Research - Fruit + Vegetables General
Anti-influenza activity of elderberry (Sambucus nigra)
Golnoosh Torabiana,b , Peter Valtcheva,b , Qayyum Adilc , Fariba Dehghania,b
Abstract
Elderberry extract is effective in treatment of flu. This study aimed to determine the mechanism of action of elderberry and its primary active compound, cyanidin 3-glucoside (cyn 3-glu), against influenza virus. The direct effect was studied via hemagglutination inhibition assay, plaque reduction assay, and flow cytometry analysis. In addition, to assess the indirect immunomodulatory effect, the modulation of pro-inflammatory cytokines was evaluated. Elderberry showed mild inhibitory effect at the early stages of the influenza virus cycle, with considerably stronger effect (therapeutic index of 12 ± 1.3) in the post-infection phase. Our data further support both direct effects of elderberry extract by blocking viral glycoproteins as well as indirect effects by increased expression of IL-6, IL-8, and TNF. Cyn 3-glu despite demonstrating a similar direct mechanism of action (IC50 of 0.069 mg/ml) compared to the elderberry juice, did not affect the expression of pro-inflammatory cytokines. In conclusion, elderberry exhibits multiple modes of therapeutic action against influenza infection.
Source : Journal of Functional Foods
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Cruciferous Vegetables, Isothiocyanates, and Bladder Cancer Prevention
Besma Abbaoui Christopher R. Lucas Ken M. Riedl Steven K. Clinton Amir Mortazavi
Abstract
Bladder cancer is a significant health burden due to its high prevalence, risk of mortality, morbidity, and high cost of medical care. Epidemiologic evidence suggests that diets rich in cruciferous vegetables, particularly broccoli, are associated with lower bladder cancer risk. Phytochemicals in cruciferous vegetables, such as glucosinolates, which are enzymatically hydrolyzed to bioactive isothiocyanates, are possible mediators of an anticancer effect. In vitro studies have shown inhibition of bladder cancer cell lines, cell cycle arrest, and induction of apoptosis by these isothiocyanates, in particular sulforaphane and erucin. Although not yet completely understood, many mechanisms of anticancer activity at the steps of cancer initiation, promotion, and progression have been attributed to these isothiocyanates. They target multiple pathways including the adaptive stress response, phase I/II enzyme modulation, pro‐growth, pro‐survival, pro‐inflammatory signaling, angiogenesis, and even epigenetic modulation. Multiple in vivo studies have shown the bioavailability of isothiocyanates and their antitumoral effects. Although human studies are limited, they support oral bioavailability with reasonable plasma and urine concentrations achieved. Overall, both cell and animal studies support a potential role for isothiocyanates in bladder cancer prevention and treatment. Future studies are necessary to examine clinically relevant outcomes and define guidelines on ameliorating the bladder cancer burden.
Source : Molecular Nutrition and Food Research
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Fruit and vegetable consumption and breast cancer incidence: Repeated measures over 30 years of follow‐up
Maryam S. Farvid , Wendy Y. Chen, Bernard A. Rosner, Rulla M. Tamimi, Walter C. Willett, A. Heather Eliassen
Abstract
We evaluated the relation of fruit and vegetable consumption, including specific fruits and vegetables, with incident breast cancer characterized by menopausal status, hormone receptor status, and molecular subtypes. Fruit and vegetable consumption, cumulatively averaged across repeated, validated questionnaires, was examined in relation to risk of invasive breast cancer among 182,145 women initially aged 27‐59y in the Nurses' Health Study (NHS, 1980‐2012) and NHSII (1991‐2013). Cox proportional hazards regression, adjusted for known risk factors, was used to estimate hazard ratios (HRs) and 95% confidence intervals (CIs), and assessed tumors by hormone receptor status and molecular subtypes. We prospectively documented 10,911 invasive breast cancer cases. Greater intake of total fruits and vegetables, especially cruciferous and yellow/orange vegetables, was associated with significantly lower breast cancer risk (>5.5 versus ≤2.5 servings/day HR=0.89, 95%CI=0.83‐0.96; Ptrend=0.005). Intake of total vegetables was especially associated with lower risk of estrogen receptor negative tumors (HR per 2 additional servings/day as a continuous variable=0.85, 95%CI=0.77‐0.93; Pheterogeneity=0.02). Among molecular subtypes, higher intake of total fruits and vegetables (HR per 2 additional servings/day as a continuous variable) was most strongly associated with lower risk of human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (HER2)‐enriched (HR=0.78, 95%CI=0.66‐0.92), basal‐like (HR=0.85, 95%CI=0.73‐0.99), and luminal A (HR=0.94, 95%CI=0.89‐0.99), but not with luminal B tumors (Pheterogeneity=0.03). In conclusion, our findings support that higher intake of fruits and vegetables, and specifically cruciferous and yellow/orange vegetables, may reduce the risk of breast cancer, especially those that are more likely to be aggressive tumors.
Source : International Journal of Cancer via Sci-Hub.tw
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Effectiveness of dietary interventions among adults of retirement age: a systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials
Jose Lara, Nicola Hobbs, Paula J Moynihan, Thomas D Meyer, Ashley J Adamson, Linda Errington, Lynn Rochester, Falko F Sniehotta, Martin White and John C Mathers
Abstract
Background Retirement from work involves significant lifestyle changes and may represent an opportunity to promote healthier eating patterns in later life. However, the effectiveness of dietary interventions during this period has not been evaluated.
Methods We undertook a systematic review of dietary interventions among adults of retirement transition age (54 to 70 years). Twelve electronic databases were searched for randomized controlled trials evaluating the promotion of a healthy dietary pattern, or its constituent food groups, with three or more months of follow-up and reporting intake of specific food groups. Random-effects models were used to determine the pooled effect sizes. Subgroup analysis and meta-regression were used to assess sources of heterogeneity.
Results Out of 9,048 publications identified, 67 publications reporting 24 studies fulfilled inclusion criteria. Twenty-two studies, characterized by predominantly overweight and obese participants, were included in the meta-analysis. Overall, interventions increased fruit and vegetable (F&V) intake by 87.8 g/day (P <0.00001), with similar results in the short-to-medium (that is, 4 to 12 months; 85.6 g/day) and long-term (that is, 12 to 58 months; 87.0 g/day) and for body mass index (BMI) category. Interventions produced slightly higher intakes of fruit (mean 53.7 g/day) than of vegetables (mean 41.6 g/day), and significant increases in fish (7 g/day, P = 0.03) and decreases in meat intake (9 g/day, P <0.00001).
Conclusions Increases in F&V intakes were positively associated with the number of participant intervention contacts. Dietary interventions delivered during the retirement transition are therefore effective, sustainable in the longer term and likely to be of public health significance.
Source + BMC
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Natural plant compound prevents Alzheimer's disease in mice
A chemical that's found in fruits and vegetables from strawberries to cucumbers appears to stop memory loss that accompanies Alzheimer's disease in mice, scientists have discovered. In experiments on mice that normally develop Alzheimer's symptoms less than a year after birth, a daily dose of the compound -- a flavonol called fisetin -- prevented the progressive memory and learning impairments. The drug, however, did not alter the formation of amyloid plaques in the brain, accumulations of proteins which are commonly blamed for Alzheimer's Disease. The new finding suggests a way to treat Alzheimer's symptoms independently of targeting amyloid plaques.
"We had already shown that in normal animals, fisetin can improve memory," says Pamela Maher, a senior staff scientist in Salk's Cellular Neurobiology Laboratory who led the new study. "What we showed here is that it also can have an effect on animals prone to Alzheimer's."
More than a decade ago, Maher discovered that fisetin helps protect neurons in the brain from the effects of aging. She and her colleagues have since -- -in both isolated cell cultures and mouse studies -- -probed how the compound has both antioxidant and anti-inflammatory effects on cells in the brain. Most recently, they found that fisetin turns on a cellular pathway known to be involved in memory.
"What we realized is that fisetin has a number of properties that we thought might be beneficial when it comes to Alzheimer's," says Maher.
So Maher -- -who works with Dave Schubert, the head of the Cellular Neurobiology Lab -- -turned to a strain of mice that have mutations in two genes linked to Alzheimer's disease. The researchers took a subset of these mice and, when they were only three months old, began adding fisetin to their food. As the mice aged, the researchers tested their memory and learning skills with water mazes. By nine months of age, mice that hadn't received fisetin began performing more poorly in the mazes. Mice that had gotten a daily dose of the compound, however, performed as well as normal mice, at both nine months and a year old.
"Even as the disease would have been progressing, the fisetin was able to continue preventing symptoms," Maher says.
In collaboration with scientists at the University of California, San Diego, Maher's team next tested the levels of different molecules in the brains of mice that had received doses of fisetin and those that hadn't. In mice with Alzheimer's symptoms, they found, pathways involved in cellular inflammation were turned on. In the animals that had taken fisetin, those pathways were dampened and anti-inflammatory molecules were present instead. One protein in particular -- -known as p35 -- -was blocked from being cleaved into a shorter version when fisetin was taken. The shortened version of p35 is known to turn on and off many other molecular pathways. The results were published December 17, 2013, in the journal Aging Cell.
Studies on isolated tissue had hinted that fisetin might also decrease the number of amyloid plaques in Alzheimer's affected brains. However, that observation didn't hold up in the mice studies. "Fisetin didn't affect the plaques," says Maher. "It seems to act on other pathways that haven't been seriously investigated in the past as therapeutic targets."
Next, Maher's team hopes to understand more of the molecular details on how fisetin affects memory, including whether there are targets other than p35.
"It may be that compounds like this that have more than one target are most effective at treating Alzheimer's disease," says Maher, "because it's a complex disease where there are a lot of things going wrong."
They also aim to develop new studies to look at how the timing of fisetin doses affect its influence on Alzheimer's.
"The model that we used here was a preventive model," explains Maher. "We started the mice on the drugs before they had any memory loss. But obviously human patients don't go to the doctor until they are already having memory problems." So the next step in moving the discovery toward the clinic, she says, is to test whether fisetin can reverse declines in memory once they have already appeared.
Journal Reference:
- Antonio Currais, Marguerite Prior, Richard Dargusch, Aaron Armando, Jennifer Ehren, David Schubert, Oswald Quehenberger, Pamela Maher. Modulation of p25 and inflammatory pathways by fisetin maintains cognitive function in Alzheimer's disease transgenic mice. Aging Cell, 2013; DOI: 10.1111/acel.12185
Source : Science Daily
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A Novel Approach for Increasing Fruit Consumption in Children
Anastasia Perikkou, MSc., Anna Gavrieli, PhD, Maria-Matina Kougioufa, Maria Tzirkali, MSc., Mary Yannakoulia, PhD
Abstract
Despite the well-documented health benefits of fruits and vegetables and the public health campaigns promoting their consumption, children’s intake is below the recommended levels. A randomized controlled trial for evaluating the effectiveness of a school-based intervention for increasing children’s fruit intake, with the teacher being the exposure model, was designed. Two hundred eighteen elementary school students (aged 9 years) in Cyprus were randomly assigned into two 1-year intervention groups, the Educational Material group (EDUC) (n=59) and the Exposure group (EXPO) (n=67), or a control group (n=58). Children’s dietary intake was assessed through 2-day dietary records before the intervention began (October 2008), at the end of the intervention (June 2009), and at 1-year follow-up (June 2010). Students in the EDUC group received a weekly educational program for increasing awareness and improving skills regarding fruit preparation/consumption and students in the EXPO group were exposed to the consumption of a fruit on a daily basis by their teacher. The control group members received no intervention. Repeated measures analysis of variance was used to evaluate the group effect and the time×group interaction. Higher fruit intake was reported by the children in the EXPO and the EDUC groups compared with the control group at the end of the intervention: a statistically significant group effect was found (P<0.001). At 1-year follow-up, results remained significant only for the children in the EXPO group (P<0.001). Exposure to fruit consumption by schoolteachers may be a more effective way for improving fruit intake of children compared with traditional educational approaches.
Source : Journal of the Academy of Nutrients + Dietetics
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Fruit and Vegetable Intakes Are Associated with Lower Risk of Bladder Cancer among Women in the Multiethnic Cohort Study1,2
Song-Yi Park3,7,*,Nicholas J. Ollberding4,7, Christy G. Woolcott5, Lynne R. Wilkens3, Brian E. Henderson6, and Laurence N. Kolonel3
- 3Cancer Epidemiology Program, University of Hawaii Cancer Center, Honolulu, HI
- 4Division of Biostatistics and Epidemiology, Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center, Cincinnati, OH
- 5Departments of Obstetrics, Gynecology, and Pediatrics, Dalhousie University, Halifax, NS, Canada; and
- 6Department of Preventive Medicine, Keck School of Medicine, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA
Abstract
Fruits and vegetables have been examined for their possible effects on the risk of bladder cancer, as they contain numerous nutrients, phytochemicals, and antioxidants with potentially anticarcinogenic properties. In a prospective analysis of 185,885 older adults participating in the Multiethnic Cohort Study, we examined whether the consumption of fruits and vegetables, or of nutrients concentrated in fruits and vegetables, was associated with bladder cancer risk. Cox proportional hazards models were used to calculate HRs and 95% CIs for bladder cancer in relation to dietary intakes. A total of 581 invasive bladder cancer cases (429 men and 152 women) were diagnosed over a mean follow-up period of 12.5 y. In women, total fruits and vegetables [HR = 0.35 (95% CI: 0.22, 0.56); highest vs. lowest quartile], total vegetables [HR = 0.49 (95% CI: 0.29, 0.83)], yellow-orange vegetables [HR = 0.48 (95% CI: 0.30, 0.77)], total fruits [HR = 0.54 (95% CI: 0.34, 0.85)], and citrus fruits [HR = 0.56 (95% CI: 0.34, 0.90)] were inversely associated with the risk of invasive bladder cancer in risk factor-adjusted models. In addition, women with the highest intakes of vitamins A, C, and E; the carotenoids α-carotene, β-carotene, and β-cryptoxanthin; and folate had a lower risk of bladder cancer. For men, no associations for fruits, vegetables, or nutrients were found overall, although inverse associations were observed for vegetable intake among current smokers, and in ethnic-specific analyses, for fruit and vegetable intake among Latinos specifically. Our findings suggest that greater consumption of fruits and vegetables may lower the risk of invasive bladder cancer among women and highlight the need for specific subgroup analyses in future studies.
Source : The Journal of Nutrition
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Fruit and vegetable intake and type 2 diabetes: EPIC-InterAct prospective study and meta-analysis
A J Cooper1, N G Forouhi1, Z Ye1, B Buijsse2, L Arriola3,4,5, B Balkau6,7, A Barricarte5,8, J W J Beulens9, H Boeing2, F L Büchner10, C C Dahm11,12, B de Lauzon-Guillain7,13, G Fagherazzi13, P W Franks14,15, C Gonzalez16, S Grioni17, R Kaaks18, T J Key19, G Masala20, C Navarro5,21,22, P Nilsson23, K Overvad11,12, S Panico24, J Ramón Quirós25, O Rolandsson15, N Roswall26, C Sacerdote27,28, M-J Sánchez5,29, N Slimani30, I Sluijs9, A M W Spijkerman10, B Teucher18, A Tjonneland31, R Tumino32,33, S J Sharp1, C Langenberg1, E J M Feskens34, E Riboli35, N J Wareham1 and The InterAct Consortium
Abstract
Fruit and vegetable intake (FVI) may reduce the risk of type 2 diabetes (T2D), but the epidemiological evidence is inconclusive. The aim of this study is to examine the prospective association of FVI with T2D and conduct an updated meta-analysis. In the European Prospective Investigation into Cancer-InterAct (EPIC-InterAct) prospective case–cohort study nested within eight European countries, a representative sample of 16 154 participants and 12 403 incident cases of T2D were identified from 340 234 individuals with 3.99 million person-years of follow-up. For the meta-analysis we identified prospective studies on FVI and T2D risk by systematic searches of MEDLINE and EMBASE until April 2011. In EPIC-InterAct, estimated FVI by dietary questionnaires varied more than twofold between countries. In adjusted analyses the hazard ratio (95% confidence interval) comparing the highest with lowest quartile of reported intake was 0.90 (0.80–1.01) for FVI; 0.89 (0.76–1.04) for fruit and 0.94 (0.84–1.05) for vegetables. Among FV subtypes, only root vegetables were inversely associated with diabetes 0.87 (0.77–0.99). In meta-analysis using pooled data from five studies including EPIC-InterAct, comparing the highest with lowest category for FVI was associated with a lower relative risk of diabetes (0.93 (0.87–1.00)). Fruit or vegetables separately were not associated with diabetes. Among FV subtypes, only green leafy vegetable (GLV) intake (relative risk: 0.84 (0.74–0.94)) was inversely associated with diabetes. Subtypes of vegetables, such as root vegetables or GLVs may be beneficial for the prevention of diabetes, while total FVI may exert a weaker overall effect.
Source : European Journal of Clinical Nutrition (2012) 66, 1082–1092; doi:10.1038/ejcn.2012.85
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