Increasing vegetable intakes: rationale and systematic review of published interventions

Purpose While the health benefits of a high fruit and vegetable consumption are well known and considerable work has attempted to improve intakes, increasing evidence also recognises a distinction between fruit and vegetables, both in their impacts on health and in consumption patterns. Increasing work suggests health benefits from a high consumption specifically of vegetables, yet intakes remain low, and barriers to increasing intakes are prevalent making intervention difficult. A systematic review was undertaken to identify from the published literature all studies reporting an intervention to increase intakes of vegetables as a distinct food group. Methods Databases—PubMed, PsychInfo and Medline—were searched over all years of records until April 2015 using pre-specified terms. Results Our searches identified 77 studies, detailing 140 interventions, of which 133 (81 %) interventions were conducted in children. Interventions aimed to use or change hedonic factors, such as taste, liking and familiarity (n = 72), use or change environmental factors (n = 39), use or change cognitive factors (n = 19), or a combination of strategies (n = 10). Increased vegetable acceptance, selection and/or consumption were reported to some degree in 116 (83 %) interventions, but the majority of effects seem small and inconsistent. Conclusions Greater percent success is currently found from environmental, educational and multi-component interventions, but publication bias is likely, and long-term effects and cost-effectiveness are rarely considered. A focus on long-term benefits and sustained behaviour change is required. Certain population groups are also noticeably absent from the current list of tried interventions

Exploring the biology and evolution of Blastocystis and its role in the microbiome

Blastocystis is a microbial eukaryote, considered to be the most prevalent microbe colonizing the human gut, colonising approximately one billion individuals worldwide. Although Blastocystis presence has been linked to intestinal disorders, its pathogenicity still remains controversial due to its high prevalence in asymptomatic carriers. Having 17 genetic subtypes, Blastocystis is extremely diverse and can withstand fluctuations of oxygen in the gut. Blastocystis harbors peculiar mitochondrion-related organelles (MROs), which are considered to be an intermediate form between a typical aerobic mitochondrion and an obligate anaerobic hydrogenosome. Another interesting fact about Blastocystis concerns its mixed genome: 2.5% of the Blastocystis proteins have been laterally acquired from eukaryotes and prokaryotes. These acquired genes are associated with carbohydrate scavenging and metabolism, anaerobic amino acid and nitrogen metabolism, oxygen-stress resistance, and pH homeostasis. In addition, Blastocystis has proteins associated with secretion that are potentially involved in infection, escaping host defense and even affect composition of the prokaryotic microbiome and inflammation of the gut. In this chapter, we will challenge the state-of-the-art on Blastocystis knowledge, and we will present published data that can be used to understand the genomic adaptations of this microbial organism and its role within the microbiome of the hosts