among participants with some genetic risk of obesity, those who woke up frequently or slept more restlessly had higher BMIs than those who slept more efficiently.
The researchers are currently examining whether this interaction between genetics and physical activity differs between men and women. They are also studying the effects of patterns of activity -- for example, whether a consistent level of moderate activity has different effects from overall low levels punctuated by periods of vigorous activity.
"We hope these findings will inform clinicians who help people lose or maintain their weight, and contribute to the understanding that obesity is complex and its prevention may look different for different people," said Dr. Frayling. "Ultimately, with further research, we may have the scope to personalize obesity interventions," he said.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/10/171020092240.htm
A spoonful of oil: Fats and oils help to unlock full nutritional benefits of veggies
October 9, 2017
Science Daily/Iowa State University
Some dressing with your greens may help you absorb more nutrients, according to a new study. The research found enhanced absorption of multiple fat-soluble vitamins in addition to beta-carotene and three other carotenoids. The results may ease the guilt of countless dieters who fret about adding dressing to their salads.
The song says a spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down, but an Iowa State University scientist has published new research suggesting a spoonful of oil makes vegetables more nutritious.
A new study led by Wendy White, an associate professor of food science and human nutrition, shows that eating salad with added fat in the form of soybean oil promotes the absorption of eight different micronutrients that promote human health. Conversely, eating the same salad without the added oil lessens the likelihood that the body will absorb the nutrients.
The study appeared recently in the peer-reviewed American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, and the results may ease the guilt of countless dieters who fret about adding dressing to their salads.
White's study found added oil aided in the absorption of seven different micronutrients in salad vegetables. Those nutrients include four carotenoids -- alpha and beta carotene, lutein and lycopene -- two forms of vitamin E and vitamin K. The oil also promoted the absorption of vitamin A, the eighth micronutrient tracked in the study, which formed in the intestine from the alpha and beta carotene. The new study builds on previous research from White's group that focused on alpha and beta carotene and lycopene.
White said better absorption of the nutrients promotes a range of health benefits, including cancer prevention and eyesight preservation.
The study also found that the amount of oil added to the vegetables had a proportional relationship with the amount of nutrient absorption. That is, more oil means more absorption.
"The best way to explain it would be to say that adding twice the amount of salad dressing leads to twice the nutrient absorption," White said.
That doesn't give salad eaters license to drench their greens in dressing, she cautioned. But she said consumers should be perfectly comfortable with the U.S. dietary recommendation of about two tablespoons of oil per day.
The study included 12 college-age women who consumed salads with various levels of soybean oil, a common ingredient in commercial salad dressings. The subjects then had their blood tested to measure the absorption of nutrients. Women were chosen for the trial due to differences in the speed with which men and women metabolize the nutrients in question.
The results showed maximal nutrient absorption occurred at around 32 grams of oil, which was the highest amount studied, or a little more than two tablespoons. However, White said she found some variability among the subjects.
"For most people, the oil is going to benefit nutrient absorption," she said. "The average trend, which was statistically significant, was for increased absorption."
Research collaborators include Yang Zhou, a former ISU postdoctoral researcher; Agatha Agustiana Crane, a former graduate research assistant in food science and human nutrition; Philip Dixon, a University Professor of Statistics, and Frits Quadt of Quadt Consultancy, among others.
Unilever, a global food company, provided funding for the research. The company had no input in the publication of the study.
So a spoonful or two of salad dressing may indeed help you derive the optimal nutritional benefit from your veggies. The relationship between a spoonful of sugar and the medicine going down, however, remains outside the scope of White's research.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/10/171009124026.htm
Measure of belly fat in older adults is linked with cognitive impairment
August 1, 2018
Science Daily/Trinity College Dublin
Data from over 5,000 adults over the age of 60 indicates that as waist:hip ratio increases, so does cognitive impairment. The findings have significant implications as the global prevalence of dementia is predicted to increase from 24.3 million in 2001 to 81.1 million by 2040.
Previous studies have found that people who are overweight do not perform as well on tests of memory and visuospatial ability compared to those who are normal weight. However, it is not well known if this is true in older adults. This is of concern within Ireland, as over half of the over 50s population is classified as being centrally obese, with only 16% of men and 26% of women reported to have a BMI (body mass index) within the normal range.
The researchers used data from the Trinity Ulster Department of Agriculture (TUDA) ageing cohort study comprising, which is a cross-border collaborative research project gathering data from thousands of elderly adults in Northern Ireland and Ireland.
The researchers found that a higher waist:hip ratio was associated with reduced cognitive function. This could be explained by an increased secretion of inflammatory markers by belly fat, which has been previously associated with a higher risk of impaired cognition. On the contrary, body mass index (BMI) was found to protect cognitive function. BMI is a crude measure of body fat and cannot differentiate between fat and fat-free mass (muscle), thus it is proposed that the fat-free mass component is likely to be the protective factor.
To the best of the authors' knowledge, this is one of the largest studies of older adults to report these findings. Given the high prevalence of overweight and obesity in the older population and the economic and social burden of cognitive dysfunction, the results suggest that reducing obesity and exposure to obeso-genic risk factors could offer a cost-effective public health strategy for the prevention of cognitive decline.
Clinical Associate Professor in Medical Gerontology at Trinity, Conal Cunningham, is the senior author of the study. He said: "While we have known for some time that obesity is associated with negative health consequences our study adds to emerging evidence suggesting that obesity and where we deposit our excess weight could influence our brain health. This has significant public health implications."
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/08/180801115257.htm
For older adults, a better diet may prevent brain shrinkage
May 16, 2018
Science Daily/American Academy of Neurology
People who eat a diet rich in vegetables, fruit, nuts and fish may have bigger brains, according to a new study.
"People with greater brain volume have been shown in other studies to have better cognitive abilities, so initiatives that help improve diet quality may be a good strategy to maintain thinking skills in older adults," said study author Meike W. Vernooij, MD, PhD, of the Erasmus University Medical Center in Rotterdam, the Netherlands. "More research is needed to confirm these results and to examine the pathways through which diet can affect the brain."
The study included 4,213 people in the Netherlands with an average age of 66 who did not have dementia.
Participants completed a questionnaire asking how much they ate of nearly 400 items over the past month. Researchers looked at diet quality based on the Dutch dietary guidelines by examining intake of foods in the following groups: vegetables, fruit, whole grain products, legumes, nuts, dairy, fish, tea, unsaturated fats and oils of total fats, red and processed meat, sugary beverages, alcohol and salt. Researchers ranked the quality of diet for each person with a score of zero to 14. The best diet consisted of vegetables, fruit, nuts, whole grains, dairy and fish, but a limited intake of sugary drinks. The average score of participants was seven.
All participants had brain scans with magnetic resonance imaging to determine brain volume, the number of brain white matter lesions and small brain bleeds. The participants had an average total brain volume of 932 milliliters.
Information was also gathered on other factors that could affect brain volumes, such as high blood pressure, smoking and physical activity.
Researchers found after adjusting for age, sex, education, smoking and physical activity that a higher diet score was linked to larger total brain volume, when taking into account head size differences. Those who consumed a better diet had an average of two milliliters more total brain volume than those who did not. To compare, having a brain volume that is 3.6 milliliters smaller is equivalent to one year of aging.
Diet was not linked to brain white matter lesions or small brain bleeds.
For comparison, researchers also assessed diet based on the Mediterranean diet, which is also rich in vegetables, fish and nuts, and found brain volume results were similar to those who adhered closely to Dutch dietary guidelines.
Vernooij said the link between better overall diet quality and larger total brain volume was not driven by one specific food group, but rather several food groups.
"There are many complex interactions that can occur across different food components and nutrients and according to our research, people who ate a combination of healthier foods had larger brain tissue volumes," Vernooij said.
She noted that because the study was a snapshot in time, it does not prove that a better diet results in a larger brain volume; it only shows an association.
Limitations of the study include that diet was self-reported and relied on someone's ability to remember what they ate over one month, and the study was conducted in a Dutch population and therefore other populations may not have similar results.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/05/180516162539.htm
Can a Mediterranean diet pattern slow aging?
March 30, 2018
Science Daily/The Gerontological Society of America
A series of six articles finds new correlations between a Mediterranean diet and healthy aging outcomes -- while also underscoring the need for careful approaches to the use of data in order to measure the diet's potential benefits.
Among their findings, the new articles report on underlying mechanisms of the diet; the positive relationship between the diet and physical and cognitive function; the value of taking a coenzyme Q10 supplement while adhering to the diet; and the role of the diet in reducing inflammation. But in several of the studies, the level of benefit was dependent on how adherence to the diet was measured.
"Greater clarity on how this diet is defined, in both interventions and observational studies, will be critical in the aim of achieving a consensus on how to optimally apply this dietary pattern towards maximizing healthy aging," state Michelle A. Mendez, PhD, and Journals of Gerontology: Medical Sciences Editor-in-Chief Anne B. Newman, MD, FGSA, in an opening editorial.
Hallmarks of the Mediterranean diet include: a variety of minimally processed whole grains and legumes as the staple food; plenty of a huge diversity of fresh vegetables consumed on a daily basis; fresh fruits as the typical daily dessert; cold pressed extra-virgin olive oil, nuts, and seeds as the principal source of fat; moderate consumption of fish; dairy products consumed in low amounts; red and processed meat consumed in very low frequency and amounts; and wine consumed in low to moderate amounts only with meals.
There are a number of scales used to measure adherence to the diet. One of the journal's studies, conducted by researchers at the University of Paris 13, found that among test subjects, higher numbers on the Literature-based Adherence Score to the Mediterranean Diet were associated with higher odds of meeting certain healthy aging criteria. Similar results were found with another index, the Mediterranean Diet Score; however, use of the Mediterranean Diet Scale yielded a weaker correlation. In another study by researchers at the Autonomous University of Madrid, closer adherence to the diet was associated with a lower likelihood of physical function impairment in older adults, although in this case using the Mediterranean Diet Adherence Screener provided more significant results than the Mediterranean Diet Score.
The exact mechanism by which an increased adherence to the diet exerts its favorable effects is still unknown to scientists. However, writing in one of the new articles, researchers from Washington University in St. Louis state there is accumulating evidence of five important adaptations induced by the Mediterranean dietary pattern. These include lipid lowering; protection from oxidative stress and inflammation; modification of growth factors that can promote cancer; inhibition of nutrient sensing pathways by amino acid restriction and gut microbiota-mediated production of metabolites.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/03/180330145322.htm
Fish-rich diets in pregnancy may boost babies' brain development
September 20, 2018
Science Daily/Springer
Women could enhance the development of their unborn child's eyesight and brain function by regularly eating fatty fish during pregnancy. This is the suggestion from a small-scale study. The research supports previous findings that show how important a prospective mother's diet and lifestyle choices are for the development of her baby.
According to Laitinen, a mother's diet during pregnancy and breastfeeding is the main way that valuable long-chain polyunsaturated fatty acids become available to a fetus and infant brain during the period of maximum brain growth during the first years of a child's life. Such fatty acids help to shape the nerve cells that are relevant to eyesight and particularly the retina. They are also important in forming the synapses that are vital in the transport of messages between neurons in the nervous system.
In this study, Laitinen and her colleagues analysed the results of 56 mothers and their children drawn from a larger study. The mothers had to keep a regular food diary during the course of their pregnancy. Fluctuations in their weight before and during pregnancy were taken into account, along with their blood sugar level and blood pressure. Aspects such as whether they smoked or developed diabetes related to pregnancy were also noted.
The team recorded the levels of nutritional long-chain polyunsaturated fatty acid sources in the mother's diet and blood serum, and the levels in the blood of their children by the age of one month. Their children were further tested around their second birthday using pattern reversal visual evoked potentials (pVEP). This sensitive and accurate, non-invasive method is used to detect visual functioning and maturational changes occurring within a young child's visual system.
The subsequent analyses of the visual test results revealed that infants whose mothers ate fish three or more times a week during the last trimester of their pregnancy fared better than those whose mothers ate no fish or only up to two portions per week. These observations were further substantiated when the serum phospholipid fatty acid status was evaluated.
"The results of our study suggest that frequent fish consumption by pregnant women is of benefit for their unborn child's development. This may be attributable to long-chain polyunsaturated fatty acids within fish, but also due to other nutrients like vitamin D and E, which are also important for development," explains Laitinen.
"Our study therefore highlights the potential importance of subtle changes in the diet of healthy women with uncompromised pregnancies, beyond prematurity or nutritional deficiencies, in regulating infantile neurodevelopment," adds Laitinen, who believes that their results should be incorporated into counselling given to pregnant women about their diets.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/09/180920102207.htm
Mediterranean-style diet may lower women's stroke risk
September 20, 2018
Science Daily/American Heart Association
Following a Mediterranean-style diet (high in fish, fruits and nuts, vegetables and beans and lower in meat and dairy) reduced stroke risk in women over 40, but not in men. The Mediterranean-style diet reduced stroke risk among white adults who were at high risk of cardiovascular disease.
One of the largest and longest-running efforts to evaluate the potential benefits of the Mediterranean-style diet in lowering risk of stroke found that the diet may be especially protective in women over 40 regardless of menopausal status or hormone replacement therapy, according to new research in the American Heart Association's journal Stroke.
Researchers from the Universities of East Anglia, Aberdeen and Cambridge collaborated in this study using key components of a traditional Mediterranean-style diet including high intakes of fish, fruits and nuts, vegetables, cereal foods and potatoes and lower meat and dairy consumption.
Study participants (23,232 white adults, 40 to 77) were from the EPIC-Norfolk study, the United Kingdom Norfolk arm of the multicenter European Prospective Investigation into Cancer study. Over a 17-year period, researchers examined participants' diets and compared stroke risk among four groups ranked highest to lowest by how closely they adhered to a Mediterranean style diet.
In participants, who most closely followed a Mediterranean-style diet, the reduced onset of stroke was:
· 17 percent in all adults;
· 22 percent in women; and
· 6 percent in men (which researchers said could have been due to chance).
"It is unclear why we found differences between women and men, but it could be that components of the diet may influence men differently than women," said Ailsa A. Welch, Ph.D., study lead author and professor of nutritional epidemiology at the University of East Anglia, United Kingdom. "We are also aware that different sub-types of stroke may differ between genders. Our study was too small to test for this, but both possibilities deserve further study in the future."
There was also a 13 percent overall reduced risk of stroke in participants already at high risk of cardiovascular disease across all four groups of the Mediterranean-diet scores. However, this was driven mainly by the associations in women who showed a 20 percent reduced stroke risk. This benefit appeared to be extended to people in low risk group although the possibility of chance finding cannot be ruled out completely.
"Our findings provide clinicians and the public with information regarding the potential benefit of eating a Mediterranean-style diet for stroke prevention, regardless of cardiovascular risk," said Professor Phyo Myint, M.D., study co-author and former British Association of Stroke Physicians Executive Committee member, University of Aberdeen, Scotland.
"A healthy, balanced diet is important for everyone both young and old," said Professor Ailsa Welch.
Researchers used seven-day diet diaries, which they said had not been done before in such a large population. Seven-day diaries are more precise than food-frequency questionnaires and participants write down everything they eat and drink over the period of a week.
"The American Heart Association recommends a heart-healthy and brain-healthy dietary pattern that includes a variety of fruits and vegetables, whole grains, low-fat dairy products, fish, poultry, beans, non-tropical vegetable oils and nuts and limits saturated fat, trans fat, sodium, red meat, sweets and sugar-sweetened beverages; this dietary pattern reduces risk factors and risk for heart disease and stroke, "said Eduardo Sanchez, M.D., MPH, the American Heart Association's chief medical officer for prevention and chief of the Association's Centers for Health Metrics and Evaluation, who was not a part of this study. "This study provides more evidence that supports AHA's recommendation," said Sanchez.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/09/180920075854.htm