Dietary enhancement refers to any food, supplement or nutrient added to one’s diet in order to achieve specific health or performance benefits. Some examples of dietary enhancements include vitamins, minerals and omega-3 fatty acids.
A three-way ANOVA was conducted with three main effects, such as gender (male or female), pH enhancement (not enhanced or ammonia treated), and protein source (beef or casein). Post hoc multiple comparisons indicated that pH enhanced groups had significantly decreased fat mass compared to unpH enhanced groups during both 0 and 90 minute GTT tests.
Physiological Effects
Scientists have linked high-fat diets with metabolic diseases, including low-grade metabolic acidosis. We conducted tests to see whether ammonia could mitigate any negative impacts associated with high-fat diets on pH levels.
Three-way ANOVA was used to separate main effects for gender (male and female), pH enhancement (none enhanced, ammonia treated), protein source (casein and beef protein). Tukey-corrected post hoc multiple comparisons were utilized in order to determine how each treatment affected body weight, final body fat mass, glucose tolerance in male and female mice.
Results demonstrated that high-fat feeding without pH enhancement led to higher glucose intolerance at 0, 90, and 120 minutes when compared with low-fat (LF) groups regardless of protein source, but adding ammonia significantly enhanced glucose clearance in both high- and low-fat (HFCN and LFBN) male mice for all time points; in contrast, female diet modification did not significantly lower fat mass or body fat percentage.
Psychological Effects
Of note is evidence of a correlation between diet quality and overall mental health outcomes and specific nutritional supplements; however, impact studies using mental health populations remain underexplored. Randomised controlled trials should be conducted on these outcomes to establish whether diet improvement has direct therapeutic benefits on existing psychiatric disorders.
Participants were randomly allocated either to a dietary enhancement intervention group or social support control group. Dietician and befrienders in the former were allowed to communicate directly with participants via telephone and email; researchers were blind to condition for all final assessments and analyses; this design helped avoid unintended communication about group allocation between groups.
Mental Health Effects
Dietary improvement can have both physical and psychological ramifications; for instance, traditional cardiovascular disease biomarkers will likely benefit. Yet another emerging theory suggests that this form of intervention may also have therapeutic benefits in those experiencing mental health conditions like depression via various pathways including inflammation [15,16], oxidative stress and neurotransmitter pathways.
To test this hypothesis, we conducted a randomised controlled trial in which participants with depression received either nutritional counselling and advice or standard medical care as their treatment option. The dietary intervention consisted of RO and CI’s “ModiMedDiet”, which follows both Australian and Greek dietetic guidelines – as well as being consistent with our previous dietary recommendations for depression prevention.
Randomization sequence was stored in a password-protected spreadsheet and group allocation was coded so dieticians or befrienders who provided intervention were unaware of participant group allocation; research assistants conducting assessments also were unaware. Furthermore, an independent statistician conducted statistical analyses without being privy to study design before performing them.
