Nutrition Research Update: Meal Timing & Energy Intake, Full Fat Dairy for Zero Fat Waist-Lines, D-Sorbose for Glucose Control, Broccoli for Your Brain & More

From Meal Timing Over Broccoli & Full-Fat Dairy to Anti-Diabetic Sweeteners
Based on the number of visitors you like a number of short news that will bring you up to speed on a certain topic better than a longer in-depth analysis of just one study. This and the fact that the number of recent papers that would be worth being discussed at length is not exactly huge are the reason today's SuppVersity article falls into the "short news" category again.

Basically the title says it all. All of the individual items in today's news article are from the latest issue of Nutrition Research and thus related to the effects the stuff that enters your body through your mouth is going to have on your health and overall well-being.
You can learn more about meal frequency at the SuppVersity

Grazin' Bad For the Obese!

Breakfast Keeps You Lean?!

Frequent Protein Consumption

Myth: Few Meals More Bodyfat

8 Meals = Stable, But High Insulin

Int. Fasting & Exercise
  • Meal timing matters, but only because it has a significant effect on the amount of food we eat. According to the latest study by Kathryn J. Reid, Kelly G. Baron, and Phyllis C. Zee, factors that correlate with an increased energy intake in 59 individuals, whose rest/activity patterns were assessed using 7 days of wrist actigraphy, and whose caloric intake was evaluated using 7 days of diet logs, are:
    • eating more frequently , 
    • later timing of the last meal, and 
    • a shorter duration between last meal and sleep onset
    Again, none of these factors will mechanistically make you store more body fat. What they will do, however, is to make you eat more. Basically this is also what the scientists imply, when they say that "In a mediational model, eating frequency explained the relationship between eating closer to sleep onset and total caloric intake" (Reid. 2014).
    Table 1: Associations between total calories, BMI, meal timing, meal frequency, and measures of sleep (Reid. 2014)
    It is thus not, as you may assume based on the latest studies on the intricate relationship between meal timing and the workings of your biological clock, the timing that makes late eaters more prone to obesity, but simply the fact that they're eating more than the early birds. 
  • Whole fat dairy intake is associated with lower obesity risk, findings from the Observation of Cardiovascular Risk Factors in Luxembourg study show. Bear in mind that we are dealing with observational data with all its usual flaws and shortcomings, before you start shoveling down extra amounts of whole fat dairy or throw all your low fat dairy products out of the window.
    Figure 1: Multivariate adjusted (Model 1: M1 | Model 2: M2, details see text) difference in risk of being abdominally obese (WC ≥102 cm for men and 88 cm for women) in men and women consuming 3 vs. 1 serving of the given type of dairy per day (Crichton. 2014).
    Although the data in Figure 1 has been adjusted for age, education, sex, smoking, physical activity (in min/wk), total carbohydrate (in g/d), total protein (in g/d), total fat (in g/d), total fiber (g/d), alcohol (in g/d), calcium (in mg/d), and total energy intake (in kcal/d), and in model 2 even for HDL (in mg/dL), LDL (in mg/dL), triglycerides (in mg/dL), and systolic and diastolic BP (in mm Hg), this is still statistical shenanigan and could well be messed up by a correlation between being fat and choosing fat foods in the (false?) believe that they would help you lose weight. 
  • D-sorbose as an anti-diabetes sweetener. In an attempt to develop d-sorbose as a new sweetener that could help in preventing lifestyle-related diseases, scientists from the University of Nagasaki Siebold investigated the inhibitory effect of d-sorbose on disaccharidase activity, using the brush border membrane vesicles of rat small intestines - put simply they checked if d-sorbose would inihibt the breakdown of disaccharides into monosaccharides and thus have the ability to slow down the absorption of glucose from "complex" carbs.
    Figure 2: Effects of adminstration of sucrose, the same amount of sucrose and + 10% d-sorbose or l-sorbose on the glucose and insulin response in rodents (Oku. 2014)
    I've marked the "benefits", i.e. the decrease in blood glucose (left) and the reduced insulin spike (right) in Figure 2. As you can see the effect is - at least in rodents - physiologically relevant, so that it is reasonable that Oku et al. assume that
    "[...] d-sorbose might also suppress postprandial elevation of levels of glucose and insulin due to ingestion of sucrose or maltose in humans and could be used as a sweetener that may reduce risk for lifestyle-related diseases but requires more research" (Oku. 2014).
    In view of the fact that the technology that is necessary to produce large amounts of d-sorbose has become available only relatively recently it is yet unlikely that you will be able to buy this stuff at the health food store next door, already.
  • Green veggies like broccoli have also been shown to reduce postprandial glycemia + insulin and noost the production of the anti-obesogenic satiety hormone GLP-1 | learn more
    Broccoli may ameliorate "brainflammation" in the eldery. That's at least what the latest rodent study from the University of Illinois would suggest.

    The study that was conducted by Brigitte E. Townsend, Yung-Ju Chen, Elizabeth H. Jefferya, and Rodney W. Johnson showed marked reductions in age-elevated cytochrome b-245 β, an oxidative stress marker, and reduced glial activation markers in aged mice who were fed a diet containing 10% broccoli diet for 28 days. Overall the effects are obviously modest; and yet, the study still provides good evidence to keep broccoli on your "foods I consume regularly" list.
Does eating veggies reduce inflammation? Yes, it does, 8 servings per day will significantly reduce CRP (Watzl. 2000), 68g of avocados will reduce IL-6 & NF-kappaBeta (Li. 2013), high intakes of alpha- and beta-caro- tene containing foods is associ- ated with decreased coronary heart disease risk and CHD mortality (Osganian. 2003 ; Bujisse. 2008), tomatos may protect against prostate cancer (Etminan. 2004), tomato juice makes LDL molecules resistant to oxidation (Upritchard. 2000), toma- to paste protects your skin from UV radiation (Rizwan. 2011), etc.
You want more? Well I have another study for you. One that attempts to explain why fruits an veggies in general and plant carotenoids in particular are good for you. It's a study from the Environment and Agro-biotechnologies Department in Luxemburg (Kaulmann. 2014) that analyzed the effect of carotenoids on intracellular signaling cascade and the corresponding effects on gene expression and protein translation and found that (1) carotenoids are able to interact with the nuclear factor κB pathway and thus inhibit the downstream production of inflammatory cytokines, (2) carotenoids can block oxidative stress by interacting with the nuclear factor erythroid 2–related factor 2 pathway and activating phase II enzymes and antioxidants, such as glutathione-S-transferases, and concludes that we (3) still have an incomplete understanding of what exactly carotenoids and other phytochemicals can do for our health | Any comments? If so, leave them on Facebook!
References:
  • Buijsse, Brian, et al. "Both α-and β-carotene, but not tocopherols and vitamin C, are inversely related to 15-year cardiovascular mortality in Dutch elderly men." The Journal of nutrition 138.2 (2008): 344-350.
  • Crichton, Georgina E., and Ala'A. Alkerwi. "Whole-fat dairy food intake is inversely associated with obesity prevalence: findings from the Observation of Cardiovascular Risk Factors in Luxembourg study." Nutrition Research (2014). 
  • Etminan, Mahyar, Bahi Takkouche, and Francisco Caamaño-Isorna. "The role of tomato products and lycopene in the prevention of prostate cancer: a meta-analysis of observational studies." Cancer Epidemiology Biomarkers & Prevention 13.3 (2004): 340-345.
  • Kaulmann, Anouk, and Torsten Bohn. "Carotenoids, inflammation, and oxidative stress—implications of cellular signaling pathways and relation to chronic disease prevention." Nutrition Research (2014).
  • Li, Zhaoping, et al. "Hass avocado modulates postprandial vascular reactivity and postprandial inflammatory responses to a hamburger meal in healthy volunteers." Food Funct. 4.3 (2013): 384-391.
  • Oku, Tsuneyuki, et al. "D-sorbose inhibits disaccharidase activity and demonstrates suppressive action on postprandial blood levels of glucose and insulin in the rat." Nutrition Research (2014). 
  • Osganian, Stavroula K., et al. "Dietary carotenoids and risk of coronary artery disease in women." The American journal of clinical nutrition 77.6 (2003): 1390-1399.
  • Reid, Kathryn J., Kelly G. Baron, and Phyllis C. Zee. "Meal timing influences daily caloric intake in healthy adults." Nutrition Research (2014). 
  • Rizwan, M., et al. "Tomato paste rich in lycopene protects against cutaneous photodamage in humans in vivo: a randomized controlled trial." British Journal of Dermatology 164.1 (2011): 154-162. 
  • Upritchard, JANE E., W. H. Sutherland, and J. I. Mann. "Effect of supplementation with tomato juice, vitamin E, and vitamin C on LDL oxidation and products of inflammatory activity in type 2 diabetes." Diabetes care 23.6 (2000): 733-738.
  • Watzl, Bernhard, et al. "Prolonged tomato juice consumption has no effect on cell-mediated immunity of well-nourished elderly men and women." The Journal of nutrition 130.7 (2000): 1719-1723.
Disclaimer:The information provided on this website is for informational purposes only. It is by no means intended as professional medical advice. Do not use any of the agents or freely available dietary supplements mentioned on this website without further consultation with your medical practitioner.