Human nutrition. Clinical nutrition最新文献

Taste sensitivity and preference for sodium chloride in bread and pea soup were assessed before and after haemodialysis in 12 female chronic renal failure patients. Blood samples were also taken pre- and post-dialysis and analysed for zinc, sodium and renin. The patients demonstrated an increased sensitivity to, and decreased preference for, sodium chloride in both bread and pea soup following dialysis. These taste changes were found to correlate with pre- to post-dialysis changes in the zinc levels in the blood. Patients receiving a more severely sodium-restricted diet showed a greater sensitivity to the taste of sodium chloride in the foods tested. Renin levels dropped in all patients following dialysis, the size of the change correlating with the size of the change in body weight.

This study compared 7-d energy intakes of 37 young children at low (Group N) and high (Group O) risk of subsequent obesity, as judged from parental obesity. The energy intake of Group O was 16 per cent lower than Group N (P = 0.02). Although the intakes of all the children considered together and also Group N children alone showed the usual wide variability and absence of correlation with body size, the intakes of Group O children were significantly correlated with their weight and height (r = 0.5). The results confirm a previous study and suggest that, since basal metabolic rate and body weight are known to be correlated, attention should be focused on differences in expenditure in investigations of the aetiology of childhood obesity.

The origins of the data used to construct some of the formulae in current usage for the calculation of energy expenditure are discussed. The differences in expenditure calculated by the various formulae cover a range of about 3 per cent. This error is large in relation to long-term studies of energy balance, and to the accuracy attainable with modern respiration chambers. The differences stem in part from the use of inappropriate original values and in part from errors in arithmetic. A new set of source data and a derived formula are presented.

A cohort of 439 infants from poor districts of Greater Khartoum were examined at intervals of 2 weeks from birth to 1 year. At each visit symptoms suggesting infection were recorded--diarrhoea, fever, vomiting and cough or cold. On average 30 per cent of children had episodes of diarrhoea and 40 per cent had episodes of cold or cough in each 4-week period, the incidence being somewhat lower in the first 2 months of life. The average duration of an episode was 5 d. The effect of illness on weight gain was calculated by regressing weight gain against number of days ill. Diarrhoea produced a deficit in weight gain of 32 g per day ill, and cough/cold a deficit of 16.4g per day ill. From these data the overall impact of illness on weight gain was calculated. In the average child between 12 and 24 weeks diarrhoea produced a reduction in growth of 160g, and cough/cold a reduction of 95g. In most periods the frequency of episodes of diarrhoea was not significantly greater in supplemented than in exclusively breast-fed children. In the first 3 months of life episodes of diarrhoea had little effect on weight gain, but thereafter an episode of diarrhoea in any 2-week period reduced the gain in that period to less than 50 per cent of that found in uninfected children. 'Faltering' was defined as a weight increment below -2 s.d. of the reference mean. Diarrhoea did not always lead to faltering, but it seems to have been an initiating factor in some 50 per cent of those children who did falter.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)

The suitability of a biosynthetically produced [15N] yeast-protein-thermitasehydrolysate ([15N] YPTH), [15N] yeast protein and [15N] glycine for use as 15N-tracers was tested in three groups of four infants each. The [15N] YPTH was obtained by hydrolysing 15N-labelled yeast protein with thermitase, a proteinase from Thermoactinomyces vulgaris. Following oral single-pulse labelling in a dosage of 10 mg 15N/kg body weight the 15N-excretion in stools and urine as well as the 15N-abundance in plasma proteins and in the TCA-soluble plasma fraction were determined. The [15N] YPTH differs from [15N] glycine in terms of the complete distribution of 15N among all 20 amino acids. This could be demonstrated by a distinctly lower [15N]ammonia (0.5 per cent) and a higher [15N2] urea excretion (5.0 per cent) compared with [15N] glycine (1.2 and 3.4 per cent respectively). The faecal loss of 15N from the [15N] YPTH was 3.7 per cent of the tracer dose, while the corresponding value after administration of [15N] yeast protein was found to be 7.4 per cent on average. There were no differences between the tracer substances in terms of the measured 15N-abundance in the plasma proteins (mean: 0.07 atom per cent excess) and in the TCA-soluble fraction (mean: 0.21 atom per cent excess).

The growth of 1029 children under 5 years of age, in rural Malawi, was studied during 1 year before and 1 year after the introduction of a piped water supply system. The study was performed to evaluate the effect of socio-economic and environmental factors, especially water supply, on growth. In general, the first 2 years of life were highly liable to nutritional impairment. The seasonal variation of growth rate was most pronounced in children under 2 years. It was found that crowding, measured both as population density and as members per household, had a negative impact on the growth of younger children. In households utilizing piped water, children did not display significantly better growth when compared with children in households using traditional water sources. Although clean water in itself is vital, it was not enough to improve the growth of young children under the conditions that we have studied. It is suggested that, when providing an improved water supply, sanitation and hygiene education are necessary additions. Other ways of reducing recurrent infections, in combination with effective nutrition during and after episodes of disease, should also be given increased consideration in order to improve growth.

Basal metabolic rate (BMR) was measured in 58 men of a rural Indian population who had low body weight and body fat stores. Comparisons of subgroups of subjects of different socio-economic status and different nutritional status showed no evidence of differences in BMR when corrected for differences in body weight and body fat content. This suggests that metabolic adaptation did not account for differences in absolute BMR between subgroups of this population. The BMR values agreed well with values predicted by equations based on BMR measurements in Asian men of higher body weight, but were below values predicted by the new FAO/WHO/UNU prediction equations by an average of 12.1 per cent (P less than 0.0001). This overprediction could be a reflection of allometric or climatic influences on BMR rather than evidence for metabolic adaptation to a low plane of energy nutrition.

Energy expenditure at rest was determined twice in 10 healthy subjects with a 2-d interval at a relative humidity of 32 and 66 per cent respectively. The relative humidity over the 2 d preceding each observation was estimated to be about 32 per cent. The average (+/- s.e.m.) difference between the RMR at a relative humidity of 32 and 66 per cent respectively was found to be 0.3 +/- 1.2 watt. The results presented here justify the commonly used practice of neglecting variations in humidity when reporting on results of observations of resting metabolic rates in apparently healthy subjects.