Are organics more nutritious than conventional foods? A comprehensive systematic review.

The growing consumer interest fueled by the belief in the superiority of organic foods raises questions about their actual nutritional superiority over conventional ones. This assumption remains a controversial issue. The present study addresses scientific evidence to clarify this controversy and provide relevant insights for informed decision-making regarding dietary choices. We collected 147 scientific articles containing 656 comparative analyses based on 1779 samples of 68 vegetable, fruit, and other (cereals, pulses, etc.) foods, 22 nutritional properties, and nine residues. Results show that in 191 (29.1%) comparisons, there were significant differences between organic and conventional foods. In a similar quantity of cases (190; 29.0%), there were divergences in the results since some studies reported significant differences while others did not. Finally, most of the comparative analyses (275; 41.9%) showed no significant difference between organic and conventional foods. Therefore, the results herein show no generalizable superiority of organic over conventional foods. Claims for nutritious advantages would eventually be applied to specific comparisons, depending on the food type and nutritional parameter.

Text Mining of United States Obesity-Related Public Policies: Systematic Document Search.

BACKGROUND: Obesity has become a worldwide health problem, caused by multiple and complex factors. To face this challenge, governments have played a central role in combating its rise. Considering this, public policies are introduced or enacted for the benefit of whole populations, taking into account the perspective of multiverse social stakeholders based on solid scientific fundamentals. OBJECTIVE: The aim of this study was to examine obesity-related public policies in the United States and the District of Columbia, in order to understand their scientific basis. METHODS: We analyzed the public policies implemented in the United States from 2003 to 2013, during which time the largest number of obesity-related public policies were introduced, using text mining. RESULTS: In total, 1592 obesity-related public policies were retrieved from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Multidisciplinary policies were predominant in the documents analyzed (533/1592, 33.5%), followed by health sciences (454/1592, 28.5%), social sciences (330/1592, 20.7%), life sciences (240/1592, 15.1%), and physical sciences (35/1592, 2.2%). Throughout the country, most policies were community oriented (1082/1865, 58.0%) and many of them were related to school and family environments (447/1865, 24.0%), early care and education (75/1865, 4.0%), hospitals (63/1865, 3.4%), and workplaces (47/1865, 2.5%). CONCLUSIONS: The contents of obesity-related public policies were generally uniformly framed across the United States. They were generally based on scientific references, in which there was a predominance of multidisciplinary research. These findings are consistent with what is known about the multiple factors causing obesity and about the methods being developed to control the epidemic.

Food Acquisition in the Geography of Brazilian Obesity.

Overweight and obesity are a worldwide pandemic with geographic differences. Possible explanations include variable access to food and its quality, dietary habits of the populations, behavioral patterns, and characteristics of the food markets. This study aimed to examine the acquisition of food in the different regions of Brazil and to relate it with the geography of Brazilian obesity. We used data provided by a Brazilian official organ, which gathers periodic data on the household food acquisition. Descriptive statistics and multidimensional scaling techniques were used to ascertain the similarity of food acquisition among populations in the Brazilian states. High levels of overweight and obesity occur in all states (>44%), especially in the southern half of the country (>54%). We found differences in the food acquisition patterns throughout the country. Furthermore, we identify that states with similar dietary patterns have similar population levels of overweight and obesity, demonstrating a possible relationship between the food supply models and these food insecurity manifestations as expressed in the individual health. However, the occurrence of regional singularities suggests that the food supply model constitutes only one of the multiple variables that compete for diversity in the Brazilian regional distribution of obesity and overweight. We found that socioeconomic conditions influence nutritional misalignment in the geography of Brazil. Our results show that overweight and obesity have a higher occurrence in middle age (35-79 years), and it is more present in females. Moreover, women with lower education and lower incomes have higher levels of overweight and obesity, an association of unhealthy food intake with poverty. In men, obesity is more frequent in those with more schooling and higher incomes. Based on the widely variable geographical characteristics of the distant states of Brazil, we conclude that overweight and obesity go beyond an individual lifestyle and access to quality food, and is more related to a complex framing of factors, like schooling, age, sex, income, feeding patterns, food markets, and anthropological circumstances.

O governo e a mídia na configuração do macroambiente para os biocombustíveis líquidos no Brasil / Government and media in the configuration of the macroenvironment for liquid biofuels in Brazil

Este artigo identifica as dimensões nas quais o governo e a mídia do Brasil têm configurado o macroambiente para os biocombustíveis líquidos ao longo do tempo e testam a existência de similaridade entre esses meios de expressão da sociedade na configuração do macroambiente. Para atingir o objetivo, foi realizada uma pesquisa documental a partir das notícias sobre o tema "biocombustíveis líquidos" veiculadas pela mídia escrita e de documentos oficiais do governo brasileiro tratando do mesmo tema. Foram coletados documentos textuais em formato eletrônico para um período de 10 anos (1997 a 2006). A extração do conhecimento dos textos em formato eletrônico foi realizada por meio de mineração em textos, aplicando-se uma estrutura de análise específica contendo as dimensões macroambientais e suas respectivas "palavras-d", que foram definidas a partir das palavras mais frequentes nas áreas do conhecimento relacionadas a cada dimensão. Os resultados indicam que a configuração do macroambiente para os biocombustíveis líquidos pela mídia e pelo governo difere quanto ao uso das dimensões macroambientais. A configuração do macroambiente também apresentou variações ao longo do período analisado, tanto na mídia quanto no governo. Testes de similaridade, aderência e homogeneidade confirmam a existência de diferenças entre a mídia e o governo. As implicações dos resultados encontrados para a atividade de escaneamento macroambiental destinado ao planejamento estratégico das organizações em geral e dos biocombustíveis líquidos em particular são discutidas.

This article identifies the dimensions in which the Brazilian government and the media have shaped the macroenvironment for liquid biofuels through time, and tests the similarities among these means of expression of the society in the macroenvironmental setting. It conducts a documental research of the news on liquid biofuels published by the press and of official documents of the Brazilian government about the same subject. Electronic written documents covering a 10-year period (1997 to 2006) were collected and the information from them was extracted through text mining applying a specific analytical framework containing the macroenvironmental dimensions and their respective 'd-words', which were defined from the most frequent words in the knowledge areas related to each dimension. The results show that the configuration of the macroenvironment for liquid biofuels differs in the press and in the government. The setting of the macroenvironment also presented variations throughout the period. Similarity, adherence and homogeneity tests confirmed the existence of differences between the press and the government. The article discusses the implications of the results for the activity of macroenvironmental scanning related to the strategic planning of the organizations in general and of the liquid biofuels specifically.