Abstract
We are now into our fifth issue of the new look Nutrition and Health journal and I hope that you can start to see things taking shape. In time, we hope that Nutrition and Health will become one of the main journals of choice for high quality work in this area and we continue to work behind the scenes to make this happen. Part of this work is the continued expansion of our Editorial Board and I am delighted to announce the appointment of four new Associate Editors to our Editorial Board; we welcome Prof. Demosthenes B. Panagiotakos and Dr. Kouvari Matina from the School of Health Science & Education at Harokopio University, Dr. Jagdish Khubchandani from the Department of Nutrition and Health Sciences at Ball State University and Dr. Venetia Notara from the Department of Public Health and Community Health, Technological Educational Institute of Athens. These appointments certainly broaden the expertise of our Editorial Board and improve the reach of our journal to include a wider focus on the modern day challenges in nutrition and public health and, of course, in the opportunities that this creates. As the structure of the Editorial Board continues to develop, we remain keen to appoint further Associate Editors who share our ambitions for the journal; so please get in touch with us if this is you!
We hope that you have all found something of interest in the issues of the re-launched journal to date. I must extend a special thanks to Professors Gualano and Cyrino for editing the last issue, which was a Special Issue focussed on Sport and Exercise Nutrition that was dedicated to papers presented at the VI Brazilian Congress of Metabolism, Nutrition and Exercise in Londrina, Brazil between 9 and 12 November 2016. Nine manuscripts were published as part of this Special Issue on a broad range of topics relevant to sports nutrition and to the interplay between nutrition, exercise and health, so please go back and take a look at that issue if you haven’t already.
Now to the current issue, we have received a collection of six interesting articles across a diverse range of topics within the scope of the journal; starting with one short communication, followed by four original articles and a narrative review.
We open the issue with a short communication by Kroeger and colleagues that presents some exploratory analysis from a randomised control trial relating to the effects of alternate day fasting (an approach to weight loss/management that has gained some popularity in recent years) for successful weight loss. They examined eating behaviour traits of individuals who had successfully lost weight as a result of this approach, showing that those who were more successful reported higher protein intakes, were more satiated and managed to stick more closely to their energy intake targets during the fasting days.
Our second manuscript is an original article from Leung et al. based upon an analysis of ‘special diets’ from the 2012 National Health Interview Survey data, which links somewhat to the previous article. Special diets that focus on a particular approach or on the avoidance or consumption of a particular food group or type are becoming increasing popular. An interesting finding from this paper, though, is the fact that the specific reasons for following such diets are not clear, but they are most commonly followed with the belief that they will improve overall health. Those following special diets were also more likely to be female, not married, not college educated and depressed.
Ribeiro et al. examined the effects of leucine supplementation with or without resistance training on the attenuation of white adipose tissue loss and the improvement of inflammatory parameters and glucose metabolism in a type I diabetic rat model. They showed that leucine supplementation and resistance training independently and when combined reduced hypoglycaemia and the excessive loss of white adipose tissue. With regards to inflammation, it was resistance training that was responsible for the most pronounced attenuation.
Whybrow et al. provided an original article that aimed to evaluate dietary patterns from the food and drink purchases of 2844 households in Scotland during 2012. In addition, they identified whether any specific dietary patterns were associated with greater adherence to the Revised Dietary Goals for Scotland, identifying four dietary patterns that were significantly associated with meeting a greater proportion of those dietary goals. Of interest is the potential for using these types of data to assist in a more targeted approach to improve heathy food selection and overall diet quality and we would welcome more articles with a similar focus.
Jamnik et al. provide an interesting original article relating to the cardiometabolic health and nutritional status of individuals with undiagnosed celiac disease. 2832 individuals were screened for celiac disease serology and had lipid profiles and nutrient status determined. Those with undiagnosed celiac disease had unfavourable lipid profiles and were at an increased risk for inadequacies of certain fat soluble vitamins, although they did not seem to be at an increased risk of widespread nutrient deficiencies compared to those without positive celiac disease serology.
The last article in this issue is a narrative review by Dinkel et al., which provides an overview of the assessment tools available to researchers for use in obesity related research, particularly focussed on full-term infants. This is a timely article given the developing interest in examining infant obesity and the current review also highlights the need to use interdisciplinary teams (including paediatricians, paediatric nurses, dieticians, behavioural psychologists and physical activity specialists) to best address the issue.
As always, we would like to remind our readers that any journal can only be as good as its contributors so I would welcome submission of high-quality manuscripts from you across the wide scope of topics covered by our journal. We hope you enjoy this latest issue of Nutrition and Health and we look forward to your continued support of the journal. Happy reading!