{"id":895,"date":"2017-10-11T14:56:33","date_gmt":"2017-10-11T14:56:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/arnoldt\/?p=895"},"modified":"2018-08-07T15:50:17","modified_gmt":"2018-08-07T15:50:17","slug":"a-report-from-the-8th-congress-on-polyphenols-health","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/arnoldt\/2017\/10\/11\/a-report-from-the-8th-congress-on-polyphenols-health\/","title":{"rendered":"A report from the 8th Congress on Polyphenols & Health"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>I recently had the opportunity to attend the 8th<\/sup> International Congress on Polyphenols and Health in Quebec City, Canada.\u00a0 This year more than 300 researchers met here to share their work on the health benefits of polyphenols in the fruits, vegetables, and beverages we eat.\u00a0 Some were interested in improving cognitive processes – memory, learning, balance, and focus \u2013 while others sought to prevent or treat cardiovascular disease, diabetes, or obesity.\u00a0 All had an appreciation that our diets are powerful influences on our overall health.\u00a0 There was particular interest in the polyphenols in the so-called \u201csuperfoods\u201d: blueberries, cranberries, pomegranates, grapes and wine, turmeric, coffee, and dark chocolate.<\/p>\n

Here are a few key observations:<\/p>\n

First, as was the case at the 2017 Dynamic Brain conference in Los Angeles, the microbiome is big news indeed.\u00a0 In Quebec City, keynote speakers emphasized that gut microbes can determine the health benefits of foods.\u00a0 In these cases, they transform the polyphenols you eat into slightly different compounds \u2013 many of them more powerful than those in the food itself.\u00a0 The bad news is that many neglected gut communities don\u2019t do their jobs very well.\u00a0 Instead, guts that are \u2018out of tune\u2019 have leaky linings that let bad bacteria, in whole or in pieces, into the body where they trigger inflammation.\u00a0 This was a clear message heard in Los Angeles too.\u00a0 At the ICPH2017 conference, researchers are treating these complex gut communities like ecosystems.\u00a0 They are using high-level mathematical models to understand how thousands of different bacterial species come together to form a healthy (or unhealthy) environment.\u00a0 They are also trying to figure out how these microbes transform the thousands of molecules in our food into thousands of other<\/em> molecules in our intestines and our colon \u2013 a complex and very messy proposition!<\/p>\n

Second, let\u2019s all just all agree to eat some berries every day.\u00a0 Blueberries.\u00a0 Cranberries.\u00a0 Blackcurrant berries.\u00a0 Grapes.\u00a0 Study after study showed modest improvements in insulin sensitivity, endothelial function, inflammation, memory, executive decision-making, focus, and mood.\u00a0 A cup or two a day of polyphenol-rich berries show benefits for children, teenagers, adults, and the elderly.\u00a0 After six months.\u00a0 Three months.\u00a0 Sometimes after only 8 hours!\u00a0 In addition, some studies seem to show that the benefit is greatest in those with the greatest needs, i.e. those with the worst health problems.\u00a0 Berries are, by themselves, no cure.\u00a0 But, as best I can surmise from dozens of individual studies, one could expect ~10% improvements in many measures of healthy and performance.\u00a0 Surely, this is an oversimplification \u2013 the details certainly matter \u2013 but let\u2019s all worry about the details after a nice cup of blueberries.<\/p>\n

It is surprising to realize that, for the most part, researchers don\u2019t really know how dietary polyphenols work to improve our health.\u00a0 Why are they healthy?\u00a0 Well, in Quebec City investigators highlighted changes in sugar metabolism, inflammation, blood flow, and a whole range of cellular \u201cswitches\u201d that control large numbers of our genes.\u00a0 These could all be important clues to how polyphenols work.\u00a0 After all, it is possible that each polyphenol works differently, at different sites inside cells.\u00a0 But it is also possible that they all pretty much work the same way, at a few yet-to-be discovered intersections of metabolism, where they can have broad impacts on our cellular traffic patterns.\u00a0 The jury is out, at least until the 9th<\/sup> International Congress on Polyphenols and Health in 2019.<\/p>\n

Lastly, it is worth noting the polyphenol content of our foods is not static.\u00a0 Many of our modern agricultural practices and many aspects of our changing climate tend to decrease the levels of beneficial polyphenols in food.\u00a0 So while our appreciation of dietary polyphenols is increasing, their concentrations in our foods \u2013 and their potential health benefits – \u00a0could be decreasing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I recently had the opportunity to attend the 8th International Congress on Polyphenols and Health in Quebec City, Canada.\u00a0 This year more than 300 researchers met here to…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1263,"featured_media":896,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-895","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/arnoldt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/895","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/arnoldt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/arnoldt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/arnoldt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1263"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/arnoldt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=895"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/arnoldt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/895\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/arnoldt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/896"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/arnoldt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=895"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/arnoldt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=895"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/arnoldt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=895"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}