This study is to clarify the impact of vitamin A or vitamin A combined with other micronutrients supplementation on anemia and growth in preschoolers. In the present study, a total of 290 preschoolers, aged 36-72 months old were randomly assigned to 3 treatment groups: vitamin A (A group), vitamin A plus zinc (AZ group), and vita- min A combined with additional multiple-micronutrient (AMM group). After 6-month supplementation, the height and height-for-age z-score gains of the AZ group were significantly higher than the other groups; the weight gain of the AMM group was greater than the other groups. Compared with baseline values, the concentra- tions of hemoglobin, and zinc at the end significantly increased in all 3 groups. The incremental concentrations of hemoglobin in the AMM group were significant higher than in the other two groups. Furthermore, the incre- mental concentrations of serum retinol in the AMM group, and the increase in serum zinc concentrations in the AZ group were significantly higher, respectively, than in the other groups. These 3 kinds of supplements in the present study are effective in enhancing height gains and are effective in reducing the prevalence of anemia. Sup- plementation of zinc plus vitamin A is a better way for improving children’s height and height-for-age z-score. Vitamin A combined with multiple-micronutrient is more effective in improving the hemoglobin concentrations in preschool children.
BACKGROUND: Pre-pregnancy weight and gestational weight gain (GWG) are important factors in both mater- nal and infant outcomes. Little information is available in relation to different levels of pre-pregnancy body mass index (BMI) and body weight gain on obstetric outcomes in Taiwan. This study investigated the associations be- tween pregnancy complications with pre-pregnant BMI and GWG, in Taiwanese women. METHODS: Data were extracted from a delivery room information bank on all women delivering singleton babies in a medical center. Eight hundred and sixty pregnant women were included. The collected variables included basic information, GWG, and pregnancy and neonatal outcomes. Pregnant women were categorized according to their pre-pregnant BMI and GWG to evaluate the impacts of pre-pregnant BMI and maternal weight gain on the risk of pregnancy complications. Univariate and multivariable logistic regression analyses were performed, and odds ratios were calculated. RESULTS: Pre-pregnancy BMI≥24 kg/m2 increased the risks of gestational diabetes mellitus, pree- clampsia, and preterm labor. Preeclampsia and Cesarean delivery were positively associated with high weight gains (>18 kg), whereas a low birth weight and preterm labor were strongly associated with low weight gains (<10 kg). A higher birth weight was found with a GWG of >14 kg in women who were underweight and normal weight before pregnancy. CONCLUSION: An appropriate maternal BMI (18.5-24 kg/m2) at conception followed by a suitable gestational weight gain (10-14 kg) has substantial impact on the overall health of pregnant women and would lead to better obstetric management for Taiwanese women.
Although the metabolic syndrome (MetS) is a predictor of cardiovascular disease (CVD), the current dichoto- mous definition of MetS cannot be used to evaluate context-specific identification or for efforts to reduce the risk of CVD in the population. In this study, we assigned MetS a continuous risk score for predicting the development of CVD. In total, 3,598 participants recruited from the Jiangsu Province of China were followed for a median of 6.3 years. A total of 82 participants developed CVD during the follow-up period. Receiver operating characteris- tic (ROC) curve was used to analyze the association between components of MetS and CVD. The results show that systolic blood pressure (SBP) was associated with CVD more intimately (area under receiver-operator char- acteristic curve (AUC)=0.72, 95% confidence interval (CI), 0.66-0.77) than other features of MetS. When each MetS component was assigned according to the magnitude of regression coefficients in the Cox regression hazard model, the AUC of the continuous MetS risk score (AUC=0.80, 95% CI, 0.75-0.84) exceeded that of the di- chotomized definition of MetS (AUC=0.63, 95% CI, 0.56-0.69) (p<0.01). The incidence of CVD increased with the MetS risk score. This prospective cohort study suggests that the use of continuous MetS risk score would sig- nificantly improve the capability for predicting the development of CVD compared to current definition of MetS. Further, the appropriate cut-off points need to be verified in other races and regions.
Background: Food frequency questionnaire (FFQ) must be tailored to the target populations because dietary hab- its vary within the populations due to differences in cultural and lifestyles practices. Limited information is avail- able to assess the validity of FFQ used among Malaysian adolescents. Objective: To construct the validity and re- producibility of a newly developed FFQ in assessing habitual nutrients intake over the past year of 170 Malay ad- olescent boys and girls in Kelantan, Malaysia. Methods: The FFQ that consisted of 124 food items was assessed, whereas three days of 24-hours dietary recalls (DR) was administered as the standard criteria method. Results: Estimated mean intake for most nutrients assessed by the FFQ were higher as compared to the three DRs (p<0.05). Pearson correlation coefficients for energy-adjusted nutrients intake between both methods were ranged from 0.22 (zinc) to 0.68 (calcium) with a median r-value of 0.43. The cross classification of quartile analysis showed that most nutrients were classified into the same or adjacent quartiles (median=52.7%). For the repro- ducibility of FFQ, the correlation of nutrients ranged from 0.43 for carotene to 0.86 for total fat intake (me- dian=0.67), after adjusting for total energy intake. Conclusion: The newly developed dietary FFQ is a relatively good and valid tool in assessing habitual nutrients intake for the past year among Malay adolescents in Malaysia.
A Symposium on Nutrition and Cognition: Towards Research and Application for Different Life Stages was held on October 2010 in Malaysia. The influence of diet and nutrition on the cognitive development of the child and on cognitive decline in later life was reviewed. Central to the study of such topics is the assessment of cognitive functioning. Cognitive functioning falls into six main areas: executive functioning, memory, attention, perception, psychomotor and language skills, although each domain can be further subdivided. As it is in the nature of human functioning that the performance on any cognitive test can reflect aspects of many of these domains, ideally a bat- tery of tests should be used to establish the basis of any difference in performance. In intervention studies, fre- quently there has been a failure to demonstrate a beneficial influence of changes in diet. A possible reason is that studies have failed to acknowledge the time scale and critical ages over which diet has an impact. Diet may have a slow and progressive influence making it difficult for short-term studies to show an improvement. In addition, as many factors influence human behaviour, dietary interventions should only be one part of a coordinated ap- proach; the effect of diet will depend on the social and psychological context in which an individual lives. Placing diet into a broader social and psychological context greatly increases the chance of generating significant findings. This report highlights and reviews presentations and discussions at the symposium.
The publication of the proceedings of the 4th Asian Network Symposium on Nutrition “The Nutrition Education Program for National Health Promotion in Asian Countries: a Focus on School-based Programs”, held at the National Institute of Health and Nutrition (NIHN), Japan on September 8, 2010 is a significant step for regional and international nutrition. The symposium was joint with the “IUNS Workshop on Capacity and Leadership Development in Nutrition Sciences” from September 7-9, 2010, organized by the International Union of Nutritional Sciences (IUNS) in Japan, and was supported by the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare, Japan, the Japan Dietetics Association, the Japanese Society of Nutrition and Dietetics, and the Japanese Society of Nutrition and Food Sciences. It was also collaborative with the 57th Annual Assembly of the Japanese Society of Nutrition and Dietetics held from September 10-12.
The symposium was co-chaired by Prof Shigeru Yamamoto and Dr Nobuo Nishi and includes a plenary presentation, country reports and discussion. The plenary presentation “School Lunch for Health Promotion among Children” was made by Ms Nobuko Tanaka, Ministry of Education, Sports, Science, and Technology, Japan. Country reports were given by Dr Jihyun Yoon from Korea, Dr Yueching Wong from Taiwan, Dr Duc Son NT Le from Vietnam, and Ms Letty Shiu from Singapore..The general discussion was led by Dr LT Cavalli-Sforza from WHO/WPRO, Dr Takanori Noguchi from the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare, Japan, Ms Mitsuko Otome from the Japan Dietetics Association, Dr Alka M Chutani from All India Institute of Medical Sciences (who also made a brief country report), Ms Tebogo TO Leepile from Ochanomizu University Graduate School, and ourselves.
In Japan, the school lunch system has functioned well under the School Lunch Law enacted in 1954, and the nutritional and growth status of Japanese children has greatly improved. In addition, for nutrition education in Japan, a Basic Law on Shokuiku and the Diet and Nutrition Teacher System were introduced in 2005 and 2007 respectively, and have probably been important contributors to the present nutritional status of people in Japan. The importance of school-based nutrition program towards improving nutrition status and establishing healthy behavior and lifestyle among children is increasingly acknowledged in Japan and worldwide. The symposium has enabled past experience, the current situation and future prospects for nutrition education policies and programs, especially for children, to be shared and directed towards a changing environment for the prevention of nutritionally-related disease, health promotion and the enhancement of the quality of life in Asia and beyond.
School nutrition programs are essential for children’s long-term nutrition and health promotion. The last decade has been the most dramatic years in the history of school nutrition programs in Korea. The percentage of schools serving school lunches reached almost 100% in 2003. In 2006, School Meals Act was significantly revised after serial outbreaks of food-borne illness among students having eaten school lunches. The safety and nutritional quality of school meals had remained as the biggest issue until the middle of 2000s, and then eco-friendly and universal free school lunches have become the main issues related to school meal service and are still under de- bate. Implementation of the Nutrition Teacher System in 2006 was the turning point of school-based nutrition ed- ucation in Korea. In addition, two new laws, Special Act on Children’s Dietary Life Safety Management of 2008 and Dietary Life Education Support Act of 2009, started to make meaningful changes in school nutrition envi- ronment and practices. The next decade is expected to be very critical in the development of school nutrition pro- grams in Korea as the new systems and laws are to be settled. Significant effort is needed from both the academia and the field to make the related issues to be debated and answered to progressive direction for the school nutri- tion programs in Korea.
Nutrition-related problems among school-age children nowadays become potentially serious. In order to prevent obesity and other nutritionally related diseases in the young generation, a school lunch program has been pro- posed and conducted in Taiwan. It is to ensure that students’ nutritional intake meets the daily requirement and to help students develop correct eating habits and maintain a healthy lifestyle. A professional dietitian who has a clear concept regarding food material utilization, cooking methods and nutritional values thus becomes important. However, the majority of schools in Taiwan are unable to offer the post of dietitian due to budgetary constraints and lack of organization. The responsibility of a dietitian is usually held by teachers, school nurses and other ad- ministrative staff. This problem has hindered the nutritional education in schools and made school lunches less beneficial to the children’s nutritional needs. For the current status of dietitians in schools, a large gap is found between the currently supplied school lunches and the nutritionally standardized school lunches. It also exists in relation to education and hygiene. One of the solutions requires an infrastructure to support plans and policy, rea- sonable adequate budget, well human affairs establishment and coordination of all aspects. While the needed in- frastructure is being proposed, an access to the professionalism of the currently employed dietitians can be strate- gically explored by constructing an education system. Through the system, schools without on-campus dietitians will be able to utilize their expertise with which the improvement of school lunches can be expectedly accom- plished.
The socio-economic status in Vietnam has developed during the past decades. People become busier for work, and thus they do not have enough time to prepare meal for their children. The school meal program, organized by Department of Education, was first implemented at a kindergarten in 1977, which has been extended to elemen- tary school since 1980. Up to date, 100% of kindergarten and approximately 90% of elementary schools have school meal programs. The purposes of this program are to provide appropriate meals for students, and to serve as education and communication tool for students. About 90% of school meals are prepared in the school’s kitchen and the rest are provided by food companies. The weekly menu provides approximately 30% of recommended dietary allowances (RDA) for students. To date, there has been is no official dietitian training school in Vietnam. The head of school kitchen, who is not dietitian, is required to participate in a short-term training course, where s/he learns basic nutrition, nutrition requirements and food hygiene and safety. The food companies, which pro- vide meals to school, must be approved for the hygiene and safety condition by the Human Health Services De- partment of Ho Chi Minh City. In the next plan of national nutrition strategy, establishing dietitian training schools will be prioritized. In addition, the regular nutritional surveillance for school-aged students will be intro- duced in school system thus we can develop and evaluate the school meal program in terms of nutrients, food safety and nutrition education.
Healthy diet is a key tenet in the prevention of many chronic diseases. Nurturing healthy dietary habits is especially important in childhood as this is a critical period of growth and development. Furthermore, dietary habits are shaped from an early age with many of them forming even below the age of 5 years. Therefore, the importance of nurturing healthy dietary habits during a child's formative years cannot be underestimated. Reducing fat, salt and sugar intake and at the same time, advocating the consumption of adequate whole-grains, fruit and vegetables among the population remain the cornerstone of the Singapore Health Promotion Board's (HPB) key nutrition initiatives. To achieve this, HPB adopts a multi-pronged approach comprising various strategies to promote healthy eating among children and youth in Singapore. This article provides an overview of these strategies and the broad range of nutrition education efforts targeted at the young.
The School Lunch Program in India (SLP) is the largest food and nutrition assistance program feeding millions of children every day. This paper provides a review of the background information on the SLP in India earlier known as national program for nutrition support to primary education (NP-NSPE) and later as mid day meal scheme, including historical trends and objectives and components/characteristics of the scheme. It also addresses steps being taken to meet challenges being faced by the administrators of the program in monitoring and evalua- tion of the program. This program was initially started in 1960 in few states to overcome the complex problems malnutrition and illiteracy. Mid Day Meal Scheme is the popular name for school meal program. In 2001, as per the supreme court orders, it became mandatory to give a mid day meal to all primary and later extended to upper primary school children studying in the government and government aided schools. This scheme benefitted 140 million children in government assisted schools across India in 2008, strengthening child nutrition and literacy. In a country with a large percent of illiterate population with a high percent of children unable to read or write; gov- ernmental and non-governmental organizations have reported that mid day meal scheme has consistently in- creased enrollment in schools in India. One of the main goals of school lunch program is to promote the health and well-being of the Nation’s children.
Despite well-controlled blood glucose levels, diabetic complications still inevitably take place via several mecha- nisms including excessive generation of free radicals in patients who suffer from diabetes mellitus (DM). A ran- domized double-blind placebo-controlled clinical trial to investigate the effectiveness of oral supplementation of DL-alpha-lipoic acid (ALA) on glycemic and oxidative status in DM patients was conducted. Thirty eight outpa- tients with type 2 DM were recruited and randomly assigned to either placebo or treatment in various doses of ALA (300, 600, 900, and 1200 mg/day) for 6 months. Following the treatment, all subjects were evaluated for glucose status and oxidative biomarkers. Results showed that fasting blood glucose, HbA1c trended to decrease in a dose-dependent manner. Increase of urinary PGF2α-Isoprostanes (F2α-IsoP) was noted in placebo but not ALA-treated groups, indicating possible suppressing action of ALA on lipid peroxidation in DM subjects. 8- Hydroxy-2’-deoxyguanosine (8-OHdG) levels, however, were similar in both placebo and ALA groups as well as urinary microalbumin and serum creatinine. Safety evaluation was monitored and treatment was found to be well tolerated despite some minor side effects. Results from this study reflected the benefits of ALA in glucose status with slight efficiency on oxidative stress-related deterioration in DM patients.
In Japan, the present school lunch program has been implemented under the “School Lunch Act” enacted in 1954. The main purpose of the school lunch program is to promote healthy development of the minds and bodies of school children. Later, “The School Lunch Act” was revised in 2008 and its aim was changed to “promoting Sho- kuiku”. As of May 2009, approximately 10 million school children participate in the school lunch program. This program itself is an educational activity. School children are responsible for serving lunch and clearing the dishes. They could also learn proper manners, by having meals together with classmates. Furthermore, understanding of balanced diet and food culture can be enhanced through learning the menu of each meal. Recently, as eating disor- ders and obesity increase among adults and school children, there is rising concern on development of lifestyle- related diseases. Under this circumstance, the Basic Law on Shokuiku was enacted in 2005. Besides, in order to en- hance Shokuiku to school children, the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology established the Diet and Nutrition Teacher System in April 2007. It is reprted that, in those schools with Diet and Nutrition Teachers, a positive impact has been observed in terms of awareness and interest in diet among teachers and guard- ians. It is also reported that proportion of children skipping breakfast has decreased, and quality of life has been im- proved. In this way, the Japanese school lunch program system is essential for fostering healthy mind and bodies for the next generation.
This paper provides the overview of “Shokuiku” in Japan, and discusses the future perspective on application of its concepts to nutrition education in other Asian countries. In Japan, there has been a growing concern on in- crease of obesity and the metabolic syndrome among middle-aged men. Additionally, child obesity has also be- come one of the important health problems. The increased obesity among them is possibly associated with inap- propriate dietary habits (eg skipping breakfast, excessive fat intake and insufficient vegetable). Under this cir- cumstance, the “Basic Law on Shokuiku” was enacted in 2005, which was the first law that regulates one’s diets and eating habits. For effective implementation of Shokuiku program, dietitians and registered dietitians would play important roles in various settings. Japan has a long history of dietitian system as well as school-lunch pro- grams. Later, in order to further enhance the school-based Shokuiku programs, the Diet and Nutrition Teacher System was established in April 2007. From an international point of view, “nutrition education” programs aim to improve dietary practices so as to ensure adequate energy or nutrient intake and also to reduce obesity and life- style-related diseases, whereas the concepts of Shokuiku have very wide approaches. Shokuiku’s efforts expand to support food culture, especially through school-based programs, as well as to improve food environment by pro- viding information on appropriate diets. These approaches can be introduced in nutrition education in other Asian countries, not only to improve one’s health and nutritional status but also to secure food culture and food safety in each country.
Prof Binns graduated in Medicine from the University of Western Australia and worked for several years in hospitals in Perth before going to work as a medical doctor in Papua New Guinea for eight years. In PNG he became very interested in nutrition and received a scholarship to complete a MPH degree at Harvard. He returned to Perth and was appointed foundation Head of the School of Public Health at Curtin University, a position he held for 21 years. He continues at Curtin University as John Curtin Distinguished Professor of Public Health. Other positions held at Curtin University included foundation head of the National Drug Research Institute and foundation medical director of the Curtin Health Service. He holds Visiting Professorial positions at Kagawa Nutrition University, Tokyo and University of Ryukus, Okinawa in Japan, Tonji Medical College Wuhan and Changsha Children’s Hospital, PR China, University of Malaya and Inje University, Korea.
In Australia, he has served on 17 committees of the National Health and Medical Research Council, including Chair of the Dietary Guidelines Committees for infants, children, adults and elderly Australians. Other Committees included Folic Acid Fortification, Iodine Working Group, Health Claims panel and the Advisory Panel on the Marketing of Infant Formula in Australia. He continues as Deputy Chair of the Australian Dietary Guidelines Committee. He was Vice-President of the Asia Pacific Academic Consortium for Public Health for five years and is now Deputy Editor in Chief of the Asia Pacific Journal of Public Health. He was secretary of the Nutrition Society of Australia for 5 years.
He has had a major interest in public health nutrition in Australia, particularly in the development of Dietary Guidelines and in breastfeeding policy. He is a member of numerous government advisory and research committees and has published 400 articles in scientific journals and book chapters. Publications relate to infant nutrition and breastfeeding, nutrition and cancer and public health.
In 2004 he was given the award of Senior Australian of the Year (WA) and was awarded an honorary PhD from Inje University, Korea for public health research in Asia. Other honours include:
Lifetime Achievement Award of Research Australia 2010
Fellow of the Nutrition Society of Australia 2010
Fellow of the Dietitians Association of Australia 2010
Curtin University Lifetime Achievement Award for Research 2009
Faculty of Health Sciences, Curtin University, most publications 2007, 2008
Current research interests include breastfeeding, international health and nutrition and cancer. Major current research
projects include the Perth Infant Feeding Study and projects on infant feeding, nutrition and cancer in China (3 locations), Japan, Vietnam, Malaysia, Tanzania, the Maldives, Malaysia and Kenya. He has completed consultancies on nutrition and public health services in the Maldives, Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, Kenya, Malaysia, Singapore, Mauritius, New Zealand and China.
The Asia Pacific Society for Clinical Nutrition makes its Award for 2012 to Colin Binns on account of his outstanding contributions to the nutritionally-related health and well-being of the peoples of the Asia Pacific region.
With every issue of APJCN, the following statement is made:
The aims of the Asia Pacific Journal of Clinical Nutrition (APJCN) are to promote the education and training of clinical nutritionists in the region and to enhance the practice of human nutrition and related disciplines in their application to health and the prevention of disease
Each Editor-in-Chief will undoubtedly bring a particular perspective to APJCN which reflects personal strengths and interests, the socio-cultural and biomedical context of the day, how best to promote the Journal and grow its readership and how to ensure its long-term sustainability. Nevertheless, there is an original rationale for the Journal which might be regarded as its imprimatur. This was firstly that nutritional practice was poorly developed among medical graduates in the Asia Pacific region. It was also liable to be driven by pseudo-science and ill-conceived nutritional products. Where clinical nutrition was best developed was in enteral and parenteral nutrition, where each of the founding editors had relevant research and practice experience. But each recognized and also practiced a broader kind of clinical nutrition which embraced the understanding that all body functions and systems must, by their very nature, depend on the nourishment of the individual and its ecosystem dependence. In the early editorials of APJCN, which were jointly written by the Editors, the notion of Clinical Nutrition as a discipline in its own right, but multidimensional in the sense of its food and health systems, it’s economic and its public health reach, was developed.
In particular, clinicians were encouraged to practice nutrition at the primary, secondary and tertiary levels of health care, throughout the life-span from pre-conception, and in each of the major specialties and in the sub-specialties of medicine; and they were encouraged to understand the context in which they practiced by the pursuit of nutritional epidemiology. Equally, the importance of team approaches where medical graduates and clinical nutritionists worked closely with other practitioners was supported.
This meant that the Editors expected to attract papers across wide fields and could be considered if food or nutrition was a principal aspect of the submission. In the early years of publication, there was a special interest in the rapid advancements in food chemistry and how they were re-shaping clinical nutrition thinking, notably in regard to the physical properties of food and its phytochemistry. Indeed, it was known that some of the strongest interest and citations were of such papers. This could also be said of the liberal amount of experimental nutrition in the first decade or so. But, as the numbers of papers per quarterly issue grew, and the resources were stretched, the decision was taken about 4-5 years ago to wind-out experimental animal nutrition studies unless the paper was exceptional.
It must now be acknowledge that the aspiration to have good clinical studies, including case reports, has not been realized as might have been hoped and this, in part, reflects the ongoing deficits in clinical nutrition practice in the region.
A key role, which the Journal has always seen for itself, is capacity building among young medical graduates and nutrition scientists in the Asia Pacific region, and where English was not a first language. This required enormous editorial energy and time to bring scientifically sound, but grammatically unacceptable papers up-to-scratch. Limited resources no longer allow this, and most Asia Pacific medical research establishments have access to this form of assistance. APJCN now declines to process papers which have not achieved an acceptable level of scientific English, but, if the science is right, invites a re-submission after the English has been improved. The Journal also employs an English language editorial assistant for final checking of spelling and grammar. A common error is for a spell-check to be set to repeatedly create systematic errors, not obvious to a non-regular English user. In any event, APJCN estimates that, without its existence over the last 20 years, at least 1000 young nutrition investigators in the region would not have had their first peer-reviewed publication. This is a capacity-building track record which APJCN would like to maintain.
Some comment should be made about editorial philosophy in relation to so-called Impact Factors (IF). Before they were institutionalized for purposes of competition among investigators, grantsmanship, appointments and promotions, APJCN was actively interested in its impact. But its interest was not simply a matter of whether some-one else might be able to get similar work done in the next couple of years and be cited by them, preferring a Western source to acknowledge, and to be able to marshal the resources in quick-time. Rather, what was its educative value, how did it affect public, food and health system policy? To what extent did APJCN create a body of knowledge available in the published literature, but which, historically, might have sat on a bureaucratic or institutional shelf as a report or thesis? In these respects, the Journal was, for many years, the only international nutrition journal in many medical libraries throughout the Asia Pacific Region, and certainly, the only one with Asian language Abstracts. In addition, the early
adoption of digital technology and availability of the Journal on web-site to do with nutrition information (www.healthyeatingclub.org), gave it a network of influence. The Journal can expect to further reap benefit from this. The IF trajectory has been upwards overall and in 2010 was 1.438 and 1.644 for one and 5 years, respectively For all global English language scientific publications, APJCN is in the top 50%.
APJCN is affiliated with IUNS (the International Union of Nutritional Science) and the APCNS (Asia Pacific Clinical Nutrition Society) .For several years this was also the case with the Nutrition Society of Australia and the New Zealand Nutrition Society. It regularly carries the citations for the APCNS annual Awards, extant since 1993 and beginning with Prof Tu Giay of Vietnam.
HISTORY
The APJCN was founded in 1992 by three Co-Editors, Mark Wahlqvist (Australia), Vichai Tanphaichitr (Thailand) and Akira Okada (Japan), in conjunction with the London publisher Smith-Gordon (proprietor Sir Eldred Smith-Gordon); and as an organ of the newly-established APCNS (Asia Pacific Clinical Nutrition Society). It carried Abstracts always in English and Chinese, but also the language of the Corresponding Author’s country of origin (eg Bahasa Indonesian, Japanese, Thai, Tagalog, and Korean). It flourished with strong corporate sponsorship, reaching a peak circulation of some 2000 per quarterly issue. This changed dramatically with the advent of the Asian Financial Crisis in 1997-8.
At the end of 1994 (with volume 3), the publishing responsibilities had moved to Melbourne and, at that time, desk- top publishing could be managed by the Administrative officer, Laura Shirven. The Journal became more digital and, in a co-sharing arrangement, was the first e-Journal at Monash University. APJCN, as its own publisher from 1995 to 1997(volumes4-6), co-published the UNU, United Nations University’s (Tokyo) first electronic publication, the IUNS (the International Union of Nutritional Sciences) study on nutrition and ageing, Food Habits in Later Life (ISBN 92-808- 0912-1, CD-ROM, 1995)
Blackwell Science in Melbourne then made a successful bid to publish the journal from 1998 (volume 7), with Mark Wahlqvist as Editor-in-Chief and Wendy Ma at Monash University as Administrative officer, working with the Blackwell staff. During this time, in 2000, APJCN became an SCI Journal and, from the 1st annual Impact Factor, this progressively increased. However, the costs of publication increased steeply. Even though print subscriptions never fully recovered from the Asian financial crisis, the Journal was in most Asia Pacific medical libraries and some 1300 libraries around the world. The relationship with Blackwell ended amicably in December 2002 with volume 11.
The deaths first of Prof Tanphaichitr (1940-2000), and rather later of Prof Okada (1938-2007), weighed heavily on the Journal’s future Fortunately, Prof Wahlqvist had entered the then rapidly advancing web-site field with the Healthy Eating Club (HEC) site (www.healthyeatingclub.org) – it reached as many as 50,000 unique users each month. At the time, its manger was Dr Antigone Kouris-Blazos, a Melbourne dietitian and academic. APJCN was linked to the HEC in a way that Journal articles could be popularized through the HEC Newsletter, with a free subscription-registration- and this grew to about 25,000 subscribers. The HEC and APJCN web-sites were shared. APJCN ownership moved to HEC Press in Melbourne, Australia.
In July 2007, the Journal management began an administrative transition to the National Defense Medical Center (NDMC), Taipei, during July 2006 to June 2007. It took advantage of the new Skype technology to transcend the distance at low cost. Prof Meei-Shyuan Lee, of NDMC in Taipei, became Manuscript Editor and Prof Duo Li, of Zhejiang University in Hangzhou, became Co-Editor. With this move, the Journal’s server shifted from Australia, to NHRI (the National Health Research Institutes) in Zhunan (http://apjcn.nhri.org.tw), although the APJCN web-site can still be accessed through www.healthyeatingclub.org . The journal also features through the Australian National Library, RMIT University Publishing and ProQuest, among others.
Progressively, with its Taipei base, it developed its Co-Editorship to include Prof Kyoshi Tanaka of Kyoto, Japan, Prof Wen-Harn Pan of Taipei, Taiwan, and Prof Anura Kurpad of Bangalore, India. It has also been advantaged by the biostatistical strengths of Taiwan with the Statistics Editorship of Dr Hsing-Yi Chang and Dr Chu-Chih Chen and has a Chinese language editor, Dr Su-Chien Chang.
Among its latest developments, in 2011, the Journal has entered an arrangement with a health care education and marketing company in Shanghai to develop the “APJCN Magazine in China” for Continuing Medical and Nutrition Education. The presence in China of APJCN has been strong and extensive since its inception, especially with the Editorial Advisory Board presence of Prof Chin-Fan Gu as Editor of Acta Nutrimenta Sinica and the support of many senior nutrition scientists, public health workers and clinicians.
THE FUTURE
The Journal is now in its 21st year, in 2012 (volume 21), and administratively based in Taipei. APJCN should continue to promote, among other nutrition journals, measures of impact other than citation by others in the same field. At the last meeting of Nutrition Journal Editors in Porto, Portugal, in 2010, it was agreed that greater emphasis should be placed on measures of readership (like unique visitors to the journal web-site and the time spent on particular pages).
Its Editorship-in-Chief has passed after 20 years from Prof Mark L Wahlqvist to Prof Wen-Harn Pan, a distinguished nutrition scientist based at Academia Sinica, the National Health Research Institutes in Taiwan and the National Taiwan University.
This study evaluated effects of a behavioral approach which placed emphasis on tailored behavior counseling, di- et, weight loss and weight maintenance. A one-year randomized controlled trial was conducted among 235 over- weight/obese adults in Japan. The intervention group (n=119) received individual-based counseling using a be- havioral approach and the changes made in the diet and physical activity were dependent on each participant as much as possible. One year later, the intervention group lost significantly more weight than the control group (- 5.0 kg vs. 0.1 kg for men and -3.9 kg vs. -0.2 kg for women). Compared to the control group, the male interven- tion group reduced overall energy, cereals and dairy products consumption significantly, while increasing green and yellow vegetable intake, and the female intervention group significantly reduced intake of dairy products. Regarding behaviors, both male and female intervention groups increased the number of walking steps and wom- en improved their irregular eating habits compared to those in the control groups. Behavior changes were related to weight loss; participants who maintained the action/maintenance stage or moved to later stages lost signifi- cantly more weight than participants who remained in the pre-contemplation/contemplation/preparation stages or regressed to earlier stages. After one-year follow-up, the intervention group maintained significantly lower weights, lower energy intakes and improvements in irregular eating habits. Our behavioral approach led to diet and behavior modification, weight loss and maintenance. Because modified variables differed between men and women, gender-specific approaches may be necessary.
Objectives: To examine the association between rice intake, staple food patterns (measured by percentage of rice in staple food (PRS)), weight change and the risk of the metabolic syndrome development. Methods: We fol- lowed 1231 adults, aged 20 and older, from 2002 to 2007. Food intake was assessed using a food frequency ques- tionnaire. Body weight, height, waist circumference, blood pressure and fasting plasma glucose and lipids were measured. The metabolic syndrome was defined according to the International Diabetes Federation definition. Results: Rice consumption of ≥401 g/day was associated with less weight gain (-2.08 kg, 95%CI: -2.75, -1.41, p<0.001), and 42% less risk of hypertension, as compared to rice consumption of <200 g/day (p=0.024). A strong linear association between rice intake and hyperglycemia was found: the odd ratios for incident hyperglycemia across rice intake <200, 201-400, ≥401 g/day were: 1, 1.96, 2.50 (95%CI: 1.37, 4.57) (p for trend 0.005). A posi- tive association between rice intake and incident abnormal high-density lipoprotein was observed. There was no association between rice intake and incident high triglycerides. Every 10% increase in PRS was associated with a 0.28 kg less in weight gain, 22% increase in hyperglycemia risk and 9% decrease in hypertension risk. Rice in- take and PRS were not associated with the risk of the metabolic syndrome. Conclusion: Rice intake and PRS were inversely associated with weight gain, and PRS was inversely associated with hypertension, but positively associated with fasting blood glucose elevation. No association between rice intake and PRS with the metabolic syndrome was found.
Objective: Malnutrition is frequent in the geriatric population and is often undetected and untreated. Although we often use serum albumin as a nutritional marker, it has limitations in elderly patients in terms of predicting dis- eases and infections. Anthropometric measurements are not commonly used, despite their simple, easy, and effec- tive characteristics. We evaluated the associations between anthropometric measurements with other nutritional factors and examined its relationship with mortality, decubitus ulcer, length of hospital stay and antibiotic usage. Research methods and procedures: We enrolled 223 patients, performed anthropometric measurements and then followed them for a mean of 24 months. Results: Patients with hypoalbuminemia but with normal body meas- urements tended to increase serum albumin levels over the next 24 months and had more favorable outcomes in- cluding being discharged. Patients with normal albumin but decreased body measurements resulted in a progres- sive drop in serum albumin and had a higher mortality rate. Additionally, patients with hypoalbuminemia had higher antibiotic usage than patients without hypoalbuminemia. Decreases in anthropometric measurements were related to mortality, length of hospital stay, and decubitus ulcer. Conclusions: Anthropometric measurements are easily obtained and closely associated with mortality, decubitus ulcer, and length of hospital stay. Anthropometric measurements used in conjunction with serum albumin are more predictive of patient outcome then serum albu- min alone.
The effectiveness of soy isoflavones to prevent bone loss in postmenopausal women is controversial. While con- sumption of soy in Vietnam is very high, we recently reported a prevalence of osteoporosis comparable to that of many Western populations. In the present study, we analyzed the isoflavone content of soy drink products com- mercially available in Vietnam and Sweden, and we also compared these products to “home-made” soy drink from beans of different origin. The amounts of the bioactive aglycones (daidzein, glycitein and genistein) and their glycoside isomers were quantified by high-pressure liquid chromatography. We found that the total isofla- vone content was low in all preparations, around 70-100 mg/L and of this only 10% were bioactive aglycones. Of these, the Vietnamese products contained significantly lower levels of glycitein than the products from Sweden and “home-made” soy drink preparations. The results show that consumption of several liters of soy drink per day would be needed to achieve threshold levels for a protective effect on bone. There was no significant association between total protein and isoflavone content in different products. Accurate labeling of soy drink and other prod- ucts eg of aglycone and glycoside content would allow health professionals and researchers to better explore the possible benefits of soy in dietary intervention studies.
Objective: To evaluate the preference of healthy and unhealthy foods among pre-school children attending day- care and its association with that of their parents, body mass index and socio-demographic variables. Methodol- ogy: We asked children and parents to depict their food preferences through 54 pictures of different food items. The association between the preferences and socio-demographic variables was done using the Phi correlation, chi-squared, Fisher’s correlation, as well as univariate and multivariable logistic regression. Results: Two- hundred and sixty-five parent-child pairs participated in the study. Ice cream, potato chips and lollypops were the foods most preferred by children. On the other hand, quince jelly, coffee and avocado were the least preferred. Overweight and obese children had a higher preference for quince jelly, preserved fruits, and vegetable soup. With univariate logistic regression, children of low-income homes (OR= 2.56, p=0.007) and attending public daycare centers (OR= 6.2, p=0.0001) preferred less healthy fruits. When the father’s education was added in a multivariable model including family income, only children whose fathers had ≤9 years of education showed a higher preference for less healthy food. When parent’s education, family income, and parent’s preference for healthy foods were included to the model only children attending public daycares were more likely to prefer healthy foods. Conclusion: The foods most preferred by children have a high caloric density. The children’s body mass index, their parent’s monthly income, the father’s education and the type of daycare they attended were as- sociated with the preference of healthy or unhealthy foods.
Depression is an important health problem in children and the onset of depression is occurring at a younger age than previously suggested. The associations of being overweight and low socioeconomic status in childhood de- pression have been well documented; nevertheless few studies have addressed the combined effects of socioeco- nomic status and body weight, with depression in school-age children. We intended to examine if the relation- ship between socioeconomic status and childhood depression could be modified by abnormal body weight. A cross-sectional study was performed with a total of 559 subjects from 29 elementary schools in Taiwan. A de- pression scale was used to determine the depression status. Children receiving governmental monetary assistance for after-school class were categorized as being in the lower socioeconomic group. Data for depression-related demographic characteristics, family and school variables were collected. Children in the lower socioeconomic status group have a higher prevalence of depression (23.5%) than those in higher socioeconomic status groups(16.4%). Being overweight demonstrates the opposite effect on depression risk in the different socioeco- nomic groups. In lower socioeconomic families, the risk of depression in overweight children is three times higher than that for normal weight children; whereas in higher socioeconomic families, overweight children have a lower risk for depression than normal weight children. We concluded that a qualitative interactive effect ex- isted between being overweight and socioeconomic status with childhood depression. More attention should be paid to overweight children from lower socioeconomic status families to prevent depression in school-age chil- dren.
Childhood asthma has rapidly increased over the past few decades, possibly due to changes in lifestyle and die- tary patterns. We aimed to determine associations between dietary patterns and asthma in schoolchildren in Tai- wan. The Nutrition and Health survey in Taiwan Elementary School Children was carried out by using a multi- staged complex sampling design. A total of 2,082 elementary school children with complete data on dietary, life- style, demographics and asthma were included in the analysis. We used a Chinese version of the International Study of Asthma and Allergies in Childhood questionnaire to generate an asthma symptom score and to define asthma outcomes. Dietary intake was assessed by a food frequency questionnaire. Reduced rank regression (RRR) was used to identify the dietary pattern associated with the asthma symptoms score. Asthma outcomes included; current asthma, current severe asthma, nocturnal cough, exercise-induced wheeze and asthma ever. The RRR- derived dietary pattern was characterized by high consumption of fast foods, high-fat snacks, candy, and cheese; and low consumption of fruit, vegetables and rice. The RRR-derived dietary pattern was associated with an in- creased risk of current asthma (OR [95% CI]) (2.42 [1.19-4.93] for Q4/Q1, p-for-trend=0.01), current severe asthma (3.21 [1.11-9.25] for Q3/Q1, 4.45 [1.59-12.5] for Q4/Q1; p-for-trend=0.003), and nocturnal cough (1.79 [1.06-3.05] for Q2/Q1, 1.74 [1.02-2.97] for Q3/Q1, 1.82 [1.07-3.11] for Q4/Q1; p-for-trend=0.049). Our results suggest that a diet with a high intake of fat and simple sugars and low intake of fruit, vegetables and rice is asso- ciated with an increased risk of asthma in Taiwanese children.