Food supplements and European regulation within a precautionary context: a critique and implications for nutritional, toxicological and regulatory consistency

Exploring health and toxicity in food choices: 10 examples navigating the gray area

People's perception on what is healthy and what is toxic food, determines food preferences and eating behavior. The difference between heathy and toxic food and food ingredients is however not always clear. This is illustrated with 10 examples. Unjustly, all-natural food is regarded as safe. Regulation on health claims on food and food risks is not balanced. Biphasic responses of the physiological effect of food ingredients show that mild toxicity of these substances results in health promotion. Nutritional substances with drugs may have either a negative or a positive effect on health. New toxicological methodologies can be brought into play, to better understand the dynamics of health and disease. Unfortunately, we still cannot taste toxicity.

Nutritional senolytics and senomorphics: Implications to immune cells metabolism and aging – from theory to practice

Aging is a natural physiological process, but one that poses major challenges in an increasingly aging society prone to greater health risks such as diabetes, cardiovascular disease, cancer, frailty, increased susceptibility to infection, and reduced response to vaccine regimens. The loss of capacity for cell regeneration and the surrounding tissue microenvironment itself is conditioned by genetic, metabolic, and even environmental factors, such as nutrition. The senescence of the immune system (immunosenescence) represents a challenge, especially when associated with the presence of age-related chronic inflammation (inflammaging) and affecting the metabolic programming of immune cells (immunometabolism). These aspects are linked to poorer health outcomes and therefore present an opportunity for host-directed interventions aimed at both eliminating senescent cells and curbing the underlying inflammation. Senotherapeutics are a class of drugs and natural products that delay, prevent, or reverse the senescence process – senolytics; or inhibit senescence-associated secretory phenotype – senomorphics. Natural senotherapeutics from food sources – nutritional senotherapeutics – may constitute an interesting way to achieve better age-associated outcomes through personalized nutrition. In this sense, the authors present herein a framework of nutritional senotherapeutics as an intervention targeting immunosenescence and immunometabolism, identifying research gaps in this area, and gathering information on concluded and ongoing clinical trials on this subject. Also, we present future directions and ideation for future clinical possibilities in this field.

Proposal of a Nutritional Quality Index (NQI) to Evaluate the Nutritional Supplementation of Sportspeople

BACKGROUND

Numerous supplements are used by sportspeople. They are not always appropriate for the individual or the sports activity and may do more harm than good. Vitamin and mineral supplements are unnecessary if the energy intake is sufficient to maintain body weight and derives from a diet with an adequate variety of foods. The study objectives were to evaluate the main nutrients used as supplements in sports and to propose a nutritional quality index (NQI) that enables sportspeople to optimize their use of supplements and detect and remedy possible nutritional deficits.

MATERIAL AND METHODS

A nutritional study was performed in 485 sportspeople recruited from Centros Andaluces de Medicina del Deporte, (CAMD). All completed socio-demographic, food frequency, and lifestyle questionnaires. The nutritional quality of their diet and need for supplementation were evaluated by scoring their dietary intake with and without supplementation, yielding two NQI scores (scales of 0-21 points) for each participant.

RESULTS

A superior mean NQI score was obtained when the supplements taken by participants were not included (16. 28 (SD of 3.52)) than when they were included (15.47 (SD: 3.08)), attributable to an excessive intake of some nutrients through supplementation.

CONCLUSIONS

These results indicate that sportspeople with a varied and balanced diet do not need supplements, which appear to offer no performance benefits and may pose a health risk.

Why RDAs and ULs are incompatible standards in the U-shape micronutrient model: a philosophically orientated analysis of micronutrients' standardizations

Risk assessments of micronutrients are carried out in the customary deficiency-excess model. It is regarded as straightforward and unambiguous. Nevertheless, it is a problematic amalgamation of two different and to a certain extent contrasting perspectives on risk and science that we will criticize in this contribution. Our critique is framed in a conceptual scheme of opposing perspectives highlighted by the rival characteristics of RDAs and SULs and the role of science therein. The one part of our scheme holds the typically modern approach that centers on risks that can be scientifically assessed more or less confidently. Subsequent policies are aimed at preventing major health problems that affect the majority of the population from early on in life. The RDAs are the ideal type-case here. The other part of our scheme holds a much more postmodern approach in which health risks are explicitly recognized as "uncertain." Dealing with those risks has little to do with major health problems from early on in life. Here, we encounter the scientific quandary of disentangling complex factors and impacts that may relate to some extra quality of life later on in life. SULs are exemplarily thereof. We will show that RDAs originally spawned from the scientific aim of securing objective knowledge "to lay down the requirements of an adequate" diet. SULs, conversely, are the upshot of generating acceptable outcomes driven by ever-increasing safety requirements. This shift from securing objective knowledge to generating acceptable outcomes will be addressed in relation to precautionary culture.