Background: Human semen quality is affected by lifestyle and environmental factors. Objective: To evaluate the short-term effects of a diet and physical activity intervention on semen quality of healthy young men living in highly polluted areas of Italy. Design, setting, and participants: A randomized controlled trial was conducted. Healthy young men were assigned to an intervention or a control group. Intervention: A 4-mo Mediterranean diet and moderate physical activity program. Outcome measurements and statistical analysis: The primary outcomes were sperm concentration, motility and morphology, concentration of round cells, and semen total antioxidant capacity. Secondary outcomes were adherence to Mediterranean diet and physical activity. All outcomes were measured twice, at the enrollment (t0) and at the end of the intervention (t4). Results and limitations: A total of 263 individuals attended all visits, and underwent examinations and laboratory analyses: 137 in the intervention group and 126 in the control group. The adherence to Mediterranean diet and physical activity level increased more in the intervention group than in the control group from t0 to t4. Sperm concentration, total and progressive motility, and proportion of normal morphology cells increased in the intervention group but decreased in the control group, with statistically significant differences between the two groups at t4. The total antioxidant capacity increased in the intervention group but decreased in the control group, from t0 to t4.

Air pollution has been recognized as a human carcinogen. Children living in urban areas are a high-risk group, because genetic damage occurring early in life is considered able to increase the risk of carcinogenesis in adulthood. This study aimed to investigate micronuclei (MN) frequency, as a biomarker of DNA damage, in exfoliated buccal cells of pre-school children living in a town with high levels of air pollution. A sample of healthy 3-6-year-old children living in Brescia, Northern Italy, was investigated. A sample of the children's buccal mucosa cells was collected during the winter months in 2012 and 2013. DNA damage was investigated using the MN test. Children's exposure to urban air pollution was evaluated by means of a questionnaire filled in by their parents that included items on various possible sources of indoor and outdoor pollution, and the concentration of fine particulate matter (PM10, PM2.5) and NO2 in the 1–3 weeks preceding biological sample collection. 181 children (mean age±SD: 4.3±0.9 years) were investigated. The mean±SD MN frequency was 0.29±0.13%. A weak, though statistically significant, association of MN with concentration of air pollutants (PM10, PM2.5 and NO2) was found, whereas no association was apparent between MN frequency and the indoor and outdoor exposure variables investigated via the questionnaire. This study showed a high MN frequency in children living in a town with heavy air pollution in winter, higher than usually found among children living in areas with low or medium-high levels of air pollution.

Chronic diseases related to unbalanced and unhealthy eating habits have definitely become one of the major issues of modern age, not only in western countries but also in those ones where rapid economic growth has increased global prosperity levels. In order to avoid medical systems to collapse under excessive costs, International and Public Organizations strongly support health policies that aim to make people shift towards wholesome dietary patterns, also encouraging the use of food-labels to choose healthier products. To evaluate the consumers’ knowledge and perception about food-labels a brief questionnaire was developed and shared on Facebook between January-March 2016. Most of the participants were young adults with higher education. They declared to do their shopping at least once a week, reading the food-labels quite often. Despite owing limited knowledge in basic nutrition principles and food-labelling they were generally able to recognize healthier products looking over their nutritional fact tables. Anyway, on average, what they care the most about the products they purchase is the global quality level rather than the nutritional values. In order to induce the whole population to use food label as an effective self-protection tool, more efforts should be done to improve their knowledge on nutrition fundamentals and basics about food labelling, because that would make them able to take safer and more conscious choices as regards their own health.Significance for public healthFood label represents the identity card of food products: it reports composition, ingredients and their relative amounts, it informs about quality, origin, processing and preservation. This information gives the consumer the opportunity to consciously choose what to purchase. The label could concretely help us in protecting and improving our health, if our choices are supported by some basic knowledge of wholesome nutrition, based on a balanced and varied diet. In a wider perspective, this may translate into a reduction of obesity and chronic disease incidence – closely related to negative eating habits – and significantly impact on public health in terms of costs for individuals and medical systems. The study proposed highlights how, despite the reported nutritional information is often clear and comprehensive, consumers do not necessarily take the healthiest choice, but decisionmaking process is also influenced by the ability to decode the label and its graphical representation, by socio-economic status and self-perception of psychophysical well-being. Food security and related issues won’t be debated in the following paper, but it is worth reminding that the label is also a key element to guarantee consumers safety. Providing the product’s lot number, it is essential for tracing the product itself and to quickly recall it from the market in case of food alert.

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