Objectives and Background: Dietary fibre has been associated with improvements in key risk factors for cardiovascular disease (CVD). Prior research has focussed more on CVD development in men andour aim was therefore to explore the association between dietary fibre intake and CVD mortality using data from the United Kingdom Women's Cohort Study (UKWCS).Methods and results: Dietary fibre intake from 31,036 women was calculated both as non-starch polysaccharide (NSP) and using the Association of Official Analytical Chemist (AOAC) method from food-frequency questionnaires. Participants were free from history of CVD at baseline and mean age at recruitment was 51.8 years (standard deviation 9.2). Mortality records for participants were linked from national registry data and 258 fatal CVD cases (130 stroke, 128 coronary heart disease (CHD)) were observed over an average follow-up period of 14.3 years.Total dietary fibre (NSP/AOAC) or fibre from different food sources were not associated with reduced fatal CHD, stroke or CVD risk in the full sample. For every 6g/day increase in NSP, the hazard ratio (HR) was 0.91 (95%Confidence Interval (CI) 0.76 to 1.08) or for every 11g/day increase in fibre assessed as AOAC, the HR was 0.92 (95% CI 0.80 to 1.05). Sensitivity analyses suggest a possible protective association for cereal sources of fibre on fatal stroke risk in overweight women, 0.80 (95%CI 0.65 to 0.93) p<0.01 and for fibre density and fatal stroke in women free of hypertension or angina 0.83 (95% CI 0.70 to 0.99) p=0.04Conclusions: In the UKWCS, a sample of health-conscious women, greater dietary fibre intake may confer no additional cardiovascular benefit, in terms of mortality, but may contribute to lower fatal stroke risk in those free of cardiovascular risk factors (hypertension/angina) or overweight women who consume greater cereal fibre.

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Optimal growth and development in childhood and adolescence is crucial for lifelong health and well-being1–6. Here we used data from 2,325 population-based studies, with measurements of height and weight from 71 million participants, to report the height and body-mass index (BMI) of children and adolescents aged 5–19 years on the basis of rural and urban place of residence in 200 countries and territories from 1990 to 2020. In 1990, children and adolescents residing in cities were taller than their rural counterparts in all but a few high-income countries. By 2020, the urban height advantage became smaller in most countries, and in many high-income western countries it reversed into a small urban-based disadvantage. The exception was for boys in most countries in sub-Saharan Africa and in some countries in Oceania, south Asia and the region of central Asia, Middle East and north Africa. In these countries, successive cohorts of boys from rural places either did not gain height or possibly became shorter, and hence fell further behind their urban peers. The difference between the age-standardized mean BMI of children in urban and rural areas was <1.1 kg m–2 in the vast majority of countries. Within this small range, BMI increased slightly more in cities than in rural areas, except in south Asia, sub-Saharan Africa and some countries in central and eastern Europe. Our results show that in much of the world, the growth and developmental advantages of living in cities have diminished in the twenty-first century, whereas in much of sub-Saharan Africa they have amplified.

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Legume consumption is variable between European countries, with intakes tending to be relatively low overall.(1) Very few prospective studies have examined the association between legume intake and risk of type 2 diabetes (T2DM) (2) . The aim of this study is to determine the relationship between legume intake and risk of T2DM among British women. The UK Women Cohort's Study is a population-based prospective cohort of middle-aged women. From 35,372 women who completed a 217-item food frequency questionnaire (FFQ), 12,149 women also completed a follow-up questionnaire after an average of 4 years. Participants who reported a history of diabetes at baseline and those with unfeasible energy intakes were excluded from the study leaving 114 women who reported having developed diabetes during the follow-up period and 11,982 women who remained free from diabetes. Average daily legume intake expressed as grams per day was calculated from ten food items listed in the baseline food frequency questionnaire. Dried legumes included boiled or canned legumes that had previously been dried, such as lentils, chickpeas, mung beans, baked beans, hummus and red kidney beans while fresh legumes included fresh, frozen or canned garden peas and green beans (runner or French). Women were divided into intake tertiles by division of the whole cohort into 3 equal-sized groups. Lifestyle and other dietary covariates were derived from the baseline questionnaire. Logistic regression analysis was used to determine the relationship between legume consumption and risk of incident T2DM. Table 1. Odds ratios and 95% confidence intervals of T2DM according to tertiles of total, dried and fresh legume intakes in 12,096 British women