American Food Supply Research Articles

Higher rates of autism and attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder in American children: Are food quality issues impacting epigenetic inheritance?

In the United States, schools offer special education services to children who are diagnosed with a learning or neurodevelopmental disorder and have difficulty meeting their learning goals. Pediatricians may play a key role in helping children access special education services. The number of children ages 6-21 in the United States receiving special education services increased 10.4% from 2006 to 2021. Children receiving special education services under the autism category increased 242% during the same period. The demand for special education services for children under the developmental delay and other health impaired categories increased by 184% and 83% respectively. Although student enrollment in American schools has remained stable since 2006, the percentage distribution of children receiving special education services nearly tripled for the autism category and quadrupled for the developmental delay category by 2021. Allowable heavy metal residues remain persistent in the American food supply due to food ingredient manufacturing processes. Numerous clinical trial data indicate heavy metal exposures and poor diet are the primary epigenetic factors responsible for the autism and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder epidemics. Dietary heavy metal exposures, especially inorganic mercury and lead may impact gene behavior across generations. In 2021, the United States Congress found heavy metal residues problematic in the American food supply but took no legislative action. Mandatory health warning labels on select foods may be the only way to reduce dietary heavy metal exposures and improve child learning across generations.

Potassium content of the American food supply and implications for the management of hyperkalemia in dialysis: An analysis of the Branded Product Database.

Ultraprocessed foods can be a source of potassium additives. Excess potassium consumption can lead to hyperkalemia. How frequently potassium additives are found in the food supply and how they impact potassium content is not well documented. Using the Branded Product Database, ingredient lists were searched for "potassium" to identify products containing additives. For products listing potassium content, accuracy of potassium content reporting and how potassium content differed with additive use was also assessed. A total of 239,089 products were included, 35,102 (14.7%) contained potassium additives, and 13,685 (5.7%) provided potassium content. Potassium additives were most commonly found in dairy products, supplements, and mixed foods (at 37%, 34%, and 28%, respectively). Potassium additives in mixed foods and vegetables and fruits were associated with 71% and 28% more potassium per serving, respectively (p < 0.01). Potassium content increased by 1874 mg (66%) when a 1-day sample menu compared foods with and without additives. Potassium content of foods with and without additives is not well documented. Potassium additives are prevalent and can be associated with increased potassium content. However, more information is needed to better understand how different additives used in different foods change potassium content.

Micronutrients and Bioactive Compounds in Mushrooms

Mushrooms have been used both as food and as medicine in many cultures, and their popularity as both is growing in the United States. We have shown that they are inherently, or can easily be made to be, excellent dietary sources of 4 important bioactive compounds that are all known to decease in humans as they age. These are the micronutrients selenium and vitamin D2 and antioxidants glutathione and ergothioneine (Ergo). All of these except for Ergo can be found in significant amounts in other foods; hence, it will be the primary focus of this review. Because Ergo is made in nature primarily by nonyeast fungi, mushrooms are by far the best human dietary source. Humans produce a highly specific transport protein for Ergo that makes it highly bioavailable and avidly retained, leading many to speculate about its potential importance to human health because such specific transporters are rarely present for nonnutrient bioactive compounds. Ergo is found in small amounts throughout the food chain presumably owing to fungi in the soil passing it on to plants and then animals that eat them. We have preliminary evidence that Ergo levels in the American food supply might be compromised because of reduced fungal populations in agricultural soils caused by some cultivation practices. Relationships observed between estimated Ergo consumption and average longevity and reductions in chronic neurodegenerative diseases across different countries supports additional interest in Ergo as a dietary chemopreventive agent for aging-related diseases.

Introduction

Introduction R. Douglas Hurt (bio) This special issue of New York History emphasizes the agricultural and rural history of New York, with essays ranging from the seventeenth to the twentieth century.1 Not all agricultural history can be considered rural history, and rural history does not necessarily mean agricultural history. This issue is particularly noteworthy because some essays challenge conventional or at least consensus wisdom about the interpretation of agricultural history, while others focus on rural issues that are not agriculturally related. These essays help us better understand the history of New York, and they are suggestive for new ways to consider the agricultural and rural history of the state. Louis Tremante offers a compelling new interpretation of agriculture in the New York City vicinity during the mid-nineteenth century. Tremante challenges the theory of Johann Heinrich von Thünen, whose spatial model of settlement explained the production specializations of farmers in relation to distances from a city center. Instead, Tremante argues that agricultural development near and outward from New York City depended on population growth, land values, immigration, fertilizer supply, and retail markets. Each "driver" changed the agricultural emphasis in the New York City area in different ways from Thünen's use of geography and concentric rings to explain the reasons for agricultural expansion. Jason R. Sellers discusses the ways that Native Americans in the Hudson Valley negotiated European culture to their best advantage by using the Dutch and English settlements as sources of supply—that is, [End Page 261] resources which they integrated with their autumn and winter hunting and spring and summer farming patterns. British control and more extensive agriculture changed the environment by permitting invasive plants and soil erosion, all of which contributed to biological diversity and a new ecological system that strained the traditional Native American food supply. British settlements and agriculture continued to provide resources for subsistence, but they also forced the Native American population to make cultural adjustments as their numbers decreased. Nancy Berlage analyzes the ways in which the American Farm and Home Bureaus used pageants and plays, written by members, usually women, to promote agricultural improvement through the application of science to farm and home. The members of the farm and home bureaus believed that various new or improved farming and household methods that improved efficiency and profitability could be learned by watching members enact a particular process or convey a specific idea to help viewers improve their daily tasks in the field, barnyard, and home. Berlage uses the Broome County Farm Bureau as an example of how and why farm men and women should consider the Bureau an essential part of agricultural life. Farm men and women could rely on the bureaus which associated closely with the New York State Agricultural Experiment Station and its extension agents to convey the importance of science to improve their lives. Farm women also used the pageants and plays to convey the importance of civic responsibility. The farm and home bureaus always stressed the importance of change, and the bureaus' pageants and plays helped farm men and women understand the importance of adopting progressive farm and home practices through theatrical expressions intended for persuasion. Cynthia Falk uses the photography of Arthur Rothstein to investigate the Otsego Forest Products Cooperative located in Phoenix Mills. As a photographer for the Farm Security Administration during the late 1930s, Rothstein recorded the forestry work in the county. He sought to show farmers the potential for cooperatives and selective timber cutting on their non-productive lands to improve income. He also used his photography to advocate the adoption of new improved technology and marketing strategies. Working from Cooperstown, Rothstein was as much a sociologist as a photographer, and his images give us a window to a past where the federal [End Page 262] government championed the importance of cooperatives and he recorded rural life—homes, farms, and people—in an age soon gone. Patricia Houser traces the effects of water contamination at Mahopac, New York, where in the mid-1870s city people vacationed in the summers to enjoy fresh air, the outdoors, and nice hotels far from New York City. In many ways Mahopac was a bucolic...

Arresting Contagion: Science, Policy, and Conflicts over Animal Disease Control by Alan L. Olsmstead and Paul W. Rhode (review)

Reviewed by: Arresting Contagion: Science, Policy, and Conflicts over Animal Disease Control by Alan L. Olsmstead and Paul W. Rhode Thaddeus Sunseri Alan L. Olsmstead and Paul W. Rhode. Arresting Contagion: Science, Policy, and Conflicts over Animal Disease Control. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2015. x + 465 pp. Ill. $49.95 (978-0-674-72877-6). Arresting Contagion details tells how a well-financed federal veterinary infrastructure can push back, and in many cases eradicate, animal pathogens from within a country’s borders by applying police powers and scientific breakthroughs. Its focus is the Bureau of Animal Industry (BAI), a U.S. federal agency within the Department of Agriculture, created in 1884 and lasting until 1953, when it was reorganized as the Agricultural Research Service. The authors argue that under American circumstances of a decentralized state structure, federal intervention in the form of an agency with substantial research and enforcement capabilities was absolutely necessary to push back myriad livestock diseases, many of which threatened human health in the form of unhygienic meat or milk or by directly transferring pathogens. The BAI faced opposition from ranchers and farmers, railroads, meatpackers, livestock brokers, and state governments that resented and resisted draconian federal intervention, which often included quarantining states or regions, and culling whole herds of cattle or hogs to eliminate contagions. Emerging at a time when germ theory was poorly understood and denied by many, and in light of multiple livestock diseases, including contagious bovine pleuro-pneumonia (CBPP), hog cholera, bovine tuberculosis, Texas fever, trichinosis, and foot-and-mouth disease, the BAI was “a landmark in the history of [End Page 821] federal regulation” (p. 11), preceding by a few years the Interstate Commerce Commission that is usually considered the hallmark of big government. Forcefully opposed by proponents of states’ rights, the BAI was born in crisis, when CBPP, a highly infectious bacterial disease, erupted in the Midwest and threatened the open-range herds of the far West and the meatpacking industry. CBPP was known to have wiped out the herds of South Africa and Australia, and, besides threatening the American food supply, led Europeans to restrict livestock imports, impairing a major sector of the American export economy. Despite poor funding and limited initial powers to intervene in and between states, by 1892 the BAI succeeded in eradicating CBPP from the United States through quarantines, culling, trade restrictions, veterinary inspections, and partial compensation to encourage reporting. The BAI negotiated complex issues of cooperation with the states and private interests. The CBPP success led to greater funding for the BAI by the turn of the century, at a time when its scientists made major breakthroughs in the understanding of disease etiology, most notably with Texas fever, which had impaired the free flow of cattle from the enzootic South. Many former BAI opponents in private industry, the states, and Congress became converts to its efficacy in combating livestock diseases for the public good. Although the authors offer international comparisons of how livestock disease control policies could take different trajectories in different countries, and make clear that many BAI veterinarians were trained in Europe, this is primarily an American story for American conditions, particularly the political challenge of navigating intricate federal–state–private sector tensions. The authors seem unaware of the German precedent in eradicating rinderpest from their Continental domains by 1881, a few years before the BAI’s founding, using similar “stamping out” policies. Although not primarily concerned with livestock disease etiologies, Arresting Contagion is an immensely informative and valuable investigation of the pivotal role of government in acting in the public good, arguing against those scholars and politicians who see government bureaucracy as motivated primarily by its own self-perpetuation. From a cost-benefit analysis, the elimination or curbing of livestock diseases, despite enormous expense and often harsh intervention backed by police power, was repaid many times over by saving millions of lives, opening up markets, increasing animal productivity, and making scientific breakthroughs that could be applied to new circumstances. At a time when the world is threatened continuously by zoonoses like Ebola virus, mad cow disease, SARS, MERS, and avian influenza; when the globalization of the food supply increases the risk of...

Introduction to the Symposium on American Food Resilience

The resilience of the American food supply—the ability of the food system to withstand shocks or stresses that could lead to disruption or collapse—is a matter of genuine concern. While all seems well with supermarkets stocked to the brim, changes in the food system and our environment during recent decades have created risks that are no longer hypothetical possibilities. They are with us now. The 27 articles in the Symposium on American Food Resilience explore the vulnerability and resilience of food production and distribution from a diversity of perspectives. Four central questions provide a framework for the exploration:

A survey of added sugars within the american food supply

Although consumers receive much advise on consumption of added sugars, little information is available on their presence in the food supply. Thus, we recorded the listing of added sweeteners in every packaged food item in two locations of a national supermarket chain in RI. Ingredient lists were read for High Fructose Corn Syrup(HFCS), other caloric sweeteners, non‐caloric sweeteners, and no added sweetener. Frequencies of each added sweetener classification were calculated for each of 25 main food groupings. Of note, ‘snack cakes’ had 33.9% of the items containing HFCS and 66.1% containing other caloric sweeteners, whereas ‘cookies’ had 62.1% of the items containing HFCS and 37.9% containing another caloric sweetener. These two food groups, which seem similar in nature, in reality have inverse sugar profiles. In the ‘Soda’ group, 40% contained HFCS, 17% other added sweeteners, 37% non caloric sweeteners, and 6% no added sweetener. Sports drinks where very low in HFCS with only 1.6%, and an even split between caloric sweeteners and noncaloric sweeteners at 44.3%, while 9.8% had no added sweeteners. The ‘condiments’ group had 48.4% containing HFCS, 30.3% other caloric sweeteners, 0.8% noncaloric sweeteners, and 20.5% no added sugars. The pronounced presence of sugars and sweeteners in the packaged food supply demonstrates the high degree of permeation that has occurred in the American food market.

Reading a book can change your mind, but only some changes last for a year: food attitude changes in readers of The Omnivore's Dilemma

Attitude change is a critical component of health behavior change, but has rarely been studied longitudinally following extensive exposures to persuasive materials such as full-length movies, books, or plays. We examined changes in attitudes related to food production and consumption in college students who had read Michael Pollan's book The Omnivore's Dilemma as part of a University-wide reading project. Composite attitudes toward organic foods, local produce, meat, and the quality of the American food supply, as well as opposition to government subsidies, distrust in corporations, and commitment to the environmental movement were significantly and substantially impacted, in comparison to students who had not read the book. Much of the attitude change disappeared after 1 year; however, over the course of 12 months self-reported opposition to government subsidies and belief that the quality of the food supply is declining remained elevated in readers of the book, compared to non-readers. Findings have implications for our understanding of the nature of changes in attitudes to food and eating in response to extensive exposure to coherent and engaging messages targeting health behaviors.

Food Science Challenge: Translating the Dietary Guidelines for Americans to Bring About Real Behavior Change

Food scientists and nutrition scientists (dietitians and nutrition communicators) are tasked with creating strategies to more closely align the American food supply and the public's diet with the Dietary Guidelines for Americans (DGA). This paper is the result of 2 expert dialogues to address this mandate, which were held in Chicago, Illinois, and Washington, D.C., in early October 2010 between these 2 key scientific audiences. It is an objective that has largely eluded public health experts over the past several decades. This document takes the perspective of food scientists who are tasked with making positive modifications to the food supply, both in innovating and reformulating food products, to respond to both the DGA recommendations, and to consumer desires, needs, and choices. The paper is one of two to emerge from those October 2010 discussions; the other article focuses on the work of dietitians and nutrition communicators in effecting positive dietary change.

Dietary Sweeteners Containing Fructose: Overview of a Workshop on the State of the Science

The occurrence and impact of fructose in the American food supply has garnered much recent attention in the popular press as well as the scientific community. This paper provides an overview of a workshop cosponsored by the International Life Sciences Institute North America and the USDA, Agricultural Research Service, titled "State of the Science on Dietary Sweeteners Containing Fructose." Papers in the workshop addressed the chemical composition and properties of dietary sweeteners that contain fructose, the sources and amount of fructose in the American diet, and the metabolism of fructose in the human body. Further, the authors of each paper assessed the strength of the existing data linking dietary fructose intake and risk for overweight, metabolic syndrome, type 2 diabetes mellitus, cardiovascular disease, and other disorders. The assessment considered factors in study design, including the amount fed, the food form, the length of the study, the characteristics of the subjects, the specific methodology, and other potential confounders including diet. In addition to papers assessing the basic science of fructose, some papers also addressed consumer concern about sugars and fructose in the diet, the way fructose and other sugars are presented in the media, and the resulting confusion of consumers about fructose and other sugars in the diet. The purpose of the papers in the aggregate was to clarify what data exist about fructose and what the gaps are in the data and to help both scientists and consumers understand issues surrounding fructose in the food supply.

Government as Biosecurity Communicator: The 2006 Spinach Advisory

In 2006, after the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) traced Escherichia coli O157:H7 cases to spinach, the FDA went beyond communicating with consumers and enlisted the cooperation of the food industry to prevent further spinach consumption. Understanding the factors that increased or frustrated industry participation provides lessons for communicating about accidental contamination and intentional attacks on the American food supply. This qualitative research about FDA's risk communication included interviews with senior representatives of organizations serving a range of roles in the food supply system, including suppliers, distributors, grocery stores, and trade associations. The interviews reveal that when public health concern is no longer warranted, agencies need to develop and disseminate "closure" messages to prevent unintended consequences, including economic impacts. The study also underscores the importance of trade associations and industry networks in protecting consumers, the usefulness of agency flexibility in increasing cooperation with stakeholders, and the need for greater communication among agencies. Outside the geographic epicenter of the contamination, New Jersey government also provided examples of innovative strategies to promote locally grown spinach.

The Utility of Media Frames as a Research Tool in Foodservice Operations

With outbreaks of mad cow, hoof and mouth disease, and the terrorist attacks of September 11, the safety of the American food supply weighs not only on the minds of culinarians, but also on consumers. How is the media framing these issues and how does that affect consumer confidence in the safety of the food supply has come into question. In this experiment, participants were presented with two media frames-food safety and bioterrorism and food security-and were asked questions that measured concern about the safety of the food supply. While the research results did not conclude that media frames of bioterrorism increased concern about the safety of the food supply, it is important to remember that existing media frames of bioterrorism and a general lack of knowledge about pathogens that can threaten food may play an important role in how individuals conceptualize the level of threat to the American food supply.

Testing the homocysteine hypothesis in end-stage renal disease: Problems and a possible solution

The homocysteine hypothesis states that circulating homocysteine is a vascular toxin in concentrations that occur in the general population and in renal failure. This hypothesis is currently being tested in the Kidney and End State Renal Disease Study (HOST), but data have emerged since the HOST began that suggest its results will be inconclusive. The crucial treatment component in the HOST is folic acid, but its effect is likely to be lost because the American food supply is now fortified with folic acid. A second concern is that the very high doses of folic acid and pyridoxine being used in the HOST may confound the results. Finally, confounding due to 'reverse epidemiology' was not considered when the HOST was designed. Parenteral vitamin B(12) is a highly promising therapy for homocysteine reduction in end-stage renal disease that merits careful investigation. Clinical trials using it to test the homocysteine hypothesis will avoid the problems inherent in the HOST.

Assessment of folate intake by low‐income women of childbearing age in California

Mandatory fortification of the American food supply with synthetic folic acid (SFA) began in 1998. Since then, the incidence of neural tube defects has decreased by 16–31% and red blood cell folate levels have increased significantly in the general population. However, reproductive-age women with limited resources, as well as some ethnic minorities, may still be at risk of sub-optimal folate status. The purpose of this study was to assess folate intake by low-income women of childbearing age in California. Participants in this cross-sectional study were 195 non-pregnant women, ages 18–45, who were participating in the Food Stamp Nutrition Education Program. Each participant completed a demographic questionnaire and the Block Dietary Folate Equivalents (DFE) Screener. The estimated mean intake (± SE) was 911 ± 33 μg DFE, which included 419 ± 18 μg SFA. Although the mean intake was adequate, a substantial number of the women were identified as at risk of sub-optimal folate status. Of the 195 respondents, 114 (58%) did not meet the Institute of Medicine’s recommendation for women of childbearing age to consume at least 400 μg SFA daily. Significant differences in folate intake were detected between ethnic groups. Hispanic women consumed significantly more total dietary folate than both white women and black women (p < 0.01), as well as more SFA than black women (p < 0.05). The results from this study suggest that folic acid consumption may still be inadequate among low-income women of reproductive age in California. Nutrition education about folic acid that is targeted for low-income audiences may help raise awareness about the importance of the vitamin. This work was funded in part by the USDA.

Safe Food: Bacteria, Biotechnology, and Bioterrorism (review)

Reviewed by: Safe Food: Bacteria, Biotechnology, and Bioterrorism Terry Sharrer (bio) Safe Food: Bacteria, Biotechnology, and Bioterrorism. By Marion Nestle. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2003. Pp. xvi+350. $27.50. How safe is the American food supply? Industry and government often assert that the United States sets the world standards for quantity, quality, safety, and price. Foodborne diseases account for five thousand deaths annually, but chronic liver diseases, the tenth-leading cause of death, take a toll five times as great. So far, at least, food safety probably is a better indicator of declining infant mortality rates and rising life expectancy than it is of an imminent health hazard. But Marion Nestle does not ask if the American food supply is safe; she asks if it is safe enough, and thereby raises political issues that offer the meat of this provocative and stimulating book. [End Page 257] Nestle, professor and chair of nutrition and food studies in the Steinhardt School of Education at New York University, pursues five themes: (1) that fragmented responsibility among the regulatory agencies (Environmental Protection Agency, Food and Drug Administration, Department of Agriculture) creates vulnerabilities out of confusion; (2) that food companies pursue economic self-interest at the expense of public health; (3) that food companies use "science" to thwart regulation; (4) that consumer advocacy groups use safety to contest business and government collusion; and (5) that the "acceptability" of risk, on the public's part, makes food safety a political football in a never-ending game between facts and values. Actually, Nestle raises the fifth theme first: the struggle between scientifically derived evidence used to work out cost-benefit ratios and the private beliefs and public opinion that drive emotional reactions. An example of the former is the GRAS ("generally recognized as safe") approach the Food and Drug Administration applies to food additives. If ingredients are deemed safe under this standard, they are approved. If a problem arises after marketing, the FDA deals with it then. Alternatively, there is the "precautionary principle," which the European Union follows, whereby food manufactures must demonstrate safety before sale. Among other things, this difference in evaluating risks explains why genetically modified food exports from the United States encounter trade resistance abroad. Nestle's first and second themes—one describing the weird webs bureaucrats weave, the other portraying industry as untrustworthy in guaranteeing public health—have much in them to recommend the book, and shortcomings too. How the EPA, FDA, and USDA divvy up food safety regulation sometimes becomes laughable, but overlapping and confusing regulatory authority reflects a common feature of American governance—redundancy—and probably goes back to that well of ambiguity, the granting of powers to Congress to provide for "the general welfare" in article 1, section 8 of the Constitution. Equally old is the history of food companies swindling and poisoning for profit, but today the same degree of oligopoly in the industry that promotes aberrant behavior also makes business highly vulnerable to adverse public opinion. The 2001 merger of meatpacking company IBP and Tyson Foods may have created an entity that controlled 28 percent of the world's beef and 25 percent of its chicken, but a single case of mad cow disease traced back to its processing line would be devastating. If Nestle underrates the government's management and overrates the industry's single-minded greed, she still makes valid points about both. On science issues—present in themes three and four—Nestle describes how improved methods of detecting foodborne pathogens arose in the space program before 1960 but took another generation to reach regulatory practice because of manufacturers' obstruction, and how advocacy groups use science to raise scientific concerns about assertions industry and government make as scientifically based. In neither arena does she describe [End Page 258] how newer knowledge tends to antiquate rather than resolve controversies, though this largely explains why the political arguments constantly evolve. In the end, Nestle reaches the conclusion that the American food supply, safe as it is, is not safe enough to meet the known risks of food handling, the unknown risks of genetically modified foods, and the conceivable threat of bioterrorism. In remedy, she suggests that...

Serving up Food Safety: Who Wants a Piece of the Pie?

A total of 12 federal agencies, plus their state counterparts, contribute to the regulatory snarl that governs the safety of the American food supply. With so much federal oversight, one might expect U.S. foods to be virtually risk-free. But this is hardly the case; contaminated food is responsible for 75 million illnesses, 325,000 hospitalizations, and 5,000 deaths in the United States each year. Recent reports from the General Accounting Office and the National Research Council claim that creation of a single agency with centralized authority is the best solution to U.S. food safety problems. Some experts agree that regulatory gaps in food safety highlight the need for centralized leadership, and that more money is necessary to fund the number of inspectors needed to adequately inspect the food supply before it reaches consumers. The single-agency concept has garnered congressional, industry, and scientific support, but the idea isn't without its skeptics, who believe that consolidating food safety under a single agency eliminates checks and balances offered by the current system and, more importantly, runs the risk of politicizing the agency.

Serving up food safety: who wants a piece of the pie?

A total of 12 federal agencies, plus their state counterparts, contribute to the regulatory snarl that governs the safety of the American food supply. With so much federal oversight, one might expect U.S. foods to be virtually risk-free. But this is hardly the case; contaminated food is responsible for 75 million illnesses, 325,000 hospitalizations, and 5,000 deaths in the United States each year. Recent reports from the General Accounting Office and the National Research Council claim that creation of a single agency with centralized authority is the best solution to U.S. food safety problems. Some experts agree that regulatory gaps in food safety highlight the need for centralized leadership, and that more money is necessary to fund the number of inspectors needed to adequately inspect the food supply before it reaches consumers. The single-agency concept has garnered congressional, industry, and scientific support, but the idea isn't without its skeptics, who believe that consolidating food safety under a single agency eliminates checks and balances offered by the current system and, more importantly, runs the risk of politicizing the agency.

Vitamin B12 deficiency in the elderly.

Vitamin B12 deficiency is estimated to affect 10%-15% of people over the age of 60, and the laboratory diagnosis is usually based on low serum vitamin B12 levels or elevated serum methylmalonic acid and homocysteine levels. Although elderly people with low vitamin B12 status frequently lack the classical signs and symptoms of vitamin B12 deficiency, e.g. megaloblastic anemia, precise evaluation and treatment in this population is important. Absorption of crystalline vitamin B12 does not decline with advancing age. However, compared with the younger population, absorption of protein-bound vitamin B12 is decreased in the elderly, owing to a high prevalence of atrophic gastritis in this age group. Atrophic gastritis results in a low acid-pepsin secretion by the gastric mucosa, which in turn results in a reduced release of free vitamin B12 from food proteins. Furthermore, hypochlorhydria in atrophic gastritis results in bacterial overgrowth of the stomach and small intestine, and these bacteria may bind vitamin B12 for their own use. The ability to absorb crystalline vitamin B12 remains intact in older people with atrophic gastritis. The 1998 recommended daily allowance for vitamin B12 is 2.4 micrograms, but elderly people should try to obtain their vitamin B12 from either supplements or fortified foods (e.g. fortified ready-to-eat breakfast cereals) to ensure adequate absorption from the gastrointestinal tract. Because the American food supply is now being fortified with folic acid, concern is increasing about neurologic exacerbation in individuals with marginal vitamin B12 status and high-dose folate intake.

Manganese deficiency and toxicity: are high or low dietary amounts of manganese cause for concern?

Manganese is an essential trace element that is required for the activity of several enzymes. Manganese is also quite toxic when ingested in large amounts, such as the inhalation of Mn-laden dust by miners. This review examines Mn intake by way of the food supply and poses the question: Is there reason to be concerned with Mn toxicity or deficiency in free-living populations in North America? Although much remains to be learned of the functions of Mn, at present there are only a few vaguely described cases of Mn deficiency in the medical literature. Given the heterogeneity of the North American food supply, it is difficult to see the possibility of more than greatly isolated and unique instances of Mn deficiency. However, low Mn-dependent superoxide dismutase activity may be associated with cancer susceptibility, and deserves further study. There may be reasons, however, to be concerned about Mn toxicity under some very specialized conditions. Increasing numbers of young people are adopting a vegetarian lifestyle which may greatly increase Mn intake. Iron deficiency may increase Mn absorption and further increase the body-burden of Mn, especially in vegetarians. Mn is eliminated primarily through the bile, and hepatic dysfunction could depress Mn excretion and further contribute to the body burden. Would such a combination of events predispose substantial numbers of people to chronic Mn toxicity? At present, there is no definite proof of this occurring, but given the state of knowledge at the present time, more studies with longer time-frames and more sensitive methods of analysis are needed.

Food Safety From Farm To Table: The Impact of The President’s Food-Safety Initiative On Public Health and Administrative Dietitians

The American food supply is among the safest in the world. However, millions of Americans become ill from food-borne bacteria, viruses and parasites each year. Some of these microorganisms include; E. Coli 0157:H7, Salmonella, Staphylococcus, Cyclospora, Listeria, Cryptosporidium, and viral Hepatitis A. Nine thousand of our most vulnerable citizens, namely very young children and the elderly, die every year as a result of microbiological contamination of the food they consume. The goal of the President's Food Safety Initiative is to reduce, to the greatest extent possible, the incidence of food borne illness. This goal will be accomplished through a series of seven initiatives: expansion of the food safety surveillance system, improved coordination between Federal, State and local health authorities, increased inspections, risk assessment, research, consumer education and strategic planning. This is an interagency undertaking which will involve coordinating the efforts of six federal agencies: two agencies under the Department of Health and Human Services–the Food and Drug Administration, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; and three agencies under the Department of Agriculture–the Agricultural Research Service, the Food Safety and Inspection Service and the Cooperative State Research, Education, and Extension Service; and the Environmental Protection Agency. This poster session will highlight the seven areas of the food safety initiative and how they impact public health and the work of administrative and public health dietitians.