Ujué Fresán

Instituto de Salud Global de Barcelona | ISGLOBAL · eHealth

Background Healthy and sustainable diets need to be adopted to reduce the negative impact of food consumption on human and planetary health. Food systems account for a third of greenhouse gas emissions. “Dietary Patterns for Health and Sustainability” is a World Health Organization (WHO) project that aims to build consensus among international food...

BACKGROUND Changing current dietary patterns into sustainable healthy diets (i.e. healthy diets with low environmental impact and socio-economically fair) is urgent. So far, few eating behavior change interventions have addressed all the dimensions of sustainable healthy diets at once and using cutting edge methods from the field of digital health...

Background: Changing current dietary patterns into sustainable healthy diets (i.e. healthy diets with low environmental impact and socio-economically fair) is urgent. So far, few eating behavior change interventions have addressed all the dimensions of sustainable healthy diets at once and using cutting edge methods from the field of digital health...

Background: Human activities have changed the environment so profoundly over the past two centuries that human-induced climate change is now posing serious health-related threats to current and future generations. Rapid action from all scientific fields, including behavioral medicine, is needed to contribute to both mitigation of, and adaption to,...

Changes in the food system are necessary for attaining the Sustainable Development Goals. A shift in current dietary patterns, especially in developed countries, is one of the most effective measures to achieve a sustainable and fair food system. In this viewpoint, we i) contend why, alongside structural changes to the food production and distribut...

Background Both ultra-processed foods and animal-derived foods have been associated with mortality in some studies. Objectives We aimed to examine the association of two dietary factors (ultra-processed foods and animal-based foods) adjusted for each other, with all-cause mortality. Design The setting is an observational prospective cohort study...

Understanding patient satisfaction with healthcare services can help identify patients' unmet needs and increase treatment adherence. This study aimed to evaluate the satisfaction of people living with HIV with overall HIV care service in Navarra, Spain, using a cross-sectional survey. The survey included a patient-reported experience measure (PREM...

Plant-based diets, defined here as including both vegan and lacto-ovo-vegetarian diets, are growing in popularity throughout the Western world for various reasons, including concerns for human health and the health of the planet. Plant-based diets are more environmentally sustainable than meat-based diets and have a reduced environmental impact, in...

Plant-based cheese is one of the most increasingly consumed dairy alternatives. Evidence is lacking on their nutritional quality. We aimed to evaluate the nutritional composition of the plant-based cheese options available in Spanish supermarkets, and how they compare with dairy cheese. An audit of plant-based cheese alternatives has been conducted...

Background Health-related quality of life (HRQoL) is a crucial component in assessing and addressing the unmet needs of people, especially those with chronic illnesses such as HIV. The aim of the study was to examine and compare the health-related quality of life of people living with HIV in Romania and Spain, compared to the general populations of...

We aimed to investigate the relationship between the pre-gestational consumption of ultra-processed foods (UPF) and the risk of gestational diabetes (GDM). We carried out a prospective study among 3730 Spanish women of the SUN cohort who reported at least one pregnancy after baseline recruitment. Cases of GDM were identified among women with a conf...

Background Several healthy diet indices have been associated with mortality risk. However, the ideal diet should not only be healthy but also environmentally friendly and affordable. This study aimed to determine if a new Sustainable Diet Index (SDI), which takes into account the nutritional quality, environmental impacts, and market price of diets...

The independent role of hypertension for COVID-19 outcomes in the population remains unclear. We aimed to estimate the independent effect of hypertension and hypertension-related conditions, i.e., cardiovascular, cerebrovascular and chronic kidney diseases, as potential risk factors for COVID-19 hospitalization and severe COVID-19 (i.e., intensive...

After the first pandemic wave, a nationwide survey assessed the seroprevalence of SARS-CoV-2 antibodies in Spain and found notable differences among provinces whose causes remained unclear. This ecological study aimed to analyze the association between environmental and demographic factors and SARS-CoV-2 infection by province. The seroprevalence of...

Concerns about environmental impact and sustainability, animal welfare, and personal health issues have fueled consumer demand for dairy alternatives. The aim of this study was to conduct a cross-sectional survey of plant-based non-dairy beverages from three different continents (USA, Australia, and Western Europe) to assess their nutritional conte...

Background: Human activities have changed the biosphere so profoundly over the past two centuries that human-induced climate change is now posing serious health-related treats to the current and future generations. Rapid actions from all scientific fields are needed to contribute to both the mitigation and adaption to climate change. Purpose: This...

Aims To study whether the consumption of ultra-processed foods and drinks is associated with breast, colorectal, and prostate cancers. Methods Multicentric population-based case-control study (MCC-Spain) conducted in 12 Spanish provinces. Participants were men and women between 20-85 years of age with diagnoses of colorectal (n=1852), breast (n=14...

Background After the first pandemic wave, a nationwide seroepidemiological survey assessed the seroprevalence of SARS-CoV-2 antibodies in the population of Spain and found notable differences among provinces whose causes remain unclear. The present study aimed to examine the influence of environmental factors on SARS-CoV-2 infection. Methods This e...

Hypertension is the strongest independent modifiable risk factor for cardiovascular disease. We aimed to investigate the association of magnesium intake with incident hypertension in a Mediterranean population, and the potential modification of this association by body mass index BMI. We assessed 14,057 participants of the SUN (Seguimiento Universi...

The objective of this study was to use life cycle assessment to estimate the environmental impacts (from farm to factory gate) of the 198 hard-coded line-items included in the food frequency questionnaire of the Adventist Health Study-2 survey and to assess differences among food groups. Life cycle inventories were created using existing data sourc...

A general transition to plant-based diets is recommended for improved human and planetary health. The information about why people opt for plant-based diets can be used to profile future health promotion initiatives. We studied the reasons that encouraged the adoption and maintenance of plant-based diets and the influence of the socio-cultural envi...

Abstract: Vaccines may induce positive non-specific immune responses to other pathogens. This study aims to evaluate if influenza vaccination in the 2019–2020 season had any effect on the risk of SARS-CoV-2 confirmed infection in a cohort of health workers. During the first SARS-CoV-2 epidemic wave in Spain, between March and May 2020, a cohort of...

Vaccines may induce positive non-specific immune responses to other pathogens. This study aims to evaluate if influenza vaccination in the 2019–2020 season had any effect on the risk of SARS-CoV-2 confirmed infection in a cohort of health workers. During the first SARS-CoV-2 epidemic wave in Spain, between March and May 2020, a cohort of 11,201 hea...

Objectives: To analyze the association between morbid obesity and COVID-19 hospitalization and severe disease. Methods: We evaluated the incidence of hospitalization for laboratory-confirmed COVID-19 in a prospective population-based cohort of 433,995 persons aged 25-79 years in Spain during March and April 2020. Persons with and without morbid...

Current dietary patterns are negatively affecting both the environment and people’s health. Healthy diets are generally more environmentally friendly. However, few studies have focused on the health consequences of diets with low environmental impact. We analyzed differences in the dietary composition (types of food, macro- and micro-nutrients) of...

Background: Consumption of ultra-processed products has increased worldwide and some of their components have been suggested to be carcinogenic. We studied whether the consumption of ultra-processed foods and drinks was associated with breast, colorectal and prostate cancers. Methods: Multicentric population-based case-control study (MCC-Spain) con...

Haspin, a highly conserved kinase in eukaryotes, has been shown to be responsible for phosphorylation of histone H3 at threonine 3 (H3T3ph) during mitosis, in mammals and yeast. Here we report that haspin is the kinase that phosphorylates H3T3 in Drosophila melanogaster and it is involved in sister chromatid cohesion during mitosis. Our data reveal...

In 2019, we published a study focused on the quantification of several indicators related to the water footprint of meat analogs. Recently, a comment requesting clarification of specific data that were reported in our study was published. The present reply addresses their questions. We justified the high volume of water consumed in the production o...

The authors wish to make the following corrections to the text, table and references of this paper [...]

Combination antiretroviral therapy reduces mortality of HIV-infected persons. In Spain, where this therapy is widely available, we aim to evaluate mortality trends and causes of death in HIV-infected adults, and to estimate the excess mortality compared to the general population. From 1999 to 2018 mortality by causes was analyzed in a population-ba...

Background: People with diabetes are at high risk of severe influenza complications. Influenza vaccination effect among diabetic patients remains inconclusive. We estimated the average effect of the influenza vaccination status in the current and prior seasons in preventing laboratory-confirmed influenza hospitalization in diabetic patients. Meth...

Several healthy diet indices have been associated with mortality risk. However, the ideal diet should not only be healthy but also environmentally friendly and affordable. The study aimed to determine if a new Sustainable Diet Index (SDI), which takes into account the nutritional quality, environmental impacts and market price of diets, was associa...

Background: Current scientific literature suggests healthy dietary patterns may have less environmental impact than current consumption patterns, but most of the studies rely on theoretical modeling. The aim of this study was to assess the impact on resources (land, water, and energy) use and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions of healthy dietary patter...

Purpose To prospectively assess the association of dietary fiber intake (from different dietary sources) with all-cause mortality in a Mediterranean cohort. Methods We assessed 19,703 participants of the SUN (Seguimiento Universidad de Navarra) cohort (mean follow-up: 10.1 years). A validated 136-item FFQ was administered at baseline. We used Cox...

To maintain planetary health, human activities must limit the use of Earth's resources within finite boundaries and avoid environmental degradation. At present, food systems account for a substantial use of natural resources and contribute considerably to climate change, degradation of land, water use, and other impacts, which in turn threaten huma...

Antecedentes/Objetivos: En la actualidad, existen diversas recomendaciones dietéticas en España, con el objetivo, entre otros, de prevenir la obesidad. No obstante, no se ha constatado que tales mensajes procedentes de consensos de expertos coincidan con los resultados de los estudios epidemiológicos independientes realizados en nuestro medio, que,...

Nowadays, people consume high amount of packaged foods. The US Environmental Protection Agency encourages buying packaged products that have a reduced impact on the environment, however, the literature discussing the environmental impact of food packaging is scarce. Therefore, our goal was to perform an assessment of the greenhouse gas (GHG) emissi...

Meat analogs are processed foods designed to mimic meat products. Their popularity is increasing among people seeking foods that are healthy and sustainable. Animal-sourced protein products differ in both their environmental impact and nutritional composition. The protein sources to produce meat analogs come from different plants. There is a lack o...

Objectives: Meat analogs are processed foods designed to mimic meat products, proposed by World Watch Institute as viable lower carbon footprint alternatives to the processed meats. Their popularity is increasing among people seeking protein foods that are both nutritious and sustainable. Nevertheless, there is limited data about the greenhouse ga...

Animal-based products reportedly have substantial water footprints. One alternative to meat products is meat analogs, which are processed plant-based foods mimicking real meat products. As data for the water footprints of meat analogs are limited, the present study assesses their water consumption and their potential for contributing to eutrophicat...

PurposeTo prospectively evaluate the association of the Mediterranean-DASH diet intervention for neurodegenerative delay (MIND) diet and the Mediterranean diet (and their components), and depression risk. Methods We followed-up (median 10.4 years) 15,980 adults initially free of depression at baseline or in the first 2 years of follow-up. Food cons...

Meat analogs have been proposed as a viable ‘lower carbon’ alternative to meats. However, data on the greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from those products are limited. We performed partial (farm to factory gate) life cycle assessment (LCA) with Simapro 8.1 to calculate the GHG emissions from a wide range of meat analog products from three factories....

Objective To evaluate the sustainability of the dietary patterns, according to their effects on health and environment and their affordability. Design Prospective, ongoing cohort study of university graduates. Settings The Spanish SUN project ( Seguimiento Universidad de Navarra , University of Navarra Follow-up), starting from 1999. Participant...

There is a significant and growing interaction between the transport sector and the food sector as globalized markets continue to increase the demand for ‘food miles’ i.e. the number of miles a food item travels throughout its life cycle. The concept of ‘food miles’ has become interesting to the public and policy makers as a way to assess the relat...

The 2015–2020 Dietary Guidelines for Americans (DGA) was issued in early 2016. It remains untested if adherence to these guidelines could reduce mortality risk. Using a modified version of the 2015 Dietary Guidelines for American Index (2015 DGAI), we investigated if adherence to the new DGA is associated with mortality in a Spanish (the Seguimient...

Objective How food is produced and consumed has consequences for ecosystems, such as resource use and greenhouse gas (GHG) emission among others. The Mediterranean diet (MedDiet) was proposed as a sustainable dietary model, due to its nutritional, environmental, economic and sociocultural dimensions. However, further evidence is needed. Thus, our o...

Background and aims: The relationship between juice consumption and type 2 diabetes (T2D) has not been widely evidenced. Our aims were to prospectively evaluate the associations with T2D incidence of: 1) isovolumetric substitution of a water serving/day for one of fruit juice (different types), and of fresh fruit juice for its bottled version; 2)...

Obesity is a major epidemic for developed countries in the 21st century. The main cause of obesity is energy imbalance, of which contributing factors include a sedentary lifestyle, epigenetic factors and excessive caloric intake through food and beverages. A high consumption of caloric beverages, such as alcoholic or sweetened drinks, may particula...

The steroid hormone ecdysone is a central regulator of insect development. In this report we show that CTCF expression in the prothoracic gland is required for full transcriptional activation of the Halloween genes spookier, shadow and noppera-bo, which encode ecdysone biosynthetic enzymes, and for proper timing of ecdysone-responsive gene expressi...

Insulators are DNA-protein complexes that play a central role in chromatin organization and regulation of gene expression. In Drosophila different proteins, dCTCF, Su(Hw), and BEAF bind to specific subsets of insulators most of them having in common CP190. It has been shown that there are a number of CP190-binding sites that are not shared with any...