Publications by authors named "Jody Miller"

Background: Age-related changes can lead to dietary insufficiency in older adults. The inclusion of high-quality, nutrient-dense foods such as ruminant milks can significantly improve health outcomes. However, many older adults worldwide do not meet daily milk intake recommendations because of digestive discomfort and health concerns.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

The global dairy market has been increasingly diversified with more dairy product offerings of milk products from different animal species. Meanwhile, milk powders remain the main exported dairy product format due to their ease of transportation. In this work, we studied the structural changes, protein hydrolysis and nutrient delivery during dynamic gastric digestion and small intestinal digestion of cow, goat and sheep milk reconstituted from commercial whole milk powders.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Information on fortifiable food consumption is essential to design, monitor and evaluate fortification programmes, yet detailed methods like 24-h recalls (24HRs) that provide such data are rarely conducted. Simplified questionnaire-based methods exist but their validity compared with 24HRs has not been shown. We compared two simplified methods (i.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Background: Young children exposed to high-dose vitamin A supplements (VAS) and vitamin A (VA)-fortified foods may be at risk of high VA intake and high VA total body stores (TBS).

Objectives: TBS and estimated liver VA concentration were compared among children with adequate or high VA intake and different timing of exposure to VAS, and associations between estimated liver VA concentrations and biomarkers of VA toxicity were examined.

Methods: Children 12-18 mo of age ( = 123) were selected for 3 groups: ) retinol intake >600 µg/d and VAS within the past mo, ) retinol intake >600 µg/d and VAS in the past 3-6 mo, and ) VA intake 200-500 µg retinol activity equivalents (RAE)/d and VAS in the past 3-6 mo.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Little is known about Se intakes and status in very young New Zealand children. However, Se intakes below recommendations and lower Se status compared with international studies have been reported in New Zealand (particularly South Island) adults. The Baby-Led Introduction to SolidS (BLISS) randomised controlled trial compared a modified version of baby-led weaning (infants feed themselves rather than being spoon-fed), with traditional spoon-feeding (Control).

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Anemia is a significant comorbidity for older adults not fully attributable to iron deficiency. Low-grade inflammation and other micronutrient deficiencies also contribute. This cross-sectional study examined the relationships between nutrient and non-nutrient factors with hemoglobin and anemia in 285 residents (>65 years) of 16 New Zealand aged-care facilities.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Background: The retinol isotope dilution (RID) method has been used to evaluate vitamin A (VA) status in healthy adults and children in low- and middle-income countries (LMIC) and to assess the efficacy of various VA interventions.

Objective: The study was designed to examine whether dried serum spots (DSS) can be applied to RID when conducting VA total body store (TBS) assessments in community settings.

Methods: Four days after an oral dose of 0.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Background: Older people are at risk of micronutrient deficiencies, which can be under- or overestimated in the presence of inflammation. Several methods have been proposed to adjust for the effect of inflammation; however, to our knowledge, none have been investigated in older adults in whom chronic inflammation is common.

Objective: We investigated the influence of various inflammation-adjustment methods on micronutrient biomarkers associated with anemia in older people living in aged-care facilities in New Zealand.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

In response to the re-emergence of iodine deficiency in New Zealand, in 2009 the government mandated that all commercially made breads be fortified with iodized salt. There has been no evaluation of the impact of the program on iodine status of the elderly, despite this population group being vulnerable to iodine deficiency or excess. The aim of this study was to describe the iodine status of elderly New Zealanders in residential aged-care homes following the implementation of the bread fortification program.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Objective: The provision of prescribed vitamin D to all aged-care residents has been implemented in New Zealand as part of a government-led falls prevention programme. To our knowledge, there has been no evaluation of this universal programme on vitamin D status and functional and health outcomes. Thus, we aimed to determine 25-hydroxyvitamin D (25(OH)D) concentrations and their predictors in aged-care residents across the country and to investigate whether the government-funded programme was associated with adequate vitamin D status.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Objective: To describe trends in serum cholesterol and dietary fat intakes for New Zealand adults between 1989 and 2008/09.

Methods: Serum total cholesterol concentrations and dietary fat intakes were analysed for 9,346 New Zealanders aged 15-98 years (52% women) who participated in three national surveys in 1989, 1997 and 2008/09.

Results: Population mean serum cholesterol decreased from 6.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

This essay draws from our research with US rural women methamphetamine users in 2009 to offer strategies for "revisioning" the drug use(r) field to better understand the impact of gender on drug use and drug market participation. We highlight the insights and limitations of a popular strategy in feminist research that conceptualizes gender as performance- commonly referred to as "doing gender"-using illustrations from our research. We encourage scholars to move beyond a primarily normative orientation in studying gender, and investigate gendered organizational features of social life including their intersections with other aspects of social inequality such as those of race, class, and place.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Background: There is evidence that low, and possibly high, selenium status is associated with depressed mood. More evidence is needed to determine whether this pattern occurs in young adults with a wide range of serum concentrations of selenium.

Objective: The aim of this study was to determine if serum selenium concentration is associated with depressive symptoms and daily mood states in young adults.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Objective: Mandatory folic acid fortification of breads in New Zealand was put on hold in 2009. At this time, bread manufacturers were requested to adopt greater voluntary fortification and agreed to add folic acid to approximately one-third of their bread range. We sought to evaluate the impact of increased voluntary fortification of bread and the proposed mandatory fortification programme on folate intake adequacy of reproductive-age women.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Aims: To report the blood pressure results from the 2008/09 New Zealand Adult Nutrition Survey (2008/09NZANS).

Methods: Blood pressure measurements were available for 4,407 adults who were part of a survey involving face-to-face interviews with 4,721 New Zealanders aged 15 years and over. Three measurements were taken one minute apart, and the mean of the second and third readings has been used for this analysis.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Recently, choline has been associated with neurodevelopment, cognitive function and neural tube defect incidence. However, data on usual intakes are limited, and estimates of dietary intakes of choline and its metabolite betaine, are not available for New Zealanders. The objective of the present study was to determine usual intake and food sources of choline and betaine in a group of New Zealand reproductive age women.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Aim: To describe the prevalence of diagnosed and undiagnosed diabetes and prediabetes for New Zealand adults.

Methods: The 2008/09 New Zealand Adult Nutrition Survey was a nationally representative, cross-sectional survey of 4,721 New Zealanders aged 15 years and above. Self-reported diabetes and the 2010 American Diabetes Association cutoffs for HbA1c were used to define diagnosed diabetes, undiagnosed diabetes and prediabetes.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Background: A genetic variant at codon 200 (Pro200Leu) of the gene encoding for glutathione peroxidase 1 (GPx1), a selenium-dependent enzyme, is associated with lower enzyme activity; however, the evidence is limited to in vitro and observational studies.

Objective: The objective was to determine whether the GPx1 Pro200Leu genetic variants modify the response of whole-blood glutathione peroxidase (GPx) activity to selenium supplementation in patients with coronary artery disease in New Zealand.

Design: The results from 2 parallel-design, double-blind trials were combined.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Primary prevention of most folate-responsive neural tube defects (NTDs) may not require 400 μg folic acid/day but may be achieved by attaining a high maternal folate status. Using RBC folate ≥906 nmol/L as a marker for NTD risk reduction, the study aimed to determine the change in blood folate concentrations in reproductive age women in response to long-term folic acid supplementation at 400 µg/day and 140 µg/day (dose designed to mimic the average daily folic acid intake received from New Zealand's proposed mandatory bread fortification program). Participants were randomly assigned to a daily folic acid supplement of 140 µg (n = 49), 400 µg (n = 48) or placebo (n = 47) for 40 weeks.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Objective: Iodine deficiency has re-emerged in New Zealand, while selenium status has improved. The aim of this study was to investigate the effects of excess iodine intake as iodate on thyroid and selenium status.

Methods: In a randomized controlled trial on older people (mean±s.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Background: Understanding the full effect of chronic low-dose folic acid is important in interpreting the effect of the mandatory folic acid fortification program in North America.

Objective: We aimed to describe the rate of attainment and steady state (plateau) of red blood cell (RBC) folate in response to long-term intake of 140 μg (designed to mimic fortification) and 400 μg (recommended dose for the primary prevention of neural tube defects) folic acid/d in reproductive-aged women living in a country with minimal fortification.

Design: On the basis of pharmacokinetics principles, it was recently proposed that a steady state should be reached after 40 wk.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Background: The New Zealand population has both marginal selenium status and mild iodine deficiency. Adequate intakes of iodine and selenium are required for optimal thyroid function.

Objective: The aim of the study was to determine whether low selenium and iodine status compromises thyroid function in an older New Zealand population.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Objective: To compare parental assessments of child body weight status with BMI measurements and determine whether children who are incorrectly classified differ in body composition from those whose parents correctly rate child weight. Also to ascertain whether children of obese parents differ from those of non-obese parents in actual or perceived body weight.

Research Methods And Procedures: Weights, heights, BMI, and waist girths of New Zealand children ages 3 to 8 years were determined.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF