Term Food Intake Research Articles

Dynamic State-Space Modeling With Factorial Memories in Temporal Dominance of Sensations, Emotions and Temporal Liking

There are few mathematical models that describe how human perceptual and affective responses evolve with time. We developed a state-space model of the interrelationships based on time-evolving perceptual and affective responses acquired by the temporal dominance (TD) method. We defined and computed the state variables that endow the system with memory using canonical variate analysis. Furthermore, we determined the model parameters on the basis of a cross-validation approach such that the observed and estimated changes in the affective responses are highly correlated. We applied this method to the TD curves of responses to eating strawberries and plum pickles, reported in our previous work. The model describes what happens during food intake in terms of a few state variables that summarize a large number of observable responses reductively, thus helping to make the perceptual and affective dynamics understandable.

Energy poverty and food insecurity: Is there an energy or food trade-off among low-income Australians?

Large price rises can lead to what has been termed a ‘heat or eat’ trade-off, where some low-income individuals must choose between energy use and putting food on the table. Low-income individuals are particularly at risk. There are effects on physical health from either restricted energy use or restricted food intake (in terms of quantity or nutritional value) and there may also be effects on mental health due to stress associated with being unable to pay bills or buy food. Considering escalating energy and food prices, this study investigates the energy or food trade-off among low-income people in Australia. While there is some literature on the heat or eat trade-off, our contribution lies in our use of detailed longitudinal population-representative data and multivariable analysis with a focus on low-income individuals who are most vulnerable. Among all low-income households, a 1% increase in the relative price of electricity increases energy expenditure by 0.44% and reduces food expenditure by 0.09% and these effects are statistically significant. For those in poverty, we find a 1% increase in the relative price of electricity increases energy expenditure by 0.37% but has no significant effect on food expenditure. This is consistent with individuals in poverty having economised as far as possible and being unable to reduce expenditure any further. For those near poverty the increase in price reduces food expenditure by 0.20% although there is no significant effect on energy expenditure, indicating individuals are economising on energy use to offset the price increase. For the remaining low-income individuals, the price increase results in a trade-off in which energy is prioritised over food. Reduced food expenditure, however, does not seem to translate into going without meals.

Patterns of discretionary food intake among Australian children and their association with socio-demographic, lifestyle, and adiposity measures.

Australian children consume 35% of energy from discretionary food and beverages which increases their risk of non-communicable diseases like type 2 diabetes. Despite this concerning statistic, broad analysis of the profile of discretionary food intake has not been fully undertaken. This study asks: what is the discretionary food and beverage intake profile, contribution to nutrient intakes, and associations with demographic and health characteristics? Cross-sectional data from the 2011-12 National Nutrition and Physical Activity Survey (n= 2812, 2-18 years) were used to profile discretionary food consumption. Dietary intake was assessed by 24-h recall. General linear models tested the difference in respondent characteristics by age group, sex, and quartiles of discretionary food energy contribution. Ninety-nine percent of respondents consumed discretionary foods, 74% exceeded the maximum discretionary food recommended serves. Among 10 eating occasions available to select: snack, dinner, lunch and morning tea appeared to contribute 76% of discretionary food energy, with snack and dinner contributing 24% each. Age and frequency of discretionary food consumption were positively associated with energy intake from discretionary foods (p< 0.001); while sex, socio-economic status, physical activity and body composition had no association. High discretionary food consumers chose specific discretionary food items in a large quantity (1.0-3.5-serves/discretionary food) compared to low discretionary food consumers (0.4-1.4-serves/discretionary food). Nearly all Australian children and adolescents consumed discretionary food daily. No demographic or anthropometric characteristics beyond increasing age were associated with higher discretionary food. Targeted public health policy and community interventions are required to focus on addressing the largest contributors to discretionary food intake in terms of equivalent serve sizes, popularity, and eating occasion.

Factors Influencing Food Consumption among University Students

Vegetables and fruits are an important food component of a healthy lifestyle as it contains variety of nutrients. Ministry of Agriculture and Agro-based Industry Malaysia has showed in the AgroFood Statistics Book 2014 that the commodity consumption of vegetables and fruits kilograms per year from 2008 to 2014 has consistently increase and expected to increase. Studies on factors influencing the consumption of vegetables and fruits are still lacking in Malaysia. There appears to be relatively scarce research and analysis concerning Malaysia. Research aims to identify the attitude of having fruits and vegetables among students of University Utara Malaysia (UUM) by adopting product, price, promotion, place and knowledge as variables. Data were collected using the questionnaire method studied using the Statistical Package for Social Science (SPSS) version 22.0 application. Research was done to examine whether marketing mix factors, product, price, distribution, and knowledge affect the attitude of fruit and vegetable consumption among Universiti Utara Malaysia students. Findings indicates all the variables are significant except for knowledge on vegetables and fruits consumption. Hence, the accuracy of food intake in terms of the amount and the types of food consumed should be aware by the students.

The Influence of Taste Liking on the Consumption of Nutrient Rich and Nutrient Poor Foods.

Repeated consumption of high-energy nutrient poor foods can lead to undesirable health outcomes such as obesity. Taste plays an important role in food choice, and a better understanding of the links between the taste of foods, individual taste preferences, food choices, and intakes will aid in our understanding of why some people might select and consume unhealthy foods. The present review focuses on three main questions: (1) do nutrient poor and nutrient rich foods significantly differ in taste profile? (2) are humans predisposed toward developing a liking or preference for certain taste profiles? (3) how are individual variations in liking of the basic taste qualities related to long term food intake and adverse health outcomes such as obesity? Results indicated that nutrient poor foods were likely to be sweet, salty and fatty mouthfeel, while the taste profiles of nutrient rich foods were diverse. Although humans are born with a universal liking for sweet and aversion for bitter taste, large individual differences exist in liking of all the basic taste qualities. These individual differences partly explain differences in short term intakes of foods varying in taste profiles. However they fail to sufficiently explain long term food choices and negative health outcomes such as obesity. Future studies should focus on how the full sensory profile of food which includes taste, smell and texture interacts with individual characteristics (e.g., taste or health motivations, taste preferences) to affect consumption of nutrient rich and nutrient poor foods.

Multiple factor analysis of eating patterns to detect groups at risk of malnutrition among home-dwelling older subjects in 2015.

ObjectiveWe aimed to describe eating patterns among home-dwelling older subjects to establish typologies of eaters at higher or lower risk of malnutrition.DesignCross-sectional study between June and September 2015 using a standardised questionnaire. The questionnaire was given to home-help employees (responsible for delivering meals to home-dwelling older persons and helping them to eat). The employees were asked to complete the questionnaire three times during the same week, for the same older adults, in order to identify the totality of their food intake.SettingRegistered customers of the home meal delivery company ‘Azaé’ (France).Participants605 older home-dwelling persons were randomly selected among customers served by the home meal delivery company.OutcomesMultiple factor analysis was used to understand the different modes of food consumption and to establish eating profiles. Hierarchical classification was performed to construct eating profiles corresponding to the dietary habits of the respondents.ResultsAverage age of the older adults was 85.3 years; 73.5% were women. Overall, 59% of participants reported that they ate out of habit, while 33.7% said they ate for pleasure. We identified four different groups of eaters, at varying levels of risk for malnutrition. Individuals in group 4 had the highest food intake in terms of quantity; and were less dependent than individuals in group 1 (p=0.05); group 1 was at highest risk of malnutrition.ConclusionImproved understanding of eating habits can help detect risky behaviours and help caregivers to promote better nutrition among home-dwelling older subjects.

Hunger, taste, and normative cues in predictions about food intake

Normative eating cues (portion size, social factors) have a powerful impact on people's food intake, but people often fail to acknowledge the influence of these cues, instead explaining their food intake in terms of internal (hunger) or sensory (taste) cues. This study examined whether the same biases apply when making predictions about how much food a person would eat. Participants (n = 364) read a series of vignettes describing an eating scenario and predicted how much food the target person would eat in each situation. Some scenarios consisted of a single eating cue (hunger, taste, or a normative cue) that would be expected to increase intake (e.g., high hunger) or decrease intake (e.g., a companion who eats very little). Other scenarios combined two cues that were in conflict with one another (e.g., high hunger + a companion who eats very little). In the cue-conflict scenarios involving an inhibitory internal/sensory cue (e.g., low hunger) with an augmenting normative cue (e.g., a companion who eats a lot), participants predicted a low level of food intake, suggesting a bias toward the internal/sensory cue. For scenarios involving an augmenting internal/sensory cue (e.g., high hunger) and an inhibitory normative cue (e.g., a companion who eats very little), participants predicted an intermediate level of food intake, suggesting that they were influenced by both the internal/sensory and normative cue. Overall, predictions about food intake tend to reflect a general bias toward internal/sensory cues, but also include normative cues when those cues are inhibitory. If people are systematically biased toward internal, sensory, and inhibitory cues, then they may underestimate how much food they or other people will eat in many situations, particularly when normative cues promoting eating are present.

Conflicting internal and external eating cues: Impact on food intake and attributions.

Social factors have a powerful influence on people's food intake but people typically fail to acknowledge the influence of such external cues, instead explaining their food intake in terms of factors such as how hungry they are. We examined whether the tendency to explain one's food intake in terms of internal cues (i.e., hunger) rather than external cues (i.e., other people's behavior) would be apparent when those cues are in conflict with one another. Female participants (n = 104) took part in a pizza taste test after having been food deprived for 18-hr or after consuming a meal-replacement preload. Half of the participants were also exposed to a social norm that conflicted with their deprivation condition: deprived participants were exposed to a low-intake norm, whereas preloaded participants were exposed to a high-intake norm. After completing the taste test, participants indicated the extent to which their food intake was influence by how hungry they were and how much other people ate. Deprived participants ate less when exposed to a low-intake norm than when no norm was present, but reported that the behaviors of others had no impact on their food intake. In contrast, preloaded participants did not eat significantly more when exposed to a high-intake norm, but reported that the behavior of others made them eat more. Participants are generally inaccurate in the attributions they make for their food intake, and we suggest that these inaccuracies may be because of motivated misreporting. (PsycINFO Database Record

Self-reported overeating and attributions for food intake

Objective: We examined whether people’s attributions for their eating behaviour differ according to whether they believe they have eaten more, less or about the same as they normally would.Design: Participants were served a small or large portion of pasta for lunch. Afterwards, they were asked to compare how much they ate in the study to how much they normally eat for lunch, resulting in three intake-evaluation categories: ‘ate less’, ‘ate about the same’ or ‘ate more’.Main outcome measures: How much participants ate; the extent to which they attributed their food intake to an internal cue (i.e. hunger) and an external cue (i.e. the amount of food served).Results: Participants served a large portion ate more than those served a small portion, but the magnitude of the portion-size effect did not vary across intake-evaluation categories. Furthermore, although participants in all groups indicated that their hunger influenced how much they ate, only those in the ‘ate more’ group indicated that the amount of food available influenced how much they ate.Conclusion: People appear to be willing to explain their food intake in terms of an external cue only when they believe that they have eaten more than they normally would.

Copper and zinc concentrations in human hair and popular foodstuffs in China

ABSTRACTConcentrations of copper (Cu) and zinc (Zn) were determined in 383 human hair samples and in 445 food samples purchased in 11 Chinese cities. The concentrations of Cu were 7.91, 5.39, 2.27 and 2.20 mg kg−1 and those of Zn were 47.2, 24.8, 52.8 and 30.2 mg kg−1 in vegetables, cereals, meat and fish, respectively. The overall mean concentrations of hair Cu and Zn were 8.97 and 128 mg kg−1, respectively. Hair Cu and Zn concentrations were higher in females than in males, especially in the 13–19 and 20–50 year age groups. Hair Cu concentration increased with increasing age and these changes occurred mainly in males. In contrast, 51–65 years old females had the lowest hair Zn concentrations. Residents of rural areas had similar hair Cu or Zn concentrations to people in urban areas. There were no significant correlations between hair concentration and food intake in terms of Cu and Zn among the cities. The results indicate that hair Cu and Zn concentrations and their changes with biological and environmental factors cannot be explained satisfactorily by the estimated food intakes in the cities sampled.

Dietary intakes of adolescents from food insecure households: analysis of data from the 6th (2013-2015) Korea National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey.

BACKGROUND/OBJECTIVESThis study aimed at evaluating the dietary intakes of Korean adolescents affected by food insecurity, in comparison with those who were food secure.SUBJECTS/METHODSThe study used one day 24-hour dietary recall data from the 6th Korea National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey. The study subjects consisted of 1,453 adolescents of whom 695 were middle school-aged and 758 were high school-aged. Food security status was assessed using the 18-item questionnaire. Nutrient intake was evaluated in terms of nutrient density, insufficient intake, and excessive intake for selected nutrients, in addition to meeting the appropriate range for total energy intake and energy intakes from carbohydrate, sugar, protein, fat, and saturated fatty acids. Food intake was evaluated in terms of food group servings and dietary diversity score (DDS).RESULTSThe percentages of food insecurity were 11.1% for middle school-aged adolescents and 16.8% for high school-aged adolescents. Food insecure middle school-aged adolescents had higher intake of carbohydrate (P = 0.006) but lower intake of fat (P = 0.010) and saturated fatty acids (P = 0.005) than their food secure counterparts although the intake of both groups was in the recommended ranges. Nutrient intake among high school-aged adolescents was generally similar regardless of food security status. Both food secure and insecure adolescents showed insufficient intake of vitamin A, vitamin C, and calcium, and excessive sodium intake. They additionally had low prevalence of meeting appropriate intake ranges for energy, carbohydrate, and sugar. Food intake in terms of food group servings and DDS was also similar regardless of food security status among both age groups, with low intakes of foods from fruit and dairy groups.CONCLUSIONSExcept for a few nutrients among the middle school-aged adolescents, dietary intakes among Korean adolescents did not differ by food security status in this study.

The Context Specific Factors Affecting Women Empowerment and Empowerment’s Implications for Resource Allocation, Awareness and Fertility: An Econometric Analysis

Using data from a survey of Bangladeshi households, this paper constructs an index of women empowerment and explores both the determinants of empowerment of married women and the impacts that empowerment has on various aspects of a woman’s life. The findings reveal that female education, her involvement in income generating activities (both formal and informal) and the structure of the household (unit or extended) are important determinants. As regards the impacts of empowerment on the female’s life, the paper finds that empowerment affects her food intake and expenditure patterns in quantitative and qualitative terms – it positively impacts women’s nutritional status and health care and confers positive impacts on taking family planning measures. Also empowered women’s behavior is less discriminating when it comes to serving food among family members.

Conditioned Taste Avoidance Drug Discrimination Procedure: Assessments and Applications.

In the present chapter, we summarize much of the work on the taste avoidance drug discrimination procedure, presenting the logic for its initial introduction and the extension of the procedure in the investigation of the discriminative properties of various drugs. Results from these assessments parallel those from more traditional operant and maze designs in classifying and characterizing the discriminative properties of drug. At the same time, this design reveals a procedure that is sensitive in such assessments by indexing these stimulus properties more rapidly and at lower doses than in the more traditional procedures (in some cases for drugs heretofore resistant in their detection). Importantly, much remains to be learned about the taste avoidance procedure in that the nature of such learning remains unknown and the specific parameters under which it can be established and generalized and its neurochemical and neuroanatomical bases are largely unexplored. The application of drug discrimination learning to human drug abuse continues to be an important consideration for this specific design (as well as that of drug discrimination procedures in general), and recent parallels between drug use and food intake in terms of its regulation by interoceptive stimuli suggests a possible role of the loss of stimulus control in drug escalation and addiction (with possible therapeutic implications via the modulation of these interoceptive cues).

Effectual comparison of quinoa and amaranth supplemented diets in controlling appetite; a biochemical study in rats.

The objective of this study was to assess the efficacy of two current cynosure protein substitutes; quinoa and amaranth in controlling short term food intake and satiety in rats. Experimental rats were allotted to three groups (n = 8 per group) and fed with diets containing casein, quinoa and amaranth as major protein sources, with casein diet kept as control. At the end of the experiment it was observed that the rats ingesting quinoa and amaranth supplemented diets exhibited lesser food intake (p < 0.01) and lesser body weight gain significantly in amaranth (p < 0.05) as compared to control. They seemed to bring down plasma ghrelin levels while meliorating plasma leptin and cholecystokinin (CCK) levels postprandially (p < 0.01). Although both quinoa diet and amaranth diet were effective in improving blood glucose response and maintaining plasma free fatty acids (FFA) and general lipid profiles subsequently after the meal, amaranth diet showed significant effects when compared to control and amaranth diets. There was 15% improvement in blood glucose profile in the amaranth group with respect to the control at 90min, where as there was only 3.4% improvement in the quinoa group. These findings provide a scientific rationale to consider incorporation of these modest cereals in a diet meant to fight against growing obesity and poverty.

A photographic method to measure food item intake. Validation in geriatric institutions

From both a clinical and research perspective, measuring food intake is an important issue in geriatric institutions. However, weighing food in this context can be complex, particularly when the items remaining on a plate (side dish, meat or fish and sauce) need to be weighed separately following consumption. A method based on photography that involves taking photographs after a meal to determine food intake consequently seems to be a good alternative. This method enables the storage of raw data so that unhurried analyses can be performed to distinguish the food items present in the images. Therefore, the aim of this paper was to validate a photographic method to measure food intake in terms of differentiating food item intake in the context of a geriatric institution. Sixty-six elderly residents took part in this study, which was performed in four French nursing homes. Four dishes of standardized portions were offered to the residents during 16 different lunchtimes. Three non-trained assessors then independently estimated both the total and specific food item intakes of the participants using images of their plates taken after the meal (photographic method) and a reference image of one plate taken before the meal. Total food intakes were also recorded by weighing the food. To test the reliability of the photographic method, agreements between different assessors and agreements among various estimates made by the same assessor were evaluated. To test the accuracy and specificity of this method, food intake estimates for the four dishes were compared with the food intakes determined using the weighed food method. To illustrate the added value of the photographic method, food consumption differences between the dishes were explained by investigating the intakes of specific food items. Although they were not specifically trained for this purpose, the results demonstrated that the assessor estimates agreed between assessors and among various estimates made by the same assessor. The results also revealed that the accuracy of this method was not dependent on the type of food studied, thus, the photographic method was not specific to a particular food type. Finally, the photographic method was able to provide more detailed data because it allowed differentiation between food item intakes. These findings clearly suggest that the photographic method is a valid and useful method to measure food intake in geriatric institutions.

Vagal leptin signalling: A double agent in energy homeostasis?

In this issue of Molecular Metabolism, de Lartigue et al. reveal the effect of leptin receptor depletion in vagal afferents on food intake and weight regulation. de Lartigue et al. showed deletion of leptin receptor in Nav1.8 expressing sensory neurons resulted in increased food intake (specifically in the dark phase), reduced sensitivity to the satiety hormone cholecystokinin (CCK), which ultimately led to increased adiposity and a modest increase in weight. Curiously, feeding this knockout line a high fat diet led to no further weight gain, compared to the chow fed knockout animals, and, in fact, they were substantially lighter than high fat diet fed wildtype mice. This landmark paper provides direct evidence for the physiological importance of leptin–vagal afferent interactions in satiety signalling and long term weight regulation. Currently, the long term regulation of energy homeostasis is largely attributed to homeostatic pathways within the central nervous system. The satiety hormone, leptin, secreted primarily from white adipose tissue, provides a signal to the hypothalamus reflecting the size of fat stores [1,2] and serves as a long-term regulator of nutrient intake, adiposity and body weight [3]. However, although the levels of circulating leptin reflect the degree of adiposity [1], in obesity, where leptin levels are high, there is an inability for leptin to suitably regulate body weight, a phenomenon dubbed ‘leptin resistance’. In the periphery, it is well recognised that signals generated in the gastrointestinal tract are involved in the short term regulation of food intake influencing meal size and duration [4]. This involves integration of both gastric and small intestine feedback. In the small intestine this signalling is thought to be an enteroendocrine response to nutrients, and the data of de Lartigue et al. indicate that leptin receptor disruption, specifically in vagal afferents, decreases vagal afferent sensitivity to the anorexigenic hormone CCK, thus presumably reducing the satiety signal arising from the small intestine. On the other hand, CCK also activates gastric afferents [5] and, as there were no means to actually determine the location of the afferent ending involved this may be somewhat premature. Additionally, the authors fail to consider satiety signals from the stomach. In the stomach, vagal afferent satiety signals are generated largely in response to mechanical stimuli. Gastric vagal afferents can also be acted on by a number of appetite regulating peptides, including leptin, to regulate food intake [6], suggesting the results of de Lartigue et al. likely have intestinal and gastric contributions. Although gastrointestinal vagal afferents are an important link between the periphery and the central nervous system the influence of vagal afferent satiety signals on long term regulation of energy homeostasis has been under debate for many years. This is largely due to the multiple central and peripheral sites of action of appetite regulating hormones (Figure 1). By specifically manipulating leptin signalling in vagal afferents de Lartigue et al. have established conclusively that vagal afferents are an important component to regulate satiety and influence long term food intake and weight gain. Figure 1 Illustration of the effect of leptin on appetite regulation within the central nervous system and on peripheral vagal afferents under standard and high fat diet induced obese conditions. An interesting observation in the data of de Lartigue et al. is that in high fat diet conditions weight gain is reduced in vagal afferent leptin receptor knockout mice. This implies that in high fat diet conditions leptin has ‘orexigenic’ effects possibly increasing food intake. Unfortunately, the authors fail to provide food intake data on this group of mice and therefore at this stage this cannot be confirmed. However, a previous report [7] indicating a ‘switch’ in the effect of leptin on gastric vagal afferents in high fat diet conditions supports the data of de Lartigue et al. Thus this data introduces the intriguing possibility that leptin is a ‘double agent’ normally having anorexigenic effects but under certain physiological/nutritional states switching to an orexigenic agent. As a whole de Lartigue et al. demonstrate the importance of vagal afferents in regulation of long term food intake and weight with vagal leptin signalling required to maintain a healthy weight, but in contrast, are also required to develop high fat diet induced obesity. It is apparent that a better understanding of the underlying mechanisms in vagal afferent satiety signalling under varying states of nutrition is essential before any pharmacotherapy for the treatment of obesity can be established.

Postprandial peptide YY is lower in young college-aged women with high dietary cognitive restraint

Acylated ghrelin and peptide YY (PYY3–36) are involved in appetite-regulation and energy homeostasis. These gastrointestinal hormones provide peripheral signals to the central nervous system to regulate appetite and short term food intake, and interact with leptin and insulin to regulate energy balance. Dietary restraint is an eating behavior phenotype that manifests as a conscious cognitive control of food intake in order to achieve or sustain a desired body weight. The purpose of the current study was to determine if college-aged women (18 to 25years) with different eating behavior phenotypes, i.e., high vs normal dietary restraint, differ with respect to circulating concentrations of gastrointestinal hormones during and following a test meal. We hypothesized that women with high dietary cognitive restraint [High CR (score≥13, n=13)] would have elevated active ghrelin and PYY3–36 concentrations after a test meal compared to women with normal dietary cognitive restraint [Normal CR (score<13, n=30)]. Gastrointestinal hormones were assessed before (−15 and 0min) and after (10, 15, 20, 30, 60, 90, 120 and 180min) the consumption of a mixed composition meal (5.0kcal per kg/body weight). In contrast to our hypothesis, mean PYY3–36 concentrations (p=0.042), peak PYY3–36 concentrations (p=0.047), and PYY3–36 area under the curve (p=0.035) were lower in the High CR group compared to the Normal CR group after controlling for body mass index. No group differences were observed with respect to acylated ghrelin before or after the meal. In conclusion, PYY3–36 concentrations were suppressed in the women with High CR compared to the women with Normal CR. While the current study is cross-sectional and cause/effect of high dietary restraint and suppressed PYY3–36 concentrations cannot be determined, we speculate that these women with high cognitive restraint may be prone to weight gain or weight re-gain related to the suppressed circulating PYY after a meal. Further investigations need to explore the relationship between dietary cognitive restraint, circulating PYY, and weight gain.

Validation of a Semi-Quantitative Food Frequency Questionnaire for Argentinean Adults

BackgroundThe Food Frequency Questionnaire (FFQ) is the most commonly used method for ranking individuals based on long term food intake in large epidemiological studies. The validation of an FFQ for specific populations is essential as food consumption is culture dependent. The aim of this study was to develop a Semi-quantitative Food Frequency Questionnaire (SFFQ) and evaluate its validity and reproducibility in estimating nutrient intake in urban and rural areas of Argentina.Methods/Principal FindingsOverall, 256 participants in the Argentinean arm of the ongoing Prospective Urban and Rural Epidemiological study (PURE) were enrolled for development and validation of the SFFQ. One hundred individuals participated in the SFFQ development. The other 156 individuals completed the SFFQs on two occasions, four 24-hour Dietary Recalls (24DRs) in urban, and three 24DRs in rural areas during a one-year period. Correlation coefficients (r) and de-attenuated correlation coefficients between 24DRs and SFFQ were calculated for macro and micro-nutrients. The level of agreement between the two methods was evaluated using classification into same and extreme quartiles and the Bland-Altman method. The reproducibility of the SFFQ was assessed by Pearson correlation coefficients and Intra-class Correlation Coefficients (ICC). The SFFQ consists of 96 food items. In both urban and rural settings de-attenuated correlations exceeded 0.4 for most of the nutrients. The classification into the same and adjacent quartiles was more than 70% for urban and 60% for rural settings. The Pearson correlation between two SFFQs varied from 0.30–0.56 and 0.32–0.60 in urban and rural settings, respectively.ConclusionOur results showed that this SFFQ had moderate relative validity and reproducibility for macro and micronutrients in relation to the comparison method and can be used to rank individuals based on habitual nutrient intake.

In vitro and in vivo evidence for a satiating effect of fish protein hydrolysate obtained from blue whiting (Micromesistius poutassou) muscle

To find appetite suppressive molecules derived from fish protein hydrolysates, both in vitro and in vivo experiments were performed in order to demonstrate that hydrolysates produced from blue whiting muscle (BWMH) possess satiating properties. Here we demonstrated for the first time that a protein hydrolysate obtained from marine source was able to enhance cholecystokinin (CCK) and glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1) secretion in STC-1 cell line. To demonstrate that these in vitro activities also exist in vivo, we investigated the effect of BWMH preload administration in rats and its repercussion on food intake and metabolic plasma marker levels. Results showed that BWMH reduced the short term food intake which was correlated to an increase in the CCK and GLP-1 plasma levels. Moreover it was demonstrated that the chronic administration of BWMH led to a decrease in the body weight gain.

The role of a pre-load beverage on gastric volume and food intake: comparison between non-caloric carbonated and non-carbonated beverage

BackgroundThere is conflicting data on the effects of carbon dioxide contained in beverages on stomach functions. We aimed to verify the effect of a pre-meal administration of a 300 ml non-caloric carbonated beverage (B+CO2) compared to water or a beverage without CO2 (B-CO2), during a solid (SM) and a liquid meal (LM) on: a) gastric volume, b) caloric intake, c) ghrelin and cholecystokinin (CCK) release in healthy subjects.MethodsAfter drinking the beverages (Water, B-CO2, B+CO2), ten healthy subjects (4 women, aged 22-30 years; BMI 23 ± 1) were asked to consume either an SM or an LM, at a constant rate (110 kcal/5 min). Total gastric volumes (TGV) were evaluated by Magnetic Resonance Imaging after drinking the beverage and at maximum satiety (MS). Total kcal intake at MS was evaluated. Ghrelin and CCK were measured by enzyme immunoassay until 120 min after the meal. Statistical calculations were carried out by paired T-test and analysis of variance (ANOVA). The data is expressed as mean ± SEM.ResultsTGV after B+CO2 consumption was significantly higher than after B-CO2 or water (p < 0.05), but at MS, it was no different either during the SM or the LM. Total kcal intake did not differ at MS after any of the beverages tested, with either the SM (Water: 783 ± 77 kcals; B-CO2: 837 ± 66; B+CO2: 774 ± 66) or the LM (630 ± 111; 585 ± 88; 588 ± 95). Area under curve of ghrelin was significantly (p < 0.05) lower (13.8 ± 3.3 ng/ml/min) during SM following B-CO2 compared to B+CO2 and water (26.2 ± 4.5; 27.1 ± 5.1). No significant differences were found for ghrelin during LM, and for CCK during both SM and LM after all beverages.ConclusionsThe increase in gastric volume following a 300 ml pre-meal carbonated beverage did not affect food intake whether a solid or liquid meal was given. The consistency of the meal and the carbonated beverage seemed to influence ghrelin release, but were unable, under our experimental conditions, to modify food intake in terms of quantity. Further studies are needed to verify if other food and beverage combinations are able to modify satiation.