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The Instituto de Nutrição Josué de Castro (Josué de Castro Nutrition Institute - INJC), at the Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro (Federal University of Rio de Janeiro - UFRJ) was created in 1946 as an education and research institution in the field of nutrition. This work, presented in the Perspectives modality, describes the history of graduate education (GE) at INJC, in the year of INJC's 75th anniversary. This work is based on articles, books, documents, reports, minutes, and notes from UFRJ and INJC's Graduate Programs. GE at INJC began in the late 1970s, with the offer of specialization courses. In 1985, the Master's Degree Program in Human Nutrition was implemented. Currently, INJC is the only institution in the field of Nutrition in Brazil that hosts academic master's and doctoral programs, the Graduate Program in Nutrition, and a professional master's program, the Graduate Program in Clinical Nutrition. The institution also offers six specialization courses and integrates four multi-professional internship programs within UFRJ. Consistent favorable indicators express the success of the coordinated efforts of faculty and students of GE Programs in initiatives that prioritize attraction of funding, the implementation of intra- and inter-institutional interdisciplinary projects, and qualified academic production. Graduate education at INJC is linked to undergraduate education and to university outreach programs, contributing to high-quality education and training of human resources in the field of food and nutrition. After 75 years, INJC, through graduate education, reaffirms the social and academic role of Brazilian public universities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: The lack of a national table informing the caffeine contents in foods, drinks, dietary supplements, and medications sold in Brazil added to the noncompulsory disclosure of caffeine contents on labels of food products makes it difficult to estimate caffeine consumption in the Brazilian population. Therefore, this study aimed to develop the Brazilian Caffeine Content Table (BraCaffT)., Methods: A systematic search for caffeine levels in foods, drinks, recipes, supplements, and medications was performed through a literature review, afterward collecting data from the United States Department of Agriculture Food Data Central, information from manufacturers' and websites, and the Brazilian official medication guide. Subsequently, data systematization was performed in a spreadsheet with standardized values presented in mg of caffeine per 100 g or 100 mL of food or drink and a capsule or pill for medications and some dietary supplements., Results: The BraCaffT presents 57 items, divided into 11 categories: coffees, teas and infusions, cocoa powder, chocolates, cocoa-based beverages, desserts, soft drinks, energy drinks, guaraná powder, dietary supplements, and medications., Conclusions: The BraCaffT emerges as an instrument of great relevance and wide applicability in clinical contexts, in academic research, and as a database for the Brazilian population to better understand the amounts of caffeine in foods, drinks, dietary supplements, and medications consumed daily favoring a safe intake.

Abstract: Polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) is a heterogeneous disorder characterized by hyperandrogenism and chronic anovulation. Around 60% of PCOS patients are obese. Weight loss has consistently been shown to improve the clinical status of women with PCOS. We hypothesized that dietary factors are associated with the hormonal and metabolic abnormalities of PCOS. This case-control study included 43 women with PCOS and 37 ovulatory, nonhirsute controls matched to the study group by body mass index. Age ranged from 14 to 38 years. Both groups underwent anthropometric, laboratory, and nutritional assessment. End points included diet composition, body fat, and hormonal and metabolic variables related to insulin resistance. The groups had similar intake of energy, carbohydrate (53.51% ± 8.36% vs 51.83% ± 10.06%), protein (15% [12-18] vs 16% [13-19]), and total fat (30.51% ± 7.90% vs 30.80% ± 7.97%). Total body fat, sum of trunk skinfold measurements, and waist circumference were higher in the PCOS group (P < .05). Sex hormone–binding globulin was lower in PCOS patients than in controls, whereas total testosterone, free androgen index, postprandial glucose, fasting and postprandial insulin, homeostatic model assessment index, triglycerides, and total and low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (P < .050) were higher. Homeostatic model assessment index was correlated with central obesity in PCOS patients and controls alike. No association was detected between androgen status and macronutrient intake. In conclusion, central obesity and insulin resistance were not strictly associated with energy intake or dietary macronutrient composition in women with PCOS. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Nutrition campaigns in Primary Health Care (PHC) play an important role in health promotion and the prevention and treatment of injuries. The scope of this paper is to chart and evaluate the scientific output of nutrition in Brazilian PHC. A search and review of the literature and papers was conducted on the PubMed and Lilacs databases, using key words related to PHC and nutrition. The studies were restricted to Brazil with the professionals or population assisted by PHC in the Brazilian Unified Health System and published prior to March 2011. The references in the selected articles were also consulted in order to identify additional studies. From the total of papers located, 68 were eligible and a further 49 were identified in the references lists, such that a total of 117 papers were analyzed. The studies reviewed were mostly original articles, using quantitative methodology, carried out by São Paulo University in that state and published from 2002 to 2011. The main issues were diagnosis seeking the evaluation of nutritional status involving children. The output in this field is growing, although there is a need to redirect the scope of future studies to a focus on intervention models and program evaluation.

This paper aims to examine the route on which Food and Nutrition in Public Health was build in the Brazilian context, from its fields of origin, identifying tensions and convergences, seeking to demarcate its boundaries and to characterize its status within the scientific field. We seek to evince the existence of a movement marked by the fruitful encounter between the field of "Public Health" and a portion of the field of "Food and Nutrition", or more precisely, one of their cores, starring actors oriented by knowledge distinguished from other nuclei in this field. Such phenomena, that we postulate as outcomes of the contact nuclei of knowledge that identify the Public Health with the field of "Food and Nutrition", led to a specific core of distinct knowledge and praxis in this context corresponds to what we call "Food and Nutrition in Public Health". This is a process marked from the outset by tensions between the biological and social paradigms, becoming the one hand, as a major challenge to be faced, and secondly, as a promising way for the approach between different fields of science, both the more practical, such as those targeted to conceptual reflection.

The present article is a brief reflection on the field of Food and Nutrition as it interconnects with the humanities. Relevant theorists' thinking as well as the experience of the authors were used as references. The main purpose is to stimulate the discussion on the food-and-nutrition issue, taking into account the complexities involved in the relations between food consumption and dietetics. Also it is expected to motivate nutritionists to reflect upon their professional practice. Incorporating the use of hermeneutics for the comprehension of the subject is justified in terms of its methodological significance. The importance of taking action in guiding food consumption through the association of the technical knowledge of the field with various perspectives of comprehensive theories is also discussed.

Based on Bourdieu's thoughts about the scientific fields, we visited the Research Groups Directory of the National Council for Scientific and Technological Development (CNPq), seeking to invest in critical and reflective approach on the segment of Brazilian research work concerned with "food". We identified a stable and growing set of research groups whose visibility is compromised, once its name is not included in the institutional taxonomies within the agencies that support research and researchers' formation. Its epistemological foundations, its theoretical and methodological bases are located in the sphere of Humanities and include a wide range of interacting disciplines, forming a significant complexity around its central object: food. The study of feeding phenomena calls for interdisciplinarity and makes the challenge of facing the tensions inherent to democratic life in which we have a glimpse in which the growing and collaborative coexistence among different epistemic references must take institutional place.

Discussion of Research on Food and Nutritional Security (FNS) in Brazil started with the Directory of Brazilian Research Groups from the National Council for Scientific and Technological Development (CNPq). Searches using the expression 'food security' allowed the identification of 72 groups in 2005. Proportions between researchers and students suggest little dynamism and consolidation of such research. Groups in the area of Food Science and Technology, and those concerned with food quality are predominant; then there is the Nutrition area, mainly discussing the nutritional state of population groups; in the field of Humanities there is a small number of groups discussing political, economic and social aspects within FNS's national and regional scopes. It seems that investments in the integration between food and nutrition components of research on FNS are necessary, in order to attenuate differences between the economic (food security) and the social focus (human rights to a healthy nutrition).

This research involved a diagnosis of the educational actions and organic food of the Taste and Awareness Project (Projeto Sabor e Saber, PSS) in a state school in Florianopolis, Brazil. Based on a qualitative approach, a semi-structured interview, documentation analysis and focal groups were used for data collection. The participants were managers of School Meals; a school head and a group of students and teachers representing the school. The results indicated that the PSS has advanced in its objectives, combining the introduction of organic foods with educational actions involving food, health, nutrition and the environment but with no evaluations of this process; organic food is present in school meals, although there is no record of educational actions; food is a subject on the Science course; the themes of food, health and nutrition in the school environment come up without planning; the evaluation of students regarding the food is positive, but no reference was made to organic foods. It was concluded that the use of organic food, is still not an element of the pedagogical project. However, the research contributed to the teachers, on the need to develop educational actions in health, organic foods and nutrition, within the school community.

Objective: We examined the effect of a diet supplemented with alanyl-glutamine (AG) or placebo glycine (G) on intestinal barrier function and growth in children in northeastern Brazil., Patients and Methods: One hundred seven children ages 7.9 to 82.2 months with a weight-for-age (WAZ), height-for-age (HAZ), or weight-for-height (WHZ) z-score less than -1 were studied. From July 2003 to November 2004, 51 study patients received AG (24 g/d) and 56 received G (25 g/d; isonitrogenic concentration) control for 10 days. Lactulose/mannitol excretion ratio was used as a measure of intestinal permeability and was performed on days 1 and 10 of nutritional supplementation. Weight and height were measured on days 1, 10, 30, and 120 of the protocol., Results: The patients were similar on admission with regard to age, sex, birth weight, nutritional status, lactulose/mannitol ratio, and serum concentrations of glutamine and arginine. The percentage of lactulose urinary excretion significantly improved (decreased) in children receiving AG for 10 days but not in those receiving glycine controls. AG significantly increased cumulative change over 120 days in WHZ and WAZ scores but not HAZ scores after adjustment for age and season in comparison with the placebo glycine group., Conclusions: Children tolerated AG-supplemented enteral formula well, and it significantly improved cumulative WHZ and WAZ over 120 days in comparison with children in the placebo glycine group. The data also suggested a beneficial effect of AG in the barrier function paracellular pathway, albeit with reduced mannitol excretion. Thus, although the effect of AG on reduced mannitol concentration requires clarification, AG appears to improve nutrition and barrier function.