Edith Feskens

Wageningen University & Research | WUR · Cluster of Nutrition Science

Background The prevalence of obesity-related co-morbidities is rising parallel to the childhood obesity epidemic. High blood pressure (BP), as one of these co-morbidities, is detected nowadays at increasingly younger ages. The diagnosis of elevated BP and hypertension, especially in the childhood population, presents a challenge to clinicians. The...

This study aimed to test the acceptability, cultural appropriateness, consumers' understanding, and practicality of the Ethiopian food-based dietary guideline's messages, tips, and food graphics. A qualitative study design was applied with focus group discussions and key informant interviews. Four different participant groups were included: 40 cons...

Background Eating habits must change substantially in order to address the urgent societal challenges of personal, public and planetary health. Research surrounding various facets of dietary transition remains siloed, hindering breakthroughs. Scope and approach We argue the scientific case for transdisciplinary research centered around the transit...

Background The prevalence of obesity-related co-morbidities is rising parallel to the childhood obesity epidemic. High blood pressure (BP), as one of these co-morbidities, is detected nowadays at increasingly younger ages. The diagnosis of elevated BP and hypertension, especially in the childhood population, presents a challenge to clinicians. The...

Objectives Examine associations between the intake of sugar-sweetened beverages (SSB), low/no-calorie beverages (LNCB), and fruit juice (FJ) and non-alcoholic fatty liver (NAFLD) in 4 population-based studies included in the SWEET project. Methods Data of 42,024 participants from the Lifelines Cohort Study (LCS), NQPlus, PREDIMED-Plus and the Alph...

Objectives Inconsistencies in prospective studies investigating sugars and sweeteners with health may be partly due to inaccurate self-reported intake estimates. We compared the relative validity of two self-reported dietary methods and urinary biomarkers to estimate the intake of sugars and sweeteners using data of free-living Dutch adults. Metho...

Objectives The underlying mechanisms for the development of chronic lifestyle-related diseases result from enhanced oxidative stress, and method for quantifying in healthy adult individuals have been investigated in the previous study. However, this predictor targeted the Korean population, and it is currently unclear how to evaluate oxidative stre...

Poor dietary quality is a major contributor to malnutrition and disease burden in Vietnam, necessitating the development of a tool for improving dietary quality. Food-based dietary guidelines (FBDGs) have been proposed to do this by providing specific, culturally appropriate and actionable recommendations. We developed the Vietnamese Healthy Eating...

Background/Methods Prospective studies investigating sweet beverages and body weight associations show inconsistent results. Within the SWEET project, we examined prospective dose-response associations of sugar-sweetened beverages (SSB), low/no-calorie beverages (LNCB), and fruit juice with body weight-related outcomes among 78,286 Dutch adults fol...

Sex differences are an important consideration when researching and establishing policies for nutrition and optimal health. For women’s health, there are important physiologic, neurologic, and hormonal distinctions throughout the lifecycle that impact nutritional needs. Distinct from those for men, these nutritional needs must be translated into ap...

This study aimed to assess whether lignan intake is associated with lower body mass index (BMI) and waist circumference in a Dutch population. Data on lignan content of foods was extracted from a lignan database of Dutch plant-based foods and complemented with three other references to estimate lignan intake in 1012 Dutch men and women participatin...

This study aimed to assess whether lignan intake is associated with lower body mass index (BMI) and waist circumference in a Dutch population. Data on lignan content of foods was extracted from a lignan database of Dutch plant-based foods and complemented with three other references to estimate lignan intake in 1012 Dutch men and women participatin...

Objective The study examined the association between depressive symptoms and iron status, anaemia, body weight, and pubertal status among Mexican adolescent girls. Design In this cross-sectional study, depressive symptoms were assessed by the 6-item Kutcher Adolescent Depressive Scale (6-KADS), and latent class analysis (LCA) was used to identify...

Background Dietary indices are useful measures to investigate associations between dietary intake and disease development. The Dutch Healthy Diet index 2015 (DHD2015-index), a measure of diet quality, assesses adherence to the 2015 Dutch dietary guidelines. We assessed the DHD2015-index in the Lifelines cohort study, and compared calculations from...

Inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) and irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) share common culprit foods and potential pathophysiological factors. However, how diet may contribute to disease course and whether this differs between both entities is unclear. We therefore investigated the association of dietary indices with intestinal inflammation and gastroint...

We investigated the impact of dried chicory root in a randomised, placebo-controlled trial with 55 subjects at risk for type 2 diabetes on bowel function, gut microbiota and its products, and glucose homeostasis. The treatment increased stool softness (+1.1 ± 0.3 units; p = 0.034) and frequency (+0.6 ± 0.2 defecations/day; p < 0.001), strongly modu...

A healthy diet during pregnancy has been associated with beneficial child and maternal health outcomes but is challenging to achieve. Recent technological advances offer new opportunities to support pregnant women in their food choices-for instance, via apps. This is already reflected by a wide availability of pregnancy-related apps, but health car...

Background Malnutrition affects many adolescents in Ethiopia. Over one-third of adolescent girls and two-thirds of boys are thin. Overweight and obesity in Ethiopia is mostly a concern in urban populations of higher wealth quintiles. Urbanization and globalization of diets is shifting food environments. The objective of this study was to assess whe...

All living creatures need to eat. Eating a variety of different healthy foods in moderate amounts is important. How do we know which foods are healthy? Researchers can compare the foods consumed by healthy and unhealthy people by asking what and how much they eat. Unfortunately, people cannot always remember what and how much they eat, which makes...

Background In western countries, age at menarche (AAM) is nowadays lower than a century ago, coinciding with increased Body Mass Index (BMI) and prevalence of non-communicable diseases (NCD). This study aimed to determine the time trend in AAM, and its association with BMI and NCD prevalence at later age, in Indonesia. Methods We used secondary da...

Common Mental Disorders (CMD) are distress conditions which manifest themselves with anxiety, somatic, and depressive symptoms. CMD are highly prevalent in Indonesia especially among adolescents. Adolescent girls have a higher risk to develop CMD than boys. This may be related to anaemia, potentially aggravated by early onset of menstruation. This...

During recent years, the integration of technology has substantially improved self-reported dietary assessment methods, such as food frequency questionnaires (FFQ), food records, and 24-h recalls. To further reduce measurement error, additional innovations are urgently needed. Memory-related measurement error is one of the aspects that warrants att...

Background A limited number of studies suggest that boys may have a higher risk of stunting than girls in low-income countries. Little is known about the causes of these gender differences. The objective of the study was to assess gender differences in nutritional status and its determinants among infants in Ethiopia. Methods We analyzed data for...

p>The original publication of this article [1] contained several errors in the author names. The incorrect and correct author names are listed in this correction article. The original article has been updated.</p

In this letter, we critically review the guidelines on P values that were recently proposed by the American Society for Nutrition (ASN) journals (American Journal of Clinical Nutrition; Current Developments in Nutrition; The Journal of Nutrition; Advances in Nutrition)

[This corrects the article DOI: 10.3389/fnut.2021.694568.].

The role of nutrition in health and disease is well established. However, more research on this topic is needed to fill gaps in our current knowledge. The Lifelines cohort study, a large Dutch prospective cohort study, was established as a resource for international researchers, aiming to obtain insight into the aetiology of healthy ageing. The stu...

A leaky gut can trigger chronic inflammation and poses a primary risk for metabolic diseases. This study established a relationship between intestinal integrity (leaky gut) and metabolic health in a general population. Leaky-gut markers (LGMs) were studied in a large population of Dutch adults with a broad spectrum of metabolic health. This study e...

Background Fermented foods are ubiquitous in human diets and often lauded for their sensory, nutritious, and health-promoting qualities. However, precise associations between the intake of fermented foods and health have not been well-established. This is in part due to the limitations of current dietary assessment tools that rely on subjective rep...

Background: The incidence of sudden unexpected death in infancy (SUDI), which includes sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS), has declined in developed countries since the 1980s, including the Netherlands. To identify improvement opportunities in SUDI prevention, we monitored the adherence of parents to the prevention advice on infant care habits ove...

Background: The incidence of Sudden Unexpected Death in Infancy (SUDI) is low in the Netherlands, with an incidence rate of 0.18 per 1,000 live births. Therefore, prevention advice may receive less attention, potentially leading to increasing incidence rates. It is currently unknown whether the risks for SUDI changed in the Netherlands, and if othe...

The Eetscore FFQ was developed to score the Dutch Healthy Diet index 2015 (DHD2015-index) representing the Dutch food-based dietary guidelines of 2015. This paper describes the development of the Eetscore FFQ, a short screener assessing diet quality, examines associations between diet quality and participants’ characteristics, and evaluates the rel...

Food-based recommendations (FBR) developed using linear programming generally use dietary intake and energy and nutrient requirement data. It is still unknown to what extent the availability and selection of these data affect the developed FBR and identified problem nutrients. We used 24 h dietary recalls of 62 Kenyan children (4–6 years of age) to...

We examined the trends-over-time and the factors associated with malnutrition among adolescent girls in Ghana. Design: Cross-sectional analysis from 3 nationwide Ghana Demographic and Health Surveys conducted in 2003 (n=983), 2008 (n=955) and 2014 (n=857). We used Cox proportional hazard models with sample weighting to model the prevalence ratio (...

Objective The aim of this paper was to explore midwives’ perceptions of current and preferred nutrition communication practices in antenatal care, and to identify what is needed to achieve their preferred practices. Design A qualitative descriptive design was used. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with twenty Dutch midwives working in pri...

Background Observed associations of high-protein diets with changes in insulin resistance are inconclusive. Objectives We aimed to assess associations of changes in both reported and estimated protein (PRep; PEst) and energy intake (EIRep; EIEst) with changes in HOMA-IR, glycated hemoglobin (HbA1c), and BMI (in kg/m2), in 1822 decreasing to 833 ad...

Background/objectives: Childhood obesity can have important psychological impacts. The objective of this study was to evaluate the Health Related Quality of Life (HRQoL) of children and adolescents with overweight and obesity. The participants were referred to an outpatient hospital-based obesity treatment. Additionally, we investigated the differ...

Overweight, obesity and cardiometabolic diseases are major global health concerns. Lifestyle factors, including diet, have been acknowledged to play a key role in the solution of these health risks. However, as shown by numerous studies, and in clinical practice, it is extremely challenging to quantify dietary behaviors as well as influencing them...

Prenatal nutrition is a key predictor of early-life development. However, despite mass campaigns to stimulate healthy nutrition during pregnancy, the diet of Dutch pregnant women is often suboptimal. Innovative technologies offer an opportunity to develop tailored tools, which resulted in the release of various apps on healthy nutrition during preg...

Studies examining associations between self-reported dairy intake and health are inconclusive, but biomarkers hold promise for elucidating such relationships by offering objective measures of dietary intake. Previous human intervention studies identified several biomarkers for dairy foods in blood and urine using non-targeted metabolomics. We evalu...

Objectives To examine prospective associations between intakes of sugar-sweetened beverages (SSB), fruit juice, and low-calorie beverages (LCB), and all-cause mortality among Dutch adults participating in the Lifelines Cohort Study. Methods A total of 118,439 participants aged 45 ± 13 years (60% women) were included in a prospective cohort analysi...

Objective: Stress, sleep, eating behavior, and physical activity are associated with weight change and insulin resistance (IR). The aim of this analysis was the assessment of the overall and sex-specific associations of psychobehavioral variables throughout the 3-year PREVIEW intervention using the homeostatic model assessment of IR (HOMA-IR), BMI...

Background and aim Chronic inflammation is a primary risk factor for chronic metabolic disease and may be triggered by a “leaky gut.” Several biomarkers have been recognized to indicate intestinal permeability (i.e., leaky gut) and bacterial translocation. Nonetheless, which of these biomarkers exhibit the highest correlation with metabolic health...

Background: It is well-established that the etiology of type 2 diabetes differs between individuals. Insulin resistance (IR) may develop in different tissues, but the severity of IR may differ in key metabolic organs such as the liver and skeletal muscle. Recent evidence suggests that these distinct tissue-specific IR phenotypes may also respond di...

Background: Recently, adolescence has been identified as a second window of opportunity for the correction of nutritional inadequacies. However, there is a lack of knowledge on evidence-based integrated nutrition strategies for adolescents in Indonesia. Objective: To provide a research agenda and the prioritization of research actions to tackle...

Objective Food frequency questionnaires (FFQs) assess habitual dietary intake and are relatively inexpensive to process, but may take up to 60 minutes to complete. This article describes the validation of the Flower-FFQ, which consists of four short FFQs measuring the intake of energy and macronutrients or specific (micro)nutrients/foods that can b...

Background Inaccurate self‐report of portion sizes is a major cause of measurement error in dietary assessment. To reduce this error, different portion size estimation aids (PSEAs) have been developed, including food images (image based, IB‐PSE) and textual descriptions of portion sizes (text‐based, TB‐PSE). We assessed the accuracy of portion size...

To collect dietary intake data in a fast and reliable manner, a flexible and innovative smartphone application (app) called Traqq was developed (iOS/Android). This app can be used as a food record and 24-h recall (or shorter recall periods). Different sampling schemes can be created on either prespecified or random days/times within a predetermined...

Objective An understanding of the etiologic heterogeneity of colorectal cancer (CRC) is critical for improving precision prevention, including individualized screening recommendations and the discovery of novel drug targets and repurposable drug candidates for chemoprevention. Known differences in molecular characteristics and environmental risk fa...

Objective We hypothesize that exposure to aflatoxins and fumonisins, measured in serum, alters protein synthesis, reducing serum protein and insulin-like growth factor 1 (IGF-1), increasing inflammation and infection, leading to child linear growth failure. Design Children 6-35 months, stratified by baseline stunting, were subsampled from an inter...

We investigated the association of the number of eating occasions and energy intake with alertness and gastrointestinal (GI) complaints in nurses during their night shift. During this observational study we collected data on anthropometrics and demographics, eating frequency, energy intake, alertness and GI complaints in 118 healthy female nurses,...

Background Maintenance of high physical performance during aging might be supported by an adequate dietary intake of niacin, vitamins B-6 and B-12, and folate because these B vitamins are involved in multiple processes related to muscle functioning. However, not much is known about the association between dietary intake of these B vitamins and phys...

Background: Diet is associated with onset of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD). Up to half of IBD patients believe that diet contributes to flares. However, studies on this topic are sparse and merely focus on specific nutrients, food items or food groups. We aimed to analyze the association between dietary patterns and flare occurrence in two geog...

Investing in adolescent girls’ nutrition is vital for health and breaking intergenerational cycle of malnutrition and deprivation, but limited knowledge on the type, timing and efficacy of interventions delays progress. We describe the design of a 26-weeks randomised placebo-controlled trial with multiple-micronutrient fortified biscuits (MMB) amon...

Background: Vitamin A deficiency is a public health problem in sub-Saharan Africa. Pro-vitamin A biofortified (yellow) cassava has the potential to contribute significantly to improve vitamin A status, especially in populations that are difficult to reach with other strategies. Objectives: The study aimed at determining the efficacy of biofor-tifie...

Background There is an ongoing debate on whether fructose plays a role in the development of nonalcoholic fatty liver disease. Objectives The aim of this study was to investigate the effects of fructose restriction on intrahepatic lipid (IHL) content in a double-blind randomized controlled trial using an isocaloric comparator. Methods Between Mar...

Background: Vitamin A deficiency is a public health problem in sub-Saharan Africa. Pro-vitamin A biofortified (yellow) cassava has the potential to contribute significantly to improve vitamin A status, especially in populations that are difficult to reach with other strategies. Objectives: The study aimed at determining the efficacy of biofor-tifie...

This systematic review synthesized the qualitative evidence on factors influencing obesogenic behaviours in adolescent girls and women of reproductive age in low-and middle-income countries (LMICs). This qualitative evidence synthesis followed the framework synthesis approach to extract, analyse and synthesize data. Electronic searches were conduct...

Abstract Background Humans have a long history of consuming fermented foods. However, their prevalence in human diets remains largely undetermined, and there is a lack of validated dietary assessment tools assessing the intake of different fermented products. This study aimed to identify fermented foods consumed in The Netherlands and determine the...

While an adequate protein intake is important for the maintenance of muscle mass during ageing, the amount and source of protein necessary for optimal prevention of sarcopenia remains to be determined. The present study aimed to investigate the influence of the amount and source of dietary proteins on sarcopenia risk in a cohort of 65-79-year-old E...

Dietary fat subtypes may play an important role in the regulation of muscle mass and function during ageing. The aim of the present study was to determine the impact of isocaloric macronutrient substitutions, including different fat subtypes, on sarcopenia risk in older men and women, while accounting for physical activity (PA) and metabolic risk....