The intersection of climate/environment, food, nutrition and health: crisis and opportunity

Allomilk: An Anthropogeny-Based Framework for Human Milk as a Climate Solution

Climate change is an urgent threat to perinatal and infant health, with the greatest effects of climate change exposures being felt disproportionately by global majority communities who have been most harmed by systems of oppression. Human milk feeding is one recognized solution to bolster climate resilience. Yet, policies and practices to support human milk as a climate solution are inconsistent and under-prioritized, which is unsurprising given the lack of alignment between human history and current cultural context with regard to lactation and human milk access. This paper presents a new framework on lactation as a climate solution, which is unique in its incorporation of the critical history of cooperative breastfeeding in our species. Rooted in anthropogeny, or the study of human origins, and antiracist principles of lactation, the Allomilk Framework highlights five concepts of the ideal application of human milk as a climate solution, bridging ancient allonursing with present-day lactation and human milk access. These ideal applications-and the proposed development of measures to operationalize them-will advance the field through a shared understanding of the qualities that should be prioritized in the assessment of policies and practices at the intersection of climate resilience and human milk access. Application of the Allomilk Framework to assess and design future policies and practices will advance the field by increasing the potential for climate resilience and climate mitigation while working with-rather than against-the importance of cooperative breastfeeding in human history.

Consumption of Food Offered by Delivery Applications (Apps)

This study aimed to investigate whether the use of food delivery applications is related to food consumption practices.

METHODS

Data collection was carried out between 5 and 20 June 2020 in a Brazilian capital with a final sample of 2113 individuals. The instrument included questions about socioeconomic characteristics, anthropometric data, and information about eating practices and the use of delivery apps. Logistic regression models were developed with the consumption of each food group as the outcome variable and the use of the application as the exposure variable.

RESULTS

Of those interviewed, 78.1% used delivery apps to purchase food. The frequencies of the consumption of foods considered markers of healthy eating were higher for individuals who did not use the applications (59.7% vs. 38.7% for the daily consumption of fresh fruit, respectively, p < 0.0001). The frequencies of the consumption of items considered markers of unhealthy eating were higher for individuals who used apps to purchase food prepared outside the home compared to those who did not (53.7 vs. 38.1 for weekly consumption of hamburgers, respectively, p < 0.0001).

CONCLUSION

The use of delivery applications influenced the users' eating practices through the acquisition of food within the digital scope and is related to a greater frequency of the consumption of unhealthy items by users.

Plant endophytes: unveiling hidden applications toward agro-environment sustainability

Endophytic microbes are plant-associated microorganisms that reside in the interior tissue of plants without causing damage to the host plant. Endophytic microbes can boost the availability of nutrient for plant by using a variety of mechanisms such as fixing nitrogen, solubilizing phosphorus, potassium, and zinc, and producing siderophores, ammonia, hydrogen cyanide, and phytohormones that help plant for growth and protection against various abiotic and biotic stresses. The microbial endophytes have attained the mechanism of producing various hydrolytic enzymes such as cellulase, pectinase, xylanase, amylase, gelatinase, and bioactive compounds for plant growth promotion and protection. The efficient plant growth promoting endophytic microbes could be used as an alternative of chemical fertilizers for agro-environmental sustainability. Endophytic microbes belong to different phyla including Euryarchaeota, Ascomycota, Basidiomycota, Mucoromycota, Firmicutes, Proteobacteria, and Actinobacteria. The most pre-dominant group of bacteria belongs to Proteobacteria including α-, β-, γ-, and δ-Proteobacteria. The least diversity of the endophytic microbes have been revealed from Bacteroidetes, Deinococcus-Thermus, and Acidobacteria. Among reported genera, Achromobacter, Burkholderia, Bacillus, Enterobacter, Herbaspirillum, Pseudomonas, Pantoea, Rhizobium, and Streptomyces were dominant in most host plants. The present review deals with plant endophytic diversity, mechanisms of plant growth promotion, protection, and their role for agro-environmental sustainability. In the future, application of endophytic microbes have potential role in enhancement of crop productivity and maintaining the soil health in sustainable manner.

Perspectives of Dietary Assessment in Human Health and Disease

Diet and human health have a complex set of relationships, so it is crucial to identify the cause-effects paths and their management. Diet is crucial for maintaining health (prevention) and unhealthy diets or diet components can cause disease in the long term (non-communicable disease) but also in the short term (foodborne diseases). The present paper aims to provide a synthesis of current research in the field of dietary assessment in health and disease as an introduction to the special issue on "Dietary Assessment and Human Health and Disease". Dietary assessment, continuously evolving in terms of methodology and tools, provides the core information basis for all the studies where it is necessary to disentangle the relationship between diet and human health and disease. Estimating dietary patterns allows for assessing dietary quality, adequacy, exposure, and environmental impact in nutritional surveillance so on the one hand, providing information for further clinical studies and on another hand, helping the policy to design tailored interventions considering individual and planetary health, considering that planetary health is crucial for individual health too, as the SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19) pandemic has taught. Overall, dietary assessment should be a core component in One-Health-based initiatives to tackle public health nutrition issues.

Os impactos das mudanças climáticas na Segurança Alimentar e Nutricional: uma revisão da literatura

Resumo A interface entre as Mudanças Climáticas e a Segurança Alimentar e Nutricional (SAN) tem se destacado na agenda de desenvolvimento sustentável desde o início da década de 1990. Desde então, estudos demonstram que as mudanças climáticas possuem efeitos negativos na SAN, potencializados pela pobreza e desigualdade social. O objetivo deste artigo é realizar uma revisão relacionando mudanças climáticas e SAN. A pesquisa foi realizada no PubMed utilizando os descritores “climate change and food security” no título, selecionando somente artigos em português, espanhol e inglês e com relação direta com os temas. Os principais impactos das mudanças climáticas na SAN foram no acesso, produção, qualidade nutricional e volatilidade dos preços dos alimentos. Estratégias de mitigação/adaptação aos efeitos das mudanças climáticas na SAN também foram apontadas nos estudos, além de um panorama geográfico das publicações com domínio de estudos na África e Ásia, continentes marcados por desigualdade social e pobreza. As mudanças climáticas afetam as dimensões da SAN, especialmente em populações mais pobres e em situação de desigualdade social. A relevância dos temas suscita a premência de maior investimento em políticas públicas, estudos e pesquisas acerca da temática no mundo.

Predicted Aflatoxin B1 Increase in Europe Due to Climate Change: Actions and Reactions at Global Level

Climate change (CC) is predicted to increase the risk of aflatoxin (AF) contamination in maize, as highlighted by a project supported by EFSA in 2009. We performed a comprehensive literature search using the Scopus search engine to extract peer-reviewed studies citing this study. A total of 224 papers were identified after step I filtering (187 + 37), while step II filtering identified 25 of these papers for quantitative analysis. The unselected papers (199) were categorized as "actions" because they provided a sounding board for the expected impact of CC on AFB1 contamination, without adding new data on the topic. The remaining papers were considered as "reactions" of the scientific community because they went a step further in their data and ideas. Interesting statements taken from the "reactions" could be summarized with the following keywords: Chain and multi-actor approach, intersectoral and multidisciplinary, resilience, human and animal health, and global vision. In addition, fields meriting increased research efforts were summarized as the improvement of predictive modeling; extension to different crops and geographic areas; and the impact of CC on fungi and mycotoxin co-occurrence, both in crops and their value chains, up to consumers.

Stockpiling as resilience: Defending and contextualising extra food procurement during lockdown

During the U.K.‘s lockdown in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, both food shortages and stockpiling were well-publicised events. The U.K's food system has struggled and lockdown shortages are part of an ongoing trend of anxiety around the food system. Analysis of 19 interviews with people responsible for food procurement within households reveals that while shortages were often experienced for a number of weeks, stockpiling did not take the form of buying large quantities. Instead, modest extra procurement is a more appropriate description of food procurement during lockdown. This article maps six resilience strategies utilised by households in the U.K. during lockdown, of which extra procurement was just one.

Perspective: Integration to Implementation (I-to-I) and the Micronutrient Forum-Addressing the Safety and Effectiveness of Vitamin A Supplementation

An ongoing challenge to our ability to address the role of food and nutrition in health promotion and disease prevention is how to design and implement context-specific interventions and guidance that are safe, efficacious, and avoid unintended consequences. The integration to effective implementation (I-to-I) concept is intended to address the complexities of the global health context through engagement of the continuum of stakeholders involved in the generation, translation, and implementation of evidence to public health guidance/programs. The I-to-I approach was developed under the auspices of the Micronutrient Forum and has been previously applied to the question of safety and effectiveness of interventions to prevent and treat nutritional iron deficiency. The present article applies the I-to-I approach to questions regarding the safety and utility of large-dose vitamin A supplementation programs, and presents the authors' perspective on key aspects of the topic, including coverage of the basic and applied biology of vitamin A nutrition and assessment, clinical implications, and an overview of the extant data with regard to both the justification for and utility of available intervention strategies. The article includes some practical considerations based on specific country experiences regarding the challenges of implementing vitamin A-related programs. This is followed by an overview of some challenges associated with engagement of the enabling communities that play a critical role in the implementation of these types of public health interventions. The article concludes with suggestions for potential approaches to move this important agenda forward.

Effect of temperature - humidity index on the onset of post- partum ovarian activity and reproductive behavior in Bos indicus cows

The effect of climatic factors on ovarian activity and reproductive behavior (RB) was evaluated in 46 Bos indicus cows kept under grazing conditions. Temperature-humidity index (THI) was used as an indicator of stress and divided in alert, damage and emergency levels. Fat thickness (FAT) was taken during the last trimester of gestation (LTG) to approximately 90d postpartum (PP). At 30d PP animals received a progesterone (P₄)-releasing device (CIDR) which was withdrawn 9d later. Ovarian activity was assessed by blood progesterone on days 21, 24, 27, 30, 49, 51, and 54 PP. Animals were divided into three groups, higher, and moderate RB and non-behavior. Sixty percent presented a THI >74 increasing dramatically from June to September up to >78. During LTG, animals lost 27% of their body reserves contrasting to PP where an increase of 2.6% (P=0.002) was observed. The percentages of cyclic and non-cyclic animals were 57 and 43%, respectively (P> 0.05). Seventy-two percent displayed RB and 28% were non-behavior (P<0.05). A negative correlation (r = -0.307; P = 0.038) between THI and RB, and a positive correlation (r = 0.427; P = 0.003) between the onset of ovarian activity and RB were observed. Differences in THI during the LTG (P<0.01) were observed between cyclic and non-cyclic animals. Non-behavior cows in the LTG had a higher THI (P <0.05). High levels of THI have a negative effect on the resumption of ovarian activity and RB in Bos indicus especially if high THI occurs during the last trimester of gestation.

Exploring the Nutritional Ecology of Stunting: New Approaches to an Old Problem

Despite a declining prevalence, stunting remains an elusive target for the global health community. The perception is that stunting represents chronic undernutrition (i.e., due to inadequate nutrient intake associated with food insecurity, low-quality diet, and suboptimal infant feeding practices in the first two years of life). However, other causes include maternal–fetal interactions leading to intrauterine growth retardation, poor maternal nutrition during pregnancy and lactation, and maternal and pediatric infections. Moreover, physical, economic, demographic, and social environments are major contributors to both food insecurity and conditions that limit linear growth. Overall, factors representing both the internal and external “nutritional ecologies” need to be considered in efforts to reduce stunting rates. Nutritional assessment requires better understanding of the mechanism and role of nutrition in growth, clear expectations about the sensitivity and specificity of the tools used, and inclusion of bio-indicators reflecting the extent and nature of the functional effect of poor nutrition and environmental factors contributing to human physical growth. We provide a perspective on current knowledge about: (i) the biology and contribution of nutrition to stunting/poor growth; (ii) our current nutritional assessment toolkit; (iii) the implications of current assessment approaches for clinical care and public interventions; and (iv) future directions for addressing these challenges in a changing global health environment.

Perspective: Understanding the Intersection of Climate/Environmental Change, Health, Agriculture, and Improved Nutrition - A Case Study: Type 2 Diabetes

Efforts to promote health through improved diet and nutrition demand an appreciation of the nutritional ecology that accounts for the intersection of agriculture, food systems, health, disease and a changing environment. The complexity and implications of this ecology is exemplified by current trends and efforts to address nutrition-related non-communicable diseases (NCDs), most prominently type 2 diabetes. The global prevalence of type 2 diabetes continues to rise unabated. Of particular concern is how to address the unhealthy dietary patterns that are contributing to this pandemic in a changing environment. A multi- disciplinary approach is required that will engage those communities that comprise the continuum of effort from research to translation and implementation of evidence-informed interventions, programs and policies. Using the prevention of type 2 diabetes by increasing fruit and vegetable consumption as an exemplar, we argue that the ability to effect positive change in this and other persistent nutrition-related problems can be achieved by moving away from siloed approaches that limit the integration of key components of the diet-health continuum. Ultimately the impact of preventing type 2 diabetes via increased fruit and vegetable consumption will depend on how the entire diet changes, not just fruits and vegetables. In addition, the rapidly changing physical environment that will confront our food production system going forward will also shape the interventions that are possible. Nonetheless, the proposed "team science" approach that accounts for all the elements of the nutrition ecology will better position us to achieve public health goals through safe and sustainable food systems.