More articles from the nutrition information "garden"

Earlier this week I listed links to selected full-text nutrition articles stored in one digital archive. Today, a bit ahead of schedule, I'm sharing more finds: recent articles & studies I've discovered via other "information-gardening" tools & repositories. These include e-newsletters, Twitter and, of course, blogs and the trustworthy, knowledgeable colleagues and mentors who write them.

The MSNBC article, "Is your junk food habit making you depressed?" led me to a recent British Journal of Psychiatry study, Dietary pattern and depressive symptoms in middle age (abstract).

"How to Eat to Defeat Depression", a recent Rodale article, describes a study on diet, depression and anxiety in women; it's available as an abstract and free, full-text PDF file.

(Note: Often the popular press articles do not include full citations so the reader has to do some sleuthing to find the original research reports in the online journals. I've found Google Scholar works well if you have at least one of the investigator's names and date of publication.)

The January 2010 Tufts' Health & Nutrition Letter features this free online article on one of my pet topics, bone health: "Protecting Women’s Bones: Is the Secret Soy or the Asian Diet?".

"From Complex Carbohydrate to Glycemic Index: Tracing the Controversy" is a thorough, articulate and well-referenced review. You can read the free, full-text article here. (Many thanks to Sophie for providing the second link.) 

Kathryn Elliott (of Limes & Lycopene) has written a carbohydrate primer for the lay public, "GI Know-How", an up-to-date, research-based, easy-to-understand article on Glycemic Index (GI) and Glycemic Load (GL). It's an excellent companion piece to the previous article.

And last but not least, a Twitter friend recommended film critic Roger Ebert's poignant essay on what it's like to not be able to eat, drink or talk: Nil by mouth. Perhaps we (especially me) should read it first to remind us of the joy of dining or shared food experieces. Tube feeding, though it can provide nutrients, cannot replace these.

A small, selective harvest from the information garden

For a while I've been struggling to come up with an original title for the resource collections I publish intermittently. Something concise and descriptive, like "Quicklinks" or "Handpicked Links". Then, last week I came across the term "information garden." Yes, I can see parallels between harvesting a bumper crop of fruits and vegetables, and retrieving high-quality nutrition resources.

For example, while searching the rampantly growing mixed beds of research, reviews & commentary, I rely on familiar guides (e.g., OVID, Google Scholar,) and carefully curated collections (PEN, Amedeo). Sometimes I get lost in dense overgrowth (verbiage and statistics) or distracted by a showy specimen (sensational headline or provocative title). Most of my time, thought & energy go to weeding, pruning, sorting and then placing in the "trug" (Connotea) only the best "produce": evidence to guide dietetic practice; expert opinion on current nutrition topics & controversies where research is limited or difficult to interpret; thoughtful, insightful articles by my colleagues and mentors.

A couple of weeks ago I stumbled* over PubMed Central Canada, an archive of life science journals with free full-text articles. My search last week on nutrition articles published in 2009 yielded 1000+ results, including these articles pertinent to clinical dietitians' diverse practice areas:

The Differential Diagnosis of Food Intolerance

The Public Health Impact of Herbs & Nutritional Supplements

Flavonoids & cognitive function: a review of human randomized controlled studies & recommendations for future studies

Nutritional status and nutritional therapy in inflammatory bowel diseases

Effect of B vitamin supplementation on plasma homocysteine levels in celiac disease

An update on iron physiology

Comparison of Weight-Loss Diets with Different Compositions of Fat, Protein, and Carbohydrates

The effect of a low glycemic diet verus a standard diet on blood glucose levels and macronutrient intake in children with type 1 diabetes

Effects of different cooking methods on health-promoting compounds of broccoli

That's all for today -- the articles are information-dense so I'm going to leave you with them for a while before I publish the next collection.

(*Yes, I do use the word "stumble" a lot in my posts, but it's very true: I often find the best resources when I'm looking for something else.)