Sleep is imperative for health and wellness with direct impacts on brain function, physiology, emotional well-being, performance and safety when compromised. Adolescents and young adults are increasingly affected by factors affecting the maintenance of regular sleep schedules. College and university students are a potentially vulnerable population to sleep deprivation and sleep insufficiency. Possible factors that could contribute to poor sleep hygiene include, but are not limited to, academic pressures, social activities, and increased screen time. Arguably, students are still experiencing bone mineralization, until the age of 30 or even 40 years old, which makes it more important to understand the effects that altered sleep patterns could have on continued development of bone health. It is our understanding that to date, studies assessing the risk of sleep insufficiency on bone mineral density in college students have not been conducted. We hypothesized that college-aged students, between the ages of 18-25 years, with shorter sleep durations, greater sleep schedule variability, and poorer sleep environments will have significantly lower bone mineral density. ActiGraph monitoring, via a wrist ActiWatch was used to quantitatively measure sleep habits for up to 7 consecutive days. During the week-long study participants also captured their self-reported sleep data through the use of a sleep diary. Participants were measured one time within the study for bone mineral density of the lumbar spine and total hip through a dual energy x-ray absorptiometry. This was a preliminary analysis of a larger cross-sectional analysis looked at 17 participants, of which there were 14 females and 3 males, (n=5, 1 and 11 Hispanic, Black and White, respectively). The mean age of participants was 20.8±1.7 y with an average BMI of 22.9±3.2 kg/m2. ActiWatch measurement data showed a mean daily sleep duration of participants to be 437.5 ± 43.1 (372.5 – 509.4) minutes. Mean sleep efficiency (minutes of sleep divided by minutes of time in bed) and mean number of awakenings were 87.4±4.3 (75.4-93.4) minutes and 32.1±6.4 (22.3-42.7) awakenings, respectively. The median time for wake after sleep onset (WASO) was 34.5±10.5 (18.3-67.4) minutes. The mean bone mineral density (BMD) for the hips was 1.06±0.14 (0.81-1.28) g/cm2 with a mean BMD of the lumbar spine being 1.24±0.12 (0.92-1.43) g/cm2. Age-matched Z-scores of the hips was 0.31±0.96 (-1.6-2.1) and lumbar spine was 0.53 (IQR: 0.13, 0.98; -2.25-1.55). Neither sleep duration nor sleep efficiency was significantly correlated to BMD of either locations. While WASO was positively associated with hip and spine BMD, this value was not statistically significant in this population. Overall, associations between sleep and BMD of the femur and spine were not seen in this cohort. Further work utilizing a larger cohort will allow for control of covariates while looking for potential associations between bone health, sleep duration and efficiency.

The various health benefits of vinegar ingestion have been studied extensively in the<br/>literature. Moreover, emerging research suggests vinegar may also have an effect on mental<br/>health. Beneficial effects of certain diets on mood have been reported, however, the mechanisms<br/>are unknown. The current study aimed to determine if vinegar ingestion positively affects mood<br/>state in healthy young adults. This was a randomized, single blinded controlled trial consisting of<br/>25 subjects. Participants were randomly assigned to either the vinegar group (consumed 2<br/>tablespoons of liquid vinegar diluted in one cup water twice daily with meals) or the control<br/>group (consumed one vinegar pill daily with a meal), and the intervention lasted 4 weeks.<br/>Subjects completed mood questionnaires pre- and post-intervention. Results showed a significant<br/>improvement in CES-D and POMS-Depression scores for the vinegar group compared to the<br/>control. This study suggests that vinegar ingestion may improve depressive symptoms in healthy<br/>young adults.

Since 1975, the prevalence of obesity has nearly tripled around the world. In 2016, 39% of adults, or 1.9 billion people, were considered overweight, and 13% of adults, or 650 million people, were considered obese. Furthermore, Cardiovascular disease remains to be the leading cause of death for adults in the United States, with 655,000 people dying from related conditions and consequences each year. Including fiber in one’s dietary regimen has been shown to greatly improve health outcomes in regards to these two areas of health. However, not much literature is available on the effects of corn-based fiber, especially detailing the individual components of the grain itself. The purpose of this preliminary study was to test the differences in influence on both LDL-cholesterol and triglycerides between treatments based on whole-grain corn flour, refined corn flour, and 50% refined corn flour + 50% corn bran derived from whole grain cornmeal (excellent fiber) in healthy overweight (BMI ≥ 25.0 kg/m2) adults (ages 18 - 70) with high LDL cholesterol (LDL ≥ 120mg/dL). 20 participants, ages 18 - 64 (10 males, 10 females) were involved. Data was derived from blood draws taken before and after each of the three treatments as well as before and after each treatment’s wash out periods. A general linear model was used to assess the effect of corn products on circulating concentrations of LDL-cholesterol and triglycerides. From the model, it was found that the whole-grain corn flour and the 50% refined corn flour + 50% corn bran drive from whole grain cornmeal treatments produced a higher, similar benefit in reductions in LDL-cholesterol. However, the whole grain flour, refined flour, and bran-based fiber treatments did not influence the triglyceride levels of the participants throughout this study. Further research is needed to elucidate the effects of these fiber items on cardiometabolic disease markers in the long-term as well as with a larger sample size.