Another interesting recent study - The association between vitamin D serum levels, supplementation, and suicide attempts and intentional self-harm - with its abstract reading: "Objectives The purpose of this study is to determine the associations between Vitamin D supplementation, 25(OH) blood serum levels, suicide attempts, and intentional self-harm in a population of veterans in the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA). Methods A retrospective cohort study of US Veterans supplemented with Vitamin D. Veterans with any Vitamin D3 (cholecalciferol) or Vitamin D2 (ergocalciferol) fill between 2010 and 2018 were matched 1:1 to untreated control veterans having similar demographics and medical histories.

"The truth is rarely pure and never simple"   Oscar Wilde 

This blog post is also downloadable as a Word format handout. 

Here are a mixed bag of six recent research papers on diet, vitamin D, IBS and yoga (all details & abstracts to these studies are listed further down this blog post).  The first three papers highlight the toxic effects on psychological health, physical health, and society of our processed, high sugar diets.  Sanchez-Villegas et al map a bit more clearly the potential link between diet and depression.  They conclude "Our results suggest a potential protective role of the MDP (Mediterranean dietary pattern) with regard to the prevention of depressive disorders; additional longitudinal studies and trials are needed to confirm these findings."  Fiorito et al show that intake of sweetened drinks in 5 year old girls predicts overweight over subsequent childhood and adolescence, and - rather scarily - Moore & colleagues show a link between confectionary consumption at age 10 and subsequent violence in adulthood.  They concluded "Children who ate confectio

Here are half a dozen studies on weight, bite size, vitamin D, dietary supplements, and ways of avoiding dementia.  Andrew et al report on the "Incident cancer burden attributable to excess body mass index in 30 European countries" estimating that about 6% of cancers could be avoided if we could maintain healthier weights (abstracts & links for all six articles mentioned appear further down this page).  Zijlstra and colleagues suggest a possible response!  They randomized subjects to eating with different bite (mouthful) sizes and different chewing times.  They found that " ... greater oral sensory exposure to a product, by eating with small bite sizes rather than with large bite sizes and increasing OPT (oral processing time), significantly decreases food intake."  As Mum might put it "Don't wolf your food!"

I like the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition (AJCN).  It comes out monthly and nearly always has an article or two that I find interesting and helpful.  The AJCN May edition produced a bumper crop.  Interesting articles included a report by Chen and colleagues (see below for all abstracts) on the effects of encouraging people to reduce their consumption of sugar-sweetened beverages (SSB).  In the 810 US adults they studied, 19% of total daily energy intake came from drinks.  They found "A reduction in liquid calorie intake had a stronger effect than did a reduction in solid calorie intake on weight loss. Of the individual beverages, only intake of sugar-sweetened beverages (SSBs) was significantly associated with weight change. A reduction in SSB intake of 1 serving/d was associated with a weight loss of 0.49 kg ... at 6 mo and of 0.65 kg ...

Here's a gutsy, nutritional, low sunlight kind of blog post to suit our post-holiday season.  First the gutsy bit.  Irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) - with its characteristic symptoms of abdominal pain, altered bowel habit, and possibly bloating - is very common, affecting about 15% of the population.  Ford et al systematically reviewed all research on treating IBS with fibre, antispasmodics, or peppermint oil.  Fibre was some use, but only in the form of ispaghula (UK Fybogel, Isogel).  The antispasmodics otilonium and hysocine (UK Buscopan) seemed also to be of help.  But what attracted me to the study was the finding that most helpful of the three treatments seemed to be the old-fashioned remedy of taking peppermint oil. 

Here are a couple of studies on smoking, a couple on B vitamins, a couple on vitamin D, and an intriguing study on iron.  The smoking papers underline the varieties of damage this habit produces.  So the Pasco et al study shows that, for women, being a smoker is associated with double the risk of developing subsequent major depression.  The Strandberg research challenges any notion of "Eat, drink and be merry for tomorrow we die".  This study of 1658 men reports that "During the 26-year follow-up of this socioeconomically homogeneous male cohort, HRQoL (quality of life) deteriorated with an increase in daily cigarettes smoked in a dose-dependent manner.