1.Wholegrain: Heart study reinforces interest
A new study, showing that wholegrain consumption can slow the progress of heart disease , has increased interest in wholegrain products that do not compromise on taste.
2. Soy: Consumption may reduce prostate cancer Researchers in the US have found that regular consumption of foods and beverages containing soy protein may reduce the risk of prostate cancer in men by as much as 30 per cent.
3. Flax Lignans: Hair loss cure?
A pilot study in the Netherlands suggests that flax lignans may be able to halt, or even cure, baldness.
4. Grains in the News:
Grains: Nutrient-rich staple crops
Large funding grants have been received by organisations aiming to develop a nutrient-rich staple crop, in the hope of improving nutrition in third world countries.
Bread: Forget the wrinkle cream
In Spain, a concentrated component of olive oil has been added to bread and launched as an anti-ageing food.
Supplements: No alternative to health eating
An announcement in the Journal of the American Medical Association says there is currently insufficient data to justify altering public health policy from an emphasis on foods and dietary patterns to one on supplements.
Full stories:
1. Wholegrains: Heart study reinforces interest | ( back to contents )
This study recorded that women with a history of heart disease who reported having eaten six or more servings of wholegrains per week were shown to have slower progression of atherosclerosis, a condition where built-up plaque narrows the arteries which direct blood to the heart.
The findings of this study, funded by the Agricultural Research Service (ARS), are published in the July issue of the American Heart Journal.
The research verifies that food manufacturers introducing wholegrain products are right to emphasise the health benefits of wholegrains. New technology means that more products can incorporate wholegrains without compromising taste.
Until recently, a lack of milling options had meant bakers were unable to make wholegrain bread with a similar taste and texture to white bread.
The 2005 Dietary Guidelines for Americans recommend that people consume at least three servings of wholegrain foods a day. Currently most Americans eat less than a single serving of wholegrains daily.
The ARS study was led by Alice Lichtenstein, director of the Cardiovascular Nutrition Laboratory at the Jean Mayer USDA Human Nutrition Research Centre on Aging at Tufts University in Boston, Massachusetts. She and colleagues studied 229 postmenopausal women who had participated in the Oestrogen Replacement and Atherosclerosis Study.
The researchers found that the progression of stenosis, the narrowing of the arterial passageways, was less in women who reported higher intakes of cereal fibre from wholegrain foods than those reporting lower intakes.
The data suggests that following current dietary recommendations can slow the rate of heart disease progression.
Wholegrains can be found in breakfast cereal s made with wholegrains, oatmeal, brown rice, barley, popcorn, wholemeal bread and cereal, bran muffins and wholemeal flour.
2. Soy: Consumption may reduce prostate cancer | ( back to contents )
Regular consumption of foods and beverages containing soy protein may reduce the risk of prostate cancer in men by as much as 30 per cent, according to a study recently published in the e-publication of the International Journal of Cancer .
Conducted by Lin Yan, PhD, Director of Cancer Research for The Solae Company and Edward Spitznagel, PhD, Professor of Mathematics at Washington University, the study is a meta-analysis of eight population studies that examined consumption of soy protein-containing foods in relation to prostate cancer in men.
The five studies were completed in the US, Canada and Asia. The meta-analysis of these studies demonstrated a dramatic 30 per cent reduction in the risk of prostate cancer in men who regularly consumed foods containing soy-protein.
The finding of this study is also consistent with and supported by a cross-national analysis of prostate mortality rate in relation to nutritional factors using data from United Nations sources. In the 42 countries where the appropriate data is available, soy consumption is correlated to a significantly lower mortality rate from prostate cancer.
The protection from soy is demonstrated to be at least four times greater than from any other dietary factors that were analysed.
A pilot study carried out by Dutch company Acatris, suggests that taking flax lignans could put an end to baldness.
Jocelyn Mathern, Technical Specialist at Acatris, said that androgenetic alopecia (AGA), the most common from of hair loss, is a hormonal as well as a genetic issue effecting around 50 per cent of men aged 50 years old or older.
?A potent form of the male hormone testosterone, dihydrotestosterone (DHT), can get inside hair follicles and cause them to shrink and produce thinner hair and eventually none at all,? said Mathern.
The main flax lignan, secoisolariciresinol diglucoside (SDG), can help prevent this by inhibiting production of the enzyme that converts testosterone into DHT, called 5-alpha reductase.
The study took place at a health company in Taiwan over a six-month period. Ten male sufferers of androgenetic alopecia aged between 20 and 70 years received a 50mg daily dose of SDG.
The condition of their hair was documented at the beginning of the study by photographs and the men measured their hair loss throughout the period by counting the number of hairs on their pillows each morning.
Initial effects of the flax lignans were noticed on average one to two months into the study. At the end of the period, eight of the participants reported a modest improvement in their hair loss condition, one reported a great improvement and one reported no effect at all. The more severe the participant's hair loss was at the start of the trial, the more noticeable the improvement. Half the subjects also noted decreased oil secretion in their scalp. No adverse effects were reported.
?This pilot study confirms earlier research on flax lignans with respect to their promise in the care of AGA and without the sometimes harmful effects of a prescription medication,? said Mathern.
Result's from the pilot study indicate that Acatris will be sponsoring a clinical trial at a research centre in Maastricht, The Netherlands, later this year.
More than US$30 million has been allocated to scientists on four different projects seeking to develop new nutrient-rich staple crops that could improve the nutrition of the world's poor.
The Grand Challenges in Global Health initiative, backed by a US$450 million commitment from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, as well as US$27.1 million from the Wellcome Trust, and US$4.5 million from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR), aims to create health tools that are inexpensive to produce and easy to distribute and use in developing countries.
Forty-three grants have been offered totalling US$436 million to a range of pioneering research projects involving scientists in 33 countries, including four projects targeted at one of the project's key goals, to create a nutrient-rich staple plant.
The projects include a genetically modified cassava that would offer higher amounts of key micronutrients and endure longer storage time investigated by Richard T. Sayre at Ohio State University. Peter Beyer at Albert-Ludwigs University in Germany is developing n ew varieties of golden rice . T he development of bananas with increased levels of pro-vitamin A, vitamin E, and iron being researched by James Langham Dale at Queensland University of Technology in Australia.
Kenya-based Africa Harvest, working with Dr Paul Anderson of DuPont Crop Genetics Research, has also received a grant for a genetically engineered variety of sorghum with higher levels of pro-vitamin A, vitamin E, iron, zinc, amino acids, and protein. A prototype, containing increased levels of the amino acid lysine, has already been successfully developed.
A bread containing a concentrated component of olive oil has been launched in Spain as an anti-ageing food.
The bread contains a concentrated hydroxytyrosol called Hytolive 2, made by Spanish company Genosa R&D.
The ingredient, making its first entry into the market, has been added to Puratos' Nostrum brand bread, made with a mixture of heart healthy cereals, such as oats, wheat and barley, and is already on the Spanish market.
The firm claims that hydroxytyrosol is a valuable antioxidant extracted from olives that can help prevent ageing.
Genosa is aiming to market the ingredient for heart health, with olive oil being strongly associated with the benefits of the Mediterranean diet, including claims of prolonged existence and lower rates of cardiovascular disease.
"There are opportunities in other markets where people don't have a tradition of consuming olive oil," said Carlos Pena, General Manager of Genosa.
Hytolive 2 is a 45 per cent concentration of natural hydroxytyrosol, obtained by a patented technology that isolates it from olives at up to 99 per cent purity.
Over the last six years soy milk has become Europe's fastest growing ?dairy' sector. Health ?trends' such as soy milk, and increased reports of lactose intolerance , are presenting new challenges to dairy organisations.
A new report on the global dairy market from research group Euromonitor says that the value of the soy milk market has more than doubled to €375 million between 1998 and 2004, due to consumer obsessions with health and wellness.
The report says soy milk has benefited from rising consumer awareness that soy is high in fibre, protein and minerals yet low in saturated fat and free from cholesterol. Isoflavins found in soy milk have also been promoted as reducing the risk of many diseases, including breast and prostate cancer, colon disorders, osteoporosis and heart problems.
A growing number of consumers are also turning to soy milk because they are worried about lactose intolerance: where the body doesn't produce enough lactase enzyme to breakdown the lactose in dairy products. Lactose intolerance symptoms may include bloating, abdominal pains and diarrhoea.
The UK Dairy Council said recently that around 45 per cent of British people (27 million) claimed to be lactose intolerant, yet only two per cent had been clinically diagnosed. The official intolerance figure for Northern Europe and North America is around five percent.
Supplements: No alternative to healthy eating | ( back to contents )
In a special communication piece that appeared in the July issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), report s that the most promising data on nutrition and optimal health outcomes relate to dietary patterns, not nutrient supplements. They further state that there are insufficient data to justify altering public health policy from an emphasis on foods and dietary patterns to one on supplements.
The authors emphasise that nutrient supplementation, particularly for certain at-risk populations, has an important place in healthcare. They distinguish an important difference between observing associations between particular nutrients and health outcomes , and detecting causal connections.
"Perhaps no better example exists than the disheartening results of the vitamin E intervention trials for the prevention of cardiovascular disease," says Robert Russell , Senior Scientist and Director of the Human Nutrition Research Centre on Ageing at Tufts University.
Alice Lichtenstein , Director of the Cardiovascular Nutrition Laboratory, US Department of Agriculture, explains that although observational studies suggest positive effects, "we lack supporting evidence from intervention trials, and that is critical for making recommendations to the public."
"Disease-nutrient relationships are by their nature very complex. Within the context of high dose nutrient supplementation, outcomes are frequently unexpected. Not only have some studies failed to yield positive results but occasionally unanticipated negative effects have been observed," said Lichtenstein.
The authors point out that some of the unanticipated findings from high dose single or nutrient cocktails may be because the levels used are much higher than those necessary to prevent deficiency disease. In one study, adding a nutrient antioxidant cocktail to a well established cholesterol-lowering drug treatment actually lessened the beneficial effect.
"We still have a lot to learn about the use of high doses of nutrients. The important point is to prevent the cart from getting in front of the horse; we need to validate the science before there is wide scale adoption by the general public as we saw with vitamin E. We can no longer automatically assume there will be no adverse consequences," said Lichtenstein.
"The identification, isolation, and purification of nutrients in the early 20th century raised the possibility that optimal health outcomes could be realised through nutrient supplementation," write the authors, but this advance has been "a double-edged sword."
Current expert opinion agrees that there is not enough evidence to justify emphasising nutrient supplements over food and diet for maintaining good health. The topic remains under rigorous research, and new data is published regularly but based on the available information, the authors say it is best to, "eat a diet rich in fruits, vegetables, low-fat dairy products, wholegrains and fish."
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