ARS Food and Nutrition Research Briefs Issued

By Kim Kaplan
February 12, 2016

Research showing that people whose diets lack adequate vitamin D may be at increased risk of developing osteoarthritis in their knees is among the new nutrition and health findings in the latest issue of the Agricultural Research Service's (ARS) Food and Nutrition Research Briefs.

The latest issue can be found at /is/np/fnrb/fnrb0116.htm.

The popular online newsletter reports discoveries from researchers at ARS laboratories nationwide.

Among other findings, the current issue reports the following:

• A relationship between cognitive control and emotional-eating behavior in preschool children has been found for the first time.
  
• Escherichia coli O157:H7, which can cause foodborne illness in people, is more likely to contaminate lettuce when downy mildew is already present on the lettuce. Downy mildew, a water mold-caused disease, is one of the biggest problems lettuce growers must deal with annually.
• The Dietary Supplement Ingredient Database (DSID)-which validates the composition of dietary supplements, has been updated. The database helps researchers account for added nutrients people get from taking supplements. For example, most multivitamin and mineral supplements (MVMs) contain iodine. But the DSID-3 shows that labels for adult, child and non-prescription prenatal MVMs consistently underreport their iodine levels by about 25 percent, based on chemical analyses.

ARS Food and Nutrition Research Briefs is offered with color photos and illustrations on the Web. And by clicking the "subscribe" link on the newsletter's home page, readers can sign up for either of two e-mail options: They can receive the full text of the newsletter by e-mail or simply an advisory when a new issue has been posted online.

ARS is the U.S. Department of Agriculture's chief intramural scientific research agency.