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Science and technology
The conference covered three parallel
panel sessions:
„Sustainability in the food chain”,
„Food qua lity and safety”,
„Nutrition and European population
health and well-being”.
Professor Dariusz Nowak, PhD, from the Medical
University of Łódź was the moderator and
commentator of the third session.
The first paper pertained to obesity and other
diet-related disorders. Professor Michael J. Gibney
from the Institute of Food and Health University
College, Dublin outlined the scale and costs
of the obesity epidemics as well as its effects in
the form of type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular
diseases in the USA and Great Britain within the
next 20 years. Whereas, in these countries, the
obesity of children is maintained at a stable level,
that of adults is regularly growing. Therefore, effective
obesity prevention and diet therapy models
are needed to be developed and the factors
favoring overweight and obesity, including the
genetic factors that increase or decrease the
undesired organism reaction to overnutrition
need to be better understood. The research conducted
so far suggest that 3 genotypes variously
responding to changes in diet can be considered.
The next problem discussed in the
speech concerned the malnutrition of
elderly people, whose number is systematically
growing.
As it was emphasized by Professor M. Gibney,
the costs of health care due to malnutrition in
Europe are similar to those connected with the
treatment of overweight, obesity and their complications.
Thus, this is also a problem whose solution
requires financial outlays, systematic approach
and prevention measures.
Afterwards, Professor Erik Millstone from the
Science and Technology Policy Research, Freeman
Centre, University of Sussex, Brighton presented
the paper entitled “Healthy diets and
sustainable consumption”. Not questioning the
need for innovation as regards technology and
food products, he presented a thesis stating that
innovations in this field in the last 50 years lead
not to a healthy diet but in the opposite direction.
He drew attention to the need to determine
the direction of innovative activities including
benefits and risks not only for the producer but,
first of all, for the consumer. In the European
Union, the food production should be aimed at
establishing healthy diet, institutional innovations,
changes in policies and legal provisions.
According to Professor Millstone, an example
of the new approach may be formed by the approval
of substances purposely added to food
not only due to the producer’s benefits but also
those of the consumer, and their safety (risk)
not only from the toxicological point of view
but also from that concerning the changes in
nutrition elements’ consumption such as fats
and sugars, which has not been taken into consideration
so far. Innovative products should be
safer and have more health-oriented effects
than those currently present on the market.
In the next speech, Professor Maria Koziołkiewcz
from the Faculty of Biotechnology and
Food Sciences of the Technical University of
Łódź tried to answer the following question:
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Autumn 2011