[Nutrition in Case of Heart Failure]. / Ernährung bei Herzinsuffizienz.

Nutrition in Case of Heart Failure Abstract. Despite the complexity of the subject, nutritional medicine has made important advances in recent years, especially regarding cardiovascular health and for patients with heart failure. There is quite good evidence on specific diets, such as the Mediterranean and plant-based diets, but also on individual micronutrients, such as intravenous iron supplementation of iron deficiency in heart failure. No precise quantities can yet be named when dealing with the recommended amount of salt in heart failure patients, but the intake of high amounts of salt (>12 g/day) should be avoided. Considering the risk of malnutrition in this vulnerable patient population, an individualized nutritional therapy is advisable for some patients. This requires targeted screening for malnutrition. Nutritional medicine research still lacks many answers to further questions regarding heart failure patients. More randomized controlled trials and their meta-analyses are therefore required. Studies available so far have - among other shortcomings - paid too little attention to differences in nutrition in the different types and stages of heart failure. Interdisciplinary collaboration between cardiologists, hospital internists, general practitioners and nutritional therapists is in any case crucial for optimal treatment of patients with heart failure.

Assessing Mediterranean Diet Adherence with the Smartphone: The Medipiatto Project.

The Mediterranean diet (MD) is regarded as a healthy eating pattern with beneficial effects both for the decrease of the risk for non-communicable diseases and also for body weight reduction. In the current manuscript, we propose an automated smartphone application which monitors and evaluates the user's adherence to MD using images of the food and drinks that they consume. We define a set of rules for automatic adherence estimation, which focuses on the main MD food groups. We use a combination of a convolutional neural network (CNN) and a graph convolutional network to detect the types of foods and quantities from the users' food images and the defined set of rules to evaluate the adherence to MD. Our experiments show that our system outperforms a basic CNN in terms of recognizing food items and estimating quantity and yields comparable results as experienced dietitians when it comes to overall MD adherence estimation. As the system is novel, these results are promising; however, there is room for improvement of the accuracy by gathering and training with more data and certain refinements can be performed such as re-defining the set of rules to also be able to be used for sub-groups of MD (e.g., vegetarian type of MD).

[Which diet is appropriate for patients with diabetes mellitus?] / Ernährung bei Diabetes mellitus.

Which diet is appropriate for patients with diabetes mellitus? Abstract. What is considered a balanced diet for the general population is in principle also true for people with diabetes. The scarce scientific evidence does not justify a dogmatic attitude with strict rules and bans on nutrients or foods. Rather, all macronutrient groups are represented in a balanced diet, whereby a reduction in calorie intake can be equally successful via carbohydrates or fats. Ideal are products of high quality and with low and gentle processing, such as starch products rich in fibre and cold-pressed vegetable oils. The benefits of increased protein intake in terms of diabetes management and weight control are becoming increasingly clear. However, plant-based or dairy products should be used as sources rather than red or processed meat. The Mediterranean diet and concepts with a comparable scientific basis are most likely to meet the criteria of a "suitable" diet for diabetes patients. Although alcohol is dense with empty calories, there is no reason not to tolerate the consumption embedded in such a diet. In view of the individually different metabolic reactions to the same foods and taking into account the scarce evidence, a personalised approach is more appropriate than ever.