EUROFOODCHEM XVI - Report
14 Jul 2011
Translating food chemistry into health benefits
Juan Valverde, Ciaran Fiztgerald and Laura Alvarez-Jubete
The sixteenth edition of the EuroFoodChem conference, entitled "Translating food chemistry into health benefits" took place in Gdansk, Poland from the 6th to the 8th of July 2011. The conference was organised by the Food Chemistry Division of the European Association of Chemical and Molecular Sciences (EuCheMS), the Gdansk University of Technology. The conference aimed to bring together specialists in different disciplines working on the Food and Health area. The conference was structured in 5 different sessions. Each conference day was organised in different thematic sessions followed by poster sessions. The three day conference highlighted the diversity and the broad range of expertise gathered in Europe and abroad (US and Japan) relating to Food Science and Technology research.
First Session: Regaining Trust in Anti-oxidants
This first session was focused in the study of food anti-oxidants and the discussion of their in-vitro, in-vivo properties and how these related to potential health benefits in humans. In particular some speakers such as Eric Dekker from University of Massachussetts in USA highlighted the limitations of some of the actual in-vitro methods to measure the effectiveness of anti-oxidants when are present in a more complex biological environment. Most of in-vitro bioassays are based on the simple capacity to scavenge free radicals or act as reductants in a simple model solution. But when model solutions are more complex these properties might change and actually transform these compounds into pro-oxidants. Other physical properties are necessary to predict the effectiveness of anti-oxidants in a real biological system. For example polarity which will dictate their partition into biological tissues (and this can be related to bioavailability) and foods. A broad array of mechanistic pathways needs to be addressed to understand how food antioxidants might have an effect on oxidative stress in humans.
The presentation of Junji Terao from the University of Tokushima in Japan summarized some of the works carried out to elucidate the effect of dietary flavonoids on attenuating oxidative stress. Prof. Terao discussed the recent advances on the properties of some flavonoids to bind proteins that can modulate cellular signalling pathways, one of the most commonly accepted alternative hypothesis to the simple anti-oxidant activity of flavonoids.
Among other speakers different sources of in-vitro antioxidants and other some existing methods for determining the antioxidant capacities of food samples were presented and discussed. Finally Hans Verhagen from the RVIM in the Netherlands summarized the current status of nutrition and health claims in Europe. Mr. Verhagen's presentation concluded that in order to obtain health claim approval by EFSA, human intervention studies are mandatory.
Poster session on this day focused in the following subjects:
- Bioactive compounds: chemical vs biological effects. Highlights from this poster session were the large amount of animal studies carried out on food extracts and purified compounds and identification of some metabolized bioactives in animal models (i.e. from Brassica foods when fed to pigs).
- Food Composition. This poster session showed many results from the use of essential oils in many different food systems such as cheese or cereal based products. Also chemical composition on several sprouts used as novel foods.
- Food - Omics: New state of the art analytical methods where presented to profile and quantify multiple secondary metabolites from foods (mainly plants) and the effect of different cultivation and processing treatments on the profile and content of these metabolites. Cereals, Brassicas, soft fruits and tomatoes were the food systems more studied.
- Post-harvest treatment and food quality and safety: This poster session accounted the most number of posters presented in the conference as the topic covers a large amount of food commodities, processes and quality and safety issues. Many posters dealt with the formation of anti-nutritive compounds and other potential safety issues during food processing (i.e. acrylamide, pyrrolizidine alkaloids, hydroxymehtyl-furfural and pesticides). Many of the posters dealing with food quality were studies that used novel ingredients (by-products from other industries) or novel processing techniques (hurdle processing). Finally a lot of work was carried out to assess the content in phenolic and anti-oxidant activity in a wide range of food systems and/or products.
Second Session: Glucosinolates on the border of Chemistry and Biology
The second session started with a presentation from Richard Mithen from the Institute of Food Research (IFR) in Norwich, UK. IFR has developed in the last 20 years a great expertise on glucosinolates from cruciferous vegetables. Richard Mithen's presentation summarized the biological activity of dietary glucosinolates and introduced some of the opportunities for their use as functional foods that have been carried out in IFR. In particular Richard Mithen discussed the development of novel plant varieties and processed food products with modified levels of specific glucosinolates to enhance human health and well-being. Subsequent oral presentations dealt for example with the use of intact glucosinolates as bioactive food components in humans and piglets (presented by Susanne Sørensen from the University of Copenhagen, Denmark); the link between plant and food sciences to determine varieties of crucifers that have particularly high levels of glucosinolates and are genetically more resistant to processing (presented by Kristin Henning from the Wageningen University in Netherlands) or the optimization of glucosinolate bioconversion into isothiocyanates (presented by Laura Alvarez-Jubete from Dublin Institute of Technology, Ireland).
Third Session: Chemistry Behind Functional Animal Products
The session was launched with the presentation of Ronald B. Pegg from the University of Georgia, USA on Meat products as functional foods. The presentation summarized the two main research streams on the development of functional foods in the meat sector in the USA. The first one deals with the reduction or elimination of components considered detrimental for health and the second one deals with modification of meat and meat products by the inclusion of functional ingredients that could be considered as beneficial such as fruit and cereal fibre, phytochemicals, vegetable proteins or unsaturated fatty acids. Subsequent oral presentations dealt with the quantification of phenolic compounds in smoked meat products (presented by Margarete Pöhlmann from the Max-Ruber Institute (MRI) in Germany); emulsion-based meat products as functional foods (presented by Veronique Sante-Lhoutellier, from INRA, France) or the characterization of conditions affecting the stability of olio-peptide derivatives of potential health-preserving effects (presented by Sandor Rapi from the Eszterhazy Karoly University, Hungary).
Forth Session: Lipids as Dietary health Protecting Agents
The last session of the second day focused on lipids in general and with fatty acids and plant sterols in particular. The session was opened by Werner Richter from the Institute of Lipid Metabolism in Germany. The presentation entitled "Treatment and Prevention of Disease with Dietary Fatty Acids" summarized the recent knowledge developed on the clinical effects of dietary fatty acids. Werner Richter focused in particular on scientific evidence of increase intake of omega-6 fatty acids and decrease of saturated fatty acid on diabetes. Other presentations focused on other health related effects of fatty acids such as endothelial oxidative stress in cells (presented by Joanna Goralska from University Medical College in Cracow, Poland) or the chemical synthesis of phytosterols and α-lipoic acid conjugates in order to increase cholesterol lowering effect and reducing the risk of atherosclerosis of natural occurring α-lipoic acid (presented by Samanthi Madawala from the University of Agricultural Sciences Uppsala in Sweden).
Poster session on the second day of conference focused in the following subjects:
- Emerging Technologies. This poster session focused on innovative and emerging technologies in the food processing area. Many posters dealt with the use of high pressure processing, ultra and nano filtration, nanoencapsulation, the use of infra-red technology.
- Food analyses and bioanalyses. This poster session dealt with new methods for analyzing food components responsible of health properties (bioactives, vitamins and minerals, allergens) and those affecting sensory properties (Maillard reaction compounds, active odour compounds, flavours). Among these we can highlight there was a large number of posters using NMR spectroscopy, Fluorescence Spectroscopy
- Functional Foods. The functional foods poster session was wide in terms of sources of ingredients and the means for processing them. However many of them used novel sources from by-products of other food industries, cereal by-products, fruit pomaces, or onion by-products. New varieties of cereals (i.e. wild rice, pseudo-cereals) berries or plants were also widely covered.
- Impact of food processing on composition and biological outcomes. Changes in content of several food components were reported in a many different types of foods raw and processed. Posters dealing with the fate of food components during food storage were also addressed in this poster session and therefore this was the broader poster session.
- Nutrigenomics. The last poster session of the conference dealt with the study of the effects of foods and food constituents on gene expression. Among some of the food constituents studied were α-tocopherol, quercetin, cereal peptides, carotenes and curcumin.
Fifth Session: Challenges for Food Chemistry in Post-Genomic Era
The first session of the last day of the conference was opened by two plenary lectures, one on the importance of interaction between food industry and research conducted by Michael Bockisch from Bockisch consulting company in Germany and the second one on the application of In Vitro and In Vivo transgenic approaches for evaluating the harmful or beneficial effects of foods conducted by Ronald Wolf from the University of Dundee Biomedical Research Institute in the UK. Among the rest of the oral presentations on this session were food components that target epigenome (i.e. isoflavones and isothiocyanates) presented by Clarissa Gerhauser from the German Cancer Research Centre in Heidelberg, Germany and relating the structural and mechanism of the bioactivity of polysaccharides presented by Victor Morris form the Institute of Food Research (IFR) in Norwich, UK.
Special Session: Tribute to the International Year of Chemistry
Several Lectures with different themes were programme for the closure of the conference. The first one dealt with Plants, Chemistry and History and was conducted by Carlo Bicchi from the Phytochemical Analysis laboratory in University of Torino in Italy. This lecture was followed by a presentation on Note by note cooking by Herve This from the Molecular Gastronomy Group in Paris, France. The session was closed with two more lectures one on Cusine, Chemistry and Music conducted by Janusz Rachon from the Department of Organic Chemistry from the Gdansk University of Technology in Poland and the last one of Relative importance of Food Chemistry for Health conducted by Wim van Dokkum from TNO in the Netherlands.
All oral and poster proceedings of the EUROFOODCHEM XVI, are compiled in a supplement of Vol 61 of the Polish Journal of Food and Nutrition Sciences (ISSN:1230-0322) published by the Division of Food Sciences, Institute of Animal Reproduction and Food Research of the Polish Academy of Sciences.
