Pulses form stable dietary components for majority of population across the world. Different people consume pulses in different ways like Uncooked, Soaked, and cooked or only cooked without soaking. All these processing techniques lead to changes in the nutritional value of the pulses. Studies have also reported that in addition to nutritional components like Proteins, Carbohydrates, and fats, pulses also contain anti-nutritional components like Lectins, Tannins, and Polyphenols that greatly interfere with digestion of pulses in the human intestine. Hence in the current study a comprehensive review is being compiled to evaluate the nutritional and antinutritional aspects of pulses and effect of processing methods on invitro protein and starch digestibility of the pulses.

Background: To examine the effect of nutritional education on children’s breakfast patterns Methods: A kindergarten based nutrition intervention was started in September 2001 among 8 kindergartens in Hefei with a total of 2, 012 children aged 4-6 years and their parent pairs.Results: Monthly nutrition education sessions were held over two semesters in kindergartens part of the inter-vention arm. The approach in education and the content of other activities were uniform across all the kinder-gartens. A validated questionnaire was used to record breakfast behavior over 7 days including at least one weekend. The parents recorded the children’s breakfast pattern (frequency, time, and food selection) at base-line, middle, and end of the study. After intervention, there were significant differences at the final stage, but none at the baseline before intervention. There were changes not only in breakfast frequency, but also in the breakfast selection Conclusion: The breakfast pattern of Chinese children can be modified through nutrition education after a long term intervention.

Introduction: Iranian 5-6 year old children’s dmft index is more than 5 teeth. Nutritional behavior is a major cause of dental caries. Improving oral health behaviors and health diets can hugely decrease tooth decays. On the other hand, children have a penetrable mind during elementary school. Thus, this study was aimed to evaluate the oral health linked nutritional behavior of Saveh elementary students.Materials and Methods: A minimum of 320 first and sixth year grade students were considered the primary sample size from a total of 16 elementary schools. Cluster randomized sampling was used in this analytical descriptive, cross-sectional study. Ethical approvals and written consents were obtained, and the translated version of WHO’s assessment tool (questionnaire) was utilized to collect data. The nutritional behavior of participants was categorized as appropriate and inappropriate conditions. Finally, T-student test was used to analyze the descriptive data and p=0.05 was considered as significant.Results: A total of 388 students participated in this study, amongst which more than three-fourth had appropriate fruit consumption behavior, whereas the least appropriate behavior was related to consumption of sugary tea (43%). On the other hand, almost five-sixth of the students had acceptable habits in terms of syrup and juice consumption. Interestingly, those who had suitable consumption of sweets, had almost significantly better tooth brushing habits (p=0.068). On the contrary, those who had more consumption of sugar with tea had significantly more dental visits (p=0.046), and had significantly worse brushing habits (p=0.05).Discussion and Conclusion: Oral health, nutritional, and health related behaviors are relatively appropriate among Saveh elementary students. Also, dental visits can have a positive impact on students’ oral health related behavior.

Background: Ginger is an important horticultural crop in tropical Southeast Asia, which contains anti-oxidative, anti-inflammatory and immunomodulatory properties. This study was conducted to determine the effects of ginger rhizome on lymphocyte reactivity to mitogens and lymphocyte subsets among healthy male Sprague-dawley rats.Methods: Three groups of rats (n=24) were supplemented ginger powder suspension (250, 500 and 750 mg/kg body weight) for 6 weeks, the control group was used as a reference.Immunological responses of ginger were determined by lymphocyte proliferation assay using lipopolysaccharide (LPS) and phytohemagglutinin (PHA). Meanwhile, phenotyping assay recruited flowcytometer to measure the expression of CD25+, CD4+, CD3+, CD45RA+and CD161a+.Results: Ginger enhanced activation of T cells in response to PHA, which was more evident in the lowest dose of supplementation (250 mg/kg body weight) compared with other supplemented and control groups (p<0.05). The lymphocytes had no activation in response to LPS. Moreover, flowcytometry analysis indicated that the lowest dose of ginger increased the expression level of CD45RA+ (the marker of B cells) (p<0.05). Similarly, the expression level of CD3+and CD161+which are the makers of T and NK cells increased in group of 250 mg/kg but these increases were not statistically significant. Other markers including helper T cells and regulatory T cells did not change following ginger feeding except regulatory T cells (CD4+CD25+) which was increased significantly with the highest dose of ginger (p<0.05).Conclusion: The overall quality and character of the cellular arm of the immune response that was recognized by the proliferation assay highlighted the role of ginger in improving lymphocyte responses against super-antigens like PHA. Current work also emphasizes on the benefits of ginger in the lowest concentration of supplementation due to increasing levels of B cells, T and NK cells; while the highest dosage suppressed the immune responses via increasing level of regulatory T cells.

Context: Adolescence is associated with important physical, mental, and social changes leading to rapid changes in behavioral patterns including nutritional behaviors. The nutritional behaviors of individuals as well as changing those behaviors should be recognized to design an effective program. The present study sets to recognize determinants of the adolescents’ nutritional behaviors based on the social-ecological model. Evidence Acquisition: In an extensive literature review, all Farsi and English articles adopted quantitative studies, which were either cross-sectional, longitudinal, or clinical trials. Furthermore, all Farsi and English qualitative studies published from 1990 to 2016 were reviewed. For this purpose, Scopus, Medline, Embase, Cochrane central register of controlled trialsandCochrane database systematic review databases, as well as Farsi databases including Iranmedex, SID, and Magiran were searched. Keywords included nutritional behaviors of teenagers (eating breakfast, fruits, and vegetables, fast foods, unhealthy snacks) and determinant factors. After extracting the effective factors, they were categorized into social-ecological mode. Results: Since ecological models are focused on individuals’ interactions with cultural, environmental, and social factors, applying them to determine the effective factors, and designing interventions based on these factors could enhance the programs for improvement of teenagers’ nutritional behaviors. Conclusions: Changes in intrapersonal and environmental factors could have a more effective role in making changes in teenagers’ nutritional behaviors. Since some of these factors become key factors in different social-cultural contexts, nutritional changes in societies have a decisive role in their significance. The significance level of factors and their effect on the target society must be considered for designing more effective interventions.

Background: Osteoporosis is one of the most common problems in health systems and a hidden epidemic in the modern world. The aim of the present study was to investigate osteoporosis-related nutritional behaviors based on the theory of planned behavior (TPB) in adolescent girls in Sari, Iran. Methods: This cross-sectional study was performed on 341 12-16-year high school students who were selected by multi-stage random sampling method in Sari, Iran. Data collection was carried out using a TPB-based researcher-made questionnaire consisting of three parts,part A included questions on demographic characteristics and osteoporosis-related diseases, part B discussed osteoporosis nutritional behaviors based on TPB constructs, including behavioral attitudes, subjective norm, perceived behavioral control, and intention, and part C was the Food frequency questionnaire (FFQ). Part A and B were completed by students and part C was completed through an interview, taking into account the number of food units based on the recommended standards of the Food Pyramid. Data analysis was also performed using regression analysis, Pearson correlation and ANOVA in SPSS ver. 20. Results: The present study demonstrated a significant relationship between perceived behavioral control and osteoporosis predisposing nutritional behaviors (P<0. 05). Also, among TPB constructs, subjective norm (β, =0. 138) and intention (β, =0. 136) were the main determinants of osteoporosis-preventive behaviors,and subjective norm (β, =0. 182) and knowledge (β, =0. 155) played the most important roles in determining osteoporosis-predisposing nutritional behaviors. Conclusion: Based on the results, there is a significant relationship between TPB constructs and osteoporosis-related nutritional behaviors. Considering the role of TPB constructs and lower consumption of the osteoporosis-preventing group, there is a need for educational interventions among adolescents, parents and other people influencing adolescents.