functional foods as a tool for public health.
There scientific evidence that functional foods may help in the prevention and treatment of minor illnesses.
Madrid, May 2011 .-
The longer life expectancy, sedentary lifestyle, poor eating habits and increasing chronic diseases (cardiovascular, cancer, diabetes, obesity ...) that increasingly manifest at an earlier age, along with the desire to be healthy put current, more than ever, the ancient Hippocratic concept "that food be your medicine and medicine your food."
For a challenge to take medicine for your practice the benefits they can bring food and getting food is, rather than a problem, as it now seems the high prevalence of obesity-effective public health tool.
For speakers of the lectures given at the Royal Academy of Medicine on functional foods and probiotics on May 12 Abel Marine (Professor of Nutrition and Food Science, UB and a member of the Scientific Council of the Institute Danone ) and José Antonio Mateos, director of Health and Company Rules Danone, "all foods are functional (they all have a benefit), but some more than others." Functional foods that we considered relevant from a medical standpoint they are foods that have been modified or not, they are likely to help maintain health and reduce disease risks. To be considered a functional food must meet certain requirements as
- The food should be consumed in normal menus (not to be an addition to the diet).
- Its effects must be tested scientifically.
- The ingredients should always be functional activity of natural products and may be present naturally, through genetic modification (as in the case of strawberries with high doses of antioxidants), have been added or replace a unhealthy component (Omega 3 and other fats) or increasing the bioavailability or stability (eg vitamin D in foods with calcium, helps absorption).
This difference in functional foods, for example, dietary foods or food supplements also called nutraceuticals
The speakers stressed the need to demonstrate evidence of the contribution allocated to the food. In addition, it is crucial to study the dosage, as a benign ingredient proper dosage, can cause side effects in another, as demonstrated for example with beta-carotene, which in adequate doses has a positive antioxidant effect, but has shown which in high doses given to smokers, increased the incidence of cancer.
Another factor that must be taken into account when applying the functional food as a tool for health and will require further research, is interactions that may have the ingredients to the drugs themselves, as they have shown both negative cases, such as the administration of orange juice in patients treated with fluoroquinolones, decreases drug absorption by the body, as positive : diets rich in Omega 3 potentiate the effects of simvastatin.
Regarding probiotics, those containing live microorganisms functional health benefits, the speakers stressed how healthy individuals maintain a better balance of bacteria that patients and how it demonstrated the need for their presence and interaction with human metabolism, as well as the growing scientific evidence of its efficacy in the prevention and treatment of certain patristic and diarrhea caused by antibiotics, infections with the bacterium C. difficile infectious diarrhea in children, bloating and abdominal pain or colds and mild infections of the respiratory tract.
Looking ahead, highlighted the research being done to study the interactions between the human genome and hosted bacterial genome, forming the "metagenome" human that can help explain the mechanisms of certain diseases, including the growing disarray of the immune system with a growing increase in autoimmune disorders such as inflammatory bowel disease (Chron, etc.), and other type 2 diabetes.
this type of food on the speakers stressed the need to scientifically prove the effects on each strain of probiotic beneficial and scientifically demonstrated effects in different states life (children, adults and elderly) and in different diseases (diarrhea, antibiotics, rotavirus infections, decline, etc..) can not be extrapolated to other strains unless there is sufficient scientific evidence.
Some facts about probiotics
- The intestinal flora consisting of bacteria, is beneficial to health.
- have protective functions, metabolic and immune systems.
- not survive without them, are fundamental for life and physiological functions.
- Babies are born without bacteria and gut colonization after delivery from the outset.
- We have approximately 1 to 2 kg of bacteria in our body.
- host 10 times more bacteria than we own cells.
- There are over 1,000 different species of bacteria in the gut.
- The number of bacterial genes in humans exceeds the number of human genes more than 100 times.
- reducing the diversity of the microbiota (known as intestinal flora) is associated with the emergence of diseases such as inflammatory disease intestinal.
The Danone Institute
The Danone Institute, scientific institution, nonprofit, turns 18 years dedicated to the promotion and dissemination of basic and clinical research in the field Nutrition, Food and Health, by awarding scholarships and prizes, collaboration with universities and most prestigious hospitals in Spain and other countries and publishing of reference for health professionals. It also carries out training activities in Nutrition, Food and Health as this conference or course in the School of Nutrition Francisco Grande Covián, perhaps the most prestigious in our country for the quality and rigor of the participating teachers, mostly from the Scientific Council of the Institute Danone.
http://www.noticiasmedicas.es/medicina/noticias/8721/1/Los-alimentos-funcionales-como-herramienta-de-salud-publica/Page1.html
0 comments:
Post a Comment