Iron supplement use among Danish pregnant women

OBJECTIVES: To evaluate compliance with the national recommendation on supplemental iron to all pregnant women in Denmark and to explore differences between compliers and non-compliers with respect to dietary habits and other lifestyle factors. DESIGN: Intake of supplemental iron from pure iron supplements and from multivitamin and mineral preparations was estimated in mid-pregnancy. SETTING: Nationwide cohort study, the Danish National Birth Cohort (DNBC), comprising more than 100,000 women recruited in early pregnancy. SUBJECTS: Information on diet and dietary supplements was available for 54,371 women. Of these, information on lifestyle factors was available for 50,902 women. RESULTS: A high compliance with the recommendation was found, as approximately 77% of the women reported use of iron supplements during pregnancy. However, many of the compliers did not obtain the recommended doses of iron, which can partly be explained by the lack of iron preparations of appropriate doses available on the Danish market. Compliance with the recommendation was associated with age above 20 years, primiparity, body mass index<30 kg m- 2, non-smoking and long education. No major differences were seen in dietary intake between compliers and non-compliers.ConclusionOverall, a high compliance rate was found among participants of the DNBC but a clarification on daily dose is needed, and more concern should be paid to vulnerable groups such as young, smoking women and women with no or short education.     

Recent plant diversity changes on Europe's mountain summits

In mountainous regions, climate warming is expected to shift species' ranges to higher altitudes. Evidence for such shifts is still mostly from revisitations of historical sites. We present recent (2001 to 2008) changes in vascular plant species richness observed in a standardized monitoring network across Europe's major mountain ranges. Species have moved upslope on average. However, these shifts had opposite effects on the summit floras' species richness in boreal-temperate mountain regions (+3.9 species on average) and Mediterranean mountain regions (-1.4 species), probably because recent climatic trends have decreased the availability of water in the European south. Because Mediterranean mountains are particularly rich in endemic species, a continuation of these trends might shrink the European mountain flora, despite an average increase in summit species richness across the region.     

Taxonomy and evolution of cultivated plants: Literature review 1984/1985

Summary Important papers on taxonomy and evolution of cultivated plants published in 1984 and 1985 were compiled and briefly discussed.

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Taxonomie und Evolution der Kulturpflanzen: Literaturübersicht 1984/1985

Zusammenfassung Wichtige Arbeiten über Taxonomie und Evolution der Kulturpflanzen aus den Jahren 1984 und 1985 wurden zusammengestellt und kurz kommentiert.

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: 1984–1985

, 1984 1985 . .

     

A Regional Perspective on Present and Future Soil Chemistry at 16 Swedish Forest Sites

Assessing the timescales of recovery, by the use of dynamic models, will be used as input to the policy process to abate acidification. In this study the multilayer dynamic soil chemistry model SAFE was applied to 16 forest sites in Sweden, covering a sulfur deposition gradient of 1.2–11 kg S/ha/yr. Soil samples were collected at all sites and the pH and sulfate concentration dependent isotherm, used for modeling sulfate adsorption in SAFE, was parameterized for every site. A new way of implementing the nutrient uptake distribution in SAFE was developed, which allows the uptake distribution between layers in the rooting zone to vary with time, depending on the availability of base cations in the individual layers. Model output was compared to measurements of base cation concentration, total inorganic Al, pH and Bc/Al both site-by-site and cumulatively for all sites, and the usefulness of these comparisons is discussed from a policy viewpoint. Future projections of recovery show that the overall recovery, expressed as minimum Bc/Al ratio > 1 in the rooting zone, is slow. Assuming full implementation of the UNECE LRTAP Gothenburg Protocol and no further emission reductions thereafter, 44% of the modeled sites still have a Bc/Al ratio below 1 in 2100 in some soil layer within the rooting zone.     

Discovery and structure determination of a novel Maillard-derived sweetness enhancer by application of the comparative taste dilution analysis (cTDA)

Application of a novel screening procedure, the comparative taste dilution analysis (cTDA), on the non-solvent-extractable reaction products formed in a thermally processed aqueous solution of glucose and l-alanine led to the discovery of the presence of a sweetness-enhancing Maillard reaction product. Isolation, followed by LC-MS and 1D- and 2D-NMR measurements, and synthesis led to its unequivocal identification as N-(1-carboxyethyl)-6-(hydroxymethyl)pyridinium-3-ol inner salt. This so-called alapyridaine, although being tasteless itself, is the first nonvolatile, sweetness-enhancing Maillard reaction product reported in the literature. Depending on the pH value, the detection thresholds of sweet sugars, amino acids, and aspartame, respectively, were found to be significantly decreased when alapyridaine was present; for example, the threshold of glucose decreased by a factor of 16 in an equimolar mixture of glucose and alapyridaine. Studies on the influence of the stereochemistry on taste-enhancing activity revealed that the (+)-(S)-alapyridaine is the physiologically active enantiomer, whereas the (-)-(R)-enantiomer did not affect sweetness perception at all. Thermal processing of aqueous solutions of alapyridaine at 80 degrees C demonstrated a high thermal and hydrolytic stability of that sweetness enhancer; for example, more than 90 or 80% of alapyridaine was recovered when heated for 5 h at pH 7.0, 5.0, or 3.0, respectively.     

Identification of the taste enhancer alapyridaine in beef broth and evaluation of its sensory impact by taste reconstitution experiments

An essential compound imparting the sweet taste to beef broth was investigated. Taste activity-guided fractionation of beef broth by ultrafiltration, gel permeation chromatography, and HPLC in combination with the recently developed comparative taste dilution analysis enabled the localization of a fraction possessing sweetness-enhancing activity upon degustation. Comparison of the chromatographic, spectroscopic, and sensory data with those of the synthetic reference compound led to the identification of the sweetness-enhancing N-(1-carboxyethyl)-6-(hydroxymethyl)pyridinium-3-ol inner salt, named alapyridaine, which was recently isolated from heated aqueous solutions of hexoses and l-alanine. After quantification of alapyridaine in beef broth, sensory analysis of synthetic beef taste recombinates spiked with synthetic alapyridaine in its "natural" concentration of 419 mug/L and comparison to the taste quality of a tastant recombinate lacking the alapyridaine revealed a significant increase in sweetness and umami character only when the alapyridaine was present in the recombinate. These data demonstrate for the first time that, in "natural" concentrations, the alapyridaine exhibited a pronounced effect on the overall taste quality of beef broth, in particular, on the sweet and umami character.     

Adapting the Profile Model to Calculate the Critical Loads for East Asian Soils by Including Volcanic Glass Weathering and Alternative Aluminum Solubility System

Adaptation of the steady-state soil chemistry model PROFILE was studied, on the following two parts, to calculate the critical loads for East Asian soils: (1) Dissolution rate coefficients of volcanic glass were derived from published experimental data, and calculated field weathering rate was compared with the rate estimated based on Sr isotope analysis. When BET surface area of sand fraction was regarded as mineral surface area, the calculated rates fairly agreed with the estimate, suggesting that sand fraction surface area is a reasonable estimate of weatherable mineral surface area of volcanic soils. (2) In repeated leaching experiments, Al solubility of a number of Japanese soils was explained by a model which assumed complexation of Al to soil organic matters. Such an Al solubility model is more appropriate for predicting soil chemistry than apparent gibbsite dissolution equilibrium.     

Surrogate taxa for biodiversity in agricultural landscapes of eastern Austria

In an agricultural landscape in eastern Austria eight terrestrial organism groups were investigated as potential biodiversity indicators. We present a cross-taxon congruence assessment obtained at the landscape scale using two groups of plants (bryophytes and vascular plants), five groups of invertebrates (gastropods, spiders, orthopterans, carabid beetles and ants) and one vertebrate taxon (birds). We tested four different approaches: correlated species counts, surrogate measures of the overall species richness that was assessed, a multi-taxa (or shopping basket) approach and a simple complementarity algorithm. With few exceptions, pairwise correlations between taxa, correlations between one taxon and the species richness of the remaining groups, and correlations between a combination of the richness of two taxa and the remaining species richness were highly positive. Complementarity-derived priority sets of sampling sites using one taxon as a surrogate for the pooled species richness of all other taxa captured significantly more species than selecting areas randomly. As an essential first step in selecting useful biodiversity indicators, we demonstrate that species richness of vascular plants and birds showed the highest correlations with the overall species richness. In a multi-taxa approach and in complementarity site selection, each of the eight investigated taxa had the capability to capture a high percentage of the overall species richness.