Even though healthy eating habits have increased over the past two decades, consumption of unhealthy food had outpaced it in most world regions.

According to the first study to assess diet quality in 187 countries covering almost 4.5 billion adults, the diet patterns vary widely by national income, with high-income countries generally having better diets based on healthy foods (average score difference +2.5 points), but substantially poorer diets due to a higher intake of unhealthy foods compared with low-income countries (average score difference -33.0 points). On average, older people and women seem to consume better diets.

The highest scores for healthy foods were noted in several low-income countries (eg, Chad and Mali) and Mediterranean nations (eg, Turkey and Greece), possibly reflecting favourable aspects of the Mediterranean diet. In contrast, low scores for healthy foods were shown for some central European countries and republics of the former Soviet Union (eg, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, and Kyrgyzstan).

Of particular interest was that the large national differences in diet quality were not seen, or were far less apparent, when overall diet quality (including both healthy and unhealthy foods) was examined as previous studies have done.

Dr Imamura said that as per the projections, by 2020, non-communicable diseases would account for 75 percent of all deaths. Improving diet has a crucial role to play in reducing this burden. Policy actions in multiple domains are essential to help people achieve optimal diets to control the obesity epidemic and reduce non-communicable diseases in all regions of the world.

According to Dr Mozaffarian, there was an urgent need to focus on improving diet quality among poorer populations, as under-nutrition would be rapidly eclipsed by obesity and non-communicable diseases, as is already being seen in India, China, and other middle-income countries.

Carlo La Vecchia from the University of Milan in Italy and Lluis Serra-Majem from the University of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria in Spain said that the main focus of the paper remains the need to understand the agricultural, trade, and food industry, and health policy determinants to improve dietary patterns and nutrition in various areas, taking into account the traditional characteristics of diets worldwide.

The study is published in The Lancet Global Health journal.

Menopause neither increases nor creates any difficulty in sleeping amongst women, says a University of Pennsylvania study.

According to the researchers, women in their late thirties and forties who have trouble sleeping are more than three times more likely to suffer sleep problems during menopause than women who have an easier time getting shut-eye.

Only 25 percent of women who had reported no earlier sleep problems developed moderate or severe insomnia or other sleep disturbances during a 16-year period around menopause. What's more, the researchers say that these sleep woes did not appear to be caused by menopause itself, which may quell common fears about symptoms associated with this phase of life. The study is among the first to document long-term sleep patterns in women in the years before, during and after menopause.

Lead author, Ellen W. Freeman, said that a small subgroup of women with only mild sleep disturbance prior to menopause also experienced worsening sleep disturbance during the transition, but their results show that for the majority of women, menopause does not further exacerbate existing sleep problems or cause new ones.

The study assessed annually the sleep patterns of 255 women participating in the Penn Ovarian Aging Study who reached natural menopause during a 16-year period (1996-2012). At enrollment, all women were aged 35 to 48 years and premenopausal, with 28 percent reporting moderate-to-severe sleep disturbances, which is similar to the prevalence of insomnia symptoms among adults, and 56 percent reporting no sleep disturbances at all. Over the 16 year period, 82 percent of the sample experienced moderate-to-severe issues with sleep, while only 7 percent had no poor sleep.

The study also found that hot flashes are strongly associated with poor sleep as expected, but a large proportion of poor sleep in menopausal women occurred without hot flashes. The finding, Freeman says, indicates that sleep difficulties in the transition to menopause in generally healthy women should not automatically be imputed to ovarian decline.

Freeman added that clinicians should be alert to the strong possibility that poor sleep in women approaching menopause is not simply caused by menopause or hot flashes.

Possible reasons for poor sleep instead may include health problems, anxiety, and stress, Freeman said.

The study is published in the journal Menopause.

Now, foodies might be in for a treat as one might be able to gorge on juicy steaks made of plants.

A new research has shed light on meat-like foods produced by plants suggesting that many people crave requires a lot of animals raised on huge, unsustainable amounts of plant protein.

The research conducted by American Chemical Society is trying to focus that plant protein should be consumed by humans itself instead of giving so much of it to animals as feed.

Melody M. Bomgardner, a senior editor at C and EN, notes that they need protein, which their bodies break down into essential amino acids, to maintain good health.

Low-carb diets and research showing the benefits of protein have boosted the trendiness of this macronutrient and as a result, on average Americans consume more protein than they need and raising livestock, the major source of dietary protein in the U.S., puts a tremendous strain on water resources and arable land.

Americans are increasingly turning to plants for protein out of concern that red meat can lead to heart disease and obesity. Food manufacturers are paying attention. They have quickly responded with a growing range of protein-packed soy, pea and algae products but to win over more steak lovers, scientists are still working toward the ultimate goal: plant protein that looks, feels and tastes like meat.

The study is published in journal Chemical and Engineering News (C and EN).

Now you can test the possibility of developing dementia with a prick of a needle.

As opposed to cardiovascular diseases, where the level of cholesterol in our blood indicates the risk of cardiac arrest, there are no such trustworthy markers in our blood in terms of diagnosing the risk of dementia setting in. However, Scientists at Rigshopitalet, Herlev Hospital and the University of Copenhagen have now identified a new biomarker, measurable in a simple blood test, which will help predict the onset of dementia.

Assistant clinical and research professor Ruth Frikke-Schmidt, said that the blood test would help provide a more precise risk evaluation of a citizen's risk of developing dementia later in life.

The blood test would enable an earlier and more focused prevention effort, thus prolonging the onset of the illness and raising the individual's quality of life, she added. Researchers hope that with time, this new blood test will be applicable in clinical practice.

In the study, researchers show that a low level of the biomarker, the so-called apolipoprotein E, in our blood, increases the risk of developing dementia in the future. This was revealed in comprehensive studies of the general public, the Herlev-Oesterbro Study and the Oesterbro Study, involving 76,000 people.

The study is published in th internationally acclaimed journal, the Annals of Neurology.

If you are planning to take supplements based on green tea extracts as a measure to lose weight, think again. Researchers have warned that the supplements could result in harmful side effects including liver toxicity.

Drinking green tea, instead of taking the supplements, could help you enjoy the benefits associated with the beverage while avoiding the risk of liver toxicity, they pointed out.

Also, drinking green tea in the weeks before taking supplements likely reduces risk of side effects, the findings showed.

"Drinking green tea rather than taking supplements will allow you to realise the benefits and avoid the risk of liver toxicity," explained Josh Lambert, associate professor of food science at College of Agricultural Sciences, Pennsylvania State University.

Tea is rich in catechins, polyphenols that are natural antioxidants. A number of animal studies have shown the preventive effects of green tea polyphenols against obesity.

For the new study, the researchers gave mice high doses of the green tea polyphenol epigallocatechin-3-gallate (EGCG).

The dosage was equivalent to the amount of the polyphenol found in some dietary supplements taken by humans.

Dietary pretreatment with the green tea polyphenol protects mice from liver toxicity caused by subsequent high oral doses of the same compound, the findings showed.

"We believe this study indicates that those who are chronic green tea consumers would be less sensitive to potential liver toxicity from green-tea-based dietary supplements," Lambert noted.

He, however, added that the beneficial effects that people have reported as being associated with green tea are the result of dietary consumption rather than the use of supplements.

The study appeared in the journal Food and Chemical Toxicology.