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It absolutely makes sense that a good diet before and during pregnancy is associated with better pregnancy outcomes, including the risk for miscarriage.

Researchers at the University of Birmingham reviewed 20 studies (for a total of 63,838 women) and found that a good diet with healthy foods (both preconception and during pregnancy) is linked to a lower chance of miscarriage. On the other hand, a diet high in processed foods was associated with a doubling of miscarriage risk. Interestingly, higher intake of fried foods and a lower intake of chocolate is also associated with higher miscarriage odds.

What is a "good diet" linked to lower risk of miscarriage? One that is rich in fruits, vegetables, dairy, eggs, and seafood. A high intake of fruits was linked to 61% reduction of miscarriage risk, high intake of vegetables had a 41% reduction, dairy was linked to a 37% reduction, and consumption of eggs had a 19% reduction. Seafood (fish) had a 19% reduction.

Hmmm.... overall the results sound like Mediterranean-style or healthy Nordic foods diets are beneficial. By the way, the researchers were unable to draw any conclusions regarding meat, red meat, white meat, fat, and oil.

There are many reasons for the lower rate of miscarriage with a healthy, whole foods diet: from an increased intake of all sorts of nutrients (vitamins, minerals, flavanols, etc.), rich in anti-oxidants, less oxidative stress, lower rates of inflammation, boosts the immune system, to feeding beneficial microbes in our gut microbiome.

Fun fact: the developing fetus can taste the foods the mother eats.

From Medical Xpress: Diet high in fruit and vegetables linked to lower miscarriage risk

A preconception and early-pregnancy diet that contains lots of fruit, vegetables, seafood, dairy, eggs and grain may be associated with reducing risk of miscarriage, a new review of research suggests. ...continue reading "A Good Diet Is Associated With Lower Rates Of Miscarriage"

Credit: Wikipedia

Every month there is more evidence of the importance of the human microbiome or microbiota - the community of microbes that live in and on us. Trillions of microbes! When we eat food, we eat all the microbes that are in the food, and this has effects on the microbes living in the gut (intestines).

How many microbes do we eat daily? An interesting study was published in 2014 that tried to answer this question. The researchers found that the average American adult ingests between 1 million to over 1 billion microbes every day! It depended on food choices.

Another study just published looked at more than 9000 foods in the US health and dietary database (from 74,466 persons). The researchers estimated the number of live microbes present in all the foods. From that they estimated that the intakes of foods with live microbes were pretty low (about 85 grams/day for children and 127 grams/day for adults). Their results were similar to the earlier 2014 study mentioned above.

They found that around 20% of children and 26% of adults consumed foods with high levels of live microorganisms in their diet. Also, American children and adults have steadily increased their consumption of foods with live microbes over an 18 year period of time - but it still didn't meet guidelines.

The researchers found that fruits, vegetables, and fermented dairy foods were the main sources of microbes, as well as 3 important nutrients which Americans generally do not get enough of: calcium, fiber, and potassium. They also mention that fruits and vegetables have more diverse microbes than fermented dairy foods (yogurts have mainly lactic acid bacteria).

Bottom line: Eating a diet rich in fruits, vegetables, and live fermented foods (e.g., yogurt, kefir, fermented pickles, and kimchi) are good ways to increase the number and variety of microbes in your diet. This study did not mention organic foods, but some studies have found more beneficial bacteria in organic produce (e.g., apples).

From Medical Xpress: Quantifying the live microbes on your plate

Many have hypothesized that bacteria and other "friendly" live microorganisms consumed through the diet can play an important role in health. Reduction in dietary microbe consumption has likely contributed to an "impoverished" gut microbiota, which may lead to improper immune system development and an increase in chronic diseases, among other negative health outcomes. ...continue reading "The Foods We Eat Contain Live Microbes"

Recently the CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) released the  depressing news that very few Americans are eating recommended amounts of fruits and vegetables. Many studies show that eating several servings each day of fruits and vegetables has all sorts of health benefits (e.g., live longer, lower inflammation, lower risk of diabetes and some cancers).

The CDC reported in the Jan. 7, 2022 CDC weekly report that surveys of 294,566 adults in 2019 found that only 12.3% of American adults met fruit intake recommendations, and 10.0% of adults met vegetable intake recommendations.

What are the daily recommendations for fruits and vegetables? According to the CDC, current Dietary Guidelines for Americans advise eating more fruits and vegetables as part of a healthy dietary pattern. This means adults should consume 1.5 to 2 cups of fruit and 2 to 3 cups vegetables daily. (Note: A serving is usually about 1/2 cup of fruits or vegetables.)

Why should you follow these guidelines? The CDC states: "A healthy diet supports healthy immune function and helps to prevent obesity, type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular diseases, and some cancers." Also, having "some of these conditions can predispose persons to more severe illness and death from COVID-19."

Another reason, and one that they don't mention is research finding that eating more fruits and vegetables daily (as part of a healthy diet such as the Mediterranean diet) also improves the gut microbiome. What you eat feeds gut microbes - so you want to feed beneficial microbes associated with health, and not those microbes associated with chronic inflammation and some chronic diseases (e.g. heart disease, diabetes, some cancers).

CDC weekly report, Jan. 7, 2022: Adults Meeting Fruit and Vegetable Intake Recommendations — United States, 2019

Wondering which fruits and vegetables have the most pesticide residues? The annual Dirty Dozen List of produce with the most pesticide residues has once again been published by the Environmental Working Group (EWG). They suggest that these fruits and vegetables are good candidates for buying organic.

Why organic? Because while almost 70 % of the produce sampled by the Federal Government had pesticide residues, some have more than others. For example: about one-third of the strawberries sampled contained 10 or more pesticides. Yikes! The following article also discusses some recent reproductive research and  pesticides on food, as well as EWG's "Clean Fifteen" list of fruits and vegetables with the least pesticide residues. (See more PESTICIDE posts.) From Environmental Health News:

Report calls out worst produce for pesticides—strawberries, spinach top list

Just when you thought it couldn't get any harder to eat healthy. Turns out those nutrient packed foods we're all told to eat—such as strawberries and spinach— are also consistently tainted with potentially harmful pesticides. Both foods top the "Dirty Dozen" list released today by the Environmental Working Group (EWG), which analyzed federal data on pesticides in produce.

EWG, which examined tests done over the past few years by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, reports almost 70 percent of the produce sampled by the feds had pesticide residues. Some were worse than others: "More than 98 percent of samples of strawberries, spinach, peaches, nectarines, cherries and apples tested positive for residue of at least one pesticide," according to the report.  ...continue reading "Fruits, Vegetables, and Pesticide Residues"

An article that discusses why supplements containing large doses of antioxidants, or beta-carotene, or even vitamin megadoses  doesn't work, and can even cause harm, while eating actual foods such as fruits and vegetables has many health benefits. This is what a number of the studies I've been posting also found (especially with health benefits from eating fish and not from fish oil). go ahead and throw out the megadose supplements, and instead eat lots of fruits and vegetables. Remember fruits and vegetables contain a complex mix of nutrients and feed our microbial communities, as well as having microbes on them. From Medical Xpress:

Forget the antioxidant pills; just stick with veggies

Why just stick to eating fruits and veggies when you can get an extra boost from supplements that put good things like antioxidants into a handy pill? And that seems like it should be a good idea. If the antioxidants that occur naturally in our food, like broccoli and carrots, are good for us, a supplement with the same thing must also be good. But that's not quite true.

Antioxidants are touted as protectors of our health because they eliminate free-radicals that damage molecules in cells and tissues by grabbing electrons from them, making those molecules, in turn, unstable....On this basis, a group of scientists proposed in 1981 the creation of a nutritional supplement to fight free-radicals. They reasoned that since many observational epidemiological studies had shown that people who eat lots of vegetables are at lower risk of colon cancer, heart disease and many other bad conditions, then the "active" ingredient should be identified and put into a pill. They thought that it must be beta-carotene, which helps make carrots orange, because it's an antioxidant.

But in the late 1980s, two intervention trials, one in Seattle and the other in Finland, started....For the Seattle trial, approximately 18,000 men and women were randomized in 1988 to receive either a tablet containing beta-carotene or a tablet containing no active ingredient, which is the famous placebo. The plan was to follow the men and women for 10 years; the researchers hypothesized they would observe a lower lung cancer risk in the beta-carotene tablet group, hopefully much lower. But the opposite happened and the trial had to be stopped early because the beta-carotene group suffered significantly more cases of lung cancer than the placebo group. The same thing was seen in the Finland trial. Importantly, the amount of beta-carotene in the tablet was much higher than occurs naturally in the body in both trials.   ...continue reading "Forget the Pills, Eat the Vegetables Instead"

Excerpts from an article by Jane Brody in the NY Times:

Beating Back the Risk of Diabetes

This year, nearly two million American adults and more than 5,000 children and adolescents will learn they have a potentially devastating, life-shortening, yet largely preventable disease: Type 2 diabetes. They will join 29.1 million Americans who already have diabetes.

Diabetes and its complications are responsible for nearly 200,000 deaths a year; the fatality rate among affected adults is 50 percent higher than among similar people without diabetes. Alarmingly, recent studies even have linked diabetes to an increased risk of dementia and Alzheimer's disease. Even people with above-average blood glucose levels, but not diabetes, have an elevated risk.

The Diabetes Prevention Program study, conducted among about 3,800 people who had pre-diabetes, found that moderate weight loss — an average of 12 pounds —  reduced the odds of progression to diabetes by nearly 50 percent.

An excellent discussion of what is known about the effect on diabetes of various foods and supplements appeared recently in Nutrition Action Healthletter at cspinet.org/iceberg.pdf. Some highlights:

Carbohydrates - breads, grains, cereals, sugary drinks and sweets of all kinds — are most problematic for people with diabetes or at risk of developing it. Carbohydrates are eventually metabolized to glucose, which raises the body’s demand for insulin. Consume less of them in general, and choose whole-grain versions whenever possible.

If you must have sweet drinks, select artificially sweetened ones. In two huge studies of nurses and other health professionals who were followed for 22 years, those who drank one or more sugary soft drinks a day had about a 30 percent higher risk of developing diabetes than those who rarely drank them, even after their weight was taken into account.

But there’s good news about coffee. Two or three cups of coffee (but not tea) a day, with or without caffeine, have been consistently linked to a lower risk of Type 2 diabetes. 

For protein, limit consumption of red meat, especially processed meats like sausages, hot dogs and luncheon meats, which are linked to a higher diabetes risk. Instead, choose fish, lean poultry (skinless and not fried), beans and nuts. Low-fat dairy products, including yogurt, and even fatty ones may lower the risk of diabetes; the reason is unclear.

Most protective are green, leafy vegetables — spinach, chard, kale, collards, mustard greens and even lettuce — as well as cruciferous vegetables like cabbage, broccoli and cauliflower. But all vegetables are good and should fill at least two-thirds of your dinner plate.

The nutrients magnesium and vitamin D are also potentially protective. In fact, the preventive value of leafy greens, whole grains, beans and nuts may lie in their high magnesium content. In a well-designed clinical trial of 32 overweight people with insulin resistance, the prelude to diabetes, blood glucose levels and insulin sensitivity improved in those who took a daily magnesium supplement for six months. Don’t go overboard: More than 350 milligrams of magnesium daily can cause diarrhea. 

Vitamin D, long known to be crucial to healthy bones, may also be helpful. In one study of 92 overweight or obese adults with prediabetes, those who took a supplement of 2,000 international units of vitamin D daily had better function of the pancreatic cells that produce insulin..

Of course, how much you weigh and what you eat are not the only concerns. Regular, preferably daily, physical exercise is a vital component of any prevention and treatment program for Type 2 diabetes, or most any chronic ailment. Weight loss can reduce diabetes risk by about 50 percent, but adding exercise to that can lower the odds by 70 percent, compared with people who remain overweight and inactive, according to a study that followed nearly 85,000 female nurses for 16 years. Women who were active for seven or more hours weekly had half the risk of developing diabetes as did women who exercised only a half-hour a week.