Nutrition Research Reviews

This narrative review revises the scientific evidence of recent years on healthy eating in children and adolescents, making sense of promising avenues of action, from a food system perspective. A conceptual framework is provided to better understand how eating habits of children and adolescents are shaped to identify key multisectoral approaches that should be implemented to promote healthier diets. The following influencing factors are discussed: individual factors (physiological and psychological factors, food preferences and food literacy competencies), factors within the personal and socio-cultural food environments, external food environments, and the supply chain...

Certain nutritional practices may reduce menstrual-related symptoms, but there is no current consensus on what foods/supplements are sufficiently evidenced to warrant promotion to reduce menstrual symptoms of naturally menstruating individuals. This review followed the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) guidelines. Two online databases were searched for published experimental studies that investigated the effects of foods/supplements on menstrual-related symptoms in eumenorrheic women...

Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a heterogeneous and complex group of life-long neurodevelopmental disorders. How this clinical condition impacts the individual's intellectual, social and emotional capacities, contributing to alterations in the proprioceptive and sensory systems and increasing their selective attitude towards food, is well described in the literature. This complex condition or status exposes individuals with ASD to an increased risk of developing overweight, obesity, and non-communicable diseases compared to the neurotypical population...

Psoriasis is a chronic, systemic, immune-mediated, inflammatory skin disease associated with significant comorbidities. Globally, there are an estimated 60 million people living with psoriasis (PLwP). There is a growing body of evidence on the role of diet in psoriasis management, and demand for dietary advice is high. However, there are no specific, evidence-based dietary guidelines. This scoping review summarises the literature on use and effectiveness of diet in the management of psoriasis to improve understanding of the evidence and assist PLwP and healthcare professionals (HCPs) to discuss diet...

Branched-chain amino acids (BCAA: leucine, isoleucine and valine) are three of the nine indispensable amino acids, and are frequently consumed as a dietary supplement by athletes and recreationally active individuals alike. The popularity of BCAA supplements is largely predicated on the notion that they can stimulate rates of muscle protein synthesis (MPS) and suppress rates of muscle protein breakdown (MPB), the combination of which promotes a net anabolic response in skeletal muscle. To date, several studies have shown that BCAA (particularly leucine) increase the phosphorylation status of key proteins within the mechanistic target of rapamycin (mTOR) signalling pathway involved in the regulation of translation initiation in human muscle...

Pancreatic cancer is the most common medical condition that requires pancreatic resection. Over the last three decades, significant improvements have been made in the conditions and procedures related to pancreatic surgery, resulting in mortality rates lower than 5%. However, it is important to note that the morbidity in pancreatic surgery remains r latively high, with a percentage range of 30-60%. Pre-operative malnutrition is considered to be an independent risk factor for post-operative complications in pancreatic surgery, such as impaired wound healing, higher infection rates, prolonged hospital stay, hospital readmission, poor prognosis, and increased morbidity and mortality...

This scoping review aimed to explore international evidence on the impact of Food Policy Groups (FPGs) on local food systems, in urban and rural regions of high-income countries. Peer-reviewed and grey literature were searched to identify 31 documents published between 2002 and 2022 providing evidence on the impact of FPGs. Activities spanned domains including increasing food equity (e.g. strengthening school meals programs); increasing knowledge and/or demand for healthy food (e.g. food literacy programs with children and adults); increasing food access (e...

Moringa oleifera , a traditional Indian herb, is widely known for its capacity to induce antioxidant, anti-inflammatory and other chemoprotective effects in a broad range of biomedical models. These perspectives have led to an extensive number of studies using various Moringa extracts to evaluate its capacity to protect biological systems from oxidative stress and to explore whether it could be used to slow the onset of numerous age-related conditions and diseases. Moringa extracts have also been applied to prevent damage to plants from oxidative and saline stresses, following hormetic dose response patterns...

The health effects of 100% fruit and vegetable juices (FVJ) represent a controversial topic. FVJ contain notable amounts of free sugars, but also vitamins, minerals, and secondary compounds with proven biological activities like (poly)phenols and carotenoids. The review aimed to shed light on the potential impact of 100% FVJ on human subject health, comprehensively assessing the role each type of juice may have in specific health outcomes for a particular target population, as reported in dietary interventions...

Culinary medicine (CM) represents a novel strategy to promote healthy ageing, as it improves adherence to healthy dietary patterns by providing nutritional education and training in cooking skills. We conducted a comprehensive review of the current scientific literature (2011-2022) concerning CM programmes implemented among participants over the age of 40. This review includes fourteen culinary-nutritional interventions. Each CM programme was analysed according to 7 variables: health goal, study design, theoretical basis of the intervention, intervention duration, main outcomes, culinary intervention, and the effectiveness of intervention...

Age is a risk factor for numerous diseases. Although the development of modern medicine has greatly extended the human lifespan, the duration of relatively healthy old age, or 'healthspan', has not increased. Targeting the detrimental processes that can occur before the onset of age-related diseases can greatly improve health and lifespan. Healthspan is significantly affected by what, when and how much one eats. Dietary restriction, including calorie restriction, fasting or fasting-mimicking diets, to extend both lifespan and healthspan has recently attracted much attention...

A model explaining the dietary-protein-driven post-natal skeletal muscle growth and protein turnover in the rat is updated, and the mechanisms involved are described, in this narrative review. Dietary protein controls both bone length and muscle growth, which are interrelated through mechanotransduction mechanisms with muscle growth induced both from stretching subsequent to bone length growth and from internal work against gravity. This induces satellite cell activation, myogenesis and remodelling of the extracellular matrix, establishing a growth capacity for myofibre length and cross-sectional area...

Cardiovascular diseases (CVD) are the leading cause of death worldwide. From this perspective, the role of vitamin E and its metabolites in preventing CVD has been studied, being supported by the findings that low vitamin E concentrations are associated with an increased risk of cardiovascular events. Despite this, no studies analyzed coexistence of vitamin E deficiency (VED) and CVD based on population studies. Facing that, this study summarized information on the relationship between vitamin E status and CVD, providing basis for understanding the determining and protective factors for its development...

No abstract text is available yet for this article.

Resveratrol is a polyphenol found naturally in fruits and plants. Recently, studies in humans and animal models have suggested beneficial properties of this polyphenol, such as improvements to metabolic and lipid profiles, along with antioxidant, anti-inflammatory and anti-proliferative effects. In the urogenital tract (UGT), resveratrol has also been tested clinically and experimentally as a therapeutic drug in several diseases; however, the translational efficacy of resveratrol, especially in UGT, is still a matter of debate...

Despite over a decade of both quantitative and qualitative studies, food insecurity among United States college/university students remains a pervasive problem within higher education. The purpose of this perspective piece was to highlight research gaps in the area of college food insecurity and provide rationale for the research community to focus on these gaps going forward. A group of food insecurity researchers from a variety of higher education institutions across the United States identified five thematic areas of research gaps: screening and estimates of food insecurity; longitudinal changes in food insecurity; impact of food insecurity on broader health and academic outcomes; evaluation of impact, sustainability, and cost effectiveness of existing programs and initiatives; and state and federal policies and programs...

Polydatin is an active polyphenol displaying multifaceted benefits. Recently, growing studies have noticed its potential therapeutic effects on bone and joint disorders (BJDs). Therefore, this article reviews recent in vivo and in vitro progress on the protective role of polydatin against BJDs. An insight into the underlying mechanisms is also presented. It was found that polydatin could promote osteogenesis in vitro , and symptom improvements have been disclosed with animal models of osteoporosis, osteosarcoma, osteoarthritis and rheumatic arthritis...

Increasing research has been conducted on the role of probiotics in disease treatment. Kefir, a safe, low-cost probiotic fermented milk drink, has been investigated in many in vitro and animal studies, although parameters for human therapeutic dose or treatment time have not yet been determined. Here we perform a scoping review of clinical studies that have used kefir as a therapeutic agent, compiling the results for perspectives to support and direct further research. This review was based on Joanna Briggs Institute guidelines, including studies on the effects of kefir-fermented milk in humans...

Social media data are rapidly evolving and accessible, which presents opportunities for research. Data science techniques, such as sentiment or emotion analysis which analyse textual emotion, provide an opportunity to gather insight from social media. This paper describes a systematic scoping review of interdisciplinary evidence to explore how sentiment or emotion analysis methods alongside other data science methods have been used to examine nutrition, food and cooking social media content. A PRISMA search strategy was used to search nine electronic databases in November 2020 and January 2022...

No abstract text is available yet for this article.