Increasing intakes of vegetables are associated with risk reduction in various non-communicable diseases, especially cardiovascular disease. In order to compare the proportion of daily vegetable ...intake among adults from these 30 Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries as well as Japan, we applied data from the OECD website and the 2017 National Health and Nutrition Survey, Japan (NHNS-J). The figures for Australia, Israel, Korea, New Zealand, and the United States exceeded 80%, where survey questions in these countries asked the amount of intake, instead of the frequency of intake. In Japan, results from the one-day dietary record showed that 99.2% of adults consumed vegetables on the survey day; however, this decreased to 66.3% when assessed by a qualitative question. Proportion of daily vegetable intake as well as average intake amount was higher among those aged 60 y or older. Health policies to increase vegetable intake should target younger age groups to promote health in future generations, in Japan.
Bisphenol analogues (BPs) are prevalent in diverse foodstuff samples worldwide. However, the occurrence of conjugated bisphenol A (BPA) and bisphenol S (BPS) metabolites in foodstuff remains poorly ...understood. This study analyzed eight BPs, and four conjugated BPA and BPS metabolites, in three animal-derived foodstuff and five plant-derived foodstuff samples from China. Results showed that fish foodstuff (9.7 ng/g ww) contained the highest mean concentration of BPA, followed by rice (5.1 ng/g ww) and beans foodstuff (3.6 ng/g ww). BPA-sulfate had higher mean concentrations than BPA-glucuronide in different foodstuff categories, except that in eggs foodstuff (p < 0.05). Compared with other foodstuff items, fish (3.4 ng/g ww) and vegetable (1.6 ng/g ww) foodstuff samples exhibited comparatively higher mean concentrations of BPS. Mean concentrations of BPS-sulfate were consistently higher than BPS-glucuronide in vegetables, meats, and fish foodstuff (p < 0.05). BPA contributed the major total dietary intake (DI) of BPs, with the mean DI of 435 ng/kg bw/day for women and 374 ng/kg bw/day for men, respectively. To our knowledge, this study is the first to investigate the occurrence of conjugated BPA and BPS metabolites in foodstuff, which enhances our comprehension of the origins of these conjugated metabolites in the human body.
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•Fish foodstuff had the highest mean level of BPA, followed by rice and beans.•Conjugated BPA and BPS metabolites were detected in different foodstuff samples.•BPAF, BPAP, and BPF were also detected in various foodstuff samples.•This study first examines conjugated BPA and BPS metabolites in foodstuff samples.
Meat from farm animals (pigs, cattle and poultry) and game (wild boar and deer) was analysed in terms of thirteen perfluoroalkyl substances (PFASs). Wild boar muscle tissue was statistically ...significantly more contaminated than muscle tissue from other animals, and the species order of the lower-bound (LB) sum of four (∑4) PFAS (perfluorooctanesulfonic acid (PFOS), perfluorooctanoic acid, perfluorononanoic acid and perfluorohexanesulfonic acid) concentrations was wild boar > cattle > deer > pigs > poultry. None of the samples exceeded the maximum levels set by Commission Regulation (EU) 2023/915. Linear PFOS was the most frequently detected compound (in 21 % of all samples analysed and 100 % of wild boar samples), reaching its highest concentration of 1.87 μg/kg wet weight in wild boar.
Dietary intake was estimated on the basis of the average per-serving consumption of pork, beef and poultry, and in the absence of such data for game, a 100 g portion was used for the calculation. Mean LB∑4 PFAS concentrations led to intakes between 0.000 and 1.75 ng/kg body weight (BW) for children and 0.000 and 0.91 ng/kg BW for adults. The potential risk to consumers was assessed in relation to the tolerable weekly intake (TWI) of 4.4 ng/kg BW established by the European Food Safety Authority in 2020. Exposure associated with the consumption of poultry, pork, beef and venison was negligible, being only <1 % of the TWI for children and adults; higher exposure was found to associate with the consumption of wild boar, being 63 % and 21 % of the TWI for children and adults, respectively.
The findings of this research suggest that the intake of PFASs through the consumption of meat from Polish livestock and deer is unlikely to be a health concern. However, frequent consumption of wild boar meat could be a significant source of PFASs.
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•PFAS concentrations in cattle, pigs, poultry and game animals were compared.•Linear PFOS was most commonly detected in muscle tissue.•Frequent consumption of wild boar meat implies possible heavy exposure to PFASs.
The improvement of the social and economic conditions of society has eliminated the threat of death from the majority of infectious diseases. However, the rapid progress of civilization has created ...new possibilities for the appearance of factors with adverse effects for the health of society. This has led to increased morbidity from certain diseases, the presence of which had not been observed several centuries ago. Chronic noncommunicable diseases (e.g., cancers, cardio-vascular disorders, diabetes, obesity, neurodegenerative diseases) result from an inappropriate relationship between people and their environment. The common characteristic for all chronic diseases is a "new" form of inflammation, very often called metaflammation, which is considered as a subclinical, permanent inflammation. As a result, metabolic cascade, including cellular oxidative stress, atherosclerotic process, and insulin resistance, occurs, which slowly generates significant deterioration in the organism. Polyphenols are the major group of non-nutrients, considering their diversity, food occurrence, and biological properties. The current review aims to present a wide spectrum of literature data, including the molecular mechanism of their activity and experimental model used, and summarize the recent findings on the multitude of physiological effects of dietary polyphenols towards the prevention of several chronic diseases. However, despite several studies, the estimation of their dietary intake is troublesome and inconclusive, which will be also discussed.
BackgroundFour modelling approaches are commonly used to adjust for overall energy intake when seeking to estimate the causal effect of an individual dietary component on an outcome; (1) the ...‘standard model’ adjusts for total energy intake, (2) the ‘energy partition model’ adjusts for remaining energy intake, (3) the ‘nutrient density model’ examines the exposure as a proportion of total energy, and (4) the ‘residual model’ indirectly adjusts for total energy by using the residual from regressing the exposure nutrient on total energy intake. Unfortunately, it remains underappreciated that each approach evaluates a different causal effect estimand and only partially accounts for confounding by common causes of dietary intake and composition.MethodsSemi-parametric directed acyclic graphs and Monte Carlo simulations were used to identify the estimand implied by each approach and the correct interpretation of the model results. The performance of each model for estimating the corresponding target estimand was explored both in the absence and presence of confounding that acts through diet. An alternative approach based on the energy partition model that simultaneously adjusts for all competing dietary components, termed the ‘all-components model’, was also explored and compared with the four traditional approaches. This model involves using the weighted coefficients of different dietary components to estimate any desired causal effect estimand.ResultsThe ‘standard model’ and the mathematically identical ‘residual model’ both estimate the average relative causal effect (i.e. a ‘substitution’ effect) but provide biased estimates even in the absence of any confounding. The ‘energy partition model’, that adjusts for remaining energy intake, estimates the total causal effect (i.e. an ‘additive’ effect) but only provides unbiased estimates in the absence of confounding or when all individual nutrients have equal effects on the outcome. The ‘nutrient density model’ does not target a causally meaningful estimand but can provide extremely biased estimates of the average relative causal effect of the exposure rescaled as a percentage of total energy intake. Accurate estimates of both the total and average relative causal effects were obtained with the ‘all-components model’.ConclusionOnly the ‘all-components model’ produces unbiased estimates of different causal effects. Lack of awareness of the estimand differences and accuracy of the different modelling approaches may explain some of the apparent heterogeneity among existing nutritional studies. Serious questions may be raised regarding the validity of meta-analyses where different strategies returning different estimands have been inappropriately pooled.
Several bacterial species associated with the human gut and with fermented foods produce menaquinones (MK-n; vitamin K2) as part of their energy metabolism. Given that MK-n offer multiple health ...benefits to humans, research into this topic is of increasing interest.
To outline the current understanding of bacterial MK-n production and how it relates to the gut microbiota, food fermentation, the production of dietary supplements, and health.
In bacteria, MK-n display various functions in addition to their chief role in energy production, including a role in defense mechanisms, the sensing of environmental changes, the reduction of metals, sporulation, and pathogenicity. In humans, they are relevant for health beyond the effects of phylloquinones (vitamin K1), which are primarily related to blood coagulation, as they seem to be more effective extrahepatically, impacting on cardiovascular and bone health and protecting against non-communicable diseases. While the contribution of gut microbiota to the human vitamin K budget remains unclear, more is known about fermented foods. Some fermented foods from either plant (e.g., sauerkraut and natto) or animal origin (e.g., cheese) are valuable sources of MK-n, even compared to non-fermented animal source foods, which only contain limited amounts of one specific form (MK-4). Bacillus subtilis, commonly used in the production of natto, is the most employed microorganism at industrial level for the production of dietary MK-7 supplements, a process which can be optimized by selecting the appropriate fermentation parameters.
•In bacteria, MK-n have various functions in addition to their chief role in energy production.•In humans, vitamin K2 exerts various health-related benefits, broader so than K1.•The contribution of gut bacteria to vitamin K2 intake is less clear than for fermented foods.•Based on the bacteria involved, fermented foods provide different vitamin K2 forms.•Bacillus subtilis is used for the industrial production of dietary MK-7 supplements.
Objective: To compare dietary intakes between LGBTQ + and non-LGBTQ + college students. Participants: Participants were LGBTQ+ (n = 92) and non-LGBTQ+ (n = 491) college students. Methods: The 26-item ...Dietary Screener Questionnaire assessed intakes of added sugars, fiber, whole grains, fruits and vegetables, dairy, and calcium. Percentage of participants meeting Dietary Guidelines for Americans were also computed. Multivariate ANCOVA assessed differences in dietary intake. Chi-square analyses assessed differences in proportions of LGBTQ + and non-LGBTQ + students meeting recommendations. Results: LGBTQ + students reported lower intakes of fiber, whole grains, fruit, and fruits and vegetables both including and excluding French fries (all p < 0.05). Fewer LGBTQ + students met recommendations for fruit (5.7%) compared to their non-LGBTQ + counterparts (14.2%; p = .03). Conclusions: LGBTQ + students report poorer indices of diet quality compared to non-LGBTQ + students. Health promotion programming efforts to improve these outcomes may need to be tailored differently for students who identify as LGBTQ+.
Parents' attempt to limit or restrict children's intake of ‘unhealthy’ or discretionary foods has been widely considered as a counterproductive feeding practice associated with poorer dietary ...outcomes, but empirical evidence is varied.
The present systematic literature review aimed to investigate the association between parental restriction and children's dietary intake.
Studies were identified through PsycInfo, MEDLINE, CINAHL, Web of Science, and Scopus databases on April 29th, 2022. Included were peer-reviewed, English-language articles published between 2001 and 2022, with an effect size between restriction and children's intake of foods that are ‘healthy’ (i.e., fruit, vegetables, other general healthy foods) or ‘discretionary’ (i.e., sweet or savoury energy-dense/nutrient poor foods, high-sugar foods, high-salt/fat foods, and high-energy/sugar-sweetened beverages), or overall diet quality. Risk of bias was assessed using a quality assessment checklist designed to evaluate survey studies.
Included studies (n = 44) were most often conducted in the USA, cross-sectional, and participants were mothers. Effect sizes (k = 59) from 21 studies were used in nine meta-analyses investigating various healthy and discretionary dietary intake variables. No meta-analytic effects were statistically significant. Qualitative synthesis of effect sizes ineligible for meta-analysis (k = 91) identified patterns of associations between restriction and increased intake of healthy foods, and decreased intake of discretionary foods.
Studies used a diverse selection of measures of restriction and dietary intake, limiting the ability of this review to make accurate cross-study comparisons. However, results suggest that instead of restriction being detrimental for children's dietary outcomes, it may be unrelated, or associated with more beneficial dietary outcomes. Research that utilises validated measures of restriction and dietary outcomes and a longitudinal design is needed to clarify this association.
Self-reported dietary intake is assessed by methods of real-time recording (food diaries and the duplicate portion method) and methods of recall (dietary histories, food frequency questionnaires, and ...24-hour dietary recalls). Being less labor intensive, recall methods are more frequently employed in nutritional epidemiological investigations. However, sources of error, which include the participants' inability to fully and accurately recall their intakes as well as limitations inherent in the food composition databases applied to convert the reported food consumption to energy and nutrient intakes, may limit the validity of the generated information. The use of dietary biomarkers is often recommended to overcome such errors and better capture intra-individual variability in intake; nevertheless, it has its own challenges. To address measurement error associated with dietary questionnaires, large epidemiological investigations often integrate sub-studies for the validation and calibration of the questionnaires and/or administer a combination of different assessment methods (e.g. administration of different questionnaires and assessment of biomarker levels). Recent advances in the omics field could enrich the list of reliable nutrition biomarkers, whereas new approaches employing web-based and smart phone applications could reduce respondent burden and, possibly, reporting bias. Novel technologies are increasingly integrated with traditional methods, but some sources of error still remain. In the analyses, food and nutrient intakes always need to be adjusted for total daily energy intake to account for errors related to reporting.
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