The Pacific population of leatherback sea turtles (Dermochelys coriacea) has drastically declined in the last 25 years. This decline has been linked to incidental capture by fisheries, egg and meat harvesting, and recently, to climate variability and resource limitation. Here we couple growth rates with feeding experiments and food intake ...

The prevalence of inadequate zinc intake in a population can be estimated by comparing the zinc content of the food supply with the population's theoretical requirement for zinc. However, assumptions regarding the nutrient composition of foods, zinc requirements, and zinc absorption may affect prevalence estimates. These analyses were conducted to: ...

The aim of the paper is to assess by the principal components analysis (PCA) the heavy metal contamination of soil and vegetables widely used as food for people who live in areas contaminated by heavy metals (HMs) due to long-lasting mining activities. This chemometric technique allowed us to select ...

Obesity in the United States does not affect all segments of the population equally. It is more prevalent in deprived neighborhoods and among groups with lower education and incomes. Inequitable access to healthy foods is one mechanism by which socioeconomic factors can influence food choice behaviors, overall diet quality, and ...

In Lebanon, Type 2 diabetes (T2D) has a major public health impact through high disease prevalence, significant downstream pathophysiologic effects, and enormous financial liabilities. Diet is an important environmental factor in the development and prevention of T2D. Dietary patterns may exert greater effects on health than individual foods, nutrients, ...

The aim of this study was to examine the association between the local food environment and obesity proportions among 3- to 4-year-old children who were participants in the WIC program in Los Angeles County using spatial analyses techniques. ArcGIS, spatial analysis software, was used to compute the retail food environment ...

Are recently developed rodent models of binge eating also models of food addiction? Valid models should meet human criteria for both bingeing and substance dependence as described in the 4th edition and proposed for the 5th edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM). Similarly, behavioral profiles ...

There are an estimated 9.4 million cases of foodborne illness each year. Consumers have a key role in preventing foodborne illness, but differences in the practice of food safety behaviors exist, increasing risk for certain groups in the population. Identifying groups who are more likely to practice risky food safety ...

Worldwide, food supplies often contain unavoidable contaminants, many of which adversely affect health and hence are subject to regulations of maximum tolerable levels in food. These regulations differ from nation to nation, and may affect patterns of food trade. We soughtto determine whether there is an association between nations' food ...

Recent research has shown that the pattern of change over time, or trajectory, of body mass index (BMI) varies among children. However, the factors that underlie the heterogeneity in these trajectories remain largely unexplored. Our aim was to use a growth mixture model to empirically identify classes of BMI trajectories ...

In recognition of the growing challenge that food insecurity has on population health, a multisectoral partnership in Nova Scotia has been working since 2001 to address province-wide accessibility to a nutritious diet. The participatory food costing (PFC) model has been at the forefront of provincial and national efforts to address ...

The seasonal timing of avian reproduction is supposed primarily to coincide with favourable feeding conditions. Long-term changes in avian breeding phenology are thus mostly scrutinized in relation to climatic factors and matching of the food supplies, while the role of nesting mortality is largely unexplored. Here we show that higher ...

Competition between marine mammals and fisheries for marine resources-whether real or perceived-has become a major issue for several countries and in international fora. We examined trophic interactions between marine mammals and fisheries based on a resource overlap index, using seven Ecopath models including marine mammal groups. On a global scale, ...

Theoretical models aimed at explaining the evolution of honest, informative begging signals employed by nestling birds to solicit food from their parents, require that dishonest signalers incur a net viability cost in order to prevent runaway escalation of signal intensity over evolutionary time. Previous attempts to determine such a cost ...

Environmental exposure to food sources may underpin area level differences in individual risk for overweight. Place of residence is generally used to assess neighbourhood exposure. Yet, because people are mobile, multiple exposures should be accounted for to assess the relation between food environments and overweight. Unfortunately, mobility data is often ...

The human mind is built for approximations. When considering the value of a large aggregate of different items, for example, we typically do not summate the many individual values. Instead, we appear to form an immediate impression of the likeability of the option based on the average quality of the ...

Adequate zinc nutrition is essential for adequate growth, immunocompetence and neurobehavioral development, but limited information on population zinc status hinders the expansion of interventions to control zinc deficiency. The present analyses were conducted to: (1) estimate the country-specific prevalence of inadequate zinc intake; and (2) investigate relationships between country-specific estimated ...

New Zealand (NZ), is a country subject to a wide range of natural disasters, some of which (e.g., floods and storms) may increase in frequency and severity with the effects of climate change. To improve disaster preparations, we aimed to use scenario development and linear programming to identify the lowest-cost ...

Saproxylic insect communities inhabiting tree hollow microhabitats correspond with large food webs which simultaneously are constituted by multiple types of plant-animal and animal-animal interactions, according to the use of trophic resources (wood- and insect-dependent sub-networks), or to trophic habits or interaction types (xylophagous, saprophagous, xylomycetophagous, predators and commensals). We quantitatively ...

Ecological models of healthy eating and physical activity emphasize the influence of behavioral settings such as homes and worksites in shaping behavior. Research on home environments suggests that both social and physical aspects of the home may impact physical activity and healthy eating. Using a community-based participatory research (CBPR) approach, ...

Williams and Bargh (2008) reported an experiment in which participants were simply asked to plot a single pair of points on a piece of graph paper, with the coordinates provided by the experimenter specifying a pair of points that lay at one of three different distances (close, intermediate, or far, ...

Positive feedback plays a major role in the emergence of many collective animal behaviours. In many ants pheromone trails recruit and direct nestmate foragers to food sources. The strong positive feedback caused by trail pheromones allows fast collective responses but can compromise flexibility. Previous laboratory experiments have shown that when ...

Research indicates that moral violations are judged less wrong when the violation results from omission as opposed to commission, and when the violation is a byproduct as opposed to a means to an end. Previous work examined these effects mainly for violent offenses such as killing. Here we investigate the ...

The consumption of foods containing trans fatty acids (TFA), especially those produced by food industries, induces pleiotropic negative effects on health. Therefore, it is important to assess the amount of TFA consumed, especially in age groups more exposed to the consumption of TFA-containing foods. The present pilot study evaluates TFA ...

Food oils are primarily composed of triacylglycerols (TAG), but they may also contain a variety of other minor constituents that influence their physical and chemical properties, including diacylglycerols (DAG), monoacylglycerols (MAG), free fatty acids (FFA), phospholipids (PLs), water, and minerals. This article reviews recent research on the impact of these ...

Morphological (growth, Fulton's condition factor), physiological (per cent dry mass, total lipid content) and behavioural (activity levels) response patterns of carp gudgeon Hypseleotris spp. were examined in response to food deprivation during a 56 day experiment. Considerable variability in the nature and magnitude of these response patterns was observed, suggesting ...

Background/Objectives:Fabuless (Olibra) is a commercially structured lipid emulsion, claimed to be a food ingredient that is effective for food intake and appetite reduction. The present study assessed its efficacy in a yoghurt-based mini-drink undergoing low or minimal food manufacturing (thermal and shear) processes.Subjects/Methods:Study 1: Twenty-four healthy volunteers (16 female, 8 ...

Digestive processes and the effect of adipokinetic hormone (Pyrap-AKH) on the amount of nutrients (lipids, proteins, and carbohydrates), and on the activity of digestive enzymes (lipases, peptidases, and carbohydrases) were studied in the midgut of the firebug, Pyrrhocoris apterus. The analyses were performed on samples of anterior (AM), middle (MM) ...

Within the European Union, the provision of dustbathing material in layer housing systems will be compulsory beginning in 2012. In cage systems, food particles are mainly used as litter material and are provided on scratching mats by an automatic transporting system. However, because dustbathing is a means for hens to ...

This study examines the extent to which geographic variation in Food Stamp Program (FSP) participation is explained by place-based factors, with special attention to the case of the three poorest regions of the United States: Central Appalachia, the Texas Borderland, and the Lower Mississippi Delta. We use descriptive statistics and ...

Wallemia sebi is a xerotolerant, ubiquitous, food-borne, mycotoxigenic fungus. An ethanol extract of its mycelium demonstrated a strong hemolytic activity, which was further enhanced at high salt concentrations in the growth medium. Characterization of the extract using gas chromatography-mass spectrometry revealed a mixture of sterols and unsaturated fatty acids, indicating ...

In this study the potential ability of food-grade particles (at the droplet interface) to enhance the oxidative stability was investigated. Sunflower oil-in-water emulsions (20%), stabilised solely by food-grade particles (Microcrystalline cellulose (MCC) and modified starch (MS)), were produced under different processing conditions and their physicochemical properties were studied over time. ...

The lipid emulsion Fabuless (Olibra) has been shown in some studies to decrease short/medium term energy intake (EI) and prevent weight regain. The purported mechanism is the ileal brake. Whether Fabuless is efficacious under a range of dietary conditions is unknown since studies have administered the emulsion within a fermented, ...

There is convincing evidence that consumption of fish and fish oil rich in long-chain (LC) n-3 PUFA (n-3 LCPUFA), EPA (20 : 5n-3) and DHA (22 : 6n-3) reduce the risk of CHD. The aim of the present study was to investigate whether n-3 LCPUFA-enriched food products provide similar beneficial effects as fish oil ...

Clay consumption is a spontaneous behavior currently observed in animals and humans, particularly during undernutrition. Often regarded as intestinal care products, ingested clays also enhance food efficiency, notably by increasing intestinal lipid uptake. Clay complementation could then optimize the reconstitution of energy reserves in animals with low lipid stocks consecutive ...

To examine the home environments of overweight and normal-weight adults and the relationships between the environment and weight-regulating behaviors. Overweight (n=201) and normal-weight adults (n=213) assessed their homes via checklist and self-reported their eating and activity habits. OW adults had less exercise equipment, fewer low-fat snacks and fruits/vegetables, and more ...

Bdelloid rotifers survive desiccation and starvation by halting activity and entering a kind of dormancy. To understand the mechanisms of survival in the absence of food source, we studied the anatomical and ultrastructural changes occurring in a bdelloid species, Macrotrachela quadricornifera Milne 1886, after starvation for different periods. The starved ...

PURPOSE OF REVIEW: To review the concept of functional foods and to summarize recent evidence on functional foods and cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk. RECENT FINDINGS: Recent studies have examined the use of antioxidant vitamins and found no support for a beneficial effect on CVD risk, lipid levels or blood pressure. ...

BACKGROUND: This study examined the association of two distinct self-regulation constructs, effortful control and dysregulation, with weight-related behaviors in adolescents and tested whether these effects were mediated by self-efficacy variables. METHODS: A school-based survey was conducted with 1771 adolescents from 11 public schools in the Bronx, New York. Self-regulation was ...

Carp (Cyprinus carpio L.) were exposed to nitrofen (NIP) by different routes (via water or food) to compare bioaccumulation parameters and tissue distribution. The bioconcentration factor of NIP was 5,100, and the lipid-corrected biomagnification factor was 0.137. Growth-corrected elimination half lives were 2.1-3.0 days via aqueous exposure and 2.7-2.9 days ...

Nutritional epigenetics seeks to explain the effects of nutrition on gene expression. For social science, it is an area of life science whose analysis reveals a concentrated form of a wider shift in the understanding of food and metabolism. Rather than the chemical conversion of food to energy and body ...

In nature, adult parasitoids feed to obtain and use nutrients for supplementing and/or replenishing some of their existing array of nutrient reserves. When adults feed on host or non-host food, they can enhance fitness, typically by increasing egg production or longevity. In the present study, ovigeny index (OI) and impact ...

Food waste and municipal wastewater are promising feedstocks for microbial lipid biofuel production, and corresponding production process is to be developed. In this study, different oleaginous yeast strains were tested to grow in hydrolyzed food waste, and growths of Cryptococcus curvatus, Yarrowia lipolytica, and Rhodotorula glutinis in this condition were ...

Shellfish consumption can be a major pathway of exposure to pollutants for humans. It is fundamental to know if people eat enough shellfish to cause health problems, firstly in high consumers as recreational shellfish harvesters. The objectives of this study were to investigate the types of shellfish eaten, number of ...

Pecorino Siciliano (PS) "primosale" is a traditional Sicilian fresh soft cheese made from sheep's milk. Short-ripening time and production from unpasteurized or raw milk can facilitate bacterial contamination of PS "primosale". The microbiological quality of "primosale" on retail sale in the street markets of Palermo, Italy was studied by detecting ...

The use of natural antimicrobial agents is garnering attention due to consumer and producer awareness of health problems. This study found that the essential oil of A. galanga had strong bactericidal activity against both Gram-negative and Gram-positive bacteria. The bactericidal action of A. galanga oil was extremely rapid. Results of ...

Narrow allometry is used to compare Ardipithecus ramidus molar and body segment lengths and proportions to those of living primates, with the goal of reconstructing fossil behavior and exploring how lengths and proportions bear on phylogeny. Comparatively short hands and upper limbs suggest Ardipithecus was less adept at forelimb suspension ...

The aim of this study was to determine how worthwhile it would be to combine a newly developed topical slimming product with customized dietary habits not based on calorie restriction, so as to improve the cellulite appearance of the skin. At the beginning of the study, a nutritionist recorded the ...

Agriculture has been a large part of the ecological success of humans. A handful of animals, notably the fungus-growing ants, termites and ambrosia beetles, have advanced agriculture that involves dispersal and seeding of food propagules, cultivation of the crop and sustainable harvesting. More primitive examples, which could be called husbandry ...

The origin of human handedness and its evolution in primates is presently under debate. Current hypotheses suggest that body posture (postural origin hypothesis and bipedalism hypothesis) have an important impact on the evolution of handedness in primates. To gain insight into the origin of manual lateralization in primates, we studied ...