Guess what this is:
Neurons? Nope… Galaxies? Nope… An explosion of spermatozoa? Nope!
Hint: it involves food and awesome medical imaging technology…
If you guessed “an MRI of a head of lettuce”, you are way too smart.
Get yourself over to Inside Insides where it seems as though an MRI technician has got way too much time on their hands (and the awesome job of calibrating a multi-million dollar machine)!
Another cool one:
Grapes!
This actually brought a tear to my eye…
Harvard scientists use cinematic animation techniques to demonstrate molecular and cellular biology. Absolutely stunning.
High-fructose corn syrup, a disaccharide (sugar) derivative from the mountains of corn produced in the mid-west has been used extensively in thousands of food products as a cheap and effective sweetener.
It has been the topic of much debate and ridicule, taking the blame for everything from cavities to obesity. I touched on HFCS a few months ago, and came to the conclusion that it’s not appreciably different from other sugars typically used:
The assertion that high fructose corn syrup is single-handedly responsible for the negative health impacts we are seeing appears to be ill-founded. It is very clear, however, that with increasing intake of calories in the form of added sweeteners like HFCS, particularly in beverages, there is an increase in weight gain.
Now, I’m all for eating my words, and a recent study, covered by Marion Nestle (no relation to the food conglomerate) over at Food Politics notes that what’s on the package might not be what is inside the package.
A recent analysis tested the sugar content of a number of soft drinks to assess the levels of various individual components. Bottles of twenty-three soft drinks (like Coke, Pepsi, Sprite etc.) and four syrups were included in the analysis.
Quick summary of results from the publication Fact Sheet:
- There is 18 percent more fructose in the HFCS used by soda companies than estimated.
- Several major brands appear to be produced with HFCS that is 65 percent fructose.
- The mean fructose content in the HFCS used was 59 percent.
What this means is that these beverages contain way more fructose than: 1) they advertise; and 2) they are allowed. More fructose = more “lipogenic” or “fat producing” sugars being consumed that one may realize.
However, the study had a number of major flaws, outlined in Marion Nestle’s post, and deserves caution. It will be interesting to see how this gets whipped up and whether other labs will reproduce the results.
Regardless of whether a Coke has 55% fructose (what is typically in HFCS) or 59% fructose, it’s not a health beverage!
What is a fad diet?
The term conjures images of short-term starvation, compulsive calorie counting, and ‘lite’ salad dressings, focussed on shedding a few pounds of flab in the short term. Fads rise quickly, as their merits decay away just as fast.
But I’ve always been one to think of a “diet” as the foods we eat everyday; not a short-term departure from our fodder. There is one of these non-fad diets that has become a recurring headline (warningly like a fad diet), and more and more scientific research is revealing the positive health benefits of the Mediterranean Diet.
Since the ’60′s, the Mediterranean Diet has been drawing attention for the purported health benefits, and scientific investigation has been consistently expounding the nutritional and health value of this diet.
Proponents call it a “life-style”, characterized by:
An updated meta-analysis, published this week in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, has reiterated the positives of this diet. This study by Sofi et al. added another seven studies to their previous analysis published in 2008.
This meta-analysis of prospective, cohort studies included 18 trials including over 2 million subjects with follow-up times ranging from 4 to 20 years. The analysis was interesting because it used a scale of “adherence” to the diet and its effects on outcomes including: overall mortality, mortality and/or incidence from cardio- and cerebrovascular diseases, mortality and/or incidence from cancer, and incidence of neuro-degenerative diseases.
Results
The results corroborated the findings of the previous meta-analysis, reporting that with increasing adherence to the Mediterranean diet, as measured through Food Frequency Questionnaires or other survey methodologies, risk of all-cause mortality decreased.
A two-point increase in adherence was related to a ~10% decrease in cardiovascular death (CI: 0.87-0.93; p<0.00001) and a ~6% reduction in death due to cancer and other neoplastic diseases (CI: 0.94-0.96; p<0.0001). The authors also noted a 13% reduction in neurodegenerative conditions with increasing adherence to the diet.
Reservations
I’ve got a few “hold-it-right-there” reservations. First of all, the only thing that can be shown here is an association between morbidity and mortality and the Mediterranean diet, and this is because the analysis only included prospective cohort trials, not randomized, controlled interventions, and thus cannot show causation. With so many different components to the diet, which might be contributing most significantly to the health benefits?
Also, no biomarkers of nutritional status were collected and thus it was only through analysis of food frequency questionnaires and dietary diaries that data was collected. We have no idea what the actual biological health of these participants was!
From my experience, these methodologies are acceptable (and indispensable) for public health research, but have a decent level of error. When dealing with small risk reduction values like those reported here, reporting bias could potentially diminish these positive results.
However, the huge sample size included in this meta-analysis, one of the largest I have seen outside of other massive prospective cohorts like the Nurses Health Study, provides strength to the findings.
The Big Take Home
Interest in the Mediterranean Diet has been on the rise in recent years
Something that is not clear at all is how this translates into clinical practice. It is not feasible to expect that patients might be willing and able to dramatically switch their dietary practices, for a slight reduction in disease risk.
The results of this analysis appear to support the benefits on a population scale, but beyond providing kindling for the “eat more fruits and vegetables, less red meat, and more olive oil” camp, it’s hard to make concrete recommendations to individuals.
Soy is a very hot topic these days, with purported health benefits ranging from cancer to heart disease to hormonal support. To get a professional view on the benefits of this sexy seed, I asked Dr. Alison Duncan, a professor at the University of Guelph who has extensive research experience with soy products, to share some thoughts with Fodder File readers.
“Recently, the Journal of Nutrition published a supplement containing numerous articles that explored the health relevance of the isoflavone metabolite equol. Equol is not found in soy itself but is metabolized from a soy-containing isoflavone called daidzein in the gastrointestinal tract from the help of enzymes produced from bacteria. 
Equol has a fascinating history of discovery from being identified as the most potent of the isoflavones and metabolites to the established idea that only a proportion of individuals (30-40%) have the ability to even produce equol from daidzein. Given the uniqueness and potency of equol, there has been substantial scientific activity that has focused on equol, including its isolation and incorporation into a dietary supplement.
“This specific article by Takeshi Aso published in the Journal of Nutrition (2010;140:1386S) entitled Equol improves menopausal symptoms in Japanese women was designed to evaluate the efficacy of an equol supplement in reducing menopausal symptoms in Japanese women who were identified as equol non-producers. The research first implemented a pilot study to explore if effects would be detected (which was confirmed), then completed a study to establish a suitable dose of 10 mg natural S-equol/day and finally completed a 12-week intervention study which demonstrated significantly reduced hot flash frequency, hot flash severity, neck stiffness and shoulder stiffness among those women (n=66) who consumed the equol supplement when compared to women who consumed a placebo (n=60). Notably, there were no serious adverse effects reported and when the supplement was stopped, the hot flash and neck and shoulder stiffness responses rebounded. The authors concluded that the natural S-equol dietary supplement shows a promising potential for the management of menopausal symptoms.
“This study is very interesting and current in its investigation of equol in dietary supplement form to address estrogen-related health issues such as the common concern of menopausal symptoms, particularly vasomotor symptoms, among postmenopausal women. Since equol is not able to be produced by all individuals, its inclusion into a dietary supplement is warranted and could provide exciting opportunity for improved health. This particular study focused on menopausal symptoms, which some studies have demonstrated to be improved by soy isoflavones in general; however, many other studies have been challenged in demonstrating significant effects due to the common presence of a placebo effect. This study addressed that common issue by including a 4-week screening period during which all participants received a placebo and after which those participants who showed placebo effects were excluded from the actual intervention period. Overall the study was thorough, well designed and adds to a rapidly growing literature on this exciting topic.”
Alison Duncan, Ph.D, R.D.
Associate Professor
Department of Human Health and Nutritional Sciences
University of Guelph
