FORUM What’s New for Sustainable Healthy Diets? Dairy and Sleep from folklore to science

Editorial

Summary Points

Summary Points

• Sustainable healthy diets must encompass four pillars as defined by The Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) - nutrition, culture, economy and environment. While sounding quite simple, achieving balance across these four pillars is complex and country specific.

• Sleep is a modifiable factor that supports health, contributing to both physiological and psychological functions. Insufficient sleep is a largely unrecognised public health problem globally. The circadian system responds to many signals including the light-dark cycle, food intake, temperature, physical activity, drugs and stress.

Dietary components can act on neurotransmitters which influence sleep, and likewise, sleep deprivation can influence metabolic hormones and appetite. This relationship between food and the internal circadian clock is referred to as chrononutrition.

• Current research indicates that dairy has positive effects on sleep. Cow’s milk protein is rich in tryptophan, which is a precursor for both serotonin

• Various methods are used to investigate sustainable diets and their advantages and limitations should be understood to ensure correct interpretation by those making recommendations. Optimisation modelling seems to provide the best approach in terms of ensuring all pillars of sustainability are considered when identifying sustainable healthy diets. This approach is useful for policymakers when developing food-based dietary guidelines at the population level.

Editorial

Warm milk before going to bed is a tradition that has been passed down through generations as a practice to facilitate a restful night’s sleep. As with other bedtime routines, it may be the ritual itself that helps to induce the anticipation of sleep. Also, drinking milk before falling asleep could be associated with soothing, early childhood memories that evoke calmness. However, it is also believed that naturally occurring components in milk can support the process of sleep.

In this issue, we address the topic of sustainable healthy diets including updates on developments at both national and European level. As Ireland joins other countries in starting to look at national healthy eating recommendations through the lens of sustainability, it is important that dietetic and nutrition professionals keep abreast of evidence in this area. What is becoming clear is that there may be many variations of a sustainable healthy diet which can play to both the nutritional needs and preferences of people at difference stages of life while also respecting other aspects such as the environment and economy. Providing flexibility is likely to engage more people in to adopt more sustainable healthy diets.

• The acceptability of more sustainable food based dietary guidelines is important to ensure adoption by the population. Results from the SuHe project will add to our knowledge base on sustainable healthy eating guidelines and what is acceptable to Irish consumers.

and melatonin. These hormones play important roles in the regulation of sleep. Small amounts of melatonin also occur naturally in cow’s milk.

• Fermented milk has been shown to significantly improve sleep efficiency. Lactic acid bacteria present in fermented dairy produce gammaaminobutyric acid, a neurotransmitter which is associated with sleep. Calcium inadequacy is associated with poor sleep and therefore, the calcium component of dairy may be another factor which influences sleep.

• The European Union (EU) Farm to Fork strategy outlines the plan for sustainable healthy diets in Europe, including changes to food labels and addressing food waste. While consumer demand for information on food sustainability is apparent, there are likely to be future challenges in presenting this information in an accessible format which can truly aid both healthy and sustainable food choices.

• The overall composition of milk also makes it a nutritious bed-time drink. It provides casein-rich protein, which is encouraged as a pre-sleep intervention strategy to increase muscle protein synthesis overnight for both athletes and older people.

On page 8 we feature our new Nutrition & You booklet: Menopause, launched at Ireland’s first Menopause Summit in Feb 2023. Endorsed by the INDI, it provides guidance to women on nutritional considerations at this important time.

We hope you find this an interesting edition of DN Forum. We would also encourage you to check out the Health Professional area of the NDC website, where you can access other NDC resources.

In this edition of DN Forum, we introduce the science of sleep and explore the research on how food interacts with sleep and the circadian system. We will focus specifically on the scientific evidence which examines the role of milk and dairy products. We hope you enjoy this edition of DN Forum and look forward to any feedback or comments you wish to share: nutrition@ndc.ie

Your comments and feedback are very welcome via: nutrition@ndc.ie

Dr. Marianne Walsh Nutrition Manager The National Dairy Council (NDC)

Dr. Yvonne Finnegan. Registered Dietitian Nutrition Consultant to the National Dairy Council (NDC)