Nutrition and Health – Transforming Research Traditions

• Published in: Critical reviews in food science and nutrition Vol. 55; no. 8; pp. 1074 - 1080
• Main Authors: Hanekamp, Jaap C, Bast, Aalt, Calabrese, Edward J
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States Taylor & Francis 01-01-2015; Taylor & Francis Ltd
• Subjects: Adaptation; benefits assessment; biological plasticity; biphasic dose-response; dose-response; Europe; Flavanols; Flavonoids; Food; Food Safety; Food science; Foods; Health; health claims; Health Promotion - legislation & jurisprudence; Health Status; Homeostasis; Humans; intrinsic health capacity; Legislation, Food; Nutrients; Nutrition; Nutrition research; nutrition science; Nutritional Physiological Phenomena; Nutritional Sciences - legislation & jurisprudence; Nutritional Sciences - trends; Nutritional Status; one-hit model; people; Phenols; Polyphenols; Public health; Regulatory agencies; Risk Assessment; Stimulation; Strategy; traditions; Europe; polyphenols; Nutrition; biphasic dose-response; biological plasticity; one-hit model; dose-response; health; intrinsic health capacity; health claims; benefits assessment
• ISSN: 1549-7852; 1040-8398; 1549-7852
• DOI: 10.1080/10408398.2012.680525

In this contribution, we show that current scientific methodologies used in nutrition science and by regulatory agencies, such as the randomized control trial, limit our understanding of nutrition and health as they are to crude to capture the subtle pleiotropic nature of most nutrients. Thereby, regulatory agencies such as the European Food Safety Authority curb the development of scientific knowledge and industrial innovations within the nutritional field. In order to develop insights into the health impact of certain food and food-components, we need to realize that health is adaptation set within a homeostatic range. Increased performance of health, i.e., the maximum stimulation of health, typically seems 30–60% greater than the control group, with a width of no more than about a factor of ten, clarifying the difficulty of documenting responses of food-endogenous components within the homeostatic range of healthy people. A strategy to record subtle responses of food components is the summation of procentual effects of relevant health outcomes. We illustrate this approach with the action of flavanols on vascular health, specifically endothelial function.