Scientists in Boston analyzed data from 13,368 male doctors in the Physicians’ Health Study I to see how consumption of breakfast cereals might be associated with hypertension. After adjusting for smoking, BMI, alcohol consumption, produce consumption, activity, and diabetes history, they found that the risk of hypertension was lowest among those who ate the most breakfast cereal. The association was strongest for whole grain cereals.
Clinical Nutrition. August 23, 2011  [Epub ahead of print]

Spanish scientists analyzed data from 11,015 university graduates to study associations between Health Related Quality of Life (HRQL) and adherence to the Mediterranean Diet. They found a significant direct association between following the Med Diet and improved vitality and general health, both among those who initially ate the Med way, and those whose adherence to the Med Diet improved over the four year follow-up of the study. 

European Journal of Clinical Nutrition, August 17, 2011 [Epub ahead of print]

The whole grains traditionally used in India have been replaced by more refined grains including white rice and flour.  This change may contribute to chronic disease such as diabetes and cardiovascular disease.  Researchers at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health recommend strategies to reverse this trend and suggest that whole grains such as quinoa can be easily used in traditional Indian recipes.
Nutrition Reviews. 2011 Aug; 69(8):479-88. (Dixit et al.)

459 Japanese pre-schoolers were studied by researchers from Gifu University in Japan. They found that the boys with the highest seaweed intake had significantly lower diastolic blood pressure readings, while the girls with the highest seaweed intake had significantly lower systolic blood pressure.
Nutrition Journal. August 10, 2011; 10:83 (Wada et al.)

A study conducted by the University of Botswana explored associations among food consumption patterns, overweight/obesity, and socioeconomic status and urbanization. Scientists surveyed a nationwide cross-sectional sample of 746 adolescent schoolchildren in secondary schools of cities, towns and villages in Botswana.  The study found that overweight and obesity are associated with greater socio-economic status (SES), city residence and a snack-food diet pattern.  Students belonging to a higher SES reported significantly more daily servings of snack foods and fewer servings of traditional diet foods than those in a lower SES.  In general, students in cities ate significantly more servings of snacks and fewer servings of traditional foods compared with those in urban and rural villages.  The findings suggest that as nutritional transition progresses through urbanization and SES levels in Botswana, it will be important to increase the availability of fruits and consumption of traditional foods, while decreasing snack portion sizes.
Public Health Nutr. 2011 Aug 2:1-8. (Maruapula et al.)
 

Sleep duration and quality can affect health, so scientists at the Cleveland Clinic set out to compare sleep patterns in 1046 Mexican Americans (620 born in Mexico and the rest in the U.S.) with 5160 non Hispanic Americans. The Mexico-born immigrants had the healthiest sleep patterns, and increased acculturation (measured by English spoken at home rather than Spanish) correlated to an increased risk of poor sleep.
Sleep. August 1, 2011; 34(8):1021-31 (Seicean et al.)

Scientists at Columbia University and Stanford collaborated to reflect on the association between rapidly rising rates of type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease in India, and the adoption of refined carbohydrates – especially white rice and white flour – in that country. They advocated re-introduction of whole grains commonly consumed before 1950, including amaranth, barley, brown rice, millet, and sorghum, as a way to stem chronic disease in culturally-sensitive ways.
Nutrition Reviews, August 2011; 69(8):479-488

A group of 90 healthy college students were enrolled in an introductory course in nutrition at a university in the Midwestern United States. The class, which met three times a week, emphasized the role of a healthful lifestyle as a mechanism related to disease prevention. Traditional lectures were combined with “hands on” activities that incorporated concepts from Social Cognitive Theory. Four hours of total lecture and activity time were devoted to whole grains. By the end of the semester investigators found a significant increase in the consumption of whole grains in the group that completed the study. 
Journal of Nutrition Education and Behavior. 2011; 43 (4): 263-267 (Ha et al.)

Researchers at Maastricht University in the Netherlands followed a group of 120,852 men and women for ten years, starting when the group was 55-69 years old. They assessed each person on four factors – adherence to the Mediterranean Diet, non-smoking, normal weight, and regular physical activity – to learn which factors helped people to live longer. Scoring high on all four factors was strongly related to reduced mortality, adding an estimated 8.4 years to men’s lives and 15 years to women’s lives. Among women, adherence to the Med Diet in particular was significantly related to lower mortality.

American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, July 27, 2011 [Epub ahead of print]

In a case-controlled study at the University of Modena and Reggio Emilia in Italy, scientists compared 400 subjects with known atrial fibrillation to 400 matched controls with no evidence of this type of abnormal heart rhythm. They found that those with atrial fibrillation scored lower on the Mediterranean Diet score, and had fewer antioxidants in their diets. Researchers think that the hearts of the controls, with their healthier Med-style diets, were more likely to experience “spontaneous conversion” – a quick self-correction –of any arrhythmias that did occur
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Nutrition, Metabolism, and Cardiovascular Disease, July 26, 2011 [Epub ahead of print]

If you improve your eating habits, lose weight, and subsequently lower your LDL (“bad”) cholesterol, is it the weight loss or the healthier eating that’s responsible? That’s the question scientists at Quebec’s Laval University set out to answer when they asked 19 men with metabolic syndrome to follow a control Western diet (5 weeks), a Mediterranean diet without cutting calories (5 weeks), a calorie-restricted free-living diet (20 weeks), and then a calorie-restricted Mediterranean Diet (5 weeks). They found that the Mediterranean Diet in the absence of weight loss made the most significant reductions in unhealthy blood lipids. 

British Journal of Nutrition, July 26, 2011: 1-7 [Epub ahead of print]

Fiber is one of the factors that is known to slow the uptake of glucose into the blood stream after eating. Researchers at Oxford Brookes University in the UK set out to explore whether whole grain barley with different fiber levels (10% fiber vs 16% fiber) or in different serving sizes (25g and 50g of available carbohydrate) would affect glycemic response. They found no difference in any of the variables, but all of the barley porridge options elicited a significantly low glycemic response.
British Journal of Nutrition, July 26, 2011:1-6 [Epub ahead of Print]