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Introduction: Canada promulgated mandatory front-of-pack labelling (FOPL) regulations in 2022, requiring pre-packaged foods meeting and/or exceeding recommended thresholds for nutrients-of-concern (i.e., saturated fat, sodium, sugars) to display a "high-in" nutrition symbol. However, there is limited evidence on how Canadian FOPL (CAN-FOPL) regulations compare to other FOPL systems and dietary guidelines. Therefore, the objectives of the study were to examine the diet quality of Canadians using the CAN-FOPL dietary index system and its alignment with other FOPL systems and dietary guidelines., Methods: Nationally representative dietary data from the 2015 Canadian Community Health Survey-Nutrition survey ( n  = 13,495) was assigned dietary index scores that underpin CAN-FOPL, Diabetes Canada Clinical Practice (DCCP) Guidelines, Nutri-score, Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension (DASH) and Canada's Food Guide (Healthy Eating Food Index-2019 [HEFI-2019]). Diet quality was examined by assessing linear trends of nutrient intakes across quintile groups of CAN-FOPL dietary index scores. The alignment of CAN-FOPL dietary index system compared with other dietary index systems, with HEFI as the reference standard, was examined using Pearson's correlations and к statistics., Results: The mean [95% CI] dietary index scores (range: 0-100) for CAN-FOPL, DCCP, Nutri-score, DASH, and HEFI-2019 were 73.0 [72.8, 73.2], 64.2 [64.0, 64.3], 54.9 [54.7, 55.1], 51.7 [51.4, 51.9], and 54.3 [54.1, 54.6], respectively. Moving from the "least healthy" to the "most healthy" quintile in the CAN-FOPL dietary index system, intakes of protein, fiber, vitamin A, vitamin C, and potassium increased, while intakes of energy, saturated fat, total and free sugars, and sodium decreased. CAN-FOPL showed moderate association with DCCP ( r  = 0.545, p  < 0.001), Nutri-score ( r  = 0.444, p  < 0.001),  and HEFI-2019 ( r  = 0.401, p  < 0.001), but poor association with DASH ( r  = 0.242, p  < 0.001). Slight to fair agreement was seen between quintile combinations of CAN-FOPL and all dietary index scores ( к  = 0.05-0.38)., Discussion: Our findings show that CAN-FOPL rates the dietary quality of Canadian adults to be healthier than other systems. The disagreement between CAN-FOPL with other systems suggest a need to provide additional guidance to help Canadians select and consume 'healthier' options among foods that would not display a front-of-pack nutrition symbol., Competing Interests: The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest., (Copyright © 2023 Lee, Ahmed, Julia, Ng, Paper, Lou and L’Abbé.)

Kraft pulp (KP), an intermediate product obtained when wood chips are converted to paper, contains highly digestible fiber. This study evaluated the effect of KP inclusion in calf starters on growth performance, health, and plasma glucagon-like peptide 2 (GLP-2) concentration in calves. Twenty-five Holstein heifer calves were raised on a high plane of nutrition program using milk replacer containing 29% crude protein and 18% fat until 49 d after birth, and were fed calf starters containing KP at 0 (CON; n = 14) or 12% (KPS; n = 11) on a dry matter basis. All calves were fed the treatment calf starters and timothy hay ad libitum. Blood was collected at 4, 14, 21, 35, 49, 70, and 91 d after birth. Dry matter intake (DMI) of milk replacer and hay was not affected by treatment, whereas calf starter DMI was lower for KPS (0.93 kg/d) than for CON (1.03 kg/d). Higher neutral detergent fiber (NDF) content in KPS (31.7%) than in the CON starter (22.1%) resulted in higher NDF intake for KPS (0.55 kg/d) than for CON (0.47 kg/d). However, the consumption of starch was lower for KPS (0.29 kg/d) than for CON (0.33 kg/d). Despite the lower starter intake for KPS, body weight and average daily gain did not differ between treatments. No significant difference was observed in the plasma concentrations of metabolites, except for β-hydroxybutyrate (BHB); BHB concentration was lower for KPS (216 μmol/L) than for CON (257 μmol/L). The area under the curve for plasma GLP-2 concentration was higher for KPS (54.1 ng/mL × d) than for CON (36.0 ng/mL × d). Additionally, the fecal score postweaning (1.19 and 1.48 for KPS and CON, respectively) and the number of days that calves developed diarrhea throughout the experimental period (2.50 d and 8.10 d for KPS and CON, respectively) were lower for KPS than for CON. These results indicate that feeding KP reduces the severity and frequency of diarrhea without adversely affecting growth performance. This could be attributed to the increased plasma GLP-2 concentration induced by higher NDF intake., (The Authors. Published by Elsevier Inc. and Fass Inc. on behalf of the American Dairy Science Association®. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).)

Purpose: To assess the cross-sectional association between dietary indexes (DI) that underlie, respectively, the Nutri-score (NS), the proposed Canadian 'High In' Symbol (CHIL) and the Diabetes Canada Clinical Practice Guidelines (DCCP) with food consumption, nutrient intakes and metabolic markers., Methods: 1836 adults (18-74 years) participating in the representative ESTEBAN study, conducted in mainland France in 2014-2016, were included in the analysis. Food consumption was assessed with three repeated 24 h dietary recalls. Anthropometric measurements and biomarkers of metabolic risk (cholesterol-total, LDL (Low Density Lipoprotein), HDL (High Density Lipoprotein)-triglycerides, glucose) were obtained through a clinical examination and fasting blood draw. The DI were assessed for their association with food consumption, dietary intakes and metabolic biomarkers as quintiles and continuous variables using multi-adjusted linear regression. Heathier diets were assigned to lower scores., Results: Correlations between scores ranged from + 0.62 between CHIL-DI and NS-DI to + 0.75 between NS-DI and DCCP-DI. All DIs discriminated individuals according to the nutritional quality of their diets through food consumption and nutrient intakes (healthier diets were associated with lower intakes of energy, added sugars and saturated fat; and with higher intakes of fiber, vitamins and minerals). NS-DI was associated with blood glucose (adjusted mean in Q1 = 5 vs. Q5 = 5.46 mmol/dl, p trend  = 0.001) and DCCP-DI was associated with BMI (Q1 = 24.8 kg/m 2 vs. Q5 = 25.8 kg/m 2 , p trend  = 0.025), while CHIL showed no significant association with any anthropometric measures or biomarkers., Conclusions: This study provides elements supporting the validity of the nutrient profiling systems underlying front-of-package nutrition labellings (FOPLs) to characterize the healthiness of diets., (© 2022. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany.)