Issue #65 (March 2020)

• NERD News: Pharmaceutical peanut powder power!
  In this first installment of NERD News, we cover a new drug that lowers the chance of severe allergic reaction to peanuts in children who already have peanut allergy.
• Deep Dive: Thick fiber for slimming down
  Consuming viscous, soluble fiber may help reduce bodyweight in the absence of calorie restriction… but not to a meaningful extent.
• Investigating vitamin D for reducing arterial stiffness
  Vitamin D deficiency is correlated with stiffness of the arteries, which is a predictor of cardiovascular disease. This meta-analysis looked at clinical trials to see if vitamin D supplementation can affect arterial stiffness.
• Probiotics for stool solidity during cancer treatment
  Probiotics seem to help with diarrhea caused by radiation treatment, but better quality evidence is needed to confirm how well it works, and what doses and strains work best.
• Can supplementation help silence tinnitus symptoms?
  This study found that a blend of lots vitamins and antioxidants had a significant impact on tinnitus, but it’s far from clear which ingredients played a role and which sat on the sidelines.
• Deep Dive: Can synbiotics help prevent respiratory tract infections?
  This meta-analysis found a modest, but reliable, effect in adults, but no apparent effect in children. However, what doses and strains work best is far from clear. There’s also no strong reason to suspect that these results carry over to more serious RTIs, like COVID-19.
• Safety Spotlight: Dairy, dietary supplement use, and breast cancer
  In this first-ever installment of Safety Spotlight, we examine two observational studies that explored the association of breast cancer with dairy intake and breast cancer outcomes with supplement use.
• Investigating inulin-type fructans for glycemic control
  These prebiotics seem to make a decent dent in glycemic control problems, especially for people with prediabetes and type 2 diabetes.

Researchers

Antonis Damianou, MSc; Brad Dieter, PhD; Dylan T. Dahlquist, MSc, CSCS; Lucas Roldos Saibene, BSc, MSc(c); Zad Rafi, BA; Wyatt Brown, Lucas Tafur, PhD; Brandon Roberts, PhD, MS, CSCS; Jill Ryer-Powder, PhD; Nick Milazzo, MS(c)

Editors

Gregory Lopez, MA, Pharm.D.

Reviewers

Stephan Guyenet, PhD & Adel Moussa, PhD

Copy Editor

Dmitri Barvinok

Infographics

Antonius Khengdro & Calla Lee