Nutrition

While there are a great many people who want to lose weight by dieting, there aren't too many who can afford to have a nutritionist assess the caloric value of all their food choices. Using the PlateMate system, however, members can get an online community of laypeople to do exactly that - and for considerably less money. Although taking such an approach to nutrition might sound kind of iffy, calorie estimates generated by the crowd-sourced system are apparently just as accurate as those provided by trained nutritionists, and more accurate than self-kept logs. Read More

You may never have heard of oropharyngeal dysphagia, but it’s a fairly common and quite serious condition that can lead to aspiration, dehydration, pneumonia, malnutrition, depression and death. The term is used to describe difficulty in swallowing, which can be the result of strokes, head and neck cancer, head injuries, old age, and diseases such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s. Around 16.5 million people in the U.S. alone suffer from it, with invasive surgical techniques that may or may not work being one of the main treatments. Now, however, surgeons from the University of California, Davis, have pioneered a new approach – a simple device that is pierced through the patient’s throat, then moved with their hand when they want to swallow. Read More

Most U.S. shoppers will be familiar with the Nutrition Facts label on foods which, amongst other things, tells consumers how much fat and salt is in their food. With the Digital Food Scale from Perfect Portions, users can obtain that information whilst weighing out their serving. Ten key nutritional elements are displayed when users type in an appropriate food code from a database of nearly 2,000 foods, empowering users to take control of their daily intake or cut down on foods that may do more harm than good. Read More

We all know we should eat our greens because they're good for us. Lithuanian researchers have found a way to make them even healthier by exposing them to short-term light treatment with a solid-state illuminator, reducing harmful nitrate concentration by 44% - 65% and boosting nutritional value. Read More