Red mold rice is a fermented food product common in China (where it’s used to enhance flavor and color of foods) and valued in Chinese medicine. Scientists at National Taiwan University reviewed the properties of this functional food, highlighting potential antidiabetic and antioxidant effects.
Applied Microbiology and Biotechnology. 2012 Apr;94(1):47-55 (Shi et al.)
Researchers studied the effect of traditional Japanese breakfast foods on insulin sensitivity in a small sample of individuals with impaired glucose tolerance. The group which ate foods such as natto (fermented soybeans) and viscous vegetables (such as Japanese yams and okra) for 2 weeks demonstrated improved insulin sensitivity, serum lipids, and oxidative stress compared to the control group.
British Journal of Nutrition. 2012 Apr;107(8):1184-1191. (Taniguchi-Fukatsu et al.)
Danish researchers at the University of Copenhagen followed 79 overweight or obese women for 12 weeks as they ate calorie-restricted comparable diets with either refined wheat or whole wheat. Throughout the study, body weight and composition, blood pressure and several risk markers were measured. Though both groups lost weight, the whole wheat eaters showed a greater reduction in body fat mass, while total cholesterol and LDL (“bad”) cholesterol increased with the refined wheat group, “which may suggest a cardioprotective role for whole grain.”
The Journal of Nutrition, April 2012; 142(4):710-6. (Kristensen et al.)
Individuals who choose to follow a vegan diet are at increased risk for being deficient in vitamin B-12, which occurs in meaningful bio-available amounts only in animal foods. This type of vitamin deficiency is very serious and can cause many irreversible health problems, yet vegans often don’t take B-12 supplements because they consider them “un-natural.” Polish scientists followed 20 healthy adult volunteers for five years after they switched from an omnivorous diet to a strict vegan diet. Ten consumed only natural products, while the other ten consumed foods fortified with B-12. Not surprisingly, B-12 serum levels were down in the natural group, but not in the fortified group.
Acta Scientiarum Polonorum, Technologia Alimentaria April 2, 2012; 11(2):209-213. [Lisowska A et al.]
Folate, found in foods such as spinach, is an important vitamin necessary to prevent neural tube defects (birth defects of the brain, spine, and spinal cord). In a study in Egypt, researchers found that sprouting wheat increased folate levels 3- to 4-fold depending on temperature. The scientists concluded that making pita bread with just 50% sprouted wheat flour is enough to increase the daily folate intake by 75 micrograms, or almost 20% of the adult recommended intake.
Food and Nutrition Research. 2012 April 2;56 (Hefni et al.)
935 women and 817 controls participating in the MASTOS case-control study in Cyprus answered a 32-item Food Frequency Questionnaire to assess their adherence to a Mediterranean Diet. Although overall Med Diet adherence did not prove to be correlated with breast cancer risk in this study, researchers found that a diet high in fish, vegetables, legumes and olive oil may reduce the risk of breast cancer.
BMC Cancer. 2012 March 23; 12:113. [Demetriou et al.]
At the German Institute of Human Nutrition Potsdam-Rehbruecke, researchers performed a cross-sectional study on 2,198 men and women in the larger EPIC study, searching for biological predictors of diabetes and cardiovascular disease. They found that higher consumption of whole grain bread was significantly associated with lower levels of several biomarkers of obesity, inflammation and glucose metabolism, while higher consumption of red meat was associated with higher levels of GGT (gamma-glutamyl transferase, which can be indicative of congestive heart failure) and hs-CRP (a measure of inflammation also associated with heart disease).
European Journal of Nutrition, 2012 March 18. [Epub ahead of print] (Montonen et al)
While many studies assessing the benefits of the Mediterranean Diet are carried out with older adults, the SUN project in Spain studies recent university graduates largely in their middle- or late-thirties. After four years of follow-up, researchers at the University of Las Palmas found that a higher adherence to the Mediterranean Diet was significantly associated with better physical health (vitality, bodily pain, general health) and with most measures of mental health (social and emotional functioning).
European Journal of Clinical Nutrition. 2012 March; 66(3):360-8. [Henríquez Sánchez et al.]
Researchers from Central Washington University and California Polytechnic State University compared the iron intakes and serum iron levels of 19 vegetarian college women with 20 non-vegetarian college women. They found that 66% of vegetarians and 65% of non-vegetarians failed to meet the recommended daily allowance of iron (14-18mg). Furthermore, there was no significant difference in serum iron levels between the two groups. In fact, both vegetarians and non-vegetarians had high rates of iron deficiency. These results suggest that while female college students have a high risk of iron deficiency, a vegetarian diet alone does not increase this risk.
Health. 2012 Mar;4(3):113-119. (Hawk et al.)
Chinese researchers seeking to evaluate the effect of green tea in combination with inulin for potential impact on body weight and fat mass asked 30 obese and overweight adults to drink either regular tea or catechin-rich green tea with inulin, for six weeks. Researchers concluded that continuous intake of green tea and inulin may support weight management, and that the positive effects continued were sustained two weeks after ending consumption.
British Journal of Nutrition. 2012 Mar; 107:749-754 (Yang et al.)
A team of researchers at the Harvard School of Public Health conducted a meta-analysis of four studies on rice intake and type 2 diabetes, with a total of 352,384 participants. Asian (Chinese and Japanese) people, who ate white rice three to four times per day as compared to Western populations who ate white rice once or twice a week, had a much higher risk of type 2 diabetes.
British Medical Journal. 2012 March 15; 344:e1454. (Hu et al.)
Traditional Chinese therapeutic foods such as hawthorn and kiwifruit extracts were evaluated for their effect on dyslipidemia in a clinical trial conducted in Australia. Researchers found evidence which suggests that consuming these extracts for 4 weeks may increase levels of HDL-c “good cholesterol” which could reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease.
Evidence-Based Complementary and Alternative Medicine. Volume 2012 (2012), Article ID 508683 (Sun et al.)
