News summary

School looks back to better eating

A school in Kent is attempting to get its pupils to eat better by introducing them to what it is called an “eat.retro” project. Medway Community College in Chatham has re-introduced the sort of meals children might have eaten in the Sixties and Seventies era, replacing canned drinks on the table with jugs of water. Georgina Ayin, the nutritionist who drew up the school’s menu, says a balance has to be struck between giving children a choice and directing them towards healthy options. “Change is going to come slowly, but it’s important that we work towards a compromise.” Pupils fill out a detailed questionnaire after each meal, assessing what they had and saying whether they would try similar food again, with the results will be collated in order to help design a new menu.
(The Daily Telegraph)
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Benefits of vitamins before pregnancy

Women who take multivitamins before becoming pregnant may reduce the risk that their baby is born prematurely according to the findings of research at the University of North Carolina. Women who take supplements prior to conception are at half the risk of a pre week-37 delivery of those do not. Continuing with multivitamins in the first months of pregnancy appear to have no influence on the risk. Researcher Dr Anjel Vahratian points out that the benefits associated with multivitamins may not be directly attributable to the vitamins but rather that they may be part of a generally healthier group of women.
(Reuters Health Online)
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Infants “live off their own cells”

It appears that newborn babies survive the immediate post-natal period by feeding on the content of their own cells. Research at Tokyo Metropolitan Institute of Medical Science, shows that in baby mice a cellular process called autophagy – in which a cell breaks down its own components in small digestive sacs called autophagosomes – increases in activity immediately after birth and remains high for several hours. The researchers believe autophagy is essential during this period for the production of amino acids. Lead researcher Dr Noboru Mizushima says, “Our results suggest that mammals tide over [post-natal] starvation by autophagic degradation of self-proteins, in other words, by eating themselves inside cells. Although we do not have direct evidence that human babies do the same thing, it is very likely that all mammals overcome the physiological neonatal starvation by inducing autophagy, at least in part.”
(BBC News Online)
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Endorsement for chocolate

A German health insurance company has written to its clients urging them to eat more chocolate to cut their risk of heart attack. Though many scientists accept that the antioxidants found in cocoa may help reduce the danger of coronary artery disease this is the first time the idea has been sponsored by an organisation with a practical interest in the issue. DAK says plain chocolate, in moderation, is good for the heart, and quotes research conducted in Greece. It evidently believes that the evidence is strong to make the recommendation, but warns against excessive consumption.
(Ananova)
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Meat eating and diabetes risk

Red meat and processed meat products appear to increase the risk of diabetes, as does a heavily “Western” diet, according to US researchers. Dr Teresa Fung, of Simmons College and the Harvard School of Public Health in Boston, Massachusetts, says her findings suggest that people should eat very little red meat and as little processed meat as possible. She says that when many processed and red meats, as well as other high fat foods, are cooked at high temperatures, they form substances that appear to help trigger the development of diabetes.
(Reuters Health Online)
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Heart risk observation

Women who consume oils containing alpha-linolenic acid appear to be at a lower risk of dying from heart disease and of sudden cardiac death than women whose diets are low in the substance, but do not appear to be at any less risk of a non-fatal heart attacks. Researchers in the US who presented the findings at the American Heart Association’s scientific sessions in New Orleans says the results are “observational”, that is, they do not necessarily indicate a cause-and-effect relationship. Alpha-linolenic acid (ALA) is one of the omega-3 fatty acids, found in oily fish and in some green leafy vegetables.
(HealthScout)
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Diet effectiveness

A study shows that diets restricting certain food groups do not contribute to extra weight loss, but another says adding whole grains may help. In the first study, in a group of 80 overweight or obese people, all the subjects lost the same amount of weight regardless of whether they were on an extra low-fat diet or one targeted at the glycaemic index. Dr Ernst Schaefer of Tufts University in Boston, who led the study, says, “Despite all the controversy about diet … a calorie is a calorie is a calorie.” A second study, published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, shows that people who add whole grains to their diet lose more weight than those who do not. Pauline Koh-Banerjee and colleagues at the University of Tennessee and the Harvard School of Public Health say fibre in the diet may fill people up faster than processed grains and may help to regulate blood sugar levels.
(Reuters Health Online)
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Call for improvement in school meals

Children have too many unhealthy food options at school, according to a report by the charity Barnardo’s. The organisation wants the government to provide more money to ensure better ingredients, including fresh fruit and vegetables, are used. It says its survey of 174 children in England, Wales and Scotland found most accept junk food as the “staple school diet”, and that the media and children’s peers influence the take-up of high-fat, high-carbohydrate meals. Neera Sharma, author of the report – Burger Boy and Sporty Girl – says, “If we are really serious about making a difference to the food children eat in schools, we have got to start listening to what they say so that we can understand the meaning food has for them. As a society we must reclaim responsibility for what our children eat.”
(BBC News Online)
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Peanut allergy recurrence

A child that outgrows a peanut allergy should have foods containing peanuts at least once a month to prevent the allergy from returning, according to a new study. Although this will help maintain tolerance to the nuts, the researchers say children should carry epinephrine in case a reaction develops. Dr Robert Wood, a professor of paediatrics at Johns Hopkins University in the US, says, “We were surprised a few years ago to discover that some children who had lost their peanut allergy got it back. We were surprised because that is something we had not seen with other food allergies.” His team has found that there is a risk of about 8 per cent of a recurrence of peanut allergy, and that the risk is much higher among children who avoided eating peanuts after they had outgrown the allergy.
(HealthScout)
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Vitamin E warning

Taking high doses of vitamin E seems to have a negative effect, according a team at Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions in Baltimore, Maryland, in the US. They say vitamin E supplementation at more than 400 International Units (IU) per day raises all-cause mortality rates and should be avoided. Dr Edgar Miller and colleagues pooled data from 19 trials of vitamin E supplementation, covering nearly 136,000 subjects. They found that overall, vitamin E supplementation does not affect mortality rates, but that 11 trials testing doses of 400 IU or more daily showed 39 more deaths per 10,000 people taking high-dose vitamin E than among the same number taking a placebo.
(Reuters Health Online)
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Scotland’s diet awareness improves

Healthy eating messages are getting across in Scotland, according to the NHS Health Scotland study, which says 59 per cent of the population know they should eat five portions of fruit and vegetables a day. This is three times the 1996 figure. Health Minister Andy Kerr says, “These new figures give us grounds for optimism – people in Scotland do want a healthier life for themselves and their families.”
(BBC News Online)
www.bbc.co.uk