Pick Your Poison -- Carefully

"For decades, the debate over high-fat versus low-fat diets has shaped health advice, sometimes even categorizing cheese as an unhealthy food to limit."

"Our study found that some high-fat dairy products may actually lower the risk of dementia, challenging some long-held assumptions about fat and brain health."

"Not all dairy products are equal when it comes to brain health. The few studies that have investigated this have found a correlation with cheese, so more research is needed to confirm our results and investigate whether certain high-fat dairy products really do provide some protection for the brain." 

Nutrition epidemiologist Emily Sonestedt, Lund University, Sweden 

Foods high in saturated fat have been shown in numerous studies to contribute to heart disease and early mortality.   StephanieFrey/iStockphoto/Getty Images

 

Good news for cheese-lovers. Eating high-fat cheese, according to a newly-released study out of Sweden, is linked to a lower risk of acquiring all forms of dementia. Titled High- and Low-Fat Dairy consumption and Long Term Risk of Dementia, the long-term study published in the journal Neurology, studied the lives (and deaths) of 27,670 Swedes over a 25-year period, the majority of which were female, with an avarage age of 58.1 when the study began between 1991 and 1996.

 

The Malmo Diet and Cancer cohort originating in the 1991 for the study of long-term connections between nutrition and cancer, formed the scaffold upon which the study leaned. With the use of a comprehensive diet history methodology combining a seven-day food diary, a food frequency questionnaire and a dietary interview, as a background formula to evaluate dietary intake, the study matched outcomes with their analysis. 

 

The Swedish National Patient Register up to December 31, 2020 served to identify dementia cases. Searching for all-cause dementia a generic term including Alzheimers, vascular dementia and other conditions, the researchers found that consuming 50 grams or more of high-fat cheese daily links to lower risk of developing dementia. Cheddar, Brie, Parmesan, Mozzarella and Gruyer were identified as typical high-fat cheeses, with over 20 percent fat content. 

 

The researchers found that people who ate 50 grams of cheese (with more than 20 percent fat) daily had a 13 percent lower risk of developing dementia than those who ate less than 15 grams daily. Photo: iStock

 

Interestingly, no association between the consumption of low-fat cheese or fermented milk products such as yogurt and kefir indicated similar brain benefits. Surprisingly, butter gave mixed results with a potential for increased Alzheimer's risk at high intake in comparison to those who eschewed butter.  The risk of developing dementia was calculated at roughly 10 percent for study participants who consumed 50 grams or greater high-fat cheese daily, in comparison to 13 percent for those who ate fewer than 15 grams a day. 

 

Over-consumption of high-fat animal products on the other hand may lead to other conditions that are not all that beneficial, to say the least. Overweight, for one thing, and obesity at a time when the world is seeing obesity soaring among both the young and the old. A condition that leads to other diseases such as diabetes which itself can lead to heart and neuropathy problems, including stroke and cancer. What should always be top of mind for good health is moderation in food intake with a focus on whole foods and the avoidance of a sedentary lifestyle at any age.

 

A new study links high-fat cheeses like those found in fondue with fewer cases of dementia. Photo by iStock/Getty Images

 

For Optimum Health: Balance Good Diet With Habitual Exercise

"We hypothesize that physical activity and diet quality are independently associated with lower mortality risk, and that high levels of physical activity, either in total moderate-to-vigorous physical activity or vigorous physical activity, cannot offset detrimental effects of poor-quality diet."

"Sensationalized headlines and misleading advertisements for exercise regimens to lure consumers into the idea of 'working out to eat whatever they want' have fuelled the circulation of the myth about 'exercise outrunning a bad diet'."

"Our study provided important evidence for health professionals that exercise does not fully compensate for a poor diet and that we should recommend and advocate for both an active lifestyle and a healthy diet."

"[The selection of target foods reflects recommendations from the American Heart Association] These food groups were selected as markers for overall diet quality because other important dietary components and/or nutrient groups, such as whole grains and dairy, were not measured during baseline assessment."

Research conclusion, BMG Sports Medicine

One of very few research projects taking on the pairing of exercise and diet slanted toward the conviction that vigorous exercise regimens are capable of reversing the effects of poor nutrition has reached the conclusion that whatever the type of exercise that is paired with a poor diet, in the final analysis makes little difference. While exercise is beneficial and its effects are credited with healthier outcomes, this is separate and apart from the issue of a diet low in nutritional quality and high in health-harmful substances.

An international team of scientific researchers out of Australia, the U.S., Italy and Norway made use of a large sample of British adults in research to determine what impact diet has on human health that could be counteracted by a good exercise regimen. The multinational research ream reviewed exercise and diets' independent impact and in turn their joint impact on all-cause mortality, cardiovascular disease and a number of cancers.

Self-reported health histories specific to diet and exercise habits of 346,627 study subjects between the ages of 40 and 69 were cross-referenced against data on local death records in the course of a decade. The purpose: to link cause of death to baseline health records gathered a decade earlier so that the impact of diet, exercise or a combination of both on mortality could be gauged. It was the very sparcity of such studies that motivated the study as well as curiosity whether vigorous exercise did in fact offer added protection against early death risk in comparison to more moderate exercise intensity.

Study subjects were fairly representative of most societies with 40.8 percent subscribing to no vigorous exercise weekly, 26.5 percent exercising fewer than 75 minutes of high-intensity workouts each week, and the remainder devoting over 75 minutes weekly to exercising vigorously. Concerning diet, 22 percent held a poor ranking, 53.4 percent a medium rating while 24.5 percent qualified as the healthiest in the diet category.

Separately reviewed, high levels of physical activity -- 211 to 450 minutes of moderate to vigorous weekly exercise along with a high-quality diet each was seen to have a positive influence on longevity. Study participants who excelled at both diet and exercise scored the lowest mortality risk. Leaving those who count on one healthy habit correcting the unhealthy one, extremely disappointed.

Slightly greater protection was provided with vigorous physical activity against cardiovascular disease as opposed to moderate-intensity exercise; only however, for those accumulating ten to 150 minutes of vigorous exercise a week. On the other hand, those who were credited with over 150 minutes a week failed to realize the same benefit boost. 

People with the healthiest diets saw a 14 percent lower risk of cancer mortality, representing a benefit that failed to extend to those with a low- or medium-quality diet. The research results give clarity to the reality that a love of exercise cannot mitigate the negative effects of a love of fast food.

"The study results are no surprise to me. Many people have come to see me in my private practice after suffering a heart attack when training for their fourth or fifth marathon, or right after doing a CrossFit exercise."

"When I do a comprehensive evaluation of their lifestyle, it is apparent that they thought their intense daily exercise regimen would make up for their poor, unbalanced diet, and it simply doesn’t." 

Michelle Routhenstein, cardiology dietitian

Using Your Sense/s

"Best before dates are not indicators of food safety, neither before nor after the date." 

"You can buy and eat foods after the best-before date has passed. However, when this date has passed, the food may have lost some of its freshness and flavour, or its texture may have changed."

"Some of its nutritional value may be lost."

Canadian Food Inspection Agency

"Sunscreens contain chemicals that eventually break down, compromising the effectiveness of the product, so you should not use a sunscreen after its expiry date."

The Canadian Dermatology Association

When in doubt, compost it. There was a time when no government agencies instructed consumers on whether items would be safe to consume, much less when the products were produced, and when the recommended time-sensitive date was for best nutritional and taste value. People used their common sense and their sense of detection; if something looked not quite right; discoloured, or had an 'off' odour, or its composition had deteriorated. When it came to tins most people knew not to buy one that had been dented or bulged. If something was mouldy, it was to be avoided.

Almost all food products now are stamped with a production/distribution date and many with a suggested 'best-before' date for edibility; not, according to the CFIA, as an indication of food safety. There are five types of food that do require expiration dates with strict nutritional specifications and they are formulated liquid diets, pharmacist-sold foods for low-energy diets, meal replacements, nutritional supplements and infant formula. Foods which "should not be bought, sold or eaten if the expiration date has passed", according to the CFIA.

Specifically foods with a shelf life of 90 days or fewer require a best-before date. The product's manufacturer may decide that the date should reflect how long the food will remain fresh, taste good or retain its nutritional value, not however for how long it can be considered to remain safely edible. Other manufacturers may determine best-before dates for food lasting longer than 90 days is appropriate. 

Value Chain Management, and Second Harvest's 2019 report estimates that 48 percent of all food produced in Canada goes to waste with households throwing away food they've spent $1,766 on annually; food that ends up in landfills and there as it decomposes, greenhouse gases are produced. An advocacy group, Love Food Hate Waste Canada found during the pandemic people have been preparing meals at home more frequently while taking fewer grocery shopping trips, consequently buying more food when they do shop to last a more extended period of time.

That frequently leads to food being unused for too long a period to maintain freshness and maximum nutritional value and it is then trashed; sometimes its virtual best-before date long gone, and what seemed pleasing and palatable when purchased no longer does. Researchers from Dalhousie University reached the same conclusion; Canadians were wasting 13.5 percent more food since the pandemic arrived, and since they began eating more frequently at home during lockdowns and beyond.

Fresh fruits and vegetables, bread, buns and bagels fall into the category where they're considered edible until such time as visible rot, mould or an odour of biodegradation is detected. Cooked luncheon meats are considered edible for a week after the best-before date; two weeks for dairy products like milk, yogurt, cheese and sour cream. Past 72 hours after the best-before date, cakes, cookies, pies, chocolate and pudding should be set aside.

 

Freeze raw chicken if it’s approaching its best-before date. Photo, Erik Putz

 

Frozen ground meat is considered safe two to three months after the best-before date in a frozen state, and frozen fish two to six months, while frozen poultry pieces are good frozen up to six months.
Canned goods are considered safe to consume within a year of purchase and the same for condiments such as ketchup, mustard, relish, jam, mayonnaise, salad dressing, vinegar and soy sauce. Frozen dinners and microwaveable meals are also given a year from purchase for edibility and safety. Flour, oats, pasta and rice likewise.

A year in a frozen state is given for large cuts of meat that includes beef, lamb, pork and whole poultry; unlike their chopped or ground counterparts, large pieces bear less surface area to invite bacteria.

How Many of These Delicious Waffles Would You Like?

"The ecological footprint of an insect is much smaller compared to animal-based food sources." "Besides, we can grow insects in large quantities in Europe, which also reduces the footprint of transport. After all, palm fat is often imported from outside of Europe."
"Insect fat is a different type of fat than butter. Insect fat contains lauric acid, which provides positive nutritional attributes since it is more digestible than butter."
"Moreover, lauric acid has an antibacterial, antimicrobial and antimycotic effect. This means that it is able, for example, to eliminate harmless various viruses, bacteria or even fungi in the body, allowing it to have a positive effect on health."
Daylan Tzompa-Sosa, researcher, Ghent University, Belgium

"Bakery products with insect fat are more likely to be appreciated, because the insects are merely a form of fat substitute,” said researcher Joachim Schouteten.   Getty Images

There's that "ugh" factor of course, to overcome. It doesn't exist in Africa or Asia, as an example, but it certainly does in the West. Where the prospect of foods with additives of insect content will be viewed as less than positive, even if it comes with the assurance that eating insects rather than cows is more environmentally friendly, and even more nutritious than the common, everyday diet we invest our dinner tables with. But processing common foods with a 'butter' sourced from black soldier fly larvae may be the wave of the future.

Mealworm burgers sound grim, to be sure, and most people who look for alternatives to beef burgers would prefer to be served vegetable-sourced Beyond Burgers, but this aversion may eventually be overcome as demonstrated by a newly published research study. No, study participants weren't served cricket pasta or mealworm bolognese sauce and caterpillar energy bars; that's all for the near future. This study began rather modestly by researchers at Ghent University in Belgium.

Credit: Ghent University

They decided to focus on innocuous waffles and envision that all manner of pastries at some near future date may be infused with the same kind of 'butter' they used in the waffles, taking the place of dairy butter. Reflexively you might mutter that you'd prefer to stick with 'real' butter. But the Belgian scientists conducted a blind taste test serving 344 people three different iterations of waffles, cakes and cookies. With each of the pastry types one batch was produced with all butter, another with 75 percent butter and 25 percent black soldier fly larvae fat, while the third had a 50/50 butter and larvae fat content.

Well, yum, you know... Cake samples with one-quarter insect fat succeeded in eluding the tasters' suspicions that any insect content was included; they could taste no difference between the all-butter version and the one-quarter insect fat offering. The taste participants in the study were informed beforehand that the pastries could contain "an insect ingredient", yet none among them realized that what they tasted and relished had a larvae fat content in the 25 percent apportioned to the cake.

Vice

"In the case of waffles, they did not even notice the presence of insect fat when half of the butter had been replaced", wrote the researchers in their paper published in the journal Food Quality and Preference. "Also, the texture and colour were hardly affected as compared with butter", they elaborated of the cruel joke they played on initially advised, but naive taste-testers. It reminds me of when my children were young and hated liver, but relished the 'meat loaf' I'd once made with liver I had first ground up, then mixed with an egg, tomato sauce, breadcrumbs and spices.

They enjoyed that meat loaf, even asked for seconds, and I was so pleased that I blurted out when they had finished their meal that what they had just eaten and so obviously appreciated was the very same healthy kind of meal that they refused and termed disgusting. Their faces blanched, and one of the three looked as though he was prepared to upchuck. That was an experiment I never repeated because I promised them that this represented the first and last time; the only way I could convince them I didn't hate them at all, but cherished them and to prove it, put all such future attempts to permanent rest.

Photo: Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences

A 2012 study published in PLOS One found raising insects requires 25 times fewer land resources than is true for cattle. And a 2015 research paper published in the journal Water, demonstrated that mealworm raising uses one-third less fresh water than is needed for conventionally farmed animals.

Using insect fat, the researchers suggest, even as a partial substitute for butter or palm oil, would have clearly positive environmental impacts. An estimated two-billion people worldwide need no introduction to appreciating insects in their diets. They are high in protein and rich in number. Eventually people in the West may open their minds, their shopping habits and their dinner table preferences to include the sustainable harvest of insects. They're all around us, everywhere we look. And there's incomparably more of them on this planet than any other living creature.

Without even cringing ... The Globe & Mail

 

Bite the Cucumber: Eat Your Fruits and Vegetables!

"What we know is that people tend to eat less healthy when they are stressed."
"So, if you see a carrot less as something like, 'Ugh, gosh, I have to eat a carrot' and more, 'I get paid to eat a carrot', does that mitigate the effects of stress on healthy eating?"
"Obviously, we had the hypothesis that incentives might buffer the effects of stress and diet, but I didn't think it would be this clear."
"I thought there might be a glimmer of something going on, so when we actually saw the effects and the size of the effects, I was pretty stunned."
Angela Bryan, professor of psychology and neuroscience, University of Colorado Boulder

"Where there is most evidence for effectiveness for incentives is in those who tend to be poor, and have mental health problems ... including addiction."
Theresa Marteau, director, Behaviour and Health Research unit, University of Cambridge

Photo by Getty Images

So, is it bribery to 'pay' someone to eat whole foods like fruits and vegetables that are good for them; nutritious and delicious which they would otherwise not include in their daily diet? And if it does qualify as bribery, is that a bad thing? The very word has illicit connotations. Is that a contrivance of sneaky do-goodism? And does it matter? Before even getting to that stage, would it work? That's what researchers at University of Colorado Boulder set out to determine.

And according to their findings published in the Journal of Health Psychology, busy people will respond positively to the notion that someone will pay them to eat healthy food. Their ploy to entice people to eat daily servings of fruit and vegetables if for no other reason than to scoop up a financial reward, appears to have worked handsomely. The study resulted in the conclusion that a financial incentive can impact on eating habits and stress levels.

According to Dr. Bryan, her team began the study for the purpose of determining whether incentivizing healthy behaviours could reduce people's feelings of pressure and stress in their daily lives. The researchers tasked 128 study participants to track their daily stress levels, along with fruit and vegetable consumption for a period of three weeks during which one group was given a dollar for each time they ate a serving of fruit or vegetables and the control group received nothing as compensation.

For days when test subjects reported they felt stressed, those in the group being paid maintained their consumption intake of fruits and vegetables in contrast to whose who received no payment who consumed fewer servings of fruits and vegetables.

In acknowledgement that the researchers based their findings on self-reporting, seen to be subjective and unreliable, they recommended that any additional investigation might build on their findings through the use of "a more objective method of measurement", as well as tracking subjects over a longer term to understand how enduring new eating habits could be.

There is a bit of self-defeating irony both in the study and its outcome. With the impression that if you have to pay someone to eat something that is good for them the food in question must be fairly nasty in taste, when nothing could be further from reality. Not all vegetables are the dreaded broccoli and brussels sprouts; most fresh market vegetables taste quite wonderful, and it's hard to think of any fruit that doesn't make anyone's appetite tingle with anticipation.

Other studies in the past viewing the effectiveness of health-related incentive programs discovered they are most productive when they address "simple, discrete and time-limited" actions such as getting vaccinated or visiting the doctor. When it comes to "complex and entrenched" behaviours such as quality of diet and exercise, as well as smoking, they've proven to be less useful to the purpose underlying the attempted incentive-inducing behaviour.

Finally, in the view of Dr. Marteau of the behaviour and health research unit at Cambridge, whether an incentive program works or whether it doesn't will ultimately depend as much on individual circumstances as it will the nature of the behaviour that has been targeted for alteration.

The Biology of Middle-Age Spread

"As we get older, biology sets us up for weight gain."
"By the age of 50, we could be burning nearly 400 fewer calories a day. If you're still eating the same amount of food as when you were 20, you'll gain weight."
"Bodies like to put on weight, but they don't like to lose it. A diet only works if you stay on it for the rest of your life. That's difficult since most diets are restrictive."
"[Government fails to recognize obesity as a chronic disease.] This would increase access to behavioural therapy and medications for obesity. Most health plans don't cover those things."
Arya Sharma, professor of medicine, University of Alberta, director, Obesity Canada

"Studies show that post-menopausal women store more fat."
"We also see that with a chronic decrease in testosterone, which occurs during andropause or male menopause, men also have an increase in body fat."
"[Monitoring weight can help maintain weight] or at least not gain too much."
"[Exercise alone seldom results in weight loss.] You need the dietary component."
Sylvia Santosa, professor, Department of Health, Kinesiology and Applied Physiology, Concordia University

There are health risks associated with failing to acknowledge what is familiarly referred to as "middle age spread". This, despite the very real scientific medical fact that among the 57 known comorbidities associated with obesity which include cancer, Type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease and dementia, ignoring the trigger that hastens the onset of these diseases, doesn't much help in tackling this problem of enormous proportions.

In Canada, the median age is a steady 41 in the population. At the same time obesity rates have been rising, and most particularly among people between the ages of 35 to 49. After age twenty the body begins to burn ten to fifteen fewer calories every single day. This is the impact of age on metabolism in the human body. And then there are hormones. Testosterone, the male sex hormone, manages a decrease in body fat, while the female sex hormone estrogen prevents weight gain as well.

Their positive weight effect, however, decreases with age. A decrease in estrogen leads women to gain weight on their hips and thighs, while a like decrease in testosterone causes weight gain in men, particularly around the stomach area. And while preventing weight gain with the use of hormone replacement therapy is an option in middle age, it is controversial therapy, given possible links to cardiovascular disease.

As a result of hormonal fluctuations that women experience, they are more likely to gain weight throughout their lifetimes. Dr. Sharma is a firm believer in behavioural measures, in medications and for some extreme cases, bariatric surgery for long-term effectiveness in the treatment of obesity. Last year, Canada banned the use of industrial transfats in processed foods. It became illegal for manufacturers to add PHOs -- partially hydrogenated oils -- to foods sold in Canada.

A federal government campaign through Let's Get Moving, a policy document was designed to inform Canadians of a need to move more frequently in view of the fact that only 18 percent of Canadian adults meet the guidelines for physical activity of 150 minutes of moderate-to-vigorous activity weekly. Dr. Sharma feels more is needed to motivate people to take command of their options in avoiding obesity.

Habits ideally, should be changed from those inimical to health to those with clear benefits such as eating nutritionally, sleeping adequately, maintaining a healthy weight, smoke cessation, moderate drinking and reducing sedentary time, to produce a good-habit-routine to live by. These, in combination with regular exercise, relate to healthy lifestyle behaviours.

An article in the BMJ Open Sport and Exercise Medicine open-access journal saw lifestyle reviews of statistics accumulated for 34,061 individuals participating in the Vitality program, an interactive online wellness platform, incentivizing health choices such as exercise, medical checks, sleep, healthy food choices and activities geared to stress-reduction.

"The improvements were greatest in those with the most to gain, those with low baseline physical activity levels."
"Our study extends previous findings that health behaviours such as physical activity, healthy eating and abstaining from alcohol and smoking tend to co-occur in individuals and the presence of one healthy behaviour is followed by other healthy behaviours."
Vitality health research team

Exercise after50  Global News

Beyond Belief

"One needs a small amount of fat in your diet for healthy functioning. The type of fat is just as important for health as the total amount of fat consumed. That's why it's important to choose healthier unsaturated fats. Eating too much and the wrong kinds of fats, such as saturated and trans fats may raise unhealthy LDL cholesterol and lower healthy HDL cholesterol. This imbalance can increase your risk of high blood pressure, hardening of the arteries [atherosclerosis], heart attack and stroke."
Heart and Stroke Foundation

"Because coconut oil increases LDL cholesterol, a cause of [cardiovascular disease], and has no known offsetting favourable effects, we advise against the use of coconut oil."
"Discordant conclusions [from meta-analyses that] created confusion among patients, their physicians and the public [led to this cautionary advice]."
American Heart Association advisory statement

Impossible Burger

Plant-based burgers? What could go wrong! Um, risks for people with atherosclerosis [vascular disease]; shall we start there? There is an assumption in the public mind that plant-based burgers represent health food choices.

Take the Beyond Meat Burger [or not as the case may be], as an example, with its 20 grams of fat 25 percent of which is coconut oil, a saturated fat. Or the Impossible Burger which is 31 percent fat with 99 percent saturated, sourced similarly from refine coconut oil (check out Beyond Meat consumer care team). The condemnatory caution "Coconut oil is pure poison", "one of the worst foods you can eat", emanated from the professional expertise of adjunct epidemiology professor, Karin Michels of the T.H.Chan School of Public Health at Harvard.

She happens also to be director of the Institute for Prevention and Tumor Epidemiology, University of Freiburg, Germany. If anyone knows, it would be this individual who made these statements in Germany at a July lecture. Tropical oils which cover palm kernel and palm oils along with coconut oil have been demonstrably shown in scientific investigations to raise LDL cholesterol considerably. These are saturated fats known as palmitic myristic and lauric acids.

Saturated fats are those in meat, poultry and dairy fats such as milk, butter and cheese. The difference? Ounce for ounce, coconut oil hosts a greater amount of saturated fat than does butter, beef tallow or lard. Makes sense, doesn't it that nutritional investigators feel the LDL cholesterol-raising capabilities of coconut oil rivals that of animal fats, so what is being gained nutritionally and healthwise in consuming these ultra-processed, feel-good products?

Beyond Burger

Recent research suggests that saturated fat's adverse effects on health may not be too clear-cut since although saturated fat appears to affect blood levels the question remains whether this lone factor alters risk for cardiovascular disease. Data does support the fact that unsaturated fats like those in fish and vegetable oils are preferable, capable of lowering the risk of cardiovascular disease. Which does not completely erase the controversy.

That controversy and uncertainty surrounding coconut oil should suffice to persuade people with cardiovascular disease they would do best to avoid it -- until more reliably certain data can be found to give it clearance for properties leading to better health outcomes. Adverse health issues in the face of insufficient data, tend to be overlooked as media laud these new vegetable-derived, processed, faux meat products, absorbing the public relations and advertising undertaken by the manufacturers, taking the market by storm.

The potential health consequences of embracing saturated fats from coconut oil in the Beyond Meat and Impossible Burger remain uncertain for the time being. Which uncertainty mitigates against people with cardiovascular problems assuming these plant-based products represent a safe and healthy alternative to meat. According to Dr. Frank Hu, professor of nutrition and epidemiology and senior author of a Harvard study, there is no research yet that assures a processed plant-based burger represents a healthier food choice.

His research demonstrates convincingly that too much red meat consumption -- in particular processed meat -- can represent harm to human health. Replacing red meat with alternate sources of protein can reduce risk of chronic disease and premature death. It's just that these vegetable-sourced highly processed 'meat' burgers may not be the solution they're touted to be.

The Beyond Burger imitates the juiciness of real meat.

Facebook/Beyond Meat

Yet Another Pathological Eating Nightmare

"Popular media have highlighted the risks for poor cardiovascular health, obesity and cancer associated with junk food, but poor nutrition can also permanently damage the nervous system, particularly vision."
"That means [youth diagnosed with optic neuropathy] he can't drive and would find it really difficult to read, watch TV or discern faces."
"He can walk around on his own though, because he has got peripheral vision."
"Initially, they may struggle to function [body cells lacking a variety of nutrients to enable normal functioning] with depleted supplies but eventually they [the cells] will die."
"So, problems take a long time to develop [following four years on the chosen restrictive diet]."
Dr. Denize Atan opthalmologist, Bristol Eye Hospital

"However, the patient confessed that, since elementary school, he would not eat certain textures of food."
"He had a daily portion of fries from the local fish and chip shop and snacked on Pringles [Kellogg], white bread, processed ham slices, and sausage."
"[Unlike anorexia nervosa], avoidant-restrictive food intake disorder [is not driven by concerns about body image or weight gain. It tends to strike in middle childhood in a sudden lack of interest in food, a heightened sensitivity to certain textures and] fear of the consequences of eating."
"Nutritional optic neuropathy should be considered in any patient with unexplained vision symptoms and poor diet, regardless of BMI."
Bristol research team: "Blindness caused by junk food diet"

Getty Images

A study of a case linked to the fairly newly coined "avoidant-restrictive food intake disorder" (ARFID), recently added to the fifth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, was published in Annals of Internal Medicine, titled "Blindness caused by junk food diet", chronicling the case of a 14-year-old from Bristol, brought to his family doctor when he complained of feeling constantly tired. The boy seemed well enough but he was described as a "fussy eater".

The examining physician diagnosed him with macrocytic anemia -- abnormally large red blood cells -- along with low levels of vitamin B12. After which B12 injections were prescribed, and the boy was advised to expand his diet sensibly, to begin eating a healthier diet. Instead, he began to develop loss of hearing after a year and then started complaining of problems with his vision which grew more compromised over the following two years. He was eventually sent on to Bristol Eye Hospital. And there Dr. Atan diagnosed damage to the optic nerve.

Alcohol, tobacco or drug use were all ruled out as a causative. The boy denied ever using any of them. He was of normal-to-average height and weight as was his body mass index. The vitamin B12 shots had gone by the wayside, leaving him with low levels of copper, selenium and vitamin D levels as well as abnormally high zinc levels -- and he was losing bone mass. Placed on nutritional supplements, he was referred to a mental health expert for validation of a suspected eating disorder.

His vision appeared to stabilize, leaving him, however, with permanent blind spaces in the centre of both his eyes. Malnourishment causing optic neuropathy is rare in developed countries, and caught early enough the condition can be reversible. However, left untreated, it leads to permanent blindness. Now 19 and studying information technology, the young man is registered with sight impairment and will never drive a vehicle.

InspiredTaste Veggie Burger

Selective eating deliberately and severely restricted to inexpensive, nutritionally vacant junk foods cause multiple vitamin deficiencies creating a recognized eating disorder. And according to Dr. Atan writing as well in The Conversation, it is quite possible that nutritional optic neuropathy will become more commonly diagnosed given recent trends.
"For example, the wide-spread consumption of junk food at the expense of more nutritious food and the rising popularity of veganism can lead to vitamin D and B12 deficiencies, because fish, meat, eggs and dairy are the main dietary sources of these vitamins."

While it is possible to remain healthy eating a vegan diet that is plant-based, including a variety of fruit and vegetables, nuts, seeds and grains, "...this still needs to be supplemented with B12 in particular, as animal products are the main source of B12."

Getty Images