J Nutrition Oct, 2009 – SUMMARY –– See SYNOPSES and links after summary located at
http://www.beloit.edu/nutrition/aln/1009jnutr
Some things are very clear: 1. Whole grain and cereal intake helps keep a thinner waistline
2. A nutritious diverse diet prevents cognitive decline
3. Eating a meal with complete nutrition stimulates muscle growth
4. Yogurt soothes your bowels
5. Tart cherry juice is beneficial
6. Drink many cups of green tea daily, but not gallons of it.
7. Vitamin E supplements particularly benefit those who need it
8. Coenzyme Q (CoQ10) supplements provide no benefits and may impair brain function
Some things are not so clear: 9. There are different CLAs, some good, some harmful
10. The t ype of starch one eats controls its effect on weight gain
SYNOPSES OF ARTICLES THIS MONTH
1. Whole grain and cereal intake helps keep a thinner waistline – Foods high in dietary fiber may play an important role in regulating body weight. ..Higher intakes of cereal fiber, particularly from whole-grain sources, are associated with lower total percent body fat and percent trunk fat mass in older adults.
2. A nutritious diverse diet prevents cognitive decline – Diet Quality Is Associated with Better Cognitive Test Performance among Aging Men and Women. Most studies of association between diet and cognition among the elderly focus on the role of single nutrients or foods and ignore the complexity of dietary patterns and total diet quality. Consuming a diverse diet that includes a variety of recommended foods may help to attenuate age-related cognitive decline among the elderly.
3. Eating a meal with complete nutrition stimulates muscle growth – Food consumption increases protein synthesis in most tissues by promoting translation initiation. Food consumption rapidly increased skeletal muscle protein synthesis by enhancing translation initiation and this increase was sustained for at least 120 min after the meal but returned to baseline by 240 min after the feeding.
4. Yogurt soothes your bowels – Probiotics relieve colonic inflammation. B. polyfermenticus ameliorates colonic inflammation by suppressing apoptosis and promoting epithelial cell proliferation and migration.
5. Tart cherry juice is beneficial – Compared with young adults, older adults have significantly impaired capacities to resist oxidative damage when faced with acute stress such as ischemia/reperfusion. [Like red grape juice, ] consumption of tart cherry juice improves antioxidant defenses in vivo in older adults as shown by an increased capacity to constrain an oxidative challenge and reduced oxidative damage to nucleic acids.
6. Green tea reduces the risk of Alzheimer’s – Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is characterized by the extracellular deposition of β-amyloid peptide (Aβ) in cerebral plaques. Aβ is derived from the β-amyloid precursor protein (APP) by the enzymes -, β- and -secretase. Compounds that enhance -secretase, but inhibit β- or -secretase activity, have therapeutic potential in the treatment of AD. Green tea, or its major polyphenolic compound, has been shown to have neuroprotective effects. These studies suggest that EGCG may be a beneficial agent in the prevention of development or progression of AD. Too much green tea when one is young may reduce bone strength – Consumption of green tea may reduce body weight gain. Although many disorders are related to obesity, bone mass is positively correlated with body mass…[C]onsumption of large quantities of green tea may reduce the rate of bone accumulation during growth.
7. Vitamin E supplements particularly benefit those who need it – Our observations suggest that the antiinflammatory effect of vitamin E is specific to those genetically predisposed to higher inflammation.
8. Coenzyme Q (CoQ10) supplements provide no benefits and may impair brain function – Coenzyme Q10 (CoQ10) is widely consumed as a dietary supplement to enhance bioenergetic capacity and to ameliorate the debilitative effects of the aging process or certain pathological conditions. Our main purpose in this study was to determine whether CoQ10 intake does indeed attenuate the age-associated losses in motor, sensory, and cognitive functions or decrease the rate of mortality in mice…Our results suggest that prolonged intake of CoQ10 in low amounts has no discernable impact on cognitive and motor functions whereas intake at higher amounts exacerbates cognitive and sensory impairments encountered in old mice. These findings do not support the notion that CoQ10 is a fitness-enhancing or an “antiaging” substance under normal physiological conditions.
9. There are different CLAs, some good, some harmful – 9E,11E-CLA exerts unique antiinflammatory effects by increasing an endogenous repressor of IL-1 signaling. This CLA may contribute to fat loss. This article describes the interaction between CLA and Ob in the WAT of heavy pigs and we hypothesize that there is an increased noradrenergic stimulation of lipolysis directly in the target tissue.
10. The type of starch one eats controls its effect on weight gain – Energy restriction (ER)6 has long been the strategy of choice for dietary interventions aimed at reducing body weight. However, several studies have shown that the macronutrient composition of the diet plays an important role in determining both the magnitude of weight loss and the metabolic corrections. In this regard, high-fat/low-carbohydrate or high-protein diets have been reported to result in greater weight loss and better metabolic profile than conventional low-energy/low-fat diets, even when consumed ad libitum (AL) (6–11). Nevertheless, the long-term efficacy and safety of these diets are insufficiently documented. Concerns have been raised that continuous adherence to diets that limit the intake of carbohydrates, major staples in the diet, might result in micronutrient deficiencies and inadequate fiber intake (12), whereas chronic intakes of high-protein diets might be detrimental to people predisposed to renal disease (13). This study comprised 2 experiments that tested the hypothesis that a high-amylose starch diet (AMO) would improve body weight and glycemic control relative to a high-amylopectin starch diet (AMN) in rats with diet-induced obesity. [Unfortunately, I have been unable to find food sources that will provide AMO vs. AMN)
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Consciousness is the “last great mystery of science” – Richard Dawkins, author of The Selfish Gene
