Nutrients最新文献

Background/objectives: For low- and middle- income country (LMIC) settings, a global nutrition transition is rapidly emerging as diets shift, resulting in a dual burden of malnutrition. High quality dietary intake data for these populations is essential to understand dietary patterns contributing to these nutrition issues. New technology is emerging to address dietary assessment challenges; however, it is unknown how researchers conducting studies with LMIC populations or under-served groups in high-income countries adopt technology-assisted methods. This study aimed to describe the features of the dietary assessment methods used in these settings.

Methods: A cross-sectional survey of members of an online international nutrition network was conducted. Participants completed an online questionnaire collecting data on dietary assessment method use, populations studied, and factors influencing method selection.

Results: Of 45 participants (ranging from 27 to 60 years) who completed the questionnaire, 67% conducted dietary assessments in children aged 1-5 years, 60% in pregnant women and 60% in female adults. Dietary assessment was conducted predominantly in countries classified as LMIC (n = 50), compared to the assessment of vulnerable groups in high-income countries (n = 3). All participants reported using 24-h recalls, 80% used food frequency questionnaires, while 22% used image-based and 22% used image-assisted methods. Predominant modes were interviewer-administered, paper questionnaires and manual analysis; however, digital survey platforms were used by nearly half of participants.

Conclusions: Although traditional dietary assessment methods continue to dominate in LMICs, evidence of technological-assisted method use is emerging. Technology-assisted methods, tailored to address challenges in collecting quality dietary intake data in LMICs, are becoming more accessible.

Background/objectives: A reliable assessment of gluten-free diet (GFD) adherence is essential for managing celiac disease (CD). This study aimed to validate the Hellenic version of the Celiac Disease Adherence Test (H-CDAT) to evaluate adherence levels and explore the impact of dietary adherence on health-related quality of life (HRQoL)-both of which have never been objectively assessed in Greek CD patients.

Methods: The study included 102 adult CD patients who completed H-CDAT, diet-related questions, and the 36-Item Short Form Health Survey (SF-36).

Results: H-CDAT demonstrated good psychometric properties and showed multiple strong correlations with HRQoL dimensions. H-CDAT adherence was Good in 38.2%, Moderate in 42.2%, and Poor in 19.6% of patients, despite their perception of effective adherence, with 51% never having visited a dietitian for guidance on a GFD. Patients scored significantly lower across most HRQoL dimensions compared to the general Greek population. When stratified into the three adherence categories, striking differences emerged between Good and Moderate adherence across both physical and mental health domains, highlighting that moderate adherence is not sufficient for optimal health outcomes.

Conclusions: These findings emphasize the critical role of strict GFD adherence in improving overall health and underscore the importance of dietetic intervention for achieving optimal patient outcomes.

Background: Spirulina, which are filamentous cyanobacteria, have gained significant popularity in the food industry, medicine, and aquaculture.

Methods: In this study, our objective was to explore the influence of Spirulina on the gut microbiota and exercise capacity of mice undergoing high-intensity exercise. Twenty-four male BALB/c mice were divided into four groups, with six mice in each group. These groups included the control group (Control, in which the mice received saline gavage and were permitted free movement), the exercise group (Running, in which the mice were gavaged with the same volume of saline and subjected to a structured exercise regimen), and the Spirulina intervention groups (including Spirulina^Low and Spirulina^High). In the Spirulina intervention groups, the mice were orally administered with Spirulina at doses of 100 and 300 mg/kg/day for four weeks while simultaneously participating in the exercise protocol.

Results: The results illustrated that the Running group mice subjected to intense exercise exhibited reduced weight and tension, acute damage to muscle and liver tissues, oxidative stress, and an imbalance in the gut microbiota compared with that of the Control group. However, high-concentration Spirulina supplementation was found to increase the tensile strength of the exercise mice by 1.27 ± 0.19 fold (p < 0.05) and ameliorate muscle and liver damage. In the Spirulina^High group, the levels of certain indicators related to muscle oxidative stress, including reactive oxygen species, total superoxide dismutase, and catalase, were decreased by 39 ± 5.32% (p < 0.01) and increased by 1.11 ± 0.17 fold and 1.19 ± 0.22 fold (p < 0.01) compared to the Running group. Additionally, a correlation analysis reveals that the alterations in gut microbiota induced by Spirulina might be associated with the indicators of tension and oxidative stress.

Conclusions: Collectively, these findings point to the fact that Spirulina can effectively mitigate the acute damage to muscles and the liver induced by intense exercise in mice by enhancing antioxidant capacity and regulating the gut microbiota, thereby providing novel insights into the mechanism underlying the enhancement of exercise function.

Metabolic syndrome is a cluster of risk factors, including abdominal obesity, insulin resistance, hypertension, dyslipidemia (intended as an increase in triglyceride levels and a reduction in HDL cholesterol levels), and elevated fasting glucose, that increase the risk of cardiovascular disease and type 2 diabetes. With the rising prevalence of metabolic syndrome, effective dietary interventions are essential in reducing these health risks. The Mediterranean diet, rich in fruits, vegetables, whole grains, legumes, nuts, and olive oil and moderate in fish and poultry, has shown promise in addressing metabolic syndrome and its associated components. This diet's anti-inflammatory and antioxidant properties, primarily due to its unsaturated fats, polyphenols, and fiber, have improved blood pressure, lipid levels, and insulin sensitivity. Adherence to the Mediterranean diet has been linked to reductions in central obesity and insulin resistance, both key elements in managing metabolic syndrome. Regarding lipid management, the Mediterranean diet lowers triglyceride levels and low-density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol while raising high-density lipoprotein (HDL) cholesterol, enhancing lipid profiles. It also helps regulate blood glucose levels, reducing the likelihood of developing type 2 diabetes. Additionally, the diet promotes weight loss and improves body composition, particularly by decreasing visceral fat, a primary driver of metabolic syndrome according to IDF classification. The Mediterranean diet offers a holistic approach to managing metabolic syndrome and reducing the risk of related chronic diseases. Its positive impact on metabolic health, combined with lifestyle changes like increased physical activity, provides a sustainable method for addressing the global burden of this syndrome. This review aimed to summarize the positive effects of the Mediterranean diet on the component of the metabolic syndrome with subsequent positive effects on cardiometabolic risk profile.

Purpose: The aims of this study were to explore the differences in total body water and hydration status among Chinese children aged 6-17 years.

Methods: A cross-sectional study was implemented among children aged 6-17 years in China. The total body water (TBW), intracellular water (ICW), and extracellular water (ECW) were determined by bioelectrical impedance analysis (BIA). The participants were divided according to age-age 6-8 years, age 9-11 years, age 12-14 years, age 15-17 years-and body mass index (BMI) of China-underweight, normal weight, overweight, and obese groups. The differences of variables of groups were compared using analysis of variance, Student's t-test, and Kruskal-Wallis test. Significance levels were set at 0.05 (p < 0.05).

Results: A total of 59,643 participants (30,103 males and 29,540 females) completed the study. As children became older, the TBW, ICW, ECW, ICW/TBW, and TBW/FFM (TBW to fat free mass ratio) increased simultaneously (all p < 0.05); concurrently, the ECW/TBW decreased with age (all p < 0.05). Boys had higher TBW, ICW, ECW, ICW/TBW, TBW/BW, and TBW/FFM than those of girls at each age (all p < 0.05). For all BMI groups, increases in TBW, ICW, ECW were observed from the underweight group to the obese group, both in boys and girls (all p < 0.001). For the increase in BMI in all age groups, the values of TBW made a significantly lower percentage compared to BW. The higher BMI groups showed higher levels of TBW/FFM, both in girls and boys (all p < 0.001).

Conclusions: The body water contents of children aged 6-17 years varied according to their age, sex, and BMI. Overweight and obese individuals may have inferior hydration status compared to those with normal weight.

Background: Food image recognition, a crucial step in computational gastronomy, has diverse applications across nutritional platforms. Convolutional neural networks (CNNs) are widely used for this task due to their ability to capture hierarchical features. However, they struggle with long-range dependencies and global feature extraction, which are vital in distinguishing visually similar foods or images where the context of the whole dish is crucial, thus necessitating transformer architecture.

Objectives: This research explores the capabilities of the CNNs and transformers to build a robust classification model that can handle both short- and long-range dependencies with global features to accurately classify food images and enhance food image recognition for better nutritional analysis.

Methods: Our approach, which combines CNNs and Vision Transformers (ViTs), begins with the RestNet50 backbone model. This model is responsible for local feature extraction from the input image. The resulting feature map is then passed to the ViT encoder block, which handles further global feature extraction and classification using multi-head attention and fully connected layers with pre-trained weights.

Results: Our experiments on five diverse datasets have confirmed a superior performance compared to the current state-of-the-art methods, and our combined dataset leveraging complementary features showed enhanced generalizability and robust performance in addressing global food diversity. We used explainable techniques like grad-CAM and LIME to understand how the models made their decisions, thereby enhancing the user's trust in the proposed system. This model has been integrated into a mobile application for food recognition and nutrition analysis, offering features like an intelligent diet-tracking system.

Conclusion: This research paves the way for practical applications in personalized nutrition and healthcare, showcasing the extensive potential of AI in nutritional sciences across various dietary platforms.

Background: The Mediterranean diet (MedD) exerts anti-inflammatory and anti-oxidant effects that are beneficial in autoimmune thyroid diseases (ATD). Recently, a gluten-free diet (GFD) has been proposed for non-celiac patients with Hashimoto's thyroiditis (HT), but its usefulness is under debate. The present pilot study evaluates the effects of these two dietary regimes, with a focus on redox homeostasis, in HT.

Patients and methods: 45 euthyroid HT patients (30 F; median age 42 years) were randomly assigned to different dietary regimes: MedD (n = 15), GFD (n = 15) and free diet (FD, n = 15). Thyroid function tests, autoantibodies, and oxidative stress markers (Advanced glycation end products, AGEs; glutathione peroxidase (GPx), thioredoxin reductase (TRxR), and total plasma antioxidant activity (TEAA) were measured at baseline and after 12 weeks.

Results: In the MedD group, significantly lower values of AGEs and higher values of GPX, TRX and TEAA with anti-oxidant action were detected (p < 0.05) at 12 weeks compared to baseline, and compared to the GFD and FD groups, in which the oxidative stress parameters did not change significantly (p > 0.05). No significant differences in serum levels of TSH, FT4, Ab-Tg, Ab-TPO compared to baseline were found in any group.

Conclusions: This pilot study confirms the protective effect of the MedD against oxidative stress, while a GFD does not significantly influence markers of oxidative stress and/or thyroid autoimmunity/function parameters.

Background: Gender differences in metabolic response to lifestyle interventions remain poorly explored. This study aimed to evaluate the impact of a six-month Mediterranean diet (MD) intervention combined with regular physical activity on metabolic parameters in overweight adults.

Methods: A prospective cohort study was conducted in an obesity clinic in Rome, Italy, involving overweight adults (BMI ≥ 25 kg/m²) motivated to improve their lifestyle. Participants (n = 205; 107 men and 98 women) self-selected into physical activity groups (aerobic, anaerobic, combined or no activity). Gender-specific metabolic changes were assessed, including lipid profiles, liver markers and fasting glucose.

Results: Significant gender differences in metabolic results were observed. Men showed greater reductions in total cholesterol (TC) and LDL, as well as significant reductions in alanine aminotransferase (ALT). Women showed a significant increase in HDL cholesterol. Fasting blood glucose decreased significantly in both sexes, with no differences between the sexes. Activity-specific analysis revealed that anaerobic activity significantly improved lipid metabolism in men, while aerobic activity produced the greatest benefits in women, including increased HDL and improved liver marker profiles.

Conclusions: Therapeutic strategies combining MD and physical activity must take into account gender-specific physiological differences and the type of sport activity to optimise metabolic benefits. Personalised approaches may improve the management of cardiovascular risk factors in overweight individuals.

Study registration: This study is registered on ClinicalTrials.gov (NCT06661330).

Objective: To investigate the relationship between protein-rich foods, various nutritional supplements, and age of natural menopause and its symptoms.

Methods: This study was a large-scale cross-sectional survey. A multi-stage stratified random sampling method was used to select a sample of 52,347 residents aged 35-60 years from 26 districts/counties across 13 cities in 12 provinces in China. The mean natural menopause age was represented by the average and median, and logistic regression models were employed to examine the relationship between the intake of protein-rich foods, use of nutritional supplements, and natural menopause age as well as menopausal symptoms.

Results: The average natural menopause age of the study population was 49.46 (±3.22) years, with a median age of 50 years. Logistic regression analysis revealed that with increasing frequency of fish consumption, the natural menopause age was delayed and the severity of menopausal symptoms gradually decreased, especially in relation to physical symptoms, psychological symptoms, and urogenital symptoms, which showed significant negative correlations. Milk and soy products were significantly negatively correlated with various dimensions of menopausal symptoms. Calcium and iron supplements were significantly positively correlated with the severity of menopause symptoms. Subgroup analysis by different age groups and premenopausal versus postmenopausal status showed minimal impact on the study results. In the population with BMI ≥ 18.5, fish consumption was significantly negatively correlated with menopausal symptoms. In the population with BMI between 18.5 and 27.9, milk consumption was significantly negatively correlated with menopausal symptoms. In all the populations, soy product consumption was significantly negatively correlated with menopausal symptoms.

Conclusions: The intake of fish, milk, and soy products plays a role in alleviating the severity of menopausal symptoms, particularly in delaying natural menopause, with the effect of fish intake being especially significant. Calcium and iron supplements may play a role in exacerbating the severity of menopausal symptoms.

Background and Objectives: Proper nutrition and hydration are essential for the health, growth, and athletic performance of student-athletes. Adequate energy availability and sufficient intake of macro- and micronutrients support adolescent development, prevent nutrient deficiencies, and reduce the risk of disordered eating. These challenges are particularly relevant to student-athletes, who are vulnerable to nutrition misinformation and often exhibit limited nutrition knowledge. This study aimed to evaluate the feasibility and acceptability of the 'Eat 2 Win' nutrition education pilot program for high school student-athletes and assess changes in nutrition knowledge using the Nutrition for Sport Knowledge Questionnaire-Adolescents (NSKQ-a). Methods: Fifty-five high school student-athletes (14.1 ± 2.2 years; 53% male, 47% female) from the Bremer State High School Sports Academy participated in the 'Eat 2 Win' program. The curriculum was tailored to align with the nutritional needs of Australian high school student-athletes and included three interactive workshops on sports nutrition concepts, practical cooking classes, and online learning modules. Sessions were delivered onsite at the school over three consecutive weeks, once per week. Twenty-four participants (43.6%) completed all program components. Results: The program was feasible and well-accepted by participants. Nutrition knowledge, assessed in 16 participants using the NSKQ-a, revealing an overall knowledge increase of 9.7%, with sub-category improvements ranging from 3.1% to 34.4%. Conclusions: The 'Eat 2 Win' pilot program improved student-athletes' nutrition knowledge, particularly in macronutrients and hydration. Participant feedback highlighted enjoyment and positive impacts. Targeted nutrition education programs like 'Eat 2 Win' can empower student-athletes to make informed dietary choices by addressing knowledge gaps, debunking nutrition myths, and fostering positive dietary behaviours. Future programs should emphasize energy intake, practical skills, and accessible, actionable information.