The importance of healthy dietary habits, especially in early life, is crucial for overall nutrition, health, and development in children. School Food Programs (SFP) have gained significant attention as drivers of healthy eating and academic performance
Today it is well established that our physical wellbeing partially depends on the trillions of microbes in our gut, the intestinal microbiome. At same time, there is emerging evidence that these unicellular lifeforms can also influence our mental status and cognitive performance.
I was always interested in core biological processes, from school years, genetics was the area of biology I found most inspiring and through my BSc and PhD in molecular microbiology, I was fascinated by the relationship between what is coded and how life unravels and uses that code.
Fatigue is a symptom resulting from the weakening or depletion of one's physical and/or mental resources, ranging from a general state of lethargy to a specific, work-induced burning sensation within one's muscles. It is a highly prevalent feeling but still remains an often-neglected unmet clinical need.
Today’s food systems in high-income countries face several challenges, including a lack of resiliency, resulting in an inconsistent food supply and changing food prices, especially during crises. When faced with this type of challenge, high-income countries tend to rely on short term food relief that doesn’t always meet people’s nutritional needs or choices. In addition, limited access to nutrition education and cooking skills programs makes it hard for those most at risk to use what food they do have effectively. To address these challenges, a focus on local or regional food systems is considered one way to boost food system resilience.
What we eat is influenced by a myriad of external factors: our mood, the occasion, friends and family, new food trends, the location, food presentation, to name only a few. We tend to choose our food differently at a wedding reception surrounded by people we are meeting for the first time than at a garden BBQ with family and friends after a rough day at work.
Dogs may be our best friends, but cats have a plan to challenge that notion! They need our help to thrive, and it starts with good food.
The Paper of the Month for July is ‘Prospective association between adherence to UK dietary guidelines in school-age children and cardiometabolic risk markers in adolescence/early adulthood in the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children (ALSPAC) cohort'.
The Paper of the Month for May is ‘Microbial gut dysbiosis induced by xenobiotics in model organisms and the relevance of experimental criteria: a minireview'. The blog is written by the below authors and the paper is published in the Gut Microbiome, and is free to access for one month.
With the ongoing global epidemic of obesity and increasing prevalence of dementia, evaluating the impact of over-eating and different diets on brain structure and function becomes increasingly important. Recent studies suggest that the gut microbiota and metabolic changes can impact with cognitive health. In this paper of the month, we were interested in the impact of obesity and diet on the gut-brain axis.
In many low- and lower-middle-income countries, particularly in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), where mixed crop-livestock farming is widely practiced, livestock keeping provides income, food, nutrition and other benefits for the rural poor. The nutritional benefits of livestock keeping are particularly important since malnutrition continues to cause nearly half of annual global child deaths, and can have lasting effects on the physical growth and cognitive development of millions of surviving children.
Ready meals are a popular choice in the UK, and it is estimated that almost 90% of us eat them. Many ready meals can be classified as ultra-processed foods, which often have multiple added ingredients such as sugar, salt, fat, artificial colours, or preservatives, and consumption of ready meals has been associated with an increased risk of obesity. However, the jury is still out on the nutritional quality of ready meals.
Working as a female nutritional scientist, there are so many amazing female leaders to inspire those coming up behind.
Professor Andrea Azcarate-Peril tells the marathon story of her journey from Argentina, via North Carolina, to becoming Editor-in-Chief of Gut Microbiome, an open access journal co-published by Cambridge University Press and The Nutrition Society
The study provides the most up to date findings on vitamin D intake and factors affecting vitamin D status of adults in Ireland, and has been published in the British Journal of Nutrition.
The Paper of the Month for February is 'Assessing the effects of alternative plant-based meats v. animal meats on biomarkers of inflammation: a secondary analysis of the SWAP-MEAT randomized crossover trial' and the blog is written by author Anthony Crimarco, Ph.D. and is published by the Journal of Nutritional Science and is free to access for one month.
Editor-in Chief of The Gut Microbiome Journal, Andrea Azcarate-Peril, answers 3 questions for International day of Women and Girls in Science.
Excess body weight and alcohol consumption are both modifiable risk factors for many adverse health outcomes, including cancer. Alcohol is classified as Group 1 carcinogen by the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), and alcohol consumption is associated with a higher incidence of seven cancer types. Excess body weight is also associated with at least 13 cancer types. Although these factors have been known to be linked with cancer for many years, very few studies have investigated the joint association between alcohol consumption and excess body weight with cancer risk.
Listen to @BBCRadio4's Start the Week, featuring @NineDotsPrize winner @jkkusiak, talking about her book, 'Radically Legal'. Learn how a group of ordinary people inspired the book when they reclaimed over 240,000 apartments back from corporate landlords 🔗
Start the Week - ‘Left behind’, but not forgotten - BBC Sounds
Tom Sutcliffe with Paul Collier, Joanna Kusiak and Matthew Xia.
cup.org
Sparking curiosity from geopolitics in Japan to the cultural implications of AI!
Explore the seven new titles we are welcoming to Cambridge and the seven #OpenAccess titles we are launching in 2025 🚀 🔗 https://cup.org/3yhAuAx
Our Flip it Open programme has published titles from authors @GibbsSpike, @liederfollower and Inés Valdez!
Discover how we are funding the publication of #OpenAccess books without changing purchasing habits 🔗 https://cup.org/4diDHii
;
