Mark L Wahlqvist

Monash University (Australia) · Monash Asia Institute

To promote maternal and infant health, there is a need to optimise the dietary pattern of pregnant women to reduce perinatal depression. This prospective cohort study was conducted from June 2020 to February 2022, 300 women from a medical center were interviewed during late pregnancy and at 4-6 weeks postpartum. Dietary patterns were derived by fac...

Objective The human gut fungal community, known as the mycobiome, plays a fundamental role in the gut ecosystem and health. Here we aimed to investigate the determinants and long-term stability of gut mycobiome among middle-aged and elderly adults. We further explored the interplay between gut fungi and bacteria on metabolic health. Design The pre...

Background Muscle is crucial for blood glucose regulation. There is a need to prevent and treat sarcopenia in diabetes mellitus (DM). This study aimed to estimate the prevalence of sarcopenia and evaluate the association of nutritional counseling with the development of sarcopenia for DM outpatients. Methods In a cross-sectional and retrospective...

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Objective Short stature may reflect health in early life and be an enduring disability. How birth weight, gender, household, elementary schooling, and diet play a role in associations between stature and overall school competence (OSC) have been assessed. Design The 2001-2002 Nutrition and Health Survey in Taiwan for elementary school children (n...

Child undernutrition is a major health problem in Malawi. We assessed the association between maternal autonomy and child stunting in Malawi. We utilized nationally representative pooled cross-sectional data from the 2010 and 2015/16 Malawi Demographic and Health Surveys (MDHS), which included 7348 mother (28.1 ± 6.8 years, range 15–49 years)—child...

Along with sanitation and hygiene, water is a well-known driver of child undernutrition. However, a more direct role of household (HH) water access in shaping dietary diversity remains unexplored. We assessed the association between HH water access and achievement of minimum dietary diversity (MDD) among young children. We utilized nationally-repre...

Pandemics have shaped humanity over and over again, but the coronavirus outbreak of 2019-2020 is in a world at the tipping point of catastrophic climate change. Its origins and distinction derive from over-population with inequity and an industrial revolution since the 17th century which has exploited fossil fuels as a globalised energy source, a p...

Whether and how it might be possible to imagine a habitable planet through food and health. Reflection on childhood happenstances, sociodemographic circumstances, educational opportunities, persons of influence and lifetime experiences insofar as they might have shaped a view of the past, present and future world as the sole rational home of us all...

Anemia affects people worldwide and results in increased morbidity and mortality, particularly in children and reproductive-age women. Anemia is caused by an imbalance between red blood cell (RBC) loss and production (erythropoiesis), which can be caused by not only nutritional factors but also non-nutritional factors, such as inflammation and gene...

Anemia in Indonesia has been of concerning persistence in all age groups for some 75 years since independence. The relationships between anemia and nutrition are complex being evident with compromised general health and nutrition. Increased micronutrient intakes, especially iron and folic acid, has alleviated the problem, but encouraged nutrient-sp...

Despite a growing body of evidence that nutrition plays a key role in the pathophysiology, prevention and intervention programs of frailty and sarcopenia, as well as in promoting brain health, the awareness and the need to study the relationship between nutrition and functional goals of healthy ageing have not received as much attention or support...

Background and objectives: The extent to which health and survival inequality between indigenous and nonindigenous older Taiwanese is associated with diet is uncertain. Methods and study design: Participants from the Elderly Nutrition and Health Survey in Taiwan (1999-2000) formed this cohort. Dietary information was collected by 24-hr recall an...

Objective To compare two Nutrition and Health Surveys in Taiwan (NAHSITs) 15–18 years apart to evaluate secular changes in ultra-processed food (UPF) consumption and expenditure among Taiwanese adolescents aged 16–18 years and the influences of such changes on dietary quality. Design This cross-sectional study was based on two representative surve...

Secular trend towards ultra-processed food consumption and expenditure compromises dietary quality among Taiwanese adolescents

Nutritional factors contributing to disability and mortality are modifiable in later life. Indices would add utility. We developed a gender-specific Healthy Ageing Nutrition Index (HANI) for all-cause mortality in free-living elderly. We stratified 1898 participants aged ≥65 y from the 1999-2000 Nutrition and Health Survey in Taiwan by region and r...

Background: Child school performance during puberty may be at increased risk through emotional disturbance. It is hypothesized that this may be mitigated by dietary quality. Methods: In a nationally representative sample (Nutrition and Health Survey in Taiwan, NAHSIT), 1371 Taiwanese aged 11-16 years, overall competence at school, (OCS) and emot...

Background: The effect of cardio-metabolic profile on the relationship of body mass index (BMI) with mortality is unclear. The aim of this study was to explore association between BMI and mortality at all ages, taking account of cardio-metabolic disorders. Methods: We followed 377,929 individuals (≥ 20 years), who registered for health checkups...

Objectives Social activities such as ‘eating-with-others’ can positively affect the ageing process. We investigated the gender-specific association between eating arrangements and risk of all-cause mortality among free-living older adults. Setting A representative sample from the Elderly Nutrition and Health Survey in Taiwan during 1999–2000. Par...

Despite progress with the food-associated health agenda in the public health and clinical domains, much remains to be done in Indonesia. There are reasons to be optimistic which include economic development, increasing literacy, progress towards universal health coverage and community organizational arrangements across the archipelago which focus o...

Background Age-related loss of skeletal muscle mass (SMM) and function (sarcopenia) are associated with poor health outcomes and an economic burden on health care services. An appropriate diet and physical activity have been proposed for prevention and treatment of sarcopenia. Nevertheless, the effects on medical service utilization and costs remai...

Food systems have changed markedly with human settlement and agriculture, industrialisation, trade, migration and now the digital age. Throughout these transitions, there has been a progressive population explosion and net ecosystem loss and degradation. Climate change now gathers pace, exacerbated by ecological dysfunction. Our health status has b...

Indonesia, as a major population in the Asia Pacific region, threatened with food and health insecurity through climate change and rapid economic development, faces the challenge to build capacity among its science-based food and health professionals and institutions. The nutrition research agenda is now being more actively set with-in the region,...

Objectives: To examine whether chewing ability affects healthcare use and expenditure and whether improving dietary quality alleviates any such effects. Design: Prospective cohort. Setting: The Elderly Nutrition and Health Survey in Taiwan (1999-2000), a nationwide community-based survey of people aged 65 and older. Participants: Individuals...

A higher intake of fruits and vegetables (F&V) compared with animal-derived foods is associated with lower risks of all-cause-, cancer- and CVD-related mortalities. However, the association between consumption patterns and medical costs remains unclear. The effects of various food group costs on medical service utilisation and costs were investigat...

Working memory (WM) is impaired in pre-diabetes. We hypothesized that culinary herbs and spices may decrease insulin resistance (IR) and improve WM in pre-diabetes. Healthy people aged ≥60 years with pre-diabetes (fasting blood glucose 100-125 mg/dL) (47 men and 46 women), whose food and culinary herb intakes were established with a food frequency...

The inseparability of people from their ecosystem without biological change is increasingly clear. The discrete species concept is becoming more an approximation as the interconnectedness of all things, animate and inanimate, becomes more apparent. Yet this was evident even to our earliest Homo Sapiens sapiens ancestors as they hunted and gathered...

The clinical nutrition case study is a neglected area of activity and publication. This may be in part because it is not regarded as a serious contributor to evidence-based nutrition (EBN). Yet it can play a valuable part in hypothesis formulation and in the cross-checking of evidence. Most of all, it is usually a point at which the operationalisat...

Coronary artery calcification is a recognised risk factor for ischaemic heart disease and mortality. Evidence is now strong that Mönckeberg's arteriosclerosis, a form of vascular calcification, can be attributable to vitamin K deficiency, but that vitamin K-2, especially the MK-4 form from foods like cheese can be protective. Warfarin blocks the re...

Aims: Serum ferritin has been found closely related with diabetes and glucose metabolism, but its impact on diabetic nephropathy remains unknown. This study aimed to explore the association between serum ferritin and microalbuminuria in Type 2 diabetes. Methods: Eight hundred and fifty-one subjects with Type 2 diabetes were selected from a cohor...

Human ecology requires both oxygen and water with the generation from food of an immediate energy source, ATP, by oxidative phosphorylation. A continuing balance between oxidation and antioxidation is necessary for longer less-disabled lives, taking account of oxidative stresses and the critical roles of oxidants in defence against infection, tissu...

Background Microarray technology can acquire information about thousands of genes simultaneously. We analyzed published breast cancer microarray databases to predict five-year recurrence and compared the performance of three data mining algorithms of artificial neural networks (ANN), decision trees (DT) and logistic regression (LR) and two composit...

The functions of vitamin D are pleiotropic affecting all body organs and systems in some way. Its adequacy depends principally on sunshine for UV light to stimulate its synthesis in skin and on foods which contain it, either animal-derived or obtained from fungi or mushrooms, with the UV-responsive substrates dehydrocholesterol for vitamin D-3 or e...

Sound clinical nutrition practice is grounded in evidence and stimulated by research. Yet, there are unanswered questions about food-health relationships. Clinical nutrition involves the identification of nutritional disorders and the motivation to rectify them with all required care. Vitamin D health exemplifies the biomedical, societal and enviro...

Objectives: To examine the significance of underweight and physical function as well as their interaction on mortality in the aged. Design: Prospective cohort. Setting: The Elderly Nutrition and Health Survey in Taiwan during 1999-2000. Participants: Total of 1435 representative free-living elders (739 men and 696 women). Measurements: Bod...

Background: The geographical location and medical facility may affect the pattern of antihypertensive prescriptions. Information regarding the correlation between the prescription and health care faculties in different geographical locations was lacking. Objective: The aim of this study was to compare differences in the prescribing of antihypert...

IntroductionGrowth and developmentNutritional factors affecting growthNutrition and the life cycleEffects of undernutritionEffects of overnutritionGrowth during childhood and adolescenceAgeingGuidelines for healthy ageingPerspectives on the futureReferencesFurther reading

OBJECTIVE: High consumption of omega-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFAs) has been associated with lower plasma homocystine (Hcy) levels, but intervention studies in humans have been inconclusive. The objective was to systematically evaluate the effects of omega-3 PUFA supplementation on plasma Hcy levels. METHODS: A comprehensive search of Medlin...

The relationship between n-3 PUFA and metabolic syndrome (MS) is not clear. The aim of this study was to examine relationships between plasma phospholipids (PL) n-3 PUFA and MS in Chinese subjects. Nine hundred and twenty-nine subjects were recruited in Hangzhou, China. Two hundred and ten (183 males, 27 females) with MS and 719 (545 males, 174 fem...

In this article, I argue that Connected Community and Household Food-Based Strategy (CCH-FBS) could contribute to the resolution of outstanding nutritionally-related health problems. The 1995 Food-Based Dietary Guidelines (FBDGs) have been customized in regions and nations, encouraging integrated food systems and culturally-sensitive food-health re...

Abstract A nephelometric technique has been used to measure concentrations of exogenous triglyceride in arterial and coronary sinus blood. The technique has been validated in a comparison of estimated arterial-coronary sinus differences with those obtained by the chemical determination of total plasma triglyceride. Statistically significant disappe...

Increased tissue n-3 polyunsaturated fatty acid (PUFA) is associated with improved insulin sensitivity in type 2 diabetes. However, this relationship among Chinese is not clear. To investigate the relationship between plasma phospholipids (PL) fatty acid composition and insulin resistance (IR) in type 2 diabetes mellitus, 186 type 2 diabetes and 18...

Food choice affects healthy ageing and ageing affects food choice. The antecedents of food choice may be remote and even intergenerational. Culture and ethnicity are enduring influences on food choice whether from within one's group or through the pressures of conformity to a majority in a minority culture. This is particularly relevant to indigeno...

Peripheral vascular disease as a mode of presentation of pseudoxanthoma elasticum. M. L. Wahlqvist, R. M. Fox, A. M. Beech and I. Favilla, Aust. N.Z. J. Med, 1977′, 7, pp. 523–525. Two men presenting with premature peripheral vascular disease and minimal risk for atherosclerosis were found to have pseudoxanthoma elasticum (PXE). Fluorescein angiogr...

We have recently reported on the myriad health benefits of traditional East African foods and food habits. However, this region continues to experience a nutrition transition whereby traditional, well-tried foods have been systematically replaced with the products of multinational corporations. The health-related impact has been devastating, as evi...

Frequent consumption of fruits and vegetables is associated with a lowered risk of cancer, heart disease, hypertension and stroke. This has been attributed to the presence of various forms of phytochemicals and antioxidants present in the foods, e.g. carotenoids and polyphenol compounds including flavonoids and anthocyanins. Seventy Fiji grown frui...

Amongst the difficulties facing the indigenous people of Africa today is the deleterious shift from traditional food habits to the processed and packaged food products of western-owned corporations. This nutrition transition has been implicated in the rise of non-communicable diseases (NCDs) throughout Africa. The purpose of the present investigati...

Coleus amboinicus Lour (CA) has been used as a breast milk stimulant (a lactagogue) by Bataknese people in Indonesia for hundreds of years. However, the traditional use of CA is not well documented, and scientific evidence is limited to establish CA as a lactagogue. This investigation was conducted to elucidate the effect of traditional use of CA d...

The dietary intakes of major phytochemicals in Fijian population were estimated from the consumption of 90 plant foods reported in five major surveys conducted in Fiji from 1952 to 2001. These surveys included the Naduri Longitudinal study, for which food intake data were collected on four occasions in 1952, 1953, 1963 and 1994), the 1982 and 1993...

(Outcome of the New Nutrition Science Giessen workshop). Now is the time for the science of nutrition, with its application in food and nutrition policy, to be given a broader definition, additional dimensions and relevant principles, to meet the challenges and opportunities faced by humankind in the twenty-first century. As originally conceived an...

The authors of the papers in this New Nutrition Science special issue of PHN give reasons for their commitment to a broad view of nutrition and food and nutrition policy

Objective: To specify the principles, definition and dimensions of the new nutrition science. Purpose: To identify nutrition, with its application in food and nutrition policy, as a science with great width and breadth of vision and scope, in order that it can fully contribute to the preservation, maintenance, development and sustenance of life on...

(This statement by all the participants in the Giessen workshop precedes the longer commentary with a similar title also available here on ResearchGate). To specify the principles, definition and dimensions of the new nutrition science. To identify nutrition, with its application in food and nutrition policy, as a science with great width and bread...

We established a Web-based programme called the 'Wellness Online Program' or WOLP. The programme runs for six weeks. It aims to help individuals manage their own wellness regardless of geographical location. WOLP is based on a holistic approach to health and consists of six wellness dimensions: physical (exercise and diet), emotional, social, intel...

Increasing efforts are being made to address, in public health policy (PHP), both the persistence of nutritional deprivation in economically disadvantaged communities, and the increase in so-called "chronic disease" (abdominal obesity, diabetes, cardiovascular disease, certain cancers, osteoporosis, arthritides, and inflammatory disease) in communi...

The combination of immunodeficiency, inflammatory process and nutritional status that is characteristic of infective and food-borne illness is more evident in chronic diet- and environment-influenced chronic diseases such as diabetes, obesity, cardiovascular disease, cancer, arthritis and neuro-degeneration diseases. These chronic diseases tend to...

Several nutrition and non-nutritional pathways are recognised in the development and occurrence of cardiovascular disease. In many populations, high intakes of saturated fat are associated with elevated serum cholesterol concentrations and increased coronary heart disease (CHD) mortality. However, several studies report that hyperlipidaemia and hea...

Until recently, the criteria for healthy nutrition were couched principally in terms of a combination of some form of Recommended Dietary Intakes (RDIs) for energy (calories/kilojoules) and for nutrients recognized as essential, along with Dietary Guidelines (since the late 1970s in various countries). In Cyprus, in 1995, WHO and FAO advocated FBDG...

Unlabelled: This study aimed to analysis the relationship among body mass index (BMI) and waist circumference (WC) with chronic diseases risk factors--serum total cholesterol (TC), triglyceridaemia(TG), high density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL-C), fasting blood glucose (FBG), systolic blood pressure (SBP), diastolic blood pressure (DBP) and the p...

Aim: The purpose of this report is to survey the factors contributing to variation in lipoprotein(a) (Lp(a)) in a population-based sample of Anglo-Celtic Melburnians. Results: The plasma Lp(a) levels were highly skewed towards low levels in this population, with a median of 156 mg/l and a mean of 262 mg/l. Approximately 33% had plasma Lp(a) abov...

The oil palm (Elaeis guineensis) is native to many West African countries, where local populations have used its oil for culinary and other purposes. Large-scale plantations, established principally in tropical regions (Asia, Africa and Latin America), are mostly aimed at the production of oil, which is extracted from the fleshy mesocarp of the pal...

To be fit as we age could be described as "Age fitness". Increasing evidence points to opportunities for greater wellness, health maintenance and reduction of the burden of disease in later life for a growing proportion of the community than previously envisaged. The scope of "age fitness" is social, mental, physiological and physical. We know a gr...

Carbohydrates, from food, have a high degree of acceptability in the human diet as safe and are usually associated with other important nutrients, notably protein and various micronutrients (vitamins and minerals), but also biologically advantageous phytochemicals, although there is a wide spectrum of nutrient (or food component) densities between...

To assess longitudinal changes in the consumption of nutrients and the impact of socio-economic factors on diet transition in the Melbourne Chinese Health Study (MCHS) cohort. Longitudinal study including two phases: baseline (1989/90) and follow-up (1995/97). Melbourne metropolitan areas in Victoria, Australia. STUDY SUBJECTS AND METHOD: Two hundr...

A two-stage random telephone/mail survey was conducted during the last quarter of 1998 among Adelaide residents to determine consumers’ use of soy bread and other soy products and their health expectations of soy products. One in five (21%) of 1477 telephone subscribers usually consumed soy bread and related soy products. Comparisons of soy bread c...

Weight and height from infancy to age 15 years was studied in the Geelong population (n = 1200 in infancy; n = 213 at adolescence), Victoria, Australia. Body mass index (BMI) increased from 3 months to 12 months and then decreased again until 80 months after which it increased to 20.5 kg/m2 at the age of 15 years. The extent of tracking of BMI in i...

The Nutrient and Metabolic Study of Indonesian Elderly (NUMSIE) was conducted in part to identify differences in eating patterns and in food and energy intakes between elderly people residing in urban metropolitan Jakarta (JAK) and in urban non-metropolitan Semarang (SEM) in order to investigate the prevalence of food and energy deficiencies. Data...

Magnesium is a key component of the ATP cycle in the cell, which produces all energy. Serum magnesium concentrations vary in healthy individuals and are between 0.7 to 0.9 mmol (1.4-1.8 mEq)/L. Soft tissues, such as muscle, liver and heart, contain around 7 to 10 mmol (14-20 mEq)/kg wet weight. In the early 1930s, magnesium status emerged as a pote...

Diet has a strong relationship with food culture and changes in it are likely to be involved in the pathogenesis of newly emergent degenerative diseases. To obtain in-depth opinions about the food culture of Minangkabau people, focus group discussions were conducted in a Minangkabau region, represented by four villages in West Sumatra, Indonesia, f...

The aims of this study were to investigate (1) platelet phospholipid (PL) polyunsaturated fatty acid (PUFA) composition in subjects who were the Melbourne Chinese migrants, compared with those who were the Melbourne Caucasians and (2) the relationship between platelet PL PUFA and intake of fish, meat and PUFA. Cross-sectional comparison of the Melb...

To evaluate the hypocholesterolemic effect of an enteric-coated garlic supplement standardized for allicin-releasing potential in mild to moderate hypercholesterolemic patients. A double-blind randomized, placebo-controlled intervention study was conducted in 46 hypercholesterolemic subjects who had failed or were not compliant with drug therapy. E...

In many parts of the Asia–Pacific region, diabetes prevalence is increasing and seems destined to become a major risk factor for cardiovascular disease. The phenomenon seems predicated on insulin resistance (IR), partly attributable to an early impact of abdominal (visceral) adiposity than in Caucasian populations. Food intake along with physical a...

The Asia–Pacific region is undergoing a major change in both food and health patterns, with a connection between the two more than likely. Evidence for certain traditional Asia–Pacific foods as protective agents against chronic non-communicable disease and cardiovascular disease (CVD), in particular, is growing at a time when their usage diminishes...

to determine if skin wrinkling in a site that had received limited sun exposure may be a marker of health status and biological age. population-based, cross-sectional study. we evaluated the health status of representative samples of elderly Greek-born people living in Melbourne, Greeks living in rural Greece, Anglo-Celtic Australians living in Mel...

To investigate: (i) the incidence of impaired fasting glycaemia (IFG) developed over 5 y in a population-based sample of Australian-born women; (ii) prospectively the factors which are associated with the development of IFG; (iii) the association of the menopausal transition with the onset of IFG and an increase in serum insulin concentrations. A t...

Although the importance of selenium in animals has been documented since the 1950s, it was not until the early 1980s, when Keshan Disease was reported by Chinese scientists, that selenium was regarded as one of the essential trace mineral elements in humans. Since then, there has been a growing interest in the relationship between selenium and huma...