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    <recommendedItem id="20100101_19_473"
                     title="AAN: High Intake of Vitamin D Linked to Lower MS Risk (CME/CE)"
                     score="0.015"
                     href="http://www.medpagetoday.com/MeetingCoverage/AAN/tb/18406?impressionId=1265817592484"
                     
      &lt;p&gt;TORONTO  --  Women whose mothers consumed high levels of vitamin D during pregnancy have a lower risk of developing multiple sclerosis, a large, observational study confirmed.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Mothers who reported the highest intake during pregnancy were 45% less likely to have a daughter who subsequently developed the disease than those who consumed the least vitamin D (RR 0.55, 95% CI 0.35 to 0.88), according to Fariba Mirzaei, MD, MPH, a doctoral student at the Harvard School of Public Health.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Mirzaei is scheduled to report the findings at the American Academy of Neurology (AAN) meeting in April.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Lily Jung, MD, a neurologist at Swedish Medical Center in Seattle, said in an interview that the study &quot;adds more fuel to the fire that low vitamin D is important in the genesis of MS,&quot; which has been demonstrated in previous studies. (See &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.medpagetoday.com/Neurology/MultipleSclerosis/4738&quot; mce_href=&quot;http://www.medpagetoday.com/Neurology/MultipleSclerosis/4738&quot; target=&quot;_blank&quot;&gt;High Blood Levels of Vitamin D May Lower MS Risk&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;She said it&apos;s unclear why vitamin D is associated with risk of multiple sclerosis.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&quot;There&apos;s an idea that perhaps there might be receptors that are turned on by vitamin D levels that give some form of protection, but that is very preliminary information and we&apos;re still learning a lot about that,&quot; said Jung, who is also a spokeswoman for the AAN.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Although the link between vitamin D and risk of multiple sclerosis has been demonstrated before, gestational exposure to the vitamin has not been studied.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;To fill that gap, Mirzaei analyzed data from the Nurses&apos; Mothers&apos; Study, which includes a subcohort of the two Nurses&apos; Health Studies that was restricted to nurses whose biological mothers completed a questionnaire in 2001 about their diet during pregnancy.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;The current analysis included 35,794 nurse-mother pairs.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;During the 16-year study period, 199 of the nurses were diagnosed with multiple sclerosis.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;In addition to a lower risk of disease among those whose mothers consumed the largest amounts of vitamin D, those whose mothers had the highest predicted serum 25-hydroxyvitamin D levels also had a reduced risk of having a daughter with the disease (RR 0.58, 95% CI 0.37 to 0.90).&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;In an analysis of milk drinking alone, mothers who drank at least four glasses a day had a nonsignificant reduced risk of having a daughter who would develop multiple sclerosis compared with those who drank less than three glasses a month (RR 0.44, 95% CI 0.16 to 1.23).&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;However, there was a significant trend for lower risk of multiple sclerosis with increasing milk consumption (&lt;em&gt;P&lt;/em&gt;=0.001).&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Jung noted that the study was limited by the use of questionnaires decades after a pregnancy to determine dietary intake of vitamin D.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Nevertheless, she said, &quot;this is very consistent with what we&apos;re seeing elsewhere in terms of vitamin D in moms and the risk of MS in kids.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;div style=&quot;float:left;border-style:solid;border-width:1px;border-color:#8dabbc;font-family:arial;font-size:12px;background-color:#DBE9F2;padding:5px;&quot;&gt;&lt;p&gt;Mirzaei did not make any financial disclosures.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;clear:both;&quot;&gt;&lt;/div&gt;
    </recommendedItem>
    <recommendedItem id="20100101_19_322"
                     title="Switch to Low-Fat Milk in Schools Shows Benefit"
                     score="0.007"
                     href="http://www.medpagetoday.com/PrimaryCare/DietNutrition/tb/18192?impressionId=1265817592484"
                     
      &lt;p&gt;When New York City public schools made the switch from whole milk to skim or low-fat milk, students cut their annual fat and total calorie consumption, department researchers found.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Milk-drinking students consumed 5,960 fewer calories and 619 fewer grams of fat per year after they made the switch, Philip M. Alberti, PhD, of the New York Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, and colleagues reported in the Jan. 29 issue of CDC&apos;s &lt;em&gt;Morbidity &amp;amp; Mortality Weekly Report&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;At 3,500 calories per pound, the reduction would be the equivalent of 1.7 pounds of body weight over the course of a year.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&quot;The switch to lower-fat milk likely has improved the overall nutritional environment of NYC public schoolchildren,&quot; Alberti and colleagues wrote.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;On the other hand, most of the low-fat milk consumed was chocolate milk, which has a substantially higher sugar content than unflavored milk, the researchers found.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;In 2005, the New York City Department of Education began reviewing its food policies and determined that replacing whole milk with fat-free or low-fat milk could decrease students&apos; fat and calorie intake.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;At subsequent board meetings, milk industry advocates suggested that without whole milk or chocolate- or strawberry-flavored milk, student milk consumption would decline, thus decreasing calcium and vitamin intake.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Nonetheless, the Department of Education began phasing out whole milk in 2005, and limited flavored milk to fat-free chocolate milk.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;The researchers didn&apos;t have data on student consumption of milk, so they analyzed system-wide school milk purchases.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;They found that per-student school milk purchases dropped 8% between 2004 and 2006, but then gradually began to increase. By 2009, purchases had risen 1.3% from five years prior: from 112 per student in 2004 to 114 in 2009.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Fat-free milk accounted for 42% of all purchases in 2009, compared with less than 7% in 2004.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;In 2004, students purchased more than 18 billion calories and 520 million grams of fat in the form of milk. That fell to less than 14 billion calories and 98 million grams of fat in 2009, representing a 25% and 81% decrease, respectively.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Over that five-year time period, the researchers calculated that if calorie and fat savings were distributed among all students  --  including those who don&apos;t drink milk  --  they would consume 3,484 fewer calories and 382 fewer grams of fat each year.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;If the data were limited to students who do drink milk during the school day  --  62% of students in 2004 and 63% in 2009  --  the savings increased to 5,960 calories and 619 fat grams per year.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Alberti and colleagues wrote that the data show the milk policy change reduced fat and calorie intake while still providing protein, calcium, and vitamins A and D.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&quot;Other school systems can use these results to guide changes to their own school food policies,&quot; they said.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;They noted, however, that the majority of low-fat milk consumed  --  60% of all milk purchases  --  was chocolate milk, a concern because sweetened milk has more calories than reduced-fat white milk and contains twice as much sugar.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;But limiting its availability would &quot;further reduce milk consumption,&quot; they wrote.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;The authors noted that the study was limited because there were no data to evaluate the magnitude of the correlation between milk purchasing and milk consumption. Also, no data were collected on students&apos; diets, so the researchers could not assess the policy&apos;s larger effects on diet.&lt;/p&gt;

    </recommendedItem>
    <recommendedItem id="20090101_8_915"
                     title="Dietary Calcium Superior to Supplements for Protecting Bones"
                     score="-0.005"
                     href="