1. Reducing Blood Pressure : High Fibre Diet A new study conducted by researchers at Tulane University suggests that eating a high fibre diet can lower high blood pressure and even improve healthy blood pressure levels.
2. Weight Control : Just Add Fibre The increasing prevalence of obesity in developed countries is compelling researchers to develop dietary strategies to combat the problem.
3. Acrylamide : No Breast Cancer Risk Acrylamide, a chemical identified in baked and fried foods, does not increase the risk of breast cancer in women, according to US and Swedish researchers.
Wholegrain Food Stamp : US Initiative
The Wholegrains Council in the US has launched a wholegrain food stamp to the general public at the Natural Foods Expo in Anaheim .
Single Vision : Grains Industry Goal
Increased returns, environmental sustainability and a long term future for rural communities are the key goals of the Grains Industry Single Vision.
Atkins : Pulling Out of UK Atkins Nutritionals is closing its operations in the UK in a move that seems to herald the end of its presence in Europe and signal an upturn for carbohydrate-rich foods.
A new study conducted by researchers at Tulane University suggests that eating a high fibre diet can lower high blood pressure and even improve healthy blood pressure levels.
The researchers performed a comprehensive analysis of data from 25 clinical trials and all the data pointed to one strong conclusion - adding fibre to a person's diet has a healthy effect on their blood pressure. In fact, Dietary fibre intake was the only significant intervention difference between the active and control groups in the studies analysed.
Examining a large number of studies lends strength to the conclusions of clinical trials that involved too few participants to show an effect of dietary fibre on blood pressure, according to lead researcher Seamus Whelton.
The data represented 1,477 adult study participants. People who ate 7.2 to 18.9 grams of fibre a day experienced a reduction in both systolic and diastolic blood pressure. Studies that continued for eight or more weeks also showed significant reductions in blood pressure.
The increasing prevalence of obesity in the US and other developed countries is compelling researchers to develop dietary strategies to combat the problem.
Although it's well known that excess calorie intake is the primary dietary cause, alterations in food patterns or nutrients should also be considered.
Dietary guidance universally recommends diets higher in fibre for health promotion and disease prevention, but there are inconsistencies in the literature regarding the relation of dietary fibre to body weight.
A review in the journal Nutrition provides an update of recent studies of dietary fibre and weight and includes a discussion of potential mechanisms of how dietary fibre can aid weight loss and weight maintenance.
Human studies published on dietary fibre and body weight were reviewed and summarised, and the dietary fibre content of popular low-carbohydrate diets were calculated.
The research shows strong epidemiologic support for the fact that dietary fibre intake prevents obesity, and fibre intake is inversely associated with body weight and body fat. In addition, fibre intake is inversely associated with body mass index at all levels of fat intake.
Results from intervention studies are more mixed, although the addition of dietary fibre generally decreases food intake and, hence, body weight. Many mechanisms have been suggested to explain how dietary fibre aids in weight management, including promoting satiation, decreasing absorption of macronutrients, and altering secretion of gut hormones.
The average fibre intake of adults in the United States is less than half the recommended level, and is lower still among those who follow currently popular low-carbohydrate diets, such as Atkins and South Beach .
Increasing consumption of dietary fibre with fruits, vegetables, wholegrains, and legumes across the life cycle is a critical step in stemming the epidemic of obesity found in developed countries.
The addition of functional fibre to weight-loss diets should also be considered as a tool to improve success.
Acrylamide, a chemical identified in baked and fried foods, does not increase the risk of breast cancer in women, according to US and Swedish researchers.
The food industry faced acrylamide concerns in April 2002 when scientists at the Swedish Food Administration first reported unexpectedly high levels in carbohydrate-rich foods heated to high temperatures, such as chips, roast potatoes, crisps and bread.
Since then, an international effort of more than 200 research projects has been initiated around the world with their findings co-ordinated by national governments, the European Union and the United Nations.
Acrylamide appears to form as a result of a reaction between specific amino acids and sugars found in foods reaching high temperatures in their cooking processes.
But researchers at the Harvard School of Public Health and the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm , Sweden now claim the amount of acrylamide eaten in the diet does not pose an increased risk of breast cancer among the women in the study.
Although they caution that their findings only relate to breast cancer. Lorelei Mucci, lead author of the study, warns : ?It is still important to examine the risk associated with other cancers as well as neurological conditions.?
Animal and laboratory studies in the past have shown higher levels of certain types of tumours in rats, including mammary gland tumours, but according to the researchers they were exposed to levels 1,000 to 100,000 times greater than levels humans are exposed to through diet.
The Swedish and US scientists assessed acrylamide intake of more than 43,000 women, including 667 breast cancer cases, who were enrolled in the Swedish Women's Lifestyle and Health Cohort.
?Comparing the women in the study who had the lowest daily acrylamide intake, the researchers found no significant increased risk of breast cancer among the women whose intake was higher,? report the researchers in the Journal of the American Medical Association.
Since the Swedish discovery in 2002, researchers have been working on improving knowledge of this harmful chemical in foodstuffs, in particular, working on production methods to remove acrylamide.
Scientists now know that the most important precursor is the free amino acid asparagine which reacts with reducing sugars in the Maillard reactions that also form colour and flavour.
Since 2002 research has shown that although trace amounts of acrylamide can be formed by boiling, significant formation generally requires a processing temperature of 120 oC or higher.
Since formation is dependent on the exact conditions of time and temperature used to cook or heat-process a food, there can be large variations between brands of the same product and between batches of the same brand. Large variations are also to be expected during cooking although this aspect has been less well documented.
In a review recently submitted to a UN working group on acrylamide, Europe 's €600 billion food and drink industry (CIAA) said that recent investigations have achieved a 30 to 40 per cent reduction in acrylamide levels of potato crisps by introducing several adjustments in the existing production procedures.
Findings revealed at a meeting convened by JECFA, the UN's committee on food additives, showed the most efficient reduction has been achieved by using the enzyme asparaginase to selectively remove asparagine prior to heating.
Several other means of lowering the precursor levels can be applied at various stages of the food chain, for instance, by variety selection and plant breeding, controlling growth and storage factors affecting sugar concentrations in potatoes, pre-treatment of potato pieces by soaking or blanching, and prolonged yeast fermentation time in baking.
But a key obstacle to progress is the fact that the feasibility of adapting these methods to large-scale food processing has not been ?completely studied? in most cases.
The CSIRO has merged two of its leading research groups in the area of nutrition and food research.
The board of the Commonwealth Scientific Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) has announced that its Adelaide-based nutrition research group ?within the division of Health Sciences & Nutrition ? will join up with Food Science Australia (which operates as a joint venture between CSIRO and the Victorian Government).
The organisation says this merger will create one of the world's largest food research entities, with over 300 staff.
Dr Michael Eyles, group executive of CSIRO Agribusiness & Health, said of the amalgamation: "This change will allow CSIRO to respond much more effectively to the strong consumer and industry trends towards food with health benefits," said.
Both centres are currently supporting research into functional foods as well as research into how diets combat disease, including the use of genes and proteins to predict and prevent ill-health.
The Wholegrains Council in the US has launched a wholegrain food stamp to the general public at the Natural Foods Expo in Anaheim .
There are three versions of the black and gold stamp: the ?good source? stamp for foods containing a half serving of wholegrains (8g) ; the ?excellent source? stamp goes on products offering a full serving of wholegrains (16g); and the third level ? ?excellent Source / 100%? ? is for foods with a full serving of wholegrains and containing no refined grains.
The Wholegrains Council developed the packaging symbol over the last two years and launched it officially to the food industry in January.
Since then, of the 53 members of the council, around half have gone through the regulatory procedure to put the stamp on their packaging.
However, few have had the new packaging on the market long enough to know whether the stamp is worth food companies investing in to win over more customers.
Cynthia Harriman, head of the Wholegrains Council, said the only company that has had its products out there long enough is the Great Harvest Bread Company, ?which has seen a 20 percent increase in sales since it placed the stamp on its packaging.?
?However, the increase is also since the new dietary guidelines were announced and so we can't take all the credit,? Harriman said.
She expects the real test to happen when products start appearing on the supermarket shelves with the stamp.
?When one company sees that its product is not doing so well because others on the shelf have a wholegrain stamp, that's when we'll see the difference.?
And she has no doubts that this moment is not far away as the among the members of the council she can count representatives from the big food companies such as General Mills, Kellogg and Campbell 's Soup.
?Probably the largest firm that I can say we have been in discussions with is Kashie, a division of Kellogg,? added Harriman, affirming that it was the more specialised producers who were willing to make their decisions public at present.
She said, however, that food manufacturers were positive about the stamps because they felt they had been given attainable goals for their products. In the past, their only benchmark was the FDA's regulation that wholegrain ingredients had to account for 51 percent of the total weight of a product for a health claim.
Hartman thinks this interest is part of a sea-change as manufacturers realise they have to do something to help consumers reach their three servings or more of wholegrains a day as recommended by the new federal dietary guidelines. She highlights, for example, the fact that in the past, wholegrain foods tended to be sold at a premium, whereas this is no longer necessarily the case.
"For example, when General Mills reformulated its cereals to wholegrain, it didn't put up the price."
There will obviously be some cost to the manufacturer when changing from refined to wholegrain, but manufacturers who have already done so hope they will be able to win over more consumers to their products.
Increased returns, environmental sustainability and a long term future for rural communities are the key goals of the Grains Industry Single Vision.
AgForce Grains president Murray Jones says the Single Vision proposition should deliver increased profitability and value to farmers.
?The Single Vision will help us develop new end users, provide new demand for our grain crops and return more value in the grain dollar to the grower,? Mr Jones said.
?Grains Week 2005 will focus on the first decade of the long-term Single Vision: a partnership between growers, the Grains Council of Australia and the Grains Research and Development Corporation and the wider industry.
?We will be looking at how farmers at the grassroots, AgForce at a state level and the Grains Council of Australia at a national level can point to where our grain growers will be in 25 years.?
One possible future market for grain is ethanol, a topic to be addressed by ethanol industry expert and Minnesota Corn Growers Association executive director, Bruce Stockman.
Mr Jones says another desirable outcome would be further co-operation between growers and end users to provide a more stable price structure for grains via the National Feed Grains Initiative, a spin off of the Single Vision strategy.
?It's about looking at the big picture for grains rather than the current supply and demand which promotes a boom and bust situation,? he said.
Atkins Nutritionals, the company behind the trendy low-carb diet, is closing its operations in the UK , in a move that seems to herald the end of its presence in Europe and signal an upturn for carbohydrate-rich foods.
The UK is Atkins' biggest European market but, despite a survey last year that claimed more than 3 million Britons have tried the low-carbohydrate, high-protein diet, most are thought to have had difficulty in sticking to the regime.
The firm has also been hit by competition from low-carb variants of established brands, with several leading food manufacturers reducing carbohydrate content in some of their best-selling products.
Research carried out by Reuters last year suggested that over a quarter of food and drink companies in the UK , Europe and US were actively investing in research and development of new products.
The UK market for low-carb products has also been affected by sustained media scrutiny of the Atkins diet, said to lack long-term safety data.
David Jago, director of Mintel's Global New Products Database (GNPD), has long predicted that the low-carb trend would merely be a fad. Consumers will be more interested in balanced, healthy eating this year than extreme dieting, he forecast in January.
And despite a flurry of new low-carb launches towards the end of 2004, food formulators are already looking at the follow-up to Atkins, foods with a low-glycaemic index.
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