Victoria: The Girl Who Would Become Queen

This research reviews the early life of Queen Victoria and through analysis of her sequestered childhood and lack of parental figures explains her reliance later in life on mentors and advisors. Additionally, the research reviews previous biographical portrayals of the Queen and refutes the claim that she was merely a receptacle for the ideas of the men around her while still acknowledging and explaining her dependence on these advisors

Editorial: Nutrition Research Reviews

Cognitive performance in children and whether this can be improved by nutritional means is an area of investigation fraught with experimental challenges, making it difficult to draw useful conclusions. Hoyland et al. (1) have here provided a much-needed systematic review of the evidence on the specific question of the effects of breakfast on children’s cognitive performance and, unsurprisingly, have concluded that the effects are generally positive, most clearly shown for memory and attention tasks and most easily demonstrated in nutritionally vulnerable children. However, the benefits of food before schoolwork are not necessarily purely, or even mostly, physiological; they could be due to some other factors associated with the meal provision, such as improved motivation to learn due to the reduction of hunger, or better attendance when the breakfast is provided at school

Editorial: Nutrition Research Reviews

The diverse nature of the reviews included in this issue of Nutrition Research Reviews highlights a problem that is becoming increasingly acute for journal editors, namely that of finding suitable reviewers (especially for the more esoteric manuscripts) who are prepared to devote some of their time and expertise to this crucial task. Peer-review underpins the whole ethos of scientific journal publishing as we currently know it. Without it, readers have little guarantee that the published material is credible, which in turn casts the authors in a dubious light, and with them the editors and publishers of the journals; the whole publishing endeavour is then in danger of losing objectivity and hence value (both academic and financial). There is of course increasing pressure on researchers to publish (now even more acute in the current economic climate if they are to attract ever-scarcer funding) which has led to increasing article submission rates to the reputable journals, and an increased headache for their editors who find themselves sending out more and more requests to potential reviewers who seem less and less able to say ‘yes’. The law of diminishing returns has definitely set in, but it hardly needs to be said that because the reviewers are themselves authors, they will inevitably suffer themselves from the lack of peerreview. Thus would-be authors are advised to contemplate the fact that if they do not feed into the system at both points, that is as authors and reviewers, the scope for publishing in a career-enhancing manner (i.e. in a reputable peer-reviewed journal) will ultimately dry up

Editorial: Nutrition Research Reviews

This is the time of year when pumpkins are in season, and are incorporated into traditional festivals in Europe and North America (Harvest, Halloween, Thanksgiving). If you have previously considered pumpkins as good only for carving into grinning Jack O’Lanterns then the short review from Yadev et al. (1) might shed a little light on some of its potential medicinal properties, including antioxidant, antiinflammatory, anti-carcinogenic and anti-diabetic. However, the active compounds, possibly various alkaloids and flavonoids, have yet to be isolated and characterised, and much of the work cited has been done in animal or in vitro models, so the beneficial effects need to be confirmed in human subjects before pumpkin can graduate from traditional herbal remedy to new, safe, effective therapeutic agent. Pumpkin, along with its fruit and vegetable colleagues, has been linked with reduced risk of oesophageal adenocarcinoma and its precursor, Barratt’s oesophagus; this relationship is explored by Kubo et al. in their review(2). The epidemiological evidence is apparently strongest for a protective effect of vitamin C, b-carotene, raw fruit and dark green, leafy and cruciferous vegetables, carbohydrates, fibre, Fe and possibly folate, while red meat and processed foods are associated with increased risk. Red and processed meats have long been dietary suspects in breast cancer carcinogenesis, though the evidence has been controversial, prompting Alexander et al. to conduct a review and meta-analysis(3) of all available prospective cohort studies, incorporating over 25 000 cases of breast cancer. The consensus the authors arrive at is that there is no strong independent association between intake of red meat or processed meat and breast cancer, though they note that results were sensitive to the choice of model (fixed or random effects). Hypotheses concerning the possible role of diet early in life need further (very long-term!) prospective studies, while investigation of the (conflicting) evidence from studies suggesting that meat intake could affect cancer risk through tumour hormone receptor status, whether positive or negative, is also required before unequivocal conclusions can be drawn

Editorial: Nutrition Research Reviews

With world attention now focusing on the Olympics, the question as to the extent to which nutrient intakes can affect athletic performance is highly topical; in this context, the articl

Editorial: Nutrition Research Reviews

We are all familiar with the dietary guideline exhorting us to eat so many portions of oily fish per week in order to boost our intakes of n-3 long-chain PUFA, but it is perhaps not so widely realised that the fish must themselves be provided with dietary n-3 long-chain PUFA or, possibly, their precursors (though, as in humans, the ability of carnivorous fish to elongate and desaturate n-3 PUFA appears to be limited)