Food Research Ireland - Department of Agriculture

The available suite of Irish dietary and food consumption surveys, and
related nutritional surveillance databases meet the highest international
standards. These databases can provide food companies with brand specific
food; nutrient intake data for all groups within the Irish population and
detailed food ingredient and packaging material data. These databases play
a central role in the study of acute and chronic food chemical exposure and
have / can be used for risk management in relation to possible food
contamination instances and are also important for chemical and
microbiological risk assessment.
In addition, long-term, longitudinal studies and randomly controlled dietary
intervention studies, as funded through various agencies (FIRM, HRB,
Welcome Trust, Food Standards Agency, European Commission Framework
Programme), are a key strength in Ireland’s institutionally based nutritional
research activities. Obesity and associated chronic diet related diseases,
together with an insufficient nutrient supply in subgroups of the population,
are likely to remain major health concerns for at least 20 years. Coupled with
the special nutritional demand in aging societies, they demand immediate
measures for improvement. The projected changes in both population
demographics and life-span demand that European public health policies
focus on 'healthy ageing'.
Ireland has established a major international lead in the integration of public
health nutrition and nutrigenomics data and has access to genomic data and
in most cases, to metabolomic, proteomic, transcriptomic and imaging data.
Just as several genetic variants contribute to the risk of any particular illness,
it is clear that different variants affect the absorption, metabolism, catabolism
and excretion of nutrients. These in turn dictate individual nutrient
requirements and are the basis of “personalised nutrition”. Identifying and
addressing such nutritional variants, opens up opportunities for Irish food
companies to create new markets for specialised food products.
Research Objectives:
■ The development of potential biomarkers which can eventually be
used as the end points in the evaluation of dietary intervention studies
with novel bioactives;
■ Exploitation of existing databases to inform new product development
for Irish food companies in the context of lifestage nutrition;
■ Where health claims are intended for particular food products,
appropriately designed acute, chronic and acute-on-chronic human
intervention studies should be included in many of the proposed
research areas;
■ Existing national databases need to be updated on a regular basis to
ensure the currency of the data for addressing nutrition and food
safety issues, and also be thoroughly interrogated and exploited to
underpin public health policy, especially for infants, the elderly and
those suffering from diet related diseases including obesity and Type
II diabetes. To maximize their value and ensure international
recognition, these databases should be linked to comparable
resources in other EU member states to maximize their value.
This should be facilitated through the Joint Programming Initiative
“A Healthy Diet for a Healthy Life”;
■ A nutrition research programme which considers the following:
■ the use of food based strategies in the prevention of nutrient
deficiencies;
■ the impact of nutrition, maternal health and prenatal
programming as determinants of longer-term healthy ageing,
including skeletal and metabolic health;
■ the use of new and effective food-based strategies to optimise
lean body mass in the older population, including maintenance
of muscle function and prevention of osteopenia, osteoporosis
and cognitive decline;
■ the use of the Internet to collect dietary data should be
developed drawing on expertise in nutrition, software
engineering, social network and marketing;
■ the exploitation of existing databases to link genotype with
phenotype (physiological and clinical) and ultimately with
biomarkers;
■ the exploitation of existing databases to establish metabotypes
and nutritypes, i.e. clusters of individuals sharing similar
metabolic signatures and food choice; and the development of
urinary biomarkers of habitual dietary patterns
■ Enhancement of the health promoting potential of fruits, vegetables
and cereals through the development of customised agronomic and
processing practices.
Food Research Ireland
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