PRESS RELEASE
Copenhagen / Stockholm, 12 October 2005
Read the press release in Danish and Swedish
Health-promoting foods protect lifespan health
Life style related diseases are becoming the most problematic medical challenge in the world. People eat unhealthy and become unhealthy. According to WHO (2002) studies suggest 70% of all diseases to be related to food. At the same time medical expenses are booming and are up for debate in society and in the media. The solution seems easy - "eat healthy - prevent diseases - have a better life" - but this message is not working.
To meet the challenge, it is of uppermost importance that the food and pharma sector, including food and pharma industry, collaborate. The scientists seem to agree and recently, more and more evidence are presented showing some foods or food ingredients to have medical effects comparable with medication.
"There is hard evidence that probiotics are effective in preventing and treating acute diarrhoea and some evidence that it also has an effect on the development of allergy. Effects on other diseases and conditions are not so well documented," says Kim Fleischer Michaelsen, Professor in Human Nutrition at the Royal Veterinary and Agricultural University in Denmark. He continues: "New findings suggest that probiotics can have a long term effect if it is given early in life and it has also become evident that different strains of probiotics can have very different effects on the immune system."
Effects on the general immune system have been clinically studied for some of the bacteria suggested for use in probiotics. "Clinical data from the Swedish workplace show significant and dramatic reductions in short-term sick leave in workers taking the bacteria Reuteri daily compared to a control group taking placebo supplement. The probiotic bacterium L. reuteri (Reuteri) activates basic immune responses in the healthy subjects, which are coupled to demonstrated enhanced health," says Eamonn Connolly, Research Director Biogaia AB.
Apart from probiotics, also other food products have health benefits. Professor Richard Öste, CEBA AB, foresee a future with many functional food products on the market. He has been working on oat products for years. "Oats contains the proportions of protein, fat and carbohydrates close to the overall recommendations for intake of the energy giving nutrients. In addition, oats contain dietary fibres including a large proportion of beta-glucans. They are believed to be responsible for the cholesterol lowering effect of oats and oat bran. Further, beta-glucans are viscous fibres that may lower the GI (Glycemic index)."
Functional food has the potential to play an important role in preventive medicine in the future. Functional foods also have a large economical potential as the market is foreseen to expand from EUR 70 billion in 2003 to EUR 130 billion in 2010[1]. The Nordic countries have a good chance to take a large part in this marked expansion if research and development in this area is supported.
Medicon Valley Academy and Øresund Food Network have taken initiatives to create a meeting point for the two sectors, food and pharma. A range of conferences and meeting are planned to continue and deepened the collaboration.
Tomorrow 12 October 2005, scientific sessions on the relation between food and health and thereby medicine are held at the BioTech forum conference at Stockholm International Fairs.
More information:
Maria Olofsdotter, Øresund Food Network, +45 35324091 or mo@oeresundfood.org
Lotte Hviid, Medicon Valley Academy, +45 2875 4154 or lh@mva.org