Science is providing us the tools to diagnose and treat the infection before it causes damage. For some decades now, bacteria known as probiotics have been added to various foods because of their beneficial effects for human health. It comprises knowledge of the relationship between diet and health and the effects of food ingredients on physiological functions and health. Probiotics are commonl...

OBJECTIVE We assessed the validity of a locally adapted Colombian Household Food Security Scale (CHFSS) used as a part of the 2006 evaluation of the food supplement component of the Plan for Improving Food and Nutrition in Antioquia, Colombia (MANA - Plan Departamental de Seguridad Alimentaria y Nutricional de Antioquia). METHODS Subjects included low-income families with pre-school age child...

The role of antioxidants in the maintenance of health and prevention of disorders and diseases has received much attention. Above all, the action and effects of natural antioxidants contained in foods, fruits, spices, beverages and dietary supplements have been the subjects of extensive studies. The capacity of antioxidants has been assessed by various methods, but they often give inconsistent ...

Our objective was to clarify the current understanding of the definition and safety of oral health products among patients and health professionals, and patients' perception about their communication with physicians and pharmacists regarding those products. Self-administered questionnaires were completed by patients at 17 community pharmacies in 14 prefectures of Japan. For health professionals...

Following a request from the European Commission, the EFSA Panel on Dietetic Products, Nutrition and Allergies (NDA) was asked to deliver a scientific opinion on citicoline as a novel food ingredient in the context of Regulation (EC) No 258/97. The novel food ingredient (NFI), citicoline, is choline cytidine 5‟-pyrophosphate (C14H26N4O11P2) with a minimum purity of 98.0 %. The stability, specif...

Food preservation is enhancing shelf-life and food quality to eliminate food-related illness and product spoilage, especially by the use of food additives.The growing consumer demand for effective preservation of food without altering its nutritional quality and free of potential health risks andto find an attractive and alternative approach to chemical preservatives, have stimulated research i...

More than half of the population of the United States uses “dietary supplements.” The Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act of 1994 (DSHEA) (P.L. 103-417) set up a unique regulatory framework in an attempt to strike the right balance between providing consumers access to dietary supplements that they may choose to use to help maintain and improve their health, and giving FDA the necessary...

Bifidobacterium animalis subsp. lactis BB-12 is a commercially available probiotic strain used throughout the world in a variety of functional foods and dietary supplements. The benefits of BB-12 have been documented in a number of independent clinical trials. Determination of the complete genome sequence reveals a single circular chromosome of 1,942,198 bp with 1,642 predicted protein-encoding...

Demographic changes lead to an ever greater number of elderly people and mounting evidence suggests an association between vitamin status and the development of noncommunicable diseases. However, even in affluent Western countries, data from dietary intake surveys indicate that vitamin inadequacy is widespread even in healthy elderly. Changes inherent to the aging process lead to the need for i...

BACKGROUND The aim of this study was to investigate total water intake (TWI) from water, beverages and foods among Italian adults and the elderly. METHODS Data of 2607 adults and the elderly, aged 18-75 years from the last national food consumption survey, INRAN-SCAI 2005-06, were used to evaluate the TWI. The INRAN-SCAI 2005-06 survey was conducted on a representative sample of 3323 individu...