Happy Friday! Here are 5 interesting nutrition stories of the week that caught my eye. Enjoy and drop a comment to let me know what’s on your mind.

Doubts emerging about restaurant calorie labeling

It has been a year since the chain restaurants in New York City started labeling their menu items with calorie content. A new report raises questions about its effectiveness in changing consumer behavior in the short term and solving the problem of obesity in the long run. New York City estimates that menu labeling will reduce the number of obese New Yorkers by 150,000 in 5 years and prevent 30,000 cases of diabetes. In a city of over 8 million people, these are small numbers; still many are questioning these estimates. Plus many restaurants seem to be “cheating” by posting lower calorie numbers than actually present in certain food items when tested. Does it mean that menu labeling does not work? I think it all depends on your viewpoint. It is not a silver bullet for the obesity problem; simply a step in the right direction. As long as it makes people think twice about buying the high-calorie food, it has a chance to change attitudes. Posting calories is just a start – in fact, complete nutritional information including salt, fat and sugar content should be made available if a consumer wants it. It takes a long time to change consumer behavior and we should keep taking small steps like calorie labeling. This is not a time to shoot it down!

Celiac disease 4 times more common today than 50 years ago

New research from the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., according to a New York Times article, suggests that today there are 4 times more diagnosed cases of celiac disease compared to the 1950′s. Celiac disease is a serious immune system reaction to gluten (protein in grains such as wheat, rye, barley) which attacks the intenstines and disrupts the absorption of nutrients. A lot of early cases or gluten intolerance remain undiagnosed. Even though the headlines seems alarming, it is still a small number. I do not mean to diminish its impact, but there is no reason to panic and stop eating wheat or other grains simply because you experience digestive discomfort a few times. Surely, you should discuss it with your doctor who can do a complete checkup. I say this because there is a lot of hype about gluten-free diet these days. Lower your intake of processed foods, and eat more whole grains. Go gluten-free only if needed, and only after consulting with your doctor.

50% of food lost from farm to fork

Amazing, isn’t it? No wonder, the food prices are so high. Improving the efficiency of our food supply chain will not only be good for the environment, it will also result in lower food prices. It strikes me as ironical that when it comes to food prices, the farmer gets the major portion of the blame. Also, the focus is on fertilizer-hungry, high-yield crops which results into a massive over-production. If only we could focus on the supply-chain efficiency, then maybe we could have a more sustainable food chain. This, and other interesting quirks of our current food supply chain are included in this entertaining video from IBM social media – check it out!

Most physicians and nurses use dietary supplements – should you?

A survey of 900 physicians and 277 nurses sponsored by the Council for Responsible Nutrition (CRN) showed that about half of the physicians and nurses used dietary supplements regularly. Overall health and wellness was the most common reason given for using these supplements. They were also quite likely to recommend dietary supplements to their patients for a variety of reasons. I think the CRN, which is a trade association representing manufacturers of these supplements, can hardly be considered an unbiased agency for this type of a study. After reading the whole report, I can also say that their sample of physicians and nurses cannot be treated as random. Therefore, the high positive response in favor of supplements cannot be considered as representative of all health care professionals out there.

Having said that, I personally take a multivitamin on a daily basis because I know that even a fruit and vegetable rich diet today is not sufficient to provide all the necessary vitamins and minerals. Our industrialized farming methods have depleted the nutritional quality of the soil, and fruits and vegetables today are not as rich in vitamins in minerals as they were several decades ago. If you are not taking a supplement, discuss with your doctor if you should. Be careful while selecting the dietary supplement – they are not regulated by the FDA and there are many quality and safety problems. Don’t fall for the out-of-the-world claims for all sorts of miraculous treatments and cures; if they sound too good to be true, probably they are. Exercise the same caution when selecting a nutritional supplement for your toddler. For more tips, read Dr. Husbands answer about toddler nutritional supplements on my Ask the Expert column.

Tips for dining out with preschoolers

Dr. Kathleen Cuneo of Dinner Together, who wrote a guest post here, alerted me to this excellent article for tips on dining out with preschoolers. We have personally experienced this challenge because we have to manage two – not one – energetic toddlers while trying to enjoy our own meal. I think her advice of having realistic expectations from your toddlers is right on the money. We have to simply accept that most preschoolers cannot sit still the whole time. This article offers 7 very practical tips you can use with your little ones. One of our tricks is that we order something for our twins right away and request that they bring it within 5-10 minutes. That’s probably the most we can keep them interested in sitting at the table without anything to eat. Once their food arrives, we order ours and feed them while it is being prepared. Of course, if the service is good, we remember to leave a generous tip.

Enjoy your  weekend! And let me know what you think.

Photo source -The Wandering Angel on Flickr
©2009 Littlestomaks.com

Having read about the Food Allergy Awareness Week while researching for last week’s Five for Fridays, I wanted to dig into this topic a little more. This is a problem that an increasing number of parents are worried about these days. If you are one of them, I would love to have you share your personal experience and tips in the comments below. Here is a summary of my research from several good sources on food allergies.

I am also glad to announce that this is my 100^th post!

First the numbers

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) published a report on Food Allergy Among US Children in October 2008. Here are few interesting, and in my opinion a little worrisome, statistics from this report -

1. Almost 4 in 100 children less than 18 years old were reported to have some form of food allergy in 2007. This corresponds to a total of 3 million children. The rate of food allergy in children less than 5 years old is nearly 5 in 100.
2. Compared to 10 years ago, this represents an increase of 18%.
3. Children reporting an allergic response to food were 2 to 4 times more likely to develop asthma or other allergies compared to children without food allergies.
4. Eight types of foods account for over 90% of food allergies - milk, eggs, peanuts, tree nuts, fish, shellfish, soy and wheat.
5. Hospitalizations with diagnosis of food allergy have increased nearly 4 times compared to 10 years ago.

Why food allergies are on the rise

The exact reason why a child develops allergy to various foods are not well known. However a lot of experts believe that poor quality of early childhood nutrition may be a factor. In his book Disease-Proof Your Child, Dr. Joel Fuhrman writes that apart from non-dietary factors, following nutrition related issues are responsible for increasing the risk for asthma and food allergies -

1. Lack of breastfeeding
2. High ratio of omega-6 acids to omega-3 fatty acids. People on meat rich diets in the Western world typically get ratios around 10 to 1 and some get as high as 30 to 1. This ratio should be around 4 to 1 or lower.
3. High ratio of omega-6 to omega-3 in mother’s diet during pregnancy
4. Low vitamin E intakes
5. Lack of fruits and vegetables

The immune system of young children is not fully developed, which makes them more likely to develop food allergies especially if they do not get good nutrition. But the good news, according to Dr. Fuhrman, is that it is also easier for them to recover from food allergies when a program of good nutrition is adopted.

It is easy to confuse food intolerance with food allergies

Sometimes the first symptoms of a mild food allergy may be similar to food intolerance, so it is easy to get confused. The main difference is that food allergy is a response from the immune system while food intolerance is a problem with digestion. For example, people with lactose intolerance cannot digest milk because their bodies do not have an enzyme called lactase. Lactose intolerance can result in discomfort, gas, bloating or nausea or diarrhea, but is not life threatening. Allergy to cow milk on the other hand is a result of antibodies produced by the immune system as a reaction to milk protein and can cause a very severe reaction. Similarly, intolerance to gluten causes the celiac disease which affects the small intestine, but it is not the same as wheat allergy.

Diagnosing food allergies

It is good to take any reaction to food  seriously and consult with your doctor who can run tests to confirm if your child has food allergies. Physical examination and a comprehensive medical history is usually the first step. Use of blood tests to detect food related antibodies is becoming very common, but without a good interpretation and link to the medical history, these can be very misleading. In fact there is an increase in the number of misdiagnosis of food allergies based on blood tests which I wrote about recently in my Five for Fridays column. This can result in unnecessary over restriction of foods. Skin testing with known food allergens is another option but this is not routinely done. In some extreme cases, your allergy specialist may decide to do food challenges to find out which specific foods cause an allergic response. Do not try it at home! The key is to keep a watchful eye on the reaction of your child, and if you suspect food allergies or intolerance, contact your physician as soon as possible.

Tips for managing nutrition of children with allergy

In his book, Dr. Fuhrman provides examples of how food allergies and asthma can be managed, and in some cases, completely reversed by good nutrition. I like one example of 3 year old twin boys who had severe allergic reactions to almost anything like soy, milk, peanuts, corn, strawberries, cats, dogs, and how within a few years of his nutritional therapy he was able to resolve most of these problems. In general, he recommends a diet rich in vegetables, walnuts and fruits with DHA supplements and multivitamins and no processed foods, dairy fats or trans fats. Not that this can guarantee to result in reversal of food allergies, but it makes good sense to me.

I would love to hear your experiences and tips if your child is suffering from food allergies. I am sure it is very hard for you as a parent, and it is my sincere hope that things get better for you in time. Please leave a comment below if you want to share.

Photo source – laffy4k on Flickr
©2009 Littlestomaks.com