Nutrition Reviews

Vakili, Sina; Caudill, Marie A.

doi: 10.1111/j.1753-4887.2007.tb00308.xpmid: 17695371

An emerging goal of medical nutrition therapy is to tailor dietary advice to an individual's genetic profile. In the United States and elsewhere, “nutrigenetic” services are available over the Internet without the direct involvement of a health care professional. Among the genetic variants most commonly assessed by these companies are those found in genes that influence cardiovascular disease risk. However, the interpretation of DNA-based data is complex. The goal of this paper is to carefully examine nutritional genomics as a potential tool for targeted medical nutrition therapy. The approach is to use heart health susceptibility genes and their common genetic variants as the model.

Liong, Min-Tze

doi: 10.1111/j.1753-4887.2007.tb00309.xpmid: 17695372

The conventional use of probiotics to modulate gastrointestinal health, such as in improving lactose intolerance, increasing natural resistance to infectious diseases in the gastrointestinal tract, suppressing traveler's diarrhea, and reducing bloating, has been well investigated and documented. Most of the mechanisms reported to date are mainly caused by the suppression of pathogenic bacteria. Currently, the potential applications of probiotics are being expanded beyond alleviating gastrointestinal disorders to include benefits involving antihypertension, immu-nomodulation, improving serum lipid profiles, and the alleviation of postmenopausal disorders. Although they seem promising, most of these postulated benefits are based on in vitro evaluations, and the lack of in vivo evidence and/or incompatible outcomes between in vitro experiments and in vivo trials has led to inconclusive claims. This present review highlights some of the previous roles of probiotics on gut health and addresses several potential roles currently being investigated.

Lugli, Andrea Kopp; Carli, Franco; Wykes, Linda

doi: 10.1111/j.1753-4887.2007.tb00310.xpmid: 17695373

Severe acute pancreatitis is associated with high mortality. Adequate nutrition support improves clinical outcome. Nevertheless, several recent trials have focused primarily on the route of nutrition support and neglected the role of nutrition status assessment in tailoring nutrition support to individual needs.

Knutson, Mitchell D.

doi: 10.1111/j.1753-4887.2007.tb00311.xpmid: 17695374

Erythroid cells of the bone marrow, the most avid consumers of iron in the body, acquire ferric (Fe3+) iron exclusively via the transferrin cycling pathway. A long-standing fundamental molecular question of how ferric iron is handled in this pathway has been recently resolved by the identification of Steap3 (six-transmembrane epithelial antigen of the prostate 3) as an endosomal ferrireductase needed for efficient utilization of transferrin-delivered iron. Further characterization of Steap3 and other Steap proteins reveals a possible greater role of Steap proteins in iron and copper metabolism.

Johnson, Erin E.; Wessling-Resnick, Marianne

doi: 10.1111/j.1753-4887.2007.tb00312.xpmid: 17695375

Flatiron mice provide the first genetic model that fully recapitulates the iron-loading disorder ferroportin disease. Unlike the other known genetic causes of hemochromatosis, missense mutations in the ferroportin gene are autosomal dominant. These new findings show that ferroportin disease results from dominant negative effects rather than haplo-insufficiency.