In this week’s article, we provide a roundup of some of the most recent health and nutrition related articles in the news, four items comprising:
- Weekly fish consumption linked to better sleep, higher IQ
- Curcumin improves memory and mood
- Extent of vitamin D’s role extends to easing IBS symptoms: Reviews
- Mediterranean diet may help women receiving IVF to achieve successful pregnancies
Weekly fish consumption linked to better sleep, higher IQ
Children who eat fish at least once a week sleep better and have IQ scores that are 4 points higher, on average, than those who consume fish less frequently or not at all, according to new findings from the University of Pennsylvania published this week in Scientific Reports, a Nature Journal.
Previous studies showed a relationship between omega-3s, the fatty acids in many types of fish, and improved intelligence, as well as omega-3s and better sleep. But they’ve never all been connected before. This work, conducted by Jianghong Liu, Jennifer Pinto-Martin and Alexandra Hanlon of the School of Nursing and Penn Integrates Knowledge Professor Adrian Raine, reveals sleep as a possible mediating pathway, the potential missing link between fish and intelligence.
“This area of research is not well-developed. It’s emerging,” said Liu, lead author on the paper and an associate professor of nursing and public health. “Here we look at omega-3s coming from our food instead of from supplements.”
For the work, a cohort of 541 9 to 11-year-olds in China, 54 percent boys and 46 percent girls, completed a questionnaire about how often they consumed fish in the past month, with options ranging from “never” to “at least once per week.” They also took the Chinese version of an IQ test called the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children-Revised, which examines verbal and non-verbal skills such as vocabulary and coding.
Read the full article via this link.
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Curcumin improves memory and mood
Daily consumption of a certain form of curcumin – the substance that gives Indian curry its bright colour – improved memory and mood in people with mild, age-related memory loss, according to the results of a study conducted by UCLA researchers.
The research published online January 19th in the American Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry, examined the effects of an easily absorbed curcumin supplement on memory performance in people without dementia, as well as curcumin’s potential impact on the microscopic plaques and tangles in the brains of people with Alzheimer’s disease.
Found in turmeric, curcumin has previously been shown to have anti-inflammatory and antioxidant properties in lab studies. It also has been suggested as a possible reason that senior citizens in India, where curcumin is a dietary staple, have a lower prevalence of Alzheimer’s disease and better cognitive performance.
“Exactly how curcumin exerts its effects is not certain, but it may be due to its ability to reduce brain inflammation, which has been linked to both Alzheimer’s disease and major depression,” said Dr. Gary Small, director of geriatric psychiatry at UCLA’s Longevity Center and of the geriatric psychiatry at the Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behaviour at UCLA, and the study’s first author.
Read the full article via this link.
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Extent of vitamin D’s role extends to easing IBS symptoms: Review
Vitamin D supplements could help to ease the symptoms of Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS) that include bloating, stomach cramps and constipation, a UK review concludes.
With links to other colorectal conditions like inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) and colorectal cancer, the review found a correlation between low vitamin D status and severity of IBS symptoms.
“The study provides an insight into the condition and, importantly, a new way to try to manage it,” said Dr Bernard Corfe, lead study author and senior oncology lecturer at the University of Sheffield.
“It is evident from the findings that all people with IBS should have their vitamin D levels tested and a large majority of them would benefit from supplements.”
Read the full article via this link.
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Mediterranean diet may help women receiving IVF to achieve successful pregnancies
New research has found that women who follow a “Mediterranean” diet in the six months before assisted reproductive treatment have a significantly better chance of becoming pregnant and giving birth to a live baby than women who did not.
Researchers asked women about their diet before they underwent in vitro fertilisation (IVF) treatment and found that those who ate more fresh vegetables, fruit, whole grains, legumes, fish and olive oil, and less red meat, had a 65-68% greater likelihood of achieving a successful pregnancy and birth compared to women with the lowest adherence to the Mediterranean-style diet.
The study, which published Tuesday 30th in Human Reproduction, focused on dietary patterns rather than individual nutrients, foods or food groups. It assessed the diet of 244 women via a food frequency questionnaire when they enrolled at an Assisted Conception Unity in Athens, Greece, for their first IVF treatment. The questionnaire asked them about how often they ate certain groups of food in the preceding six months; the results gave the women a MedDiet Score, which range from 0-55 with higher scores indicating greater adherence to the Mediterranean diet. The women were aged between 22-41 and were non-obese (body max index of less than 30 kg/m2).
Read the full article via this link.
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If you have any questions regarding the topics that have been raised, or any other health matters please do contact me (Clare) by phone or email at any time.
clare@cytoplan.co.uk, 01684 310099
Clare Daley and the Cytoplan Editorial Team
Last updated on 1st February 2018 by cytoffice
