Bridget H-H Hsu-Hage

Food variety as a quantitative descriptor of food intake

A dietary guideline, which has been assumed by several countries, is to achieve the inclusion of a variety of foods in the diet. The major reason for inclusion of food variety as a dietary guideline is the generally accepted concept that eating a wider variety of foods improves nutrient adequacy. There may also be other reasons why food variety relates to health status. An approach for the development and use of food variety scores is presented together with a basis and logic for scoring food variety. Food variety scores quantify the number of different foods (individual foods, food mixtures, food categories, or a combination of these) consumed, and are expressed over a time period or base which may be a day, a week, a month, or a year. The ultimate approach used to calculate food variety may reflect the method by which food intake is assessed, the culture within which the score is to be applied, the definition of a distinct food, and the hypotheses and objectives of the study. If a food is consumed, a sc...

Helicobacter pylori in Melbourne Chinese immigrants: Evidence for oral‐oral transmission via chopsticks

The Helicobacter pylori seroprevalence in a representative population of 328 Melbourne Chinese immigrants (162 men and 166 women) aged 25 years and older were studied. The population consisted of Chinese people born in China/Hong Kong (n= 110, 33.5%), Vietnam (n= 79, 24.1%), Malaysia/Singapore (n= 102, 31.1%), and elsewhere (n= 37, 11.3%). The overall seroprevalence of H. pylori was 59.5%; 60.5% in men and 58.4% in women. Gender specific analysis showed associations between higher seroprevalence and several socio‐demographic factors; in men, age (P< 0.0001), lower education level (P< 0.002), cigarette smoking (P< 0.042), the use of antibiotics (P< 0.015) and chopsticks (P< 0.047), and in women, lower socioeconomical status [education level (P< 0.030), gross household income (P< 0.0001) and occupational status (P< 0.0001)] and use of chopsticks (P< 0.002). Seroprevalence differed between immigrants of various birthplaces (P< 0.001); those born in Malaysia/Singapore (43.1%) were lower than those born in China/Hong Kong (68.2%), Vietnam (68.4%), and elsewhere (59.5%). Immigrants of various birthplaces also differed in their pattern of socio‐demographics.

The role of nutrition in abdominal obesity

Abstract Recognition of the biological and health importance of abdominal fatness has stimulated researchers, clinicians and public health workers. Most work and interest so far has focussed on how it might account for health outcomes, with increasing attention to its preferred measurement. Its aetiology and pathogenesis is thought to reflect gender, age and energy balance which, if positive, leads to increased total body fatness, including abdominal fatness. But these contributors themselves, when considered mechanistically, raise possibilities about other potentially important modulators of abdominal fatness, such as adipocyte differentiation and apoptosis, the kinetics of cell fat content, its hormonal and neural control, along with underlying genetic predisposition and expression. In turn, the ways in which environmental factors may influence fat distribution come into focus; these include nutritional factors, which may be as broad as the food cultural (given ethnic differences in abdominal fatness) or as located as specific food factors like those which are thermogenic (eg. capsaicin-like), hormone-like (notably the candidate phyto-estrogens) or essentiall fatty acids which affect receptor function (like omega-3 fatty acids). There is a prima facie case for food intake, aside from its energy value, in its own right, or in conjunction with early life events and/or physical activity and/or substance abuse having a determinant role in the development of abdominal fatness. To what extent, and how, it is now opportune to ask.

Population control in Singapore: a case study of health strategy and implementation

(1996). Population control in Singapore: a case study of health strategy and implementation. Asian Studies Review: Vol. 20, No. 1, pp. 119-134.