J Nutrition Sept, 2009 – SUMMARY –– See SYNOPSES and links after summary located at
http://www.beloit.edu/nutrition/aln/0909jnutr
Get plenty of red grapes, juice or wine (and blueberries, strawberries, and walnuts)
1.Symposium on Grapes – Eat lots of them often –
a. Resveratrol is a unique beneficial component of grapes.
b. for cardiovascular disease, the benefits of wine consumption appear to be greater than other alcoholic beverages.
c. with a low mean Glycemic Index and Glycemic Load, grapes or grape products may provide health benefits to type 2 diabetics.
d. Concord grape juice maintained immune function, whereas the placebo juice reduced immunity.
e. Grapes and grape-based products are known to improve overall human health
f. SAVE YOUR BRAIN – blueberries, strawberries, walnuts, and Concord grape juice
g. Help your teeth too!
Benefits of particular foods
2. Cruciferous vegetables beneficially change your gut
3. Eating soy reduces your [harmful] LDL level
4. How DHA acts as the critical component of fish oil – Quantitative microscopy showed that DHA, but not EPA, treatment, was effective for certain benefits.
Success of particular diets
5. Six weeks of carb restriction improves health – a 6-wk CRD can effectively be used as a first-line diet therapy to rapidly improve features of metabolic syndrome, diabetes, and cardiovascular risk…
6. Mediterranean diet reduces abdominal fat
7. Special sugars in mother’s milk – Human milk is the ideal nutrient for growing babies in the first few months after birth. Especially important are mannose and inositol, which are not as concentrated in infant formulas.
Getting your daily values is essential.
8. Daily value of selenium fights cancer
9. Daily value of zinc maintains your DNA and more
10. Avoid iron deficiency during pregnancy – Iron deficiency (ID) is the most prevalent worldwide nutritional deficiency. Groups at risk of developing ID anemia are infants and pregnant women, even in industrialized countries.
11. Elderly digest and absorb protein as well as young men
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Consciousness is the “last great mystery of science” – Richard Dawkins, author of The Selfish Gene
SYNOPSES OF ARTICLES THIS MONTH
1.Symposium on Grapes – Eat lots of them often – Highlights of abstracts that may not be accessible unless you subscribe to J. Nutr –
a. Resveratrol is a unique component of grapes. .. Thousands of studies have been performed to characterize the mode of action of this substance… Scores of additional chemicals are known to be constituents of grapes.
b. Epidemiological studies suggest that consumption of wine, grape products, and other foods containing polyphenols is associated with decreased risk for cardiovascular disease. The benefits of wine consumption appear to be greater than other alcoholic beverages.
c. Type 2 diabetes affects ~7% of the population in the United States…with a low mean Glycemic Index and Glycemic Load, grapes or grape products may provide health benefits to type 2 diabetics.
d. a study currently in progress showed that Concord grape juice supported circulating T cells and maintained immune function, whereas participants receiving the placebo juice had changes associated with reduced immunity.
e. With emerging trends in the incidence of cancer of various organ sites, additional approaches are needed to control human malignancies. Fruits and vegetables represent untapped reservoir of various nutritive and nonnutritive phytochemicals with potential cancer chemopreventive activity. Grapes and grape-based products are one such class of dietary products that have shown cancer chemopreventive potential and are also known to improve overall human health. ..Both grapes and grape-based products are excellent sources of various anticancer agents and their regular consumption should thus be beneficial to the general population.
f. SAVE YOUR BRAIN – Research from our laboratory has suggested that dietary supplementation with fruit or vegetable extracts high in antioxidants (e.g. blueberries, strawberries, walnuts, and Concord grape juice) can decrease the enhanced vulnerability to oxidative stress that occurs in aging and these reductions are expressed as improvements in behavior. Additional mechanisms involved in the beneficial effects of fruits and vegetables include enhancement of neuronal communication via increases in neuronal signaling and decreases in stress signals induced by oxidative/inflammatory stressors (e.g. nuclear factor {kappa}B). Moreover, collaborative findings indicate that blueberry or Concord grape juice supplementation in humans with mild cognitive impairment increased verbal memory performance, thus translating our animal findings to humans. Taken together, these results suggest that a greater intake of high-antioxidant foods such as berries, Concord grapes, and walnuts may increase “health span” and enhance cognitive and motor function in aging.
g. Help your teeth too! Oral diseases, including dental caries, periodontal disease, and tooth loss, affect the majority of the population and can affect a person’s overall health. Raisins contain polyphenols, flavonoids, and high levels of iron that may benefit human health…Grape seed extract, high in proanthocyanidins, positively affected the in vitro demineralization and/or remineralization processes of artificial root caries lesions, suggesting its potential as a promising natural agent for noninvasive root caries therapy. Raisins represent a healthy alternative to the commonly consumed sugary snack foods.
h. Nutrition vocabulary for grapes – Phenolic compounds in grapes and wine are grouped within the following major classes: stilbenes, phenolic acids, ellagitannins, flavan-3-ols, anthocyanins, flavonols, and proanthocyanidins. Consumption of foods containing phenolic substances has been linked to beneficial effects toward chronic diseases such as coronary heart disease and colorectal cancer.
2. Cruciferous vegetables beneficially change your gut – In the human gut, commensal bacteria metabolize food components that typically serve as energy sources. These components have the potential to influence gut bacterial community composition. Cruciferous vegetables, such as broccoli and cabbage, contain distinctive compounds that can be utilized by gut bacteria…In conclusion, human gut bacterial community composition was altered by cruciferous vegetable consumption, which could ultimately influence gut metabolism of bioactive food components and host exposure to these compounds.
3. Eating soy reduces your [harmful] LDL level – Type 2 diabetes is highly prevalent in North America and is associated with increased risk of cardiovascular disease (CVD). Evidence supports a role for soy protein in the reduction of serum lipids related to CVD risk; however, few studies have focused on adults with type 2 diabetes who are not on lipid-lowering medications and/or do not have diabetic complications…These data demonstrate that consumption of soy protein can modulate some serum lipids in a direction beneficial for CVD risk in adults with type 2 diabetes.
4. How DHA acts as the critical component of fish oil – An emerging molecular mechanism by which docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) exerts its effects is modification of lipid raft organization. The biophysical model, based on studies with liposomes, shows that DHA avoids lipid rafts because of steric incompatibility between DHA and cholesterol…Quantitative microscopy showed that DHA, but not EPA, treatment, relative to the BSA control diminished lipid raft clustering and increased their size.
5. Six weeks of carb restriction improves health – The prevalence of diabetes mellitus (DM) in the United Arab Emirates is among the highest world-wide. Metabolic syndrome (MetS) predisposes individuals to DM; therefore, dietary interventions targeting MetS biomarkers are a high priority. We evaluated whether a carbohydrate-restricted diet (CRD-20–25% carbohydrate, 50–55% fat, 25–30% protein energy distribution) could effectively be used as a first-line therapy intervention…Results from this study suggest that a 6-wk CRD can effectively be used as a first-line diet therapy to rapidly improve features of MetS and cardiovascular risk…
6. Mediterranean diet reduces abdominal fat – Despite the observed heterogeneity among regions, results of this study suggest that adherence to a modified Mediterranean diet, high in foods of vegetable origin and unsaturated fatty acids, is associated with lower abdominal adiposity…
7. Special sugars in mother’s milk – Human milk is the ideal nutrient for growing babies in the first few months after birth. A number of studies have confirmed the advantages of maternal milk over cow milk-based infant formula for protecting against diarrheal illness and respiratory infection, influencing cognitive development, and possibly preventing chronic disease (1). The mechanism and the physiological basis for the superiority of maternal milk continues to be examined. ..Especially important are mannose and inositol, which are not as concentrated in infant formulas.
8. Daily value of selenium fights cancer – Methylselenol has been hypothesized to be a critical selenium (Se) metabolite for anticancer activity in vivo,..The regulation of these genes is likely to play a key role in G1 cell cycle arrest and apoptosis, which may contribute to the inhibition of tumor cell invasion.
9. Daily value of zinc maintains your DNA and more – Approximately 12% of Americans do not consume the Estimated Average Requirement for zinc and could be at risk for marginal zinc deficiency. Zinc is an essential component of numerous proteins involved in the defense against oxidative stress and DNA damage repair. ..These results suggest interactions among zinc deficiency, DNA integrity, oxidative stress, and DNA repair and suggested a role for zinc in maintaining DNA integrity.
10. Avoid iron deficiency during pregnancy – Iron deficiency (ID) is the most prevalent worldwide nutritional deficiency. Groups at risk of developing ID anemia are infants and pregnant women, even in industrialized countries…This demonstrates that moderate ID during gestation and lactation results in alterations of brain fatty acid and eicosanoid metabolism and perturbation in behavior in adult offspring.
11. Elderly digest and absorb protein as well as young men – For ten elderly (64 ± 1 y) and 10 young (23 ± 1 y) healthy males…we conclude that protein digestion and absorption kinetics and the subsequent muscle protein synthetic response following the ingestion of a large bolus of intact CAS are not substantially impaired in healthy, elderly men.
