1. Low-Carb: Starving the heart A new study presented at the American Heart Association's recent annual meeting, reveals that the low-carb diet can negatively impact on the heart's energy stores.
2. Beans: Flavanoid slows prostate tumour US researchers have found that a plant flavanoid found in beans and other fruits and vegetables slowed the development of prostate tumours in mice.
3. Wholegrains: Protect against asthma A Dutch study has revealed that a high intake of wholegrain foods and fish has a potential protective effect of asthma in children.
4. Fibre: Protection from heart disease A team of French researchers has found dietary fibre intake to be inversely correlated with several cardiovascular disease risk factors in both sexes, supporting its protective role against cardiovascular disease and prompting recommendations for increased consumption.
5. Grains in the News:
Cereal: Age and habit guide choice
A survey of US consumers has discovered that age and habit are influential factors when it comes to choosing cereals.
Rice: A new grain claim
Scientists at a food research company have said that a new ingredient made from rice may enable ice cream, yoghurt and protein bars to make ?grain claims' on their packaging.
Bread: Enzyme keeps fresher longer
Irish researchers have developed a naturally occurring enzyme preparation for baking that can make loaves larger, softer and last longer.
Food4Thought: Campaign for UK kids
The British Heart Foundation reveals that 36 per cent of 8 to 14 year olds could not correctly identify that chips were made from potato. These findings have prompted a nationwide campaign aimed at children, to think about what they eat and to help them make healthier choices.
High fat-low carb diets, such as the once-trendy Atkins diet, appear to negatively impact the heart's energy stores, according to new research resently presented in the US .
While many nutritionists have attacked the Atkin's weight loss regime for its high fat content, putting dieters at risk of clogged arteries and heart attack in the long-term, the small study carried out at the University of Oxford is one of the first to demonstrate a direct effect on the heart after following the diet for a short period.
The results, presented at the American Heart Association conference in Dallas , found that after restricting carbohydrate intake to just 20g per day, and instead consuming much more fat and protein, the energy stores in the hearts of 19 participants were reduced by an average of 16 per cent.
Such a reduction does not have direct implications for health, however one of the participants did notice a difference when running .
"He couldn't manage his daily run while on the diet," said lead author Professor Kieran Clarke.
"The heart requires energy for contractions, although here we were measuring energy stores rather than energy used," explained another of the authors, Dr Damien Tyler.
"You do see similar patterns in a more severe form in patients with heart failure, and type 2 diabetics also suffer from lower energy stores. But the implication of these findings on health in the long-term are difficult to define," he added.
Yet the new work clearly demonstrates that the heart is directly affected by the Atkin's diet and could therefore be susceptible to other unbalanced regimes.
"There's some prior evidence that increasing levels of circulating fatty acids in the bloodstream can affect the heart," Dr Tyler said.
"This study gives us the basis for further investigating the effects of these diets."
Apigenin, a plant flavonoid found in herbs, fruits and vegetables, may slow down the growth of prostate cancer tumours when fed to mice, report US researcher s .
Apigenin is found in a variety of foods including beans, apples, broccoli, celery, cherries, grapes, leeks, onions, parsley and tomatoes, as well as plant-derived beverages like tea and wine. This could help explain why fruit and vegetable consumption has been associated with lower risk of prostate and other cancers in epidemiological studies.
In this latest research, Dr Sanjay Gupta, an Assistant Professor in Urology at Case Western Reserve University fed doses of 20mcg and 50mcg apigenin to mice daily, two weeks before implanting a prostate tumour, and then continued to feed the compound for eight weeks. In a second protocol, apigenin was fed to mice two weeks after tumour implantation.
The first protocol was designed to mimic prevention regimens, while the second followed therapeutic regimens for cancer.
Writing in the October online issue of the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology journal, the researchers sa id apigenin slowed tumour growth in both cases and did not appear to cause any adverse side effects such as weight gain or changes in diet. These side effects are common in patients who undergo chemotherapy treatments.
"Apigenin may prove useful in the prevention and therapy of prostate cancer by shutting off the signalling that leads to prostate cancer cell growth and development," said Dr Gupta.
The increase of asthma prevalence in western societies may be related to changed dietary habits according to a new study published in the October online edition of Thorax .
The study revealed that the intake of wholegrain products and fish was inversely associated with asthma. While eating citrus fruits, vegetables and dairy products showed no clear associations with asthma end-points.
A number of previous studies in children have shown improvement or even protection from asthma with children that had a higher intake of fruits, vegetables, dairy and wholegrain products and fish.
In contrast to previous research, however, the latest study used both a questionnaire and clinical data to define asthma. The study examined the consumption of the foods in question, and their relation to asthma incidence, in 598 Dutch children aged 8-13 years.
The quantity of consum ption of these foods was estimated using a semi-quantitative food frequency questionnaire that was completed by the parents. Current wheeze and current asthma were defined based on questionnaire data.
Their findings support a potential protective effect of a high intake of wholegrain products and fish against asthma in children.
A team of French researchers has found dietary fibre intake to be inversely correlated with several cardiovascular disease risk factors in both sexes, supporting its protective role against cardiovascular disease and prompting recommendations for increased consumption.
Although a diet rich in fibre is commonly recommended to maintain or improve health, knowledge of the relation between dietary fibre sources and cardiovascular disease risk factors is limited. So a team of French researchers examined the relation between the source or type of dietary fibre intake and cardiovascular disease risk factors in adult men and women to shed more light on the subject.
After examining the dietary fibre intakes from dietary records for 2,532 men and 3,429 women, they found the highest total dietary fibre and non-soluble dietary fibre intakes were associated with a significantly lower risk of overweight and elevated waist-to-hip ratio, blood pressure, plasma apolipoproteins, cholesterol, triacylglycerols, and homocysteine. Soluble dietary fibre appeared to be less effective.
Fibre from cereals was associated with a lower body mass index, blood pressure and homocysteine concentration; fibre from vegetables with a lower blood pressure and homocysteine concentration; and fibre from fruit with a lower waist-to-hip ratio and blood pressure.
Fibre from dried fruit or nuts and seeds was associated with a lower body mass index, waist-to-hip ratio, and fasting apo-B and glucose concentrations.
Age and habit are key influencing factors when it comes to the type of cereal US consumers choose to buy, according to a recent study by market research company Zogby International.
The study revealed that older consumers are more likely to stick to a cereal they have become used to, whereas younger consumers have more disparate tastes.
"The cereal that topped the list first appeared in 1926 and is the favourite of 21 per cent of consumers above the age of 65," said Fritz Wenzil, Director of Communications at Zogby
"In the 70's, 80's, and even the 90's, the cereal market became a more fractured industry, with many new products introduced. Younger consumers have become used to being able to swap and change," said Wenzil.
Another trend the study picked up on was that the younger population prefers sugary cereals, whereas the older a consumer gets, the less sugar they want, trending instead towards products that offer nutritional components such as wholegrain or bran.
A new ingredient made from rice could allow ice cream, yoghurt and protein bar manufacturers to make grain claims on their products, say scientists at food research company Creative Research Management (CRM).
CRM is marketing its new product, RiceLife, as an ingredient that retains all the protein, bran oils, vitamins, fibre and carbohydrates found in wholegrain unpolished brown rice.
The company claims RiceLife can be used as a dairy replacer in yoghurt and ice cream, and as an additional ingredient in protein bars, allowing each serving of these products to contain the nutritional properties of one portion of brown wholegrain rice.
"RiceLife is essentially the conversion of whole brown rice into either a powder or a liquid product. It is only the product's form that changes, all other components remain the same," said Rick Ray, the company's vice president of sales and marketing.
Together with a fat replacer, RiceLife can be used in ice cream and yoghurts to replace all dairy components without altering the taste, claims CRM, which will be launching a new company in 2006 to market its own line of yoghurts using the ingredient.
"RiceLife can also be used in soy protein bars to include some of the amino acids missing from soy. Some manufacturers who have tested the product have found that it can produce a light, fluffy product similar to a candy bar," according to Ray.
"Once we have conducted further tests on the product's protein interactions we will also introduce it to candy manufacturers, for use in healthy alternatives to candy bars," he said.
The ingredient can also be used to make rice milk without the bitter off-taste picked up by some discerning consumers, said Ray. He added that this off-taste is a result of the method used to process the rice, saying CRM had isolated and eliminated it by modifying the hydrolysis process.
CRM said it will start by targeting the health and nutrition sector of the market with its new ingredient, but expects it to gain a wider appeal as the market changes in response to consumers' increasing health awareness.
Researchers in Ireland may have developed a naturally occurring enzyme preparation for baking, which increases loaf volume and crumb softness while also extending shelf life by three days.
The enzymes, called hemicellulases, work on compounds found in wheat that inhibit the optimal development of dough, say researchers at Teagasc and scientists at the National University of Ireland, Galway.
"Our primary goal was to find a way to improve the quality of bread without resorting to e-numbers or artificial additives that scare off consumers. The enzyme preparations we are testing have been derived from microbes grown on rye and white and wholemeal flours, which allow them to be optimally developed in order to break down these raw materials," said Gerard Downey of Teagasc's Ashtown Food Research Centre.
Hemicellulases act on arabinoxylans, found naturally in layers of bran. These are large molecules that interfere physically with dough formation when water is added to four. This occurs for two reasons: the molecules are mainly insoluble and are also capable of binding many times their weight in water. In this way, they disrupt the optimal formation of the protein mesh, or elasticity, of dough.
"If you can break up arabinoxylans into smaller molecules then you can reduce their interference. The challenge is to break them down into ideal lengths to aid gluten development," Downey said.
Although hemicellulases already exist on the market, Downey claims the preparations they have tested have had far superior results in bread making. Tests were conducted on white bread loaves and rolls, wholemeal bread and rye bread, with results showing a bread volume increase by up to 21 per cent and a crumb softness increase by up to 128 per cent.
"In some cases, bread made with the enzymes was softer after three days than untreated bread was on the day of baking," said Downey .
The treated bread did not appear to have any mould growth after its three extra days of shelf life, even without the use of an anti-mould agent. However, no formal tests were conducted for mould formation.
A worrying 36 per cent of 8 to 14 year-olds could not correctly identify the main ingredient in chips as potato, underlining again the gap between need and reality in nutritional awareness.
The British Heart Foundation (BHF)'s survey also revealed that nearly one in ten of the 1,000 children questioned thought chips were mostly made of oil, while others suggested eggs, flour, and even apples.
"It sends a shiver down my spine to discover that so many children don't even know what chips are made of," said BHF director general Peter Hollins.
"Kids have lost touch with even the most basic foods and no longer understand what they are eating. Banning foods or telling children not to eat them is not enough, we must engage children in understanding why certain foods are less healthy than others, and encourage them to become interested in what's on their plate," he said.
An estimated 440,000 UK children are predicted to become overweight or obese in the next two years , and a quarter predicted to be obese by 2020, poor nutrition among children is clearly a critical issue needing urgent attention.
As a result, the BHF has launched a major new campaign, Food4Thought , to get children, in particular 11 and 12 year olds, thinking about what is in their food and how they can make heart healthier choices. On billboards nationwide are posters showing the common ingredients of cheeseburgers, hot dogs and chicken nuggets. The images of gristle, bones and connective tissue are obscured using a 'censored' stamp.
"This campaign is about talking to children in their language and sparking their curiosity so that they think about what they eat and start demanding healthier options," said Hollins.
The BHF is also pushing for the marketing of unhealthy food and drink products to children to be banned, for nutritious food to be affordable and for children to have the opportunity to learn practical cooking skills.
"There is no single solution to improving children's diets, but we must address the problem urgently in a coordinated way," said Hollins.
The BHF campaign microsite, contains uncensored contents of the adverts to enable consumers to find out more about what's on their plate.
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