Ibrahim Elmadfa

• University of Vienna

Background: Food insecurity significantly impacts children’s health, affecting their development across cognitive, physical, and socio-emotional dimensions. This study explores the impact of food insecurity among children aged 6 months to 5 years, focusing on nutrient intake and its relationship with various forms of malnutrition. Methods: Utilizin...

Food insecurity is a public health concern that affects children worldwide, yet it represents a particular burden for low- and middle-income countries. This study aims to utilize machine learning to identify the associations between food insecurity and nutrient intake among children aged 5 to 18 years. The study’s sample encompassed 1040 participan...

Das Must-have für alle Studierenden der Ernährungswissenschaften - das erste deutschsprachige Lehrbuch jetzt neu in der 7. Auflage! Das Standardwerk zur Ernährung des Menschen stellt neben den physiologischen Grundlagen alle Nährstoffe im Einzelnen vor. Die Ernährung bestimmter Bevölkerungsgruppen, ernährungsassoziierte Erkrankungen, verschiedene E...

Evidence on what people eat globally is limited in scope and rigour, especially as it relates to children and adolescents. This impairs target setting and investment in evidence-based actions to support healthy sustainable diets. Here we quantified global, regional and national dietary patterns among children and adults, by age group, sex, educatio...

The levels of physical activity (PA) is an important for the health of children and environmental factors play a vital role in shaping children's attitudes, behavior and physical-mental development. Hence the identification of the environmental factors that may contribute to children`s health is important. The relevant literature between 2015-2020...

Background The present study aimed to determine the association of household food insecurity with dietary intakes and nutrition-related knowledge, attitudes, and practices (KAP) among school-aged children. Methods This cross-sectional study was conducted among a representative sample of school-aged children. A total of 380 children and their paren...

The purpose of this study was to examine the association between household food insecurity and dietary intake and nutrition-related knowledge, attitudes, and practices (KAP) among parents aged ≥ 18 years in the Gaza Strip, Palestine. The current cross-sectional study was carried out in 2021 among adults (mothers and fathers) aged ≥ 18 years. A tota...

Background: This sudy aimed to identify the prevalence of household's food insecurity and its association with demographic and socioeconomic factors. Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted in September 2021 among a representative sample of households in the Gaza strip governorates. A total of 1167 households randomly selected from all fi...

The present study aimed to determine the households' food insecurity and their association with dietary intakes, nutrition-related knowledge, attitudes and practices (KAP) among under-five children in the Gaza Strip, Palestine. This cross-sectional study was conducted in 2021 among a representative sample of under-five children. A total of 350 chil...

Previous studies have shown that the health burden associated with vitamin D deficiency is increasing globally. Vitamin D supplementation appears to be a feasible strategy for improving vitamin D status within populations. Little information is available on the perception and barriers to the widespread application of vitamin D supplements in Iran....

Background: Deficiency of vitamin D, an anti-inflammatory micronutrient with some favorable effects on lipid profiles, has been found to be highly prevalent in adolescents. We aimed to investigate the effect of a school-based vitamin D supplementation regimen on the correction of vitamin D deficiency as well as lipid and inflammatory profiles of h...

Background: The association between vitamin D status and inflammatory biomarkers and lipid profile is not well known, especially in adolescents. Therefore, the aim of the current study is to investigate the association of vitamin D status with serum lipids and inflammatory biomarkers, including IL-10, IL-6, hsCRP, and TNFR-2, in male adolescents....

The provision of simplified nutrition information, in a prominent place on the front of food packages, is recommended as an important element of comprehensive strategies to tackle the burden of death and disease caused by unhealthy diets. There is growing evidence that front-of-pack nutrition labels are preferred by consumers, are more likely to be...

Aging has profound effects on body functions and health influencing the nutritional needs and choice of food of older persons. Most notable are the changes in body composition leading to a decrease in lean body and particularly muscle mass and a decline in organ tissue and bone mineral density while body fat content is increasing. The associated lo...

Today’s nutrition policy is confronted with an unprecedented complexity of global nutrition problems. Hunger and malnutrition coexist with overnutrition and unhealthy dietary patterns with their wide-ranging health implications. Obesity and noncommunicable diseases like those of the cardiovascular system, diabetes mellitus and hypertension have rea...

Background Potassium status has been found to affect glucose homeostasis. Objective This study therefore aimed at investigating relationships between potassium status or dietary intake and fasting plasma glucose (FPG) or glycated haemoglobin (HbA1c) in a sample of Austrian adults (18-80 years, n = 421, 61% women) from the Austrian Study on Nutriti...

Objective This narrative review gives an overview on the essential role of adequate nutrition to an optimally functioning immune defence. Micronutrients act as regulators of the immune response, with the focus of this review on the immunomodulatory effects of the trace elements iron, zinc and selenium, and the vitamins A, D, E, C, B6 and B12 and fo...

Die kompakte Einführung in die moderne Humanernährung jetzt in vollständig überarbeiteter und aktualisierter Auflage! Im bewahrten Frage-Antwort-Konzept werden die Grundlagen der Körperanthropometrie, der Verdauung und Absorption von Makro- und Mikronährstoffen zusammengefasst. Das Buch vermittelt einen idealen Einstieg in die aktuellen und speziel...

Background: Following a timely update process, the nutrition societies of Germany, Austria, and Switzerland (D-A-CH) revised the reference values for the intake of protein in 2017. The Working Group conducted a structured literature search in PubMed considering newly published papers (2000- 2017). Summary: For infants < 4 months, the estimated v...

Das Must-have für alle Studierenden der Ernährungswissenschaften - das erste deutschsprachige Lehrbuch jetzt neu in der 6. Auflage! Das Standardwerk zur Ernährung des Menschen stellt neben den physiologischen Grundlagen alle Nährstoffe im Einzelnen vor. Die Ernährung bestimmter Bevölkerungsgruppen, ernährungsassoziierte Erkrankungen, verschiedene E...

Vitamin D deficiency can lead to musculoskeletal diseases such as rickets and osteomalacia, but vitamin D supplementation may also prevent extraskeletal diseases such as respiratory tract infections, asthma exacerbations, pregnancy complications and premature deaths. Vitamin D has a unique metabolism as it is mainly obtained through synthesis in th...

Background Iron deficiency is one of the most common causes of anemia in geriatric patients. Although the oral iron intake is often inadequate, the potential of iron dense foods in the daily meals of geriatric institutions is rarely considered. To test during a 1- year span whether an improved frequency of iron dense foods in the daily meals has an...

Zinc has been identifi ed as a critical micronutrient also in high-income countries. There is still some uncertainty about the evaluation of zinc suffi ciency due to divergent daily intake reference values. We wanted to exemplify this issue using data from the Austrian Study on Nutritional Status 2012. Plasma zinc concentrations were measured in a...

Considering the widespread insufficiency of vitamin D and its role in the regulation of various metabolic functions and the prevention of several health impairments, we evaluated vitamin D status and dietary intake in a nationally representative sample of 980 Austrians (6-80 years, women: 54.8%) and its associations with metabolic health using data...

Age-related physiological changes also affect nutritional status. Fruits and vegetables play an important role in the diet of the elderly being rich in many micronutrients often critical in older persons. Due to their low-energy content, they reveal a high-nutrient density, making them a good choice considering the age-related decrease of energy ne...

Background/objectives: To compare macronutrient intakes out of home-by location-to those at home and to investigate differences in total daily intakes between individuals consuming more than half of their daily energy out of home and those eating only at home. Subjects/methods: Data collected through 24-h recalls or diaries among 23 766 European...

To investigate how the energy intake of institutionalized long-term-care patients through the regular nontherapeutic meals provision is associated with the nutritional status and the Geriatric Nutritional Risk Index (GNRI). A 9 month longitudinal, observational study. Long-term-care Hospital. 66 long-term-care patients with multiple medical conditi...

Adequate protein intake is critical for health and development. Generally, protein of animal origin is of higher quality for humans owing to its amino acid pattern and good digestibility. When administered in mixtures it can enhance the quality of plant proteins, but it is often scarce in low-income communities, especially in young children, the el...

Sensory properties of food drive our food choices and it is generally accepted that lipids greatly contribute to the sensory properties of many foods and consequently to eating pleasure. Many studies have investigated the mechanisms of the fat perception. Unfortunately they used a variety of methods and products, thereby making generalisation very...

Frying of Food is the first reference to examine frying of food from the point of view of changes occurring to biologically-active constituents and the effects of such changes on the stability, performance and nutritive value of frying oil. It focuses on the nature of the frying media and discusses changes to non-glyceride components, especially nu...

Background Saturated fat (SFA), ω‐6 (n‐6) polyunsaturated fat (PUFA), and trans fat (TFA) influence risk of coronary heart disease (CHD), but attributable CHD mortalities by country, age, sex, and time are unclear. Methods and Results National intakes of SFA, n‐6 PUFA, and TFA were estimated using a Bayesian hierarchical model based on country‐spe...

Table S1. Coronary Heart Disease Mortality Attributable to Saturated Fat, ω‐6 Polyunsaturated Fat, and Trans Fat in 2010 by Country, Age, and Sex Table S2. Coronary Heart Disease Mortality Attributable to Saturated Fat, ω‐6 Polyunsaturated Fat, and Trans Fat in 1990 by Country, Age, and Sex

Potassium is an essential mineral which plays major roles for the resting membrane potential and the intracellular osmolarity. In addition, for several years, it has been known that potassium also affects endothelial and vascular smooth muscle functions and it has been repeatedly shown that an increase in potassium intake shifts blood pressure to a...

On April 7-8, 2014, the European Hydration Institute hosted a small group of experts at Castle Combe Manor House, United Kingdom, to discuss a range of issues related to human hydration, health, and performance. The meeting included 18 recognized experts who brought a wealth of experience and knowledge to the topics under review. Eight selected top...

Appropriate hydration is essential for health and well-being. In Europe, water consumption patterns vary despite the unlimited availability of this resource. Water constitutes the largest proportion of total fluid intake in most countries. According to the 2008 European Food Safety Authority's Concise Food Consumption Database, tap water consumptio...

Abstract BACKGROUND: Sugar-sweetened beverages (SSBs), fruit juice, and milk are components of diet of major public health interest. To-date, assessment of their global distributions and health impacts has been limited by insufficient comparable and reliable data by country, age, and sex. OBJECTIVE: To quantify global, regional, and national leve...

Abstract OBJECTIVE: To quantify global intakes of key foods related to non-communicable diseases in adults by region (n=21), country (n=187), age and sex, in 1990 and 2010. DESIGN: We searched and obtained individual-level intake data in 16 age/sex groups worldwide from 266 surveys across 113 countries. We combined these data with food balance sh...

Eating out has been linked to the current obesity epidemic, but the evaluation of the extent to which out of home (OH) dietary intakes are different from those at home (AH) is limited. Data collected among 8849 men and 14 277 women aged 35-64 years from the general population of eleven European countries through 24-h dietary recalls or food diaries...

Reliable information about the nutritional status is essential to identify potential critical nutrients and the population groups at risk of deficiency, as well as to develop effective public health policies to counteract unfavorable nutrition patterns that contribute to morbidity and mortality. In this review, the important role of biomarkers in t...

Abstract OBJECTIVES: To quantify global consumption of key dietary fats and oils by country, age, and sex in 1990 and 2010. DESIGN: Data were identified, obtained, and assessed among adults in 16 age- and sex-specific groups from dietary surveys worldwide on saturated, omega 6, seafood omega 3, plant omega 3, and trans fats, and dietary cholester...

Abstract OBJECTIVES: To quantify global consumption of key dietary fats and oils by country, age, and sex in 1990 and 2010. DESIGN: Data were identified, obtained, and assessed among adults in 16 age- and sex-specific groups from dietary surveys worldwide on saturated, omega 6, seafood omega 3, plant omega 3, and trans fats, and dietary cholester...

Abstract OBJECTIVES: To quantify global consumption of key dietary fats and oils by country, age, and sex in 1990 and 2010. DESIGN: Data were identified, obtained, and assessed among adults in 16 age- and sex-specific groups from dietary surveys worldwide on saturated, omega 6, seafood omega 3, plant omega 3, and trans fats, and dietary cholester...

The D-A-CH reference value (D-A-CH arises from the initial letters of the common country identification for the countries Germany (D), Austria (A) and Switzerland (CH)) for folate equivalents had been set at 400 μg/d for adults in the year 2000. By that time, the prevention of cardiovascular diseases through reduction of homocysteine was considered...

Abstract This community-based study was conducted to evaluate the effects of iron-fortified bread consumption on certain biomarkers of oxidative stress in an apparently healthy population. Evaluation of food intake, anthropometric and laboratory variables was performed in the beginning and after the 8-month intervention for all participants. There...

Abstract BACKGROUND: High sodium intake increases blood pressure, a risk factor for cardiovascular disease, but the effects of sodium intake on global cardiovascular mortality are uncertain. METHODS: We collected data from surveys on sodium intake as determined by urinary excretion and diet in persons from 66 countries (accounting for 74.1% of ad...

OBJECTIVES: To estimate global, regional (21 regions) and national (187 countries) sodium intakes in adults in 1990 and 2010. DESIGN: Bayesian hierarchical modelling using all identifiable primary sources. DATA SOURCES AND ELIGIBILITY: We searched and obtained published and unpublished data from 142 surveys of 24 h urinary sodium and 103 of diet...

This study was carried out to investigate the effect of vitamins E and C on cognitive performance among the elderly in Iran. About 256 elderly with mild cognitive impairment, aged 60-75 years, received 300 mg of vitamin E plus 400 mg of vitamin C or placebo daily just for 1 year. Demographic characteristics, anthropometric variables food consumptio...

Ten different nut kinds (almonds, Brazil nuts, cashews, hazelnuts, macadamias, peanuts, pecans, pine nuts, pistachios, and walnuts) were evaluated for their total oil and phytosterol content as well as their fatty acid composition. The total oil content was the predominant component; mean values oscillated between 45.2 % (cashews) and 74.7 % (macad...

Objective: The objective of this study was to find out, if the daily oral food consumption was sufficient to ensure a satisfactorily nutritional status evaluated through the phase angel of BIA and plasma concentration of total protein and albumin. Methods: Cross-sectional-study; for assessing oral food intake a three-day-weighing-protocol was done....

Salt reduction is important for reducing hypertension and the risk of cardiovascular events, nevertheless worldwide salt intakes are above recommendations. Consequently strategies to reduce intake are required, however these require an understanding of salt intake behaviours to be effective. As limited information is available on this, an internati...

This paper summarizes three presentations on the global and Latin American perspectives on the health significance of fat quality in the diet given at the 16th Congress of the Society of Latin American Nutrition in Havana, Cuba, November 11-16, 2012. Dietary fat quality contributes to the risk of the leading chronic diseases and is more important t...

Salt reduction is important for reducing hypertension and the risk of cardiovascular events, nevertheless worldwide salt intakes are above recommendations. Consequently strategies to reduce intake are required, however these require an understanding of salt intake behaviours to be effective. As limited information is available on this, an internati...

As shown in epidemiological studies, prevalence of overweight and obesity is a major public health issue in Austria. According to the "Austrian Study on Nutritional Status 2010/2012" about 27,6% of woman and 52,3% of men aged between 18 and 64 years are overweight or obese. Among school-aged children between seven and 14 years the prevalence of ove...

Objective: This study investigated the relationship of plasma antioxidants to airway inflammation and systemic oxidative stress in children suffering from atopic asthma with consideration of the intake of nutritional supplements. Subjects and research methods: A total of 35 asthmatic children (AG) and 21 healthy controls (CG) participated in thi...

As the global population grows there is a clear challenge to address the needs of consumers, without depleting natural resources and whilst helping to improve nutrition and hygiene to reduce the growth of noncommunicable diseases. For fast-moving consumer goods companies, like Unilever, this challenge provides a clear opportunity to reshape its bus...

Vitamins are essential nutrients for many body functions and particularly important during growth. Adequate supply in pregnancy and in early infancy is therefore crucial, but there is still a lack of knowledge about the needed amounts of vitamins of children older than six months and also during pregnancy. Recommendations for intake levels are gene...

A high-quality diet is one of the foundations of health and well-being. For a long time in human history, diet was chiefly a source of energy and macronutrients meant to still hunger and give the strength for work and activities that were in general much harder than nowadays. Only few persons could afford to emphasize enjoyment. In the assessment o...

The interactions between frying fat and fried foods are of great relevance for the nutritional quality of the final product. In particular, the amount of fat taken up can be positively influenced at the industrial but also at the household level by different pre- and post-frying conditions. The fat uptake during the frying process can also lead to...

The food safety security (FSS) concept is perceived as an early warning system for minimizing food safety (FS) breaches, and it functions in conjunction with existing FS measures. Essentially, the function of FS and FSS measures can be visualized in two parts: (i) the FS preventive measures as actions taken at the stem level, and (ii) the FSS inter...

In the second half of the 19(th) century the incidence of food adulterations increased very rapidly, prompting many European countries to put into force food laws to fight these practices. A number of parallel attempts were undertaken to establish a collection of instructions for the assessment of food samples to warrant the comparability of result...

Strain specific properties of probiotics in providing supportive health effects in the immune system and the gastrointestinal tract have been widely investigated in vivo and in vitro. However, the underlying responsible mechanism is poorly described. By unravelling the probiotic-induced responses in a complex network of interacting signalling pathw...

Despite the advantages of fortifying flour with iron, there are still special concerns regarding the possible adverse effects of the extra iron consumed by nonanemic individuals. This study aimed to investigate the oxidative stress and iron status following 8 and 16 months of consumption of iron-fortified flour in nonanemic men. In a before-and-aft...

This study aimed to evaluate the status of several vitamins and to investigate the effect of regular individual supplementation on their status in this population. An observational study. State of Burgenland, Austria. A total of 102 non-institutionalized subjects (49% supplementing regularly, 51% without supplementation) aged between 70-90 years we...

Probiotics' strain specific immunoregulatory properties in development of protective immune outcomes are believed to be induced by targeting and polarising dendritic cells (DCs) as the key determinants of the immune response. Therefore, we studied the effects of a heat-inactivated form of Lactobacillus rhamnosusGG (LGG) and Lactobacillus delbruecki...

Purpose: Allergic asthma is a chron-ic lung disease with a major inflam-matory component including reactive oxygen and nitrogen species in the background. The objective of this study was to investigate the relation-ship between the Th17–associated interleukins IL–6 and IL–10, and oxidative/nitrosative markers of stress in childhood atopic asthma. M...

Global burdens of cardiovascular disease (CVD), diabetes and cancer are on the rise. Little quantitative data are available on the global impact of diet on these conditions. The objective of this study was to develop systematic and comparable methods to quantitatively assess the impact of suboptimal dietary habits on CVD, diabetes and cancer burden...

Fette sind zum Unterschied zu Eiweiß und Kohlenhydraten in organischen Lösungsmitteln, wie Ether, Chloroform, Benzol, Petrolether u. a., löslich und können durch Extraktion mit diesen Lösungsmitteln isoliert werden. Entsprechend sind die Fette lebensmittelchemisch definiert: Fett (Rohfett) ist alles, was durch organische Lösungsmittel extrahierbar...

The objective of the study is to compare the fatty acid pattern in different blood components to find the simplest and most appropriate method for the rapid validation of the essential fatty acids in humans. Comparing the different blood components can lead to a specifying the preferred component for easy and rapid analysis of fatty acids while giv...

Homocysteine is a cardiovascular risk factor, its metabolism is influenced by certain B vitamins and it is associated with endothelial dysfunction probably due to impaired bioavailability of NO caused by homocysteine-induced accumulation of asymmetric dimethylarginine (ADMA), an endogenous inhibitor of NO synthase. On this basis, we investigated th...

Since oxidative stress might cause and promote cardiovascular risk factors such as oxidized low-density lipoproteins (oxLDL), apolipoprotein(a) [apo(a)], asymmetric dimethylarginine (ADMA) and fetuin A, we investigated antioxidant enzyme activities in relation to the vascular redox balance and these risk factors in elderly people. For this observat...

Flour fortification with folic acid is one of the main strategies for improving folate status in women of childbearing age. No interventional trial on the efficacy of folic acid fortification has been conducted so far in Iran. To study the effects of flour fortification with folic acid on any reduction in neural tube defects (NTDs) and folate statu...

An inadequate vitamin status is associated with higher morbidity and frailty in the elderly and might be due to medication. This study aimed to evaluate the status of several vitamins in relation to regular intake of medication in this population. A total of 102 non-institutionalized subjects aged 70-90 years were recruited. Plasma levels of vitami...

This study was conducted to evaluate the current use of biologically-based complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) therapies in diabetics, considering health awareness, motivation, and expectations for CAM use. Moreover, patients' attitudes toward cinnamon preparations and the need for appropriate information from health care professionals wer...

This study aimed to investigate the relationship between antioxidant enzyme activities, extent of airway inflammation, and systemic oxidative stress in children suffering from atopic asthma. A total of 35 asthmatic (AG) and 21 healthy children (CG) participated in this study. The volume of fractionated exhaled NO (Fe(no)) was measured with the NIOX...

The objective of this prospective randomized controlled study was to investigate the effect of nutritional supplementation on postoperative oxidative stress and duration of hospitalization in elderly patients with hip fracture. A total of fourteen women (= SG) with hip fracture received individually adapted supplements enriched with protein and ant...