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Health and Nutrition - which Research and Products do we need?

A. Pfeifer, AC Immune, Lausanne
Vortrag im Forum Technik & Gesellschaft, Basel 16.10.03

The traditionally strong link between food, nutrition and health has recently received a strong support through the revolutionary progress in nutritional science. The scientifically proven benefit of nutrition and food has led to the development of a new class of foods, the Functional Foods. Some successful concepts of foods with proven health benefits were built on the effects of pro- and prebiotics; unsaturated fatty acids; dietary fibers and minerals such as calcium.
The revolution in science induced by the sequencing and functional assessment of the human and numerous plant and bacterial genomes will establish a new dimension of nutritional research enabling the transition from today's prevention of obvious deficiencies in a population to tomorrow's optimal nutrition in an individual. The genomic and post-genomic era will contribute to the discovery of new targets for nutritional intervention; the discovery of new active ingredients; the discovery of the mechanism and benefits of new or existing ingredients or combinations thereof. The expected benefit is the creation of new products and even product categories for maintenance of health and well-being and disease prevention covering the genetically variable metabolic needs of individuals.
However, the development of foods with proven health benefits and successful in the market place will require an orchestrated approach of Life Sciences, Food physics and Consumer Sciences to transform the "science push" into a "consumer pull". Therefore, the enormous progress in the Life Sciences need to complemented with with innovative research in Food Physics, Consumer and Sensory Sciences.
Only food and nutrition, which combines health benefits, sensory attributes, safety and convenience, will make the expected impact on performance and disease prevention.