News

Researchers at the University of Toronto, Harvard University and the U.S. Center for Genetics, Nutrition and Health recently suggested that both a dietary imbalance in omega fats and genetics associated with race could increase susceptibility to COVID-19. The theory could help explain pandemic case counts and severity in Blacks, Latinos and Indigenous peoples, and it points to interventions to help those ethnic groups and others through precision nutrition.

As I write to you in the closing days of 2020, some combination of pandemic-related change in care, diet, schooling, physical activity, sedentary time and sleep has likely affected almost every child in the world. Researchers, clinicians, educators, carers and families are scrambling to understand and adapt to the effects. 

An international research team that includes scientists from the University of Toronto has found a cellular mechanism in mice that could explain why low intake of Omega 3 fats by mothers is linked to cognitive problems in their offspring — an association that growing evidence shows is also a risk for women and children.

This year has been one to forget for most people. But for Sara Wuehler, 2020 brought one welcome change: better monitoring of Canada’s efforts to improve nutrition in low-income countries, thanks in part to researchers at the University of Toronto.