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Food insecurity in the UK has been described as a public health emergency. Although programmes exist to alleviate food insecurity for children and families, there is a lack of focus on 16–17 year olds across research, policy and practice. The current study set out to address this gap by investigating the food insecurity status and food intake of 16-17-year-olds relative to current nutritional guidelines. An online, cross-sectional survey design was utilised to collect data on self-reported food security status, food intake and access to and uptake of free college meals. Eighty-three students aged 16–17 years from two sixth form colleges based in the North East of England, UK participated. Food intake data were compared to current dietary recommendations on fruit and vegetable intake and high fat/salt/sugar foods; food intake was compared between food secure and food insecure young people. A minority of young people consumed enough fruit and vegetables to meet or exceed current 5-a-day dietary recommendations, but the majority of young people consumed two or more high fat/salt/sugar items, consumption of which was higher in food insecure young people. Additionally, despite almost half the current sample identifying as food insecure, only four young people reported being entitled to free college meals.The current study was the first to identify food insecurity and poor food intake specifically amongst 16–17 year olds in England. A lack of uptake of free college meals shows that current policy is not sufficient to address food insecurity amongst this group.

Blueberries are rich in polyphenols, and their effect on cardiovascular health, including risk factors for endothelial dysfunction and hypertension, has been investigated in interventional studies. However, the difference between blueberry treatments in varied forms for their cardiovascular-protective effect remains poorly understood. The current study assessed the effects of whole blueberry and freeze-dried blueberry powder compared to a control on cardiovascular health in young adults. A cross-over randomised controlled trial (RCT) was implemented with 1 week of treatment for three treatment groups, each followed by 1 week of wash out period. Systolic (SBP) and diastolic blood pressure (DBP), pulse wave velocity (PWV), plasma cholesterol (low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C), high-density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL-C), and total cholesterol) and triglyceride levels (TAG), and glucose and nitrite (NO2-) concentrations were compared following fresh blueberry, freeze-dried blueberry powder, and control treatments. Thirty-seven participants with a mean age of 25.86 ± 6.81 completed the study. No significant difference was observed among fresh blueberry, blueberry powder, and the control arm. Plasma NO2- levels were improved by 68.66% and 4.34% separately following whole blueberry and blueberry powder supplementations compared to the baseline, whereas the control supplementation reported a decrease (−9.10%), although it was not statistically significant. There were no other effects shown for SBP, DBP, total cholesterol, HDL-C, LDL-C, TAG, or glucose. No difference was shown between whole blueberry and freeze-dried blueberry powder consumption for improving cardiovascular health.

Objectives The cognitive-protective effects related to the consumption of a variety of fruits are supported by several intervention studies. This systematic review and meta-analysis compared the magnitude of effects following chronic (≥1 week) consumption of frozen, freeze-dried powder including extracts and juices of fruits, covering berries, cherries and citrus, on cognition and mood in adults. Methods PubMed, Web of Science, Scopus, and psycARTICLES were searched from inception until February, 2021. Inclusion criteria were randomised controlled trials assessing memory, executive function, psychomotor speed, mood and mini mental state examination in adult participants ≥18 years of age. Cognition was tested by global or domain specific tasks. Results Out of 13,861 articles identified, 16 papers were included; 11 studies provided suitable data for meta-analysis. Fourteen studies reported improvement or trend for improvement in cognition, five studies assessed mood and one study supplementing grape juice found trend for mood improvement. From the meta-analysis, cherry juice supplementation was suggested to improve psychomotor speed by −0.37 of standardised mean difference (95% CI [−0.74, 0.01]) in reaction time (P = 0.05). Conclusions The meta-analysis did not sufficiently support a role for fruits or fruit forms to improve cognition and mood.

The cognitive-protective effects related to the consumption of a variety of fruits are supported by several intervention studies. This systematic review and meta-analysis compared the magnitude of effects following chronic (≥1 week) consumption of frozen, freeze-dried powder including extracts and juices of fruits, covering berries, cherries and citrus, on cognition and mood in adults.PubMed, Web of Science, Scopus, and psycARTICLES were searched from inception until February, 2021. Inclusion criteria were randomised controlled trials assessing memory, executive function, psychomotor speed, mood and mini mental state examination in adult participants ≥18 years of age. Cognition was tested by global or domain specific tasks.Out of 13,861 articles identified, 16 papers were included; 11 studies provided suitable data for meta-analysis. Fourteen studies reported improvement or trend for improvement in cognition, five studies assessed mood and one study supplementing grape juice found trend for mood improvement. From the meta-analysis, cherry juice supplementation was suggested to improve psychomotor speed by -0.37 of standardised mean difference (95% CI [-0.74, 0.01]) in reaction time (P = 0.05).The meta-analysis did not sufficiently support a role for fruits or fruit forms to improve cognition and mood.

In the original publication, a study supplementing orange juice by Morand, et al., 2011 (France) was incorrectly reported for the diastolic blood pressure (DBP) outcome. We originally reported no improvement in DBP as results were reported as least square means, when actually Morand and investigators found a significant improvement in DBP by orange juice compared to placebo. The study should have been reported in Table 1 as “significant improvement compared to the control”, and therefore there should be 11 interventions in the review reporting improvements on blood pressures. We include here an updated forest plot of the citrus juice group, that includes the correct findings of the Morand study investigating the outcome of DBP (Fig. 6). In our updated meta-analysis there was no significant improvement in DBP by the citrus juice interventions compared to the control. The I2 test suggested significant substantial heterogeneities for citrus juice group investigating the effects on DBP (I2 = 83%, P

Objectives: Few previous studies have assessed the effects of concomitant administration of multiple potentially psychoactive nutrients. Methods: 95 healthy adult participants consumed either a nutrient enriched breakfast bar (containing α-Linolenic acid, l-tyrosine, l-theanine, vitamins, minerals and 21.5 mg of caffeine) or an isocaloric, macronutrient matched control bar for 56 days. Cognitive function and mood were assessed pre-dose and at 40- and 160-min post-dose on the 1st and 56th day of the intervention period. Results: The results demonstrated acute effects of treatment across post-dose assessments on both assessment days in terms of alertness, and on tasks assessing attention, working and episodic memory and executive function, including cognitively demanding Serial subtraction and Rapid Visual Information Processing tasks. There were no evident chronic effects independent of the breakfast bars’ acute effects. Discussion: These results demonstrate that a nutrient enriched breakfast bar with low caffeine content can exert striking beneficial effects on acute cognitive function and alertness.