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Record W4412088687 · doi:10.17269/s41997-025-01078-6

Exploring the relationships between nutrition and brain health among Indigenous Peoples in North America: a systematic review

2025· review· en· W4412088687 on OpenAlexafffundvenueabout
Anik Obomsawin, Joyla A. Furlano, Letebrhan Ferrow, Darren Morrow, Guylaine Ferland, Laura E. Middleton, Lynden Crowshoe, Jennifer Walker, Alexandra Fiocco

Bibliographic record

VenueCanadian Journal of Public Health · 2025
Typereview
Languageen
FieldHealth Professions
TopicIndigenous Health and Education
Canadian institutionsResearch Institute for AgingUniversity of WaterlooUniversité de MontréalUniversity of CalgaryImpactMcMaster UniversityQueen's UniversityCanadian Nutrition SocietyUniversity of Toronto
FundersCanadian Institutes of Health Research
KeywordsIndigenousChecklistCritical appraisalExtant taxonEnvironmental healthSystematic reviewInclusion (mineral)GerontologyCommunity engagementMedicinePsychologyMEDLINEEcologyAlternative medicineBiologyPolitical sciencePublic relationsSocial psychologyPathology

Abstract

fetched live from OpenAlex

OBJECTIVES: This systematic review synthesizes extant literature that examines relationships between nutrition and brain health in Indigenous populations in North America and further assesses the extent to which Indigenous research paradigms and community engagement processes have been employed. METHODS: We searched five databases for primary research studies that examined indices of diet/nutrients in relation to brain health and focused on Indigenous populations in North America. Quality appraisal was performed using the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Quality Appraisal Tool as well as the Appraisal Tool for Cross-Sectional Studies, the JBI Critical Appraisal Checklist for Case Control Studies, or the Critical Appraisal Skills Programme Cohort Study Checklist. SYNTHESIS: Of the 564 articles identified in the search, 16 met inclusion criteria. Ten studies focused on Inuit populations, 2 focused on the residents of Grassy Narrows First Nation, 2 focused on Cree populations, and 2 focused on Quileute, Makah, and Quinault First Nations populations. Fourteen studies reported deleterious effects of dietary contaminants (e.g., mercury, lead, polychlorinated biphenyls) on brain health outcomes and three studies reported beneficial effects of omega-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids on brain health outcomes. CONCLUSION: Findings of this review highlight the neurotoxic effects of environmental contaminants and the beneficial effects of omega-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids in traditional Indigenous food sources on a range of brain health outcomes. However, given the methodological limitations of the studies reviewed and the lack of community-based research that employs Indigenous research paradigms, results should be interpreted with caution. There is a clear need for strength-based research that examines the positive effects of nutrients within traditional Indigenous foods on brain health.

Fetched live from OpenAlex and de-inverted. Abstracts are not stored in this database: the inverted indexes are 8.6 GB of the frame’s 9.3 GB of text, and the host has 13 GB free.

How this classification was reachedexpand

Full frame distilled prediction

Teacher imitation

Not calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. Learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and 10,348 direct Gemma labels. Candidate is the union of thresholded teacher heads; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels or direct frontier model labels.

metaresearch head score (Codex)0.021
metaresearch head score (Gemma)0.009
Version: codex-gemma-dda1882f352aValidation status: machine_predicted_unvalidated
Candidate categoriesMetaresearch, Meta-epidemiology (narrow), Science and technology studies, Research integrity
Consensus categoriesnone
DomainCandidate signal: none · Consensus signal: none
Study designCandidate signal: Systematic review · Consensus signal: Systematic review
GenreCandidate signal: Review · Consensus signal: Review
Teacher disagreement score0.637
Threshold uncertainty score1.000

Codex and Gemma teacher scores by category

CategoryCodexGemma
Metaresearch0.0210.009
Meta-epidemiology (narrow)0.0000.000
Meta-epidemiology (broad)0.0040.000
Bibliometrics0.0020.003
Science and technology studies0.0040.000
Scholarly communication0.0000.000
Open science0.0010.000
Research integrity0.0000.004
Insufficient payload (model declined to judge)0.0000.000

Machine scores (provisional)

The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.

Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.

Opus teacher head0.349
GPT teacher head0.438
Teacher spread0.089 · how far apart the two teachers sit on this one work
Validation statusscore_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from it

Classification

machine, unvalidated

Machine predicted; a candidate call from one teacher head, not a consensus.

Study designSystematic review
Domainnot available
GenreReview

How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".

Quick stats

Citations0
Published2025
Admission routes4
Has abstractyes

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