Theres a lot of buzz in Washington about reducing the size of the federal workforce. The release of the Trump administrations first budget gave us a better idea of the political agenda for those cuts, and many valid and popular government programs could be at risk.

Ive been reading a new book that tells a different story: A Square Meal: A Culinary History of the Great Depression focuses on the years following the crash of 1929, and how federal involvement in agriculture, welfare and nutrition shaped the nations health.

Authors Jane Ziegelman and Andrew Coe remind us that there was a time when the federal government had almost no role in the private lives of its citizens. Although there were cycles of boom and bust in the economy, individuals expected little or no help from Washington, and Washington had little or no interest in helping individuals.

The unexpected depression of food prices in the 1920s, which devastated the farm economy, seemed to have little impact on the folks who lived in cities, where urban prosperity cushioned professionals, office workers and most factory laborers from hardship. The Roaring Twenties left the farmer behind.

And the Depression only made it worse. President Hoovers platitudes about hard work were at odds with long breadlines, reports of malnutrition by social workers and school employees, and headlines about crops being left to rot in the fields because it was too expensive to harvest them.

The Red Cross became the chief distributor of welfare, mostly in the form of grains, milk and other staples, but their efforts were limited and inadequate. In New York, Gov. Franklin D. Roosevelt paved the way for more centralized efforts to feed and clothe the people. Led by his welfare chief Harry Hopkins, a social worker, the push for a national effort came with the 1932 presidential election. FDR took over the White House from the hapless Hoover, and Hopkins went to Washington to implement the National Recovery Act.

Private welfare, always a somewhat stingy and unreliable form of aid, was replaced by national support for the needy, and every conceivable program promoted hard work as a condition for receiving support. With unemployment rising to 25 percent or more, the alternative to welfare would have no doubt triggered revolutions like those that had swept the Communists to power in Russia and the Nazis in Germany.

With the aid came the power to recommend what people ate. Home economists were held in high esteem, putting many people to work who had training in the scientific study of food. Many believe that improvements in diet prepared American youth to fight and win World War II.

Eleanor Roosevelt became the nations advocate and role model, adapting the White Houses menus to put on the presidents platethe same simple, cheap and often bland food that his people were eating. Privately, FDR didnt think much of it. He came to detest the housekeeper, one Mrs. Nesbitt, who watered down his favorite stew and put meatloaf on the table rather than fresh game.

The shift in diet changed America in more ways than that. Malnutrition decreased. Prior to the 1930s, farmers and factory workers focused on intake of calories. Around the turn of the 20th century, most American adult males ate at least 4,000 calories a day to retain energy for their labors. Today, most adults should eat fewerthan 3,000. The popularityof fast food and the additives that expand its production have resulted in a national crisis of obesity.

How the wave of Trump-era cuts could affect our daily lives is still unclear. But A Square Meal reminds us of the value of some federal leadership in the field of public health.

Keith Runyon is a longtime Louisville journalist and former editorial page editor for The Courier-Journal. His commentaries run every Friday on 89.3 WFPL and wfpl.org.

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Commentary: How Government Intervention Changed American Diets - 89.3 WFPL

March 17, 2017

Researchers have discovered that despite meat-heavy diets, low levels of good cholesterol and high levels of inflammation, an indigenous South American tribe has the healthiest hearts ever examined and it might have something to do with parasites in the gut.

Its kind of an exciting paper, said Ben Trumble, co-director of the study and an assistant professor in the School of Human Evolution and Social Change at Arizona State University and affiliated faculty in the Center for Evolution and Medicine, because for a long time we thought pre-industrial groups had lower levels of heart disease. The Tsimane have the lowest levels of plaque in their coronary arteries that weve ever seen.

An 80-year-old Tsimane has heart arteries equal to a 50-year-old American, scientists discovered.

One of the key things about this study is weve always thought populations living these traditional lifestyles had low risk factors, Trumble said, but we were never able to show before that they actually did have these very low levels of atherosclerosis. This is the first time its been shown.

About 90 percent of the Tsimane peoples food comes from hunting, fishing, foraging, and farming. Until two years ago, none of their communities had electricity. None have running water. They live in the Bolivian Amazon with relatively low contact with the rest of Bolivia. Most still speak their traditional language. It takes days to get from villages to towns.

They eat about the same amount of meat that Americans do, but its much leaner, coming from wild animals. The average hunt for a Tsimane man takes five to six hours and ranges up to 10 miles.

But another potential factor for a healthy heart is perhaps surprising: Tsimane have a high parasite -pathogen load.

More than two thirds of Tsimane adults have intestinal ailments, according to Trumble. About 30 percent also have giardia on top of that.

Smoking fish over a fire. Ninety percent of the Tsimane peoples food comes from hunting, fishing, foraging, and farming.Photo by Ben Trumble

That creates a really big burden because intestinal parasites eat the food we eat before we can absorb it, or theyre tapping into our blood streams, stealing the (fats) from our blood, stealing calories, he said.

Some combination of diet, physical activity and the immune system are working together to prevent heart disease, but researchers arent sure how they connect.

The Tsimane have high rates of inflammation, stemming from high exposure to the pathogens and parasites, but not obesity.

Thats what makes this population really interesting to study, Trumble said. You could say, Oh, they get four to seven hours of activity per day, and theyre not eating cheeseburgers, so of course theyre not going to get heart disease. But the thing that makes this population really interesting is that they have such levels of inflammation. Weve always thought of inflammation as this major cause of heart disease. Theyre just getting it from a different source, and its not having any effect at all.

If youre reading this with a kale smoothie before your morning run and wondering if it all makes a difference, co-author Michael Gurven of the University of California - Santa Barbara Anthropology Department said youre doing the right thing but the Tsimane still have medical issues.

While the active lifestyle, lean diet, minimal obesity and smoking are all consistent with having a healthy heart, (the) Tsimane also experience high levels of inflammation and low levels of 'good cholesterol, Gurven said in an email interview. Given this combination of factors consistent with both low and high risk, it is remarkable that the Tsimane have such low levels of coronary artery disease.

Gurven said researchers compared the arterial age between Tsimane and Americans using coronary artery calcium scores, revealing the gap between Tsimane and American hearts.

Curiously, prior work measuring biological age based on immune cell parameters showed that Tsimane were biologically "older" than their age that their immune systems are not up to par, Gurven said. This is fascinating because it shows that different biological systems may age at different rates and indeed, the majority of older adult deaths are due to infectious disease, and rarely (if at all) from coronary artery disease.

There are 16,000 Tsimane living in 95 communities, with between 30 to 500 in each village. The population is mainly children. Tsimane women average about nine children each.

One thing I think a lot of people get confused is that theres this idea that life was nasty, brutish and short, and with life expectancies in the 40s and 50s, people were going to die before they got heart disease anyway, Trumble said.

Theres a big problem with that, however: the way life expectancies are calculated. Life expectancy at birth in a hunter-gatherer population is in the 30- to 40-year range, because of high infant mortality.

For the average Tsimane who makes it to age 15, the modal age of death is 70, Trumble said. Theyre living just as long as we are, but their rates of heart disease are far, far lower.

The study was published Friday in The Lancet.

Top photo: Tsimane man crossing the Maniqui River. Photo by Ben Trumble.

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Despite meat-heavy diet, indigenous tribe has world's healthiest hearts but why? - Arizona State University

A moderate reduction in food intake, known as dietary restriction, protects against multiple aging-related diseases and extends life span, but can also suppress growth and fertility. A research group from the Max Planck Institute for Biology of Ageing in Cologne has now developed a diet based on the model organism's genome, which enhances growth and fecundity with no costs to lifespan.

What is the best path to a long and healthy life? Scientists had a relatively simple answer for many years: less food. But it turned out that this could have unpleasant consequences. Experiments showed that putting flies or mice on diet could impair their development and fecundity. How could we take advantage of the beneficial effects of dieting, and at the same time avoid the damaging effects?

Genome-based diet

Scientists at the Max Planck Institute for Biology of Ageing in Cologne and UCL Institute of Healthy Ageing in London have now designed a diet based on the model organism's genome. In the study they calculated the amount of amino acids a fruit fly would need, thereby defining the diet's amino acid composition.

"The fly genome is entirely known. For our studies we used only the sections in the genetic material that serve as templates for protein assembly - the exons, which collectively make up the 'exome.' Then we calculated the relative abundance of each amino acid in the exome, and designed a fly diet that reflects this amino acid composition," explains George Soultoukis, scientist in the department of Linda Partridge, director at the Max Planck Institute for Biology of Ageing in Cologne and at the UCL Institute of Healthy Ageing in London.

Using a holidic fly diet previously developed by the team to enable manipulation of individual nutrients such as amino acids, the group found that flies eating this exome-matched diet develop a lot faster, grow bigger in size, and lay more eggs compared to flies fed a standard diet. Remarkably, the flies on the exome-matched diet lived as long as slower-growing, fewer-egg-laying flies fed with "standard" diets.

"The flies that had free access to the exome-matched diet even ate less than controls. Thus, high quality protein, as defined by the genome, appears to have a higher satiety value," said Matthew Piper, who conducted the work at UCL and is now working at Monash University.

The study also found that similar phenomena may occur in mice, and future mouse work could further improve our understanding of how and why diets affect mammalian lifespan.

"Our aim now is to characterize the effects of genome-based diets upon mammalian lifespan," says Soultoukis.

Human diet

In theory this approach is applicable to all organisms with a sequenced genome including humans.

"Dietary interventions based on amino acids can be a powerful strategy for protecting human health. Obviously factors such as age, gender, health, and personal lifestyle also have to be taken into account. Future studies may still employ novel -omics data to design diets whose amino acid supply matches the needs of an organism with even higher precision. Understanding why we need amino acids in the amounts we do will be key, and such studies provide novel and powerful insights into the vital interactions between nature and nurture," explains Soultoukis.

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Genome-based Diets Maximize Growth, Fertility, Lifespan - Laboratory Equipment

Science Daily

New 'gene silencer' drug reduce cholesterol by over 50 percent Science Daily Researchers from Imperial College London and their colleagues, who conducted the trial, say the twice-a-year treatment could be safely given with or without statins, depending on individual patient needs. Eventually, inclisiran could help to reduce the ... and more »

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New 'gene silencer' drug reduce cholesterol by over 50 percent - Science Daily

He has one job - to rid Downing Street of mice - but it appearsLarry the catis not up to the task, after he was caught on camera letting a rodent go.

Rather than hunting down the creatures Number 10 said in the past he prefersto take cat naps, but the latest incident confirms he may lack the killer instinct of many politicians who have lived there.

Photographer Steve Back, who captured the incident, said : Larry the chief mouser of Number 10came face to face with a tiny little mouse,which after some play time, got away safely.

The 10-year-old tabby has his own Twitter account with more than 107,000 followers, making him more popular than many MPs.

His Twitter account explained his latest failure to deliver by saying he was playing a tactical game, before claiming he was "on a diet".

It said: My friend @PoliticalPics thinks I look sleepy; Im actually just lulling the mice into a false sense of security...

Larry was recruited from Battersea dogs and cats home during the Cameron years to tackle the rampant mouse problem at the famous address

But after this latest incident,ssome have accused of failingto deliver the results expected of him.

He is one of several Whitehall pets, including Evia and Ossie of the Cabinet Office and dogs Rex and Oscar, who live upstairs at Number 10.

Larrys mousing skills are said to pale in comparison to those of his fellow moggies, Palmerston, who lives atthe Foreign Office, and Gladstone, who minds the Treasury.

David Cameron caused a minor outcry when he left office last year and failed to take Larry with him because he is an official civil servants cat rather than the Prime Ministers personal pet.

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Larry the Cat: Downing Street mouse-catcher caught failing to kill rodent - The Independent

President Donald Trumps habit of repeating controversial claims from conservative media outlets and refusing to apologize when hes called out for a lack of evidence is repeatedly landing the White House in hot water, irritating Republicans and alienating foreign allies.

The White House touched off an international incident this week when press secretary Sean Spicer, berating reporters during the briefing on Thursday, cited comments from a Fox News commentator who accused former President Barack Obama of using the British spy agency GCHQ to surveil Trump Tower.

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The Brits were not pleased. The typically close-lipped British spy agency fired off a strongly worded statement, calling the allegation utterly ridiculous. The White House had to try to calm irate British diplomats, with Spicer and national security adviser H.R. McMaster getting an earful from British officials.

It was hardly an isolated incident.

Trump has racked up a series of scandals that have sprung from his apparently voracious consumption of conservative media, both from watching Fox News and from aides sharing with him reports from Breitbart and other right-wing outlets. And as the fallout has spread each time, Trump has refused to admit any wrongdoing.

The president set off a furor in Sweden when he seemed to claim the country had just suffered a terrorist attack a statement that appeared to spring from a Fox News interview with documentary filmmaker Ami Horowitz about a crime surge in the country. Swedish officials angrily issued public statements that no such attack had happened.

After Fox News ran a segment about Guantanamo Bay, Trump falsely tweeted: 122 vicious prisoners, released by the Obama administration from Gitmo, have returned to the battlefield. Only a fraction of those detainees were released under Obama; most had been released under President George W. Bush. (Spicer later said Trump obviously was referring to the total released under both presidents.)

And in the biggest doozy, Trump claimed Obama wiretapped his Trump Tower phones an accusation that appears to have been based on a Mark Levin talk radio segment and a short Breitbart article. The allegation has created a major rift with prominent Republicans and put the White House in the awkward position of repeatedly defending it, without providing evidence.

When asked why Trump wont simply back down on evidence-free claims like the wiretapping allegation, one Republican close to the White House responded simply: When has he ever apologized about anything?

Its true that Trump has long avoided the normal rules of political gravity he never apologized, for example, for his claims that Obama was not born in the United States but it remains to be seen whether what worked for candidate Trump can work in the White House.

The White House is discovering that the presidents and his advisers words matter a great deal a fact seen both in the fury of foreign governments at falsehoods and in legal opinions striking down the travel ban and alleging intent to discriminate by pointing to comments from Trump and his aides.

Those around the president, though, have proved more than willing to play along with the presidents theories.

Jobs reports produced by the government may have been phony before, but are to be trusted now that they show job growth under Trump, Spicer has said. The crowds at Trumps inauguration were the biggest ever, period, Spicer declared in one of his first briefings from the White House. And, on Thursday, he read off a series of media reports in an attempt to back up Trumps wiretapping claim none of which did including the report that accused the British government of spying on Trump.

Sean Spicer conducts every press briefing like hes on a hostage video. I mean he essentially has an audience of one, said Rick Tyler, a former communications director for Sen. Ted Cruzs presidential campaign who knows Spicer. [Trump] is just looking to make sure that Sean is out there defending him at all costs. I mean, I couldnt live like that, but he can.

It has not only been Spicer forced to try to explain controversial claims. Counselor to the President Kellyanne Conway defended Spicer in January by saying he was using alternative facts, and touted a terrorist attack that did not happen as a reason for Trumps attempted travel ban. Policy adviser Stephen Miller has claimed that there was mass voter fraud, even though no evidence of that has been presented.

And while reports surfaced on Friday that Spicer had apologized to British officials for repeating the spying accusation, the White House was publicly offered no such mea culpa.

That was a statement made by a very talented lawyer on Fox, Trump said at a news conference. And so you shouldnt be talking to me. You should be talking to Fox.

A Fox News anchor said later Friday that the network has no evidence of any kind, that the now president of the United States was surveilled at any time, in any way, full stop.

After the news conference, Spicer pushed back on the idea that he apologized.

"We just reiterated the fact that we were just simply reading media accounts. Thats it, Spicer told reporters. I dont think we regret anything. We literally listed a litany of media reports that are in the public domain."

Especially worrisome, to many, is Trumps seeming lack of desire to distinguish myth from fact.

Donald Trump, like millions of Americans, is susceptible to conspiracy theories, said Douglas Brinkley, a presidential historian at Rice University. He tends to just pick things up from right-wing talk radio and the alt-right if it fits his agenda of the day.

Weve never had a president operate like this. The long-term damage is youre going to get just ravaged in history, Brinkley added.

But for many, especially on the right, Trumps and the White Houses claims carry weight, whether backed up by evidence or not.

Trump essentially has a media company of his own, largely on Twitter, and what he needs to do, or wants to do, is get people to follow him and listen to what he says and believe me and not them, said Tyler. He has to get his audience, his base, to mistrust the media and he becomes, ultimately, their media source.

It is an endeavor in which he has significant help from conservative media outlets like Fox News, Breitbart, Gateway Pundit, the Independent Journal Review and various talk radio hosts.

After the Sweden flub, Breitbart published a piece called Ten Incidents in Ten Days That Proved Trump Right on Swedens Migration Problem.

The White House did not provide a comment Friday, beyond noting that Spicer read Thursdays allegation straight from the Fox transcript.

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Trump's media diet causes global heartburn - Politico

You may not walk like an Egyptian, but you might want to eat like a Tsimane.

A study published today in The Lancet says the forager-horticulturist tribe in South America has the lowest reported levels of vascular aging of any population on Earth.

Besides the healthy heart conditions, these indigenous people of the Bolivian Amazon region also have low blood pressure, low cholesterol, and low blood glucose.

The researchers attributed these healthy qualities to the tribes high level of physical activity and its plant-based diet.

They concluded that the lack of this type of activity and diet in developed countries such as the United States should be added to the risks associated with heart problems.

The loss of subsistence diets and lifestyles could be classed as a new risk factor for vascular aging and we believe that components of this way of life could benefit contemporary sedentary populations, said Hillard Kaplan, PhD, senior author and anthropology professor at the University of New Mexico, in a press statement.

Katie Ferraro, a registered dietitian and assistant clinical professor at the University of San Diego and University of California, agrees with the assessment.

We could certainly move in their direction, Ferraro told Healthline. We could look to them as models.

Read more: Why nutrition advice is so confusing

The researchers visited 85 Tsimane villages in 2014 and 2015.

They took CT scans of the hearts of 705 village residents between the ages of 40 and 94.

They checked for hardening of the coronary arteries as well as the villagers height, weight, blood pressure, heart rate, cholesterol, blood glucose, and inflammation.

They discovered that 85 percent of Tsimane people had no risk of heart disease. That included two-thirds of the villagers who were 75 years or older.

Another 13 percent of the tribe members had a low risk, while 3 percent had moderate or high risk.

A similar study of 6,814 people in the United States ages 45 to 84 showed that only 14 percent had no risk of heart disease. About 50 percent had a moderate or high risk. Another third had a low risk.

The Tsimane population also had low heart rates and healthy levels of blood pressure, glucose, and cholesterol.

This was despite the fact that about half of villagers did show elevated levels of inflammation.

The inflammation common to the Tsimane was not associated with increased risk of heart disease and may instead be the result of high rates of infections, said Dr. Randall Thompson, cardiologist at Saint Luke's Mid America Heart Institute.

The researchers credited the villagers plant-based diet and physical activity level for their health.

They noted that the Tsimane people spend only 10 percent of their waking hours being inactive. That compares with a 54 percent inactivity level in people in industrialized nations.

The researchers said hunting, fishing, gathering, and farming keep the men working six to seven hours a day, and the women working four to six hours a day.

They also noted the Tismane peoples plant-rich diet, which is 72 percent carbohydrates, includes nonprocessed foods such as rice, corn, nuts, and fruits. Their diet is about 14 percent protein, coming from animal meat.

Smoking is also rare in these villages.

Read more: Hold the butter. Its not that good for you

Ferraro said the activity level and the carbohydrate-rich diet were the two factors that stood out in the study.

She noted high-carb diets are generally considered unhealthy in the United States, but thats because Americans tend to get their carbohydrates from processed foods.

The villagers are eating the right carbohydrates, said Ferraro, who teaches a cultural foods class at San Diego State University. Theyre a prescription for heart disease prevention.

Kristin Kirkpatrick, MS, RD, LD, a licensed, registered dietitian who is a wellness manager at the Cleveland Clinic Wellness Institute, agreed with that assessment.

It shows that having a high-carb diet is not as bad as people think with the key point that their carbs were also loaded with fiber, something the body cannot digest, Kirkpatrick told Healthline. I've always recommended a back to the basics approach to diet and this clearly shows the upside to that.

Both dietitians also pointed to the high activity level as another key.

I think the physical activity factor here is huge, said Kirkpatrick, and for sure corresponds to the new studies showing that inactivity is as risky to health as obesity.

Both acknowledge that Americans arent going to move to a tent in a national park and try to hunt game.

However, they said there are ways people in modern societies can incorporate parts of the Tsimane lifestyle.

One is to significantly reduce the amount of processed foods in the diet.

The mantra of fresh vegetables, fruits, and nuts is applicable here.

The other is to lead a more active lifestyle, even for people who have desk jobs where they are sitting most of the workday.

Ferraro said its a good habit to get up every hour from your desk and be active for 5 to 7 minutes. You can even set a timer to remind you.

That practice will add 45 minutes to an hour of exercise to your day.

Make movement part of your daily routine, she said.

Read more: Children consuming lots more artificial sweeteners

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The Tribal Diet That Could Eliminate Heart Disease - Healthline

Runner's World

7 Ways to Add More Vegetables to Your Diet Runner's World You don't need to come up with an entirely new diet when transitioning to a more plant-based lifestyle. Instead, determine the nutritional makeup of the foods you're already eating: What are their macronutrients (carbs, protein, and fat) and ...

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7 Ways to Add More Vegetables to Your Diet - Runner's World

LONDON After several years of restructuring and regulatory pressure, investment banks have reached a turning point after Donald Trump became American president and can look to grow again, according to a study published on Friday.

"The world has turned upside down post the U.S. elections," said the joint annual study by Morgan Stanley and management consultants Oliver Wyman.

"This is the first year since we've been producing this paper that we're looking to see a significant shift to the positive in terms of revenue growth, operational leverage and return on equity," said Magdalena Stoklosa, head of European financials research at Morgan Stanley.

Globally, investment banks have been on an "intensive diet" since 2011 and have shrunk their balance sheets on aggregate by a third, according to the analysis produced in the 7th edition of the "Blue Paper".

With the global economy appearing to be on a stable footing, the Federal Reserve raising interest rates and political rhetoric pointing to a pause on new banking regulation, growth beckons for an industry reshaped by the global financial crisis.

In three years' time, return on equity could reach 13 to 14 percent across the industry from 10 to 11 percent currently, the study said.

Regulatory costs are expected to peak in 2017 and decline by as much as 40 percent by the end of 2020.

However, European banks, lagging in their restructuring programs, are expected to continue to underperform their rivals on the other side of the Atlantic.

U.S. banks could see return on equity rising to 15 percent from 11 percent currently, from a combination of revenue growth and removing costs over the next three years.

European banks are forecast to improve their return on equity to 11.5 percent from 7.5 percent currently, with 75 percent of that uptick driven by cost cutting and only 25 percent by revenue growth.

U.S. banks are sitting on $83 billion of excess capital, which could be used to invest in profitable business lines or paid out in share buybacks or dividends, whilst European banks have a mere $1 billion of excess capital to play with.

Fixed income, currencies and commodities revenues, which faced the brunt of regulation, are forecast to grow 2 percent over the next five years to $119 billion after shrinking to $109 billion from $140 billion over the previous five.

"Unlocking excess capital and collateral turns secular headwinds to tailwinds, powering a sustainable inflection in the global FICC pool for the first time in a decade," the study said.

"Our bull case "Dares to Dream". If the US administrations tax reform, fiscal stimulus, and deregulation agenda is achieved, we would expect much stronger revenue growth and more capital release," the study said.

(Reporting by Anjuli Davies; Editing by Keith Weir)

NEW YORK As success stories go, chef Marcus Samuelssons is as geographically varied and fascinating as they come.

ValueAct Capital raised its stake in Valeant Pharmaceuticals International Inc, in a move that could provide a confidence boost to the drug company three days after its largest shareholder sold out of the stock.

BOSTON/LONDON Hedge-fund firm Pine River Capital Management LP is losing two more partners following a difficult year that involved a restructuring and major decline in assets, people familiar with the matter told Reuters.

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Investment banks ditch the diet and look to expand: study - Reuters

A wide range of women have poor diets in the months leading up to their first pregnancy, according to research published Friday and led by the University of Pittsburgh Graduate School of Public Health. Their food choices, with too many empty calories and too few nutrients, fell far short of national dietary guidelines set to reduce the risk of premature birth, restricted fetal growth, preeclampsia and maternal obesity.

Although none of the women reached the dietary goals, black, Hispanic and less-educated women had a poorer diet than white women and those with college degrees, according to the study, published in the Journal of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics.

One of the most concerning aspects of the results for me is that one-third of calories from their diets was solid fats and sugars, said nutritional epidemiologist Lisa Bodnar, the lead author.

The recommendation is [no more than] 9 to 13 percent empty calories. These women were consuming three times the recommended amount, Ms. Bodnar said.

The study analyzed the results of questionnaires filled out by 7,511 women in eight U.S. medical centers. They reported on what they ate and drank during the three months around conception. Non-Hispanic white women made up 69 percent of the group; 18 percent were Hispanic and 13 percent were non-Hispanic black women. In education, those with high school or less made up 18 percent of the group; some college, 29 percent; college graduate, 30 percent; and graduate degree, 24 percent.

Top dietary sources for energy were soda, pasta dishes, grain desserts such as cake or cookies, refined bread, and beer, wine and spirits. Soda was the top energy source among women who were non-Hispanic black (8.7 percent), Hispanic (6.2), high school-educated (9.2) or who had some college (7.1). Women with a college or graduate degree got more energy calories from beer, wine and spirits than any other source (5.0 and 5.6 percent, respectively).

Energy from solid fat added up to an average of 18 percent, the study said, with cheese, eggs, egg dishes and pizza the top sources. The top two fat sources were different for black women and women with high school education or less: fatty meat (sausage, hot dogs, bacon and ribs) and cakes and cookies.

Energy from added sugars made up 14 percent of calories on average, and sugar-sweetened drinks soda, sports drinks and energy drinks were the top sources.

All of these women were high in empty calories, low in nutrition and high in added sugars and alcohol, Ms. Bodnar said. We would like the source of their energy to be nutrient-dense food, food with a lot of vitamins and minerals.

Key prenatal nutrients are iron, folate (a B vitamin) and calcium. Iron helps to form hemoglobin, which carries oxygen in the blood. Folate is needed to develop the neural tube, from which the brain and spinal cord form. Calcium builds bones and helps maintain healthy blood pressure.

In the womens diets, the study found primary sources of iron were instant cereals (14.1 percent for the group overall); yeast bread, non-100 percent whole wheat (6.4 percent); pasta dishes (5.4); grain desserts (4.2) and pizza (4.1). Green salad was the only vegetable in the top 10 of the iron category overall (3.9 percent) and higher among white (13.9 percent) and college- and graduate-degree women (14.6 and 16.1). Iron from cereals was higher among women who were black (14.5 percent), Hispanic (13.7), with high school education or less (16.2) and some college (13.2).

Green salad and ready-to-eat cereals were the top two sources for folate for all the groups except black women, where the top two were cereals and orange or grapefruit juice. Reduced-fat milk and cheese were the top two foods serving as calcium sources.

In addition to the higher amounts of sugary drinks, black, Hispanic and non-college-graduate women were lower in their intake of nutrient-dense foods, such as beans, nuts and seeds, seafood, fruits and vegetables.

The diet quality gap among nonpregnant individuals is thought to be a consequence of many factors, the study said, including the access to and price of healthy foods, knowledge of a healthful diet, and pressing needs that may take priority over a healthful diet.

Ms. Bodnar said something positive might be done about womens choice of beverages:

If we can find a beverage that substitutes for soda or alcohol, we'd be finding a simple way to reduce the calories and added sugars. It could have a real impact on obesity in the U.S.

She continued, If we could move people to diet soda, they'd be better off, although there are concerns about the safety of artificial sweeteners.

We would like people to drink more water. The bottom line is, we have to get people to stop drinking not just soda, but energy drinks, sweet tea, fruit juice drinks sometimes they have just as much sugar [as soda].

One limitation of the study, she pointed out, is that people have difficulty recalling what theyve eaten.

Overall, diet is something very hard to measure, she said, adding, however, that the study found that the pregnant womens reports follow national trends for children and non-pregnant adults.

Race/ethnicity and education. Those are really two of the most important factors that show health inequalities, the researcher said, pointing out that non-Hispanic black women and women with lower levels of education have higher risk of poor outcomes for their pregnancies, including a baby more likely to die before the first birthday and problems with growth.

A resource that already exists for women with low incomes is the federally funded WIC program (for women, infants and children). Ms. Bodnar said along with nutritional counseling, women receive food packages that provide a healthy diet.

Moving away from a preference for sugary and salty foods can take time, Ms. Bodnar said. It takes a little while to modify your taste preferences.

Jill Daly: jdaly@post-gazette.com, 412-263-1596.

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Pitt research finds women have poor diets before pregnancy ... - Pittsburgh Post-Gazette