The dietary patterns of Mediterranean countries, widely recognized as a healthy eating pattern, is often perceived as a uniform entity; however, it is, in reality, a complex amalgamation of distinct food cultures across different countries. To elucidate the dietary diversity within the Mediterranean region through detailed nutritional analysis. The analysis targeted six countries: Italy, Spain, Portugal, Greece, Cyprus, and Croatia. Estimated average intake (mg/1,000kcal) and food source profiles of 18 amino acids (AA) and 19 fatty acids (FA) were determined by integrating national dietary survey data with standardized nutrient databases. Exploratory clustering and principal component analyses were conducted, including data from Japan and the United States, to preliminarily capture similarities and differences in AA and FA profiles. The six-country average AA intake was highest for glutamic acid, accounting for 20.9% of the total. For FA, 18:1 was the most abundant 44.5%, followed by 18:2 and 16:0. Clustering analysis showed that while AA profiles exhibited little inter-country variation, FA profilesshowed more pronounced differences, suggesting that diet has a major impact on FA composition. Specifically, n-3 FA intake tended to be higher in Portugal, Spain, and Japan, whereas the other four Mediterranean countries and the United States were grouped within a lower-intake group. This study demonstrates that the dietary patterns observed in Mediterranean countries are not a monolithic model but rather exhibit distinct region-specific characteristics. These descriptive findings highlight the importance of considering quantified nutritional diversity when characterizing regional dietary patterns.

Depression is a major global cause of disability, and depressive symptoms are highly prevalent and increasing among Chinese university students. Mounting evidence confirms that inflammation plays a key role in the pathogenesis of depression, and dietary inflammatory potential regulates systemic inflammation to influence depressive symptom development. However, existing research is limited by cross-sectional designs, recall bias from self-reported dietary surveys, and a lack of long-term prospective cohort evidence on the diet-inflammation-mental health pathway in Chinese university students. This study aimed to examine the longitudinal association between Dietary Inflammatory Index (DII) and the incidence of depressive symptoms in Chinese university students, and to explore subgroup differences by family relationship and socioeconomic status. A 3-year longitudinal prospective cohort study was conducted among 5314 students from a university in Shanghai, China. Eligible participants met the criteria of ≥86 days of annual campus cafeteria dining and at least 1 breakfast, lunch, and dinner in campus canteens per quarter; students with abnormal monthly energy intake, excessive food consumption, or incomplete 3-year dietary/psychological data were excluded. Dietary data were continuously collected via the Intelligent Ordering System (IOS) from April 2020 to March 2023 to calculate DII scores. Depressive symptoms were annually assessed using the Beck Depression Inventory-II from March 2021 to March 2023. Mixed-effects logistic regression (α=.05) was used to analyze the association, with subgroup analyses stratified by family relationship and poverty status. The baseline prevalence of depressive symptoms was 10.75% (571/5314; male: 261/2679, 9.74%; female: 310/2635, 11.76%). After adjusting for covariates, compared with the highest DII quartile (most proinflammatory diet), lower DII quartiles (more anti-inflammatory or low proinflammatory diets) were associated with a reduced risk of incident depressive symptoms in participants without depressive symptoms at baseline: Q1 (odds ratio [OR] 0.27, 95% CI 0.16-0.47), Q2 (OR 0.52, 95% CI 0.33-0.84), and Q3 (OR 0.26, 95% CI 0.16-0.42). Subgroup analyses showed this protective effect was only significant in students with harmonious family relationships and non-poverty-stricken students; no significant association between DII and depressive symptom improvement was found in participants with baseline depressive symptoms. This study is among the first to prospectively examine dietary inflammatory potential and depressive symptoms in university students using long-term objective dietary monitoring. Unlike studies relying on self-reported dietary surveys, this study used an automated and precise campus-based IOS to continuously capture real-world dietary behaviors over 3 years. The findings indicate that sustained anti-inflammatory dietary patterns are associated with a lower risk of depressive symptoms among Chinese university students, although this protective effect was weaker in students experiencing family discord or socioeconomic disadvantage. These findings provide new longitudinal evidence for the diet-inflammation-mental health relationship and support integrated campus interventions combining dietary guidance with psychosocial support.

Depression is a major global health challenge, with onset commonly occurring in youth. There is an urgent need to better understand the epidemiology of depression to facilitate better interventions and preventions that are person-specific and time-specific. Long-term depression trajectories and ecological momentary assessment (EMA) can help address this need. Embedding EMA designs within established longitudinal cohorts offers a uniquely powerful approach to examine depression in both long- and short-term settings and to identify distal and proximal modifiable risk factors for depression. Our study will include ~450 participants from the Twins Early Development Study and ~250 participants from the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children (ALSPAC) who have depression trajectories data previously collected between late childhood and early adulthood. Participants will be recruited from four different depression trajectories in each cohort based on participants' prior symptoms. They will undertake EMA surveys of depression, sleep, physical activity, substance use, diet, recent activities and social interactions three times a day for 6 weeks, with more detailed questionnaires at baseline, 2, 4 and 6 weeks. We will use descriptive analysis, mixed effects models and dynamic structural equation modelling to examine how depression occurs over this time, how potentially modifiable factors affect depression and vice versa and how these effects vary by different life-course trajectories. This study is designed to identify people at heightened risk of depression and/or identify modifiable targets that could inform more effective prevention and intervention strategies. Favourable ethical opinions were given by the Edinburgh Medical School Research Ethics Committee (REC

Plant-based whole-food diets are feasible during auto-HCT and are associated with dose-dependent microbiome modulation.

Background/Objectives: The etiology of oral lichen planus (OLP) is unknown, and the treatment is palliative. Considering the possible influence of factors related to lifestyle on the etiopathogenesis and behavior of OLP, the aim of the present study was to investigate the association of sleep quality, nutritional profile, and salivary melatonin and cortisol levels with OLP. Methods: Thirty-two OLP patients and 31 controls completed the Pittsburgh sleep quality index (PSQI), Epworth sleepiness scale, and 24 h dietary recall survey. Saliva was collected to determine melatonin and cortisol levels by liquid chromatography coupled to mass spectrometry. Results: The OLP patients showed higher scores in the sleep disturbances component of PSQI (p = 0.021) and lower salivary melatonin levels (p = 0.015), whereas salivary cortisol did not differ between the groups (p = 0.402). The Control group had higher prevalence of coffee drinkers (p = 0.045), whereas the OLP group had higher consumption of protein (p = 0.011), lipids (p = 0.043), calories (p = 0.022), monounsaturated fat (p = 0.030), polyunsaturated fat (p = 0.007), saturated fat (p = 0.027), cholesterol (p = 0.041), iron (p = 0.014), zinc (p = 0.048), magnesium (p = 0.025), sodium (p = 0.008), and vitamin E (p = 0.016) compared to controls. Conclusions: The results suggest that OLP is associated with lifestyle factors related to sleep and diet, as well as with lower levels of salivary melatonin. Given the exploratory nature of the study, further research is needed to better understand these findings.

Dietary patterns and food allergies associated with asthma in adults: Findings from an internet-based dietary survey in Japan.

Mother-child correlations in hair mineral profiles in Japan: Insights from a cross-sectional study.

PurposeTo describe acceptability, feasibility, and preliminary effectiveness of a community-based weight management program for overweight/obese Latino children in immigrant families.DesignMixed methods evaluation of an exploratory single-arm pragmatic intervention trial.SettingCommunity sites in Maryland and Colorado.SampleLatino immigrant families with 5-12-year-old overweight/obese children with 93 participants (39 index children, their parents and siblings).InterventionCommunity Active and Healthy Families, an adaptation of an evidence- and behavioral-theory based, culturally tailored weight management program delivered in Spanish.Measures(1) Height and weight; (2) Surveys of sociodemographics, diet, and physical activity (PA) and (3) Parent/child interviews.Analysis(1) Pre and post means, standard deviations, differences in means and the P-value of the difference. (2) Thematic analysis of interviews.ResultsMean index child age was 9.8 years. Mean change in %BMIp95 was -2.24 (7.49), P = 0.12. Families attended a mean of 4.5/8 program sessions. Interviews with 15 parents and 5 children demonstrated program content was acceptable, and both parent/child respondents reported liking the hands-on learning activities and child PA time. Parents reported making some recommended dietary changes and increased physical activity via family outings. Barriers to change included fresh food costs, child diet preferences and time.ConclusionOur evaluation demonstrated a preliminary signal of effectiveness, acceptability and feasibility of Community Active and Healthy Families demonstrating readiness for a larger-scale implementation and effectiveness trial.

Nationally Representative Within-Person to Between-Person Variance Ratios of Nutrient Intakes and Their Application for Estimating Usual Nutrient Intake Distributions Using 1-Day Dietary Data in Japan.

ABSTRACTConsumption of foods containing live microbes has been associated with multiple health benefits. This study assessed exposure to live microbes in foods, including fermented foods, in the nationally representative INCA 3 dietary survey (2014–2015) in France. Foods in the French nutrient composition database (CIQUAL) were assigned to low, medium or high food groups of live microbe content. Dietary intakes came from the last French national dietary survey (INCA3 2014–2015). Participants were stratified by socio‐demographic characteristics and by tertiles of medium/high food consumption. Diet quality measures were mean adequacy ratio (MAR, %), mean excess ratio (MER, %) and a score developed by the Programme National Nutrition Santé (sPNNS‐GS2). Foods with Medium/High levels of live microbes were consumed by 97.7% of children and 98.4% of adults. Yogurt and cheese (unpasteurised) were the top sources of high food codes (99%). Vegetables and fruit (in particular, raw and unpeeled) were the top sources of medium food codes (75%). The leading fermented foods consumed in France were yogurt and cheese. Consumption of medium/high foods was 166.8 g/day for children and 215.9 g/day for adults. Medium/High foods accounted for < 4.5% of daily energy but provided > 10% of some key nutrients. Consumption of foods containing medium/high levels of live microbes was associated with higher socio‐economic status and with higher quality diets. This was the first analysis of exposure to dietary live microbes in France by population strata.

Modelling environmental, social and nutritional impacts of food consumption requires detailed, disaggregated data linking consumption-level food items to agricultural commodities. Here, we present a harmonised dataset for the decomposition of composite foods - such as mixed dishes, processed products, and multi-ingredient items - recorded in European dietary surveys (classified using European Food Safety Authority (EFSA)'s FoodEx2 system) and their association with life cycle inventory data. The dataset includes a decomposition table as well as matching tables linking FoodEx2 items to food item labels of three commonly used environmental impact databases (Poore and Nemecek dataset, Agribalyse v3.2, Ecoinvent v3.10). Yield conversion factors and consumer food waste coefficients are incorporated to support full food supply chain impact modelling. The dataset is complemented by an R script that supports semi-automatic matching, which can easily be applied to other datasets. Together, these open-access resources support high-resolution modelling of food systems in nutrition, sustainability, and food policy research by transparently connecting reported food consumption to underlying ingredient and commodity data.

Objective: To investigate the associations of plant based dietary intake and physical activity with depression symptoms in old adults aged ≥65 years in longevity areas in China. Methods: Based on cross-sectional data from the Healthy Ageing and Biomarkers Cohort Study conducted in 2021. Information about demographic characteristics, lifestyles, and psychological characteristics of the old adults were collected. Plant based dietary index (PDI) was obtained and calculated according to the results of dietary intake frequency surveys. Physical activity status of the old adults was estimated by using Physical Activity Scale for the Elderly. Depression symptoms of the old adults were measured by using Patient Health Questionnaire-9. Logistic regression models were applied to investigate the associations of different levels of plant based dietary intake and physical activity with depression symptoms in the older adults. Results: A total of 5 464 participants aged ≥65 years were included, with a mean age of (84.3±11.4) years, the prevalence of depression symptoms was 5.5% (303). High levels of plant based dietary intake and physical activity were associated with lower risk for depression symptoms. Results of logistic regression models adjusted for confounders showed that plant based dietary intake and physical activity were negatively associated with depression symptoms of the older adults. Compared with the Q1 group, the ORs of depression symptoms in the Q2, Q3, Q4 groups were 0.85 (95%CI: 0.62-1.17), 0.83 (95%CI: 0.60-1.14), and 0.50 (95%CI:0.33-0.77), respectively, for the PDI level, and compared with the Q1 group, the ORs of depression symptoms in the Q2, Q3, Q4 groups were 0.73 (95%CI: 0.51-1.05), 0.69 (95%CI: 0.47-1.02), and 0.60 (95%CI: 0.39-0.93), respectively, for the physical activity level. No significant additive or multiplicative interaction was observed between the plant based dietary intake level and the physical activity level. Conclusion: Increased intake of plant-based dietary and physical activity in old adults are associated with reduced probability of depression symptoms.

Background/Objectives: Kazakhstan currently lacks representative data on the actual consumption of calories, macronutrients, and micronutrients among students, despite the rising interest in the subject of children’s nutrition. The objective of the study was to assess the actual nutritional status of urban schoolchildren and identify differences depending on demographic and socioeconomic factors. Methods: A 24 h dietary survey was used. The final analytical dataset included 865 children aged 7 to 17 years, representing only the two specified ethnocultural groups. We divided these participants into three groups according to standard age classification: 7 to 10 years, 11 to 14 years, and 15 to 17 years. We calculated the nutrient profile using national and international food composition databases. Results: We found an age-related trend toward increased consumption of fluids, proteins, fats, and several micronutrients. Adolescents (15–17 years) had a higher intake of simple sugars and a lower intake of starch compared to other age groups. Age, gender, ethnicity, and socioeconomic factors (family income and food expenditure) were statistically significantly associated with BMI and diet composition, with caloric intake and essential nutrient intake increasing with age. Conclusions: The results emphasize the need for comprehensive interventions that go beyond school meals, such as controlling the food environment, lowering the availability of ultra-processed foods, boosting the availability of dairy products, fruits, and vegetables, and creating mechanisms for tracking and assessing the efficacy of Kazakhstan’s revised school meal standards.

Home environments shape children's dietary habits, but which factors are most influential is unclear. The study purpose was to identify factors in the home environment associated with child intake of fruit and vegetables (FV) and sugar-sweetened beverages (SSBs) using a national dataset collected in 2013-2015 in the U.S. Data from 5,138 school-aged children (4-15years old) from 130 U.S. communities were collected in 2013-2015. Parents and/or children completed a dietary screener and additional survey questions to assess household socioeconomic status (SES), grocery shopping sources, home food availability, social support for healthy eating, eating out frequency, and other home eating and related behaviors. Other child characteristics included breastfeeding history, intake of school foods, and participation in other nutrition programs. Community variables included predominant race/ethnicity and SES. Classification and regression trees (CART) identified key predictors of intake. The FV and SSB CARTS had 14 and 12 terminal groups, respectively. Children with the highest FV intake (0.54 SD from mean cups/day; 13% of sample) had fruit more often available at home, dark green vegetables more often available at home, ate dinner with family more often, had SSBs less often available at home, and were breastfed longer. Conversely, children in the two groups with the lowest FV intake either had fruit less often available at home, and family never complimented their eating (-0.86; 2%), or they had family that rarely or sometimes complimented their eating, and perceived school lunches as unhealthy (-0.87; 1%). For SSB intake, the lowest consumers (-0.63 SD from mean tsp/day sugar; 17%) never or rarely had SSBs available at home, and lived in higher SES communities. Children in the two groups with the highest SSB intakes had SSBs available at home more often, and lived in a SNAP-participating household and either ate out less often, used a phone/computer for social networking, and had SSBs available at home very often (1.3; 1%), or they ate out more often, and were breastfed for a shorter duration (1.1; 5%). Home availability of FV and SSBs were the most salient predictors of intake of both FV and SSBs, while other predictors differed between FV and SSB intake. Study findings highlight several actionable home-environment strategies to test in future studies to improve school-aged children's diets.

Community cats managed under Trap-Neuter-Return as sentinels of human diet-linked chemical exposure across contrasting feeding contexts.

Background: The Danish National Survey of Diet and Physical Activity (DANSDA) is Denmark’s national dietary surveillance system, providing population-level data to support evidence-based government advisory tasks and policymaking, research, and education. Methods: DANSDA 2021–2024 is a cross-sectional survey based on a simple random sample of citizens aged 4–80 years from the Danish Civil Registration System. Home visits included structured interviews covering socio-economic status, family composition, ethnicity, lifestyle behaviors and attitudes, health and non-communicable diseases, dietary supplement use, and measurements of anthropometrics and blood pressure. Dietary intake was recorded using a digital or paper-based seven-day food record and a food frequency questionnaire. Physical activity was measured with a pedometer and a seven-day step diary. Participants aged 40–70 years were offered blood sampling for glucose and lipid analyses. Results: A total of 4223 individuals participated, with 3824 providing valid food records (97.4% were digital). The response rate was 26.3%. The overall underreporting rate was 24%. The sample was skewed by age, education, income, household type, and region; these variables and sex were used to generate weighting factors. Nearly 1000 blood samples were analyzed for glucose and lipids, with surplus material stored in a biobank. Conclusions: DANSDA 2021–2024 provides comprehensive data on diet, physical activity, anthropometry, blood pressure, and blood glucose and lipids. Despite declining response rates and underrepresentation of individuals with lower education and income, weighting procedures support its continued use for national monitoring and research. Strengthening participation and representativeness should be a priority in future survey cycles.

BackgroundHospital nutritional diets significantly impact healthcare service standards, therapeutic outcomes, and patient satisfaction. Traditional manual dietary survey methods suffer from substantial limitations and high resource demands. Despite technological advances, few systems have successfully integrated machine vision, electronic weighing, and standardized databases for real-time nutrient assessment in clinical settings.ObjectiveTo develop and validate an intelligent food nutrition recognition and nutrient intake assessment system for hospital therapeutic diets, enabling precise, large-scale monitoring of patient nutrient intake.MethodsWe developed an AI-based image recognition system integrating RGB-D imaging, the Segment Anything Model (SAM) for food image segmentation, and the SE_ResNet50_vd model for food classification. The system comprised hardware components (food weight collector, image collector, computing host) and software modules (nutritional analysis platform developed in Java/Spring Boot). A comprehensive database was constructed from 204 standardized therapeutic diet varieties from Peking University People's Hospital, incorporating the Chinese Food Composition Table and cooking loss factors. Post-meal intake was calculated by comparing pre- and post-meal food volumes using depth camera imaging and density-based weight estimation. Food type recognition accuracy was tested on 1,000 samples, and volume estimation accuracy was validated against gravimetric measurements across 100 food items.ResultsThe food image recognition model achieved 99.2% accuracy on the test set. Volume estimation accuracy exceeded 90% in 39% of cases and 80–90% in 61% of cases, with a minimum threshold of 80% across all tested items. The SAM model demonstrated robust segmentation performance for diverse food types in standardized meal containers. The integrated system successfully monitored over 20 types of therapeutic diets, matching nutrient compositions to personalized requirements with ≥90% accuracy for meal verification.ConclusionsThis intelligent system provides standardized, real-time nutrient intake assessment with superior accuracy compared to traditional dietary survey methods. By automating therapeutic meal supervision and enabling precision nutrition monitoring, it represents a significant advancement from empirical to precision-based clinical nutrition practice, with substantial potential for improving treatment accuracy, patient outcomes, and healthcare resource optimization in hospital settings.

Discrepancies in iodised salt coverage rate (ISCR) between household salt and that used in catering establishments may significantly compromise the accuracy of dietary iodine intake assessments. To evaluate this impact, we analysed data from the 2023 Shanghai Diet and Health Survey, a cross-sectional study involving 2920 adults. Dietary intake was assessed using three 24-h dietary recalls and an FFQ, while condiment intake was collected using the weighed inventory method. Additionally, salt samples from 960 canteens and restaurants were tested to determine the ISCR in dining establishments. Results showed that the ISCR was 85·9 % in dining establishments, markedly higher than the 53·3 % observed in households. Among employed participants in Shanghai, 51·7 %, 56·1 % and 18·7 % reported consuming breakfast, lunch and dinner outside the home at least once during the 3-d study period, respectively. The estimated daily iodine intake was 101 μg/d when dining-out salt was assumed to have the same ISCR as household salt, but it increased to 118 μg/d after accounting for the ISCR discrepancy. In conclusion, the rising prevalence of eating out has reshaped residents' dietary habits, rendering traditional household-centric survey methods inadequate for iodine intake estimation in Shanghai. Incorporating ISCR differences between household and dining settings is essential for more accurate dietary iodine assessments.

It has been hypothesized that vegans may be more prone to mycotoxin exposure due to high intakes of plant-based foods. Very few studies have, however, directly addressed this hypothesis. To assess mycotoxin exposure among Icelandic vegans and omnivores. Data on 171 omnivores from the Icelandic National Dietary Survey and 47 vegans from a comparable survey. Diet was assessed using two 24-h recalls. Concentrations of T2 toxin, Deoxynivalenol (DON), Ochratoxin A (OTA), and Zearalenon (ZEN) and its metabolites were quantified in spot urine. Participants' ages ranged from 23 to 64 years. Total cereal consumption was similar among vegans versus omnivores (214 vs. 182 g/day), while intake of whole grains was higher among vegans (52 vs. 22 g/day). As expected, vegans had a higher intake of plant-based meat and dairy alternatives. DON and OTA were detected in all omnivore samples but 99 and 77% of vegan samples, respectively. Creatinine (cr.) adjusted urinary concentrations of DON were similar among vegans versus omnivores (median: 1.84 vs. 2.04 ng/g cr., p = 0.54), while concentrations of OTA were ~10 fold lower among vegans (median: 0.01 vs. 0.11 ng/g cr., p < 0.001). Concentrations of ZEN were detected in all vegan samples (median: 0.075 ng/g cr.), but in only 52% of the omnivore samples (median: 0.004 ng/g cr.). Consumption of cereals and rice showed a weak positive correlation with DON and OTA (r ~ 0.2, p < 0.05) among omnivores, but overall, correlations between diet and urinary mycotoxin concentrations were inconsistent. Our results do not support the previous hypothesis suggesting that vegans might be more highly exposed to mycotoxins than omnivores. Our results do, however, show that the two groups exhibited distinct patterns of exposure that are likely to reflect their dietary habits. Due to growing awareness about the environmental impact of foods there has been a shift in interest among the general population towards consumption of more plant-based diets, including vegan diets. Although such diets have clear health benefits, it has been hypothesized that they may lead to more elevated exposures to mycotoxins that are commonly found in plant-based foods. Given the low prevalence of vegans as observed in most population-based studies, very few studies have, however, addressed this hypothesis directly. This paper assessed mycotoxin exposure among vegan and omnivores and characterized their exposure in relation to their dietary habits.

The Korean Genome and Epidemiology Study (KoGES) is a large population-based cohort designed to investigate chronic disease risk using long-term dietary and health data. However, comprehensive amino acid information for estimating long-term intake from food frequency questionnaire (FFQ) data remains limited. This study aimed to develop and validate a standardized, rule-based algorithm for food matching and substitution and to construct an amino acid database applicable to the KoGES FFQ. The algorithm sequentially evaluated food name concordance, preparation forms, substitutability of similar foods, and differences in energy, macronutrients, and moisture (±20%). Amino acid composition data were derived from domestic and international food composition tables and published literature, with protein-nitrogen conversion factors applied by food group. Amino acid information was established for 475 FFQ food items covering 19 amino acids. Of the database values, 31.0% were analytical, 64.2% were calculated, and 4.8% were substituted. Overall database coverage across all amino acid-food item combinations was 98.8%. The constructed database was applied to dietary data from the second follow-up (Phase 3) of the KoGES Ansan and Ansung community-based cohorts, showing that total amino acid intake accounted for 86.7% of total protein intake, reflecting the inclusion of non-protein nitrogen in conventional protein estimates. Based on the Estimated Average Requirement (EAR) criteria, the proportions of participants with intakes below the EAR for protein and essential amino acids varied across age and sex groups. Overall and in both men and women, lysine showed the highest proportion of participants below the EAR, whereas tryptophan showed the lowest proportion. This standardized algorithm provides a reproducible framework for constructing amino acid databases and can be applied to large-scale cohort and dietary survey data.