COST Action FA0802 Feed for health : animal derived food and human health: an introduction

Introduction Animal-derived foods make important contributions to energy and nutrient intake from most Western diets and demand for these foods is also rapidly increasing in many parts of the developing world. Within the EU this is set against a background of increasing obesity and an ageing population both of which increase substantially the risk of chronic disease. It is therefore crucial to understand what role these foods can play in relation to the risk of chronic disease and whether animal nutrition has a role to increase the nutritional and/or health value of such foods. This symposium will address these topics with a focus on milk and milk products and in particular will concentrate on four key areas: Epidemiological evidence relating consumption to chronic disease risk. This will explore recent data and meta-analysis which have examined the relative risk of stroke, ischaemic heart disease, diabetes and certain cancers in high consumers of milk/milk products compared with low consumers. The lack of good evidence in certain areas will also be explored. Enhancing the fatty acid composition of milk fat. Dairy foods supply a sizeable proportion of dietary saturated fatty acids in many countries and there is some evidence that replacing some of the saturated fatty acids with either mono- or polyunsaturated fatty acids will be beneficial. The role of animal nutrition for bringing about such changes and the consequences will be discussed. Trans fatty acids from ruminant foods. A consequence of reducing the degree of saturation of milk fat by animal nutrition is an increase in the proportion of trans fatty acids. There remains uncertainly as to whether ruminant trans fatty acids have the same degree of negative effects on health as do industrially produced trans fatty acids. Recent studies comparing these two sources will be discussed. Bioactive peptides from milk. It is now recognised that during digestion of milk proteins an array of peptides can be released. Some of these peptides appear to have important bioactive properties including blood pressure lowering effects although the exact mode of action is not clear. New findings on this topic will be discussed.