Each fall, the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics sponsors the world’s largest meeting of food, nutrition and dietetics experts to address key issues affecting the health of individuals and communities throughout the country and around the world.
IAFNS science will be presented at two sessions at FNCE 2022:
Learn more about FNCE 2022 here.
A workshop was convened jointly with Diabetes Canada to advance the dialogue between scientists and regulatory experts on science-based indices that can be used in communicating physiologic effects of carbohydrates in foods. Experts agreed that the carbohydrate quality of a food would take into account multiple factors, including whole food credentials, the glycemic response to the food, and fiber content as well as nutrients to limit.
This science dialogue was supported by IAFNS Carbohydrates Committee.
Growing evidence suggests that lutein for vision and flavan-3-ols for cardiovascular disease could be candidates for quantified recommended intakes. In 2014, Elwood et al. pointed out the challenges and suggested that a framework be developed to recommend bioactive intakes not currently covered by approaches used to establish nutrient intakes to prevent deficiencies. A standing committee of experts subsequently developed a 4-part framework for evaluating human evidence and where appropriate quantifying an intake range for health promoting dietary components that do not fit in established nutrient frameworks based on evidence of deficiency. The framework was endorsed by the American Society of Nutrition.
Read more: Perspective: Framework For Developing Recommended Intakes Of Bioactive Dietary Substances
This work was supported by IAFNS Bioactives Committee. Visit our Cognitive Health Committee to see IAFNS’s ongoing work on foods, diets and bioactives for health promotion.
Dietary bioactives are food substances that promote health but lack quantified intake recommendations because they are not characterized as essential to prevent well defined deficiency conditions.
This project translates evidence from a comprehensive systematic evidence review by Raman et al. using the AND guideline development process and applying a recently released (ASN endorsed) framework for developing recommended intakes of bioactive substances.
This project funds an expert review to determine whether evidence was of sufficient quality to develop a quantified recommended intake of flavan-3-ols to promote cardiovascular health and if so, issue the recommendation in the form of a quantified amount of flavan-3-ols. The project is the culmination of grants provided by IANFS to support the evidence review, framework development, and finally the independent AND guideline development process and publication.
Institution: Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics
Principal Investigator: Evidence Analysis Center (EAC) at AND
Year Awarded: 2019
This project is supported by the IAFNS Bioactives Committee.
Public health is determined not only by essential nutrients present in foods, but also dietary bioactives and their metabolites. Observational studies on diet and health outcomes rely on quality food composition databases, most of which are nearly devoid of non-essential health promoting bioactive components such as flavonoids. Lack of standard terms adds complexity, making it difficult to assign chemical identifiers to bioactives reported in the literature. New tools are needed to afford nutrition researchers the ability to establish relationships between dietary bioactives and health. Institution: North Carolina State University This work is supported by IAFNS Bioactives Committee
Principal Investigator: Colin Kay, PhD
Year Awarded: 2021
Fibers added to foods may provide specific health benefits, but these relationships would benefit from research specifically on children rather than extrapolated from adults. This project will prioritize research needed to understand the relationship between fibers added to foods and support specific health outcomes at varying stages from young children through teens. The long term goal is to improve dietary fiber recommendations for children across the age spectrum.
Institution: Tufts Medical Center
Principal Investigator: Nanguneri Nirmala, PhD
Year Awarded: 2021
View this project on the Center for Open Science’s Open Science Framework.
Read more: Physiologic Effects Of Isolated Or Synthetic Dietary Fiber In Children: A Scoping Review
This work was supported by the IAFNS Carbohydrates Committee.
Misperceptions are not new about low-and no-calorie sweeteners (LNCSs) within the healthcare practitioner (HCP) community and among consumers. Some confusion can be attributed to the mixed literature on LNCSs that results from variation in study hypotheses, design, interpretation and communication. Understanding HCP perspectives on LNCSs supports science-based information delivery to patients and clients. The first step in understanding these perspectives is to conduct a review of publicly available information, including published literature, surveys, market research and HCP professional organization policy statements, among other materials. This will inform the design of a more robust HCP survey to fill in gaps, and ultimately the content and delivery of science-based information appropriate to each topic. The objectives of Phase II of this project are to directly engage with HCPs, to: 1) assess HCPs' perspectives on the use of LNCSs for achieving various dietary goals, and 2) evaluate the effectiveness of science-based information on the safety evaluation process of LNCSs for addressing HCPs misperceptions of LNCSs.
Institution: University of Massachusetts Amherst
Principal Investigator: Dr. Alissa Nolden
Start Date: September 15, 2021
Learn More: FDA Regulatory Review Process For Food Additives-Including Low And No Calorie Sweeteners
This work is supported by the IAFNS Low- and No-Calorie Sweeteners Committee
Non-essential bioactive dietary components hold promise for helping maintain optimal health and reducing risk of chronic disease, yet most efficacy studies are not sufficiently designed or powered to measure their safety. In the IAFNS Research Design Challenge at NUTRITION 2018, interdisciplinary teams pitched novel research designs that integrate safety measures and primary efficacy measures into a single study. Data obtained from such studies will improve the confidence of regulatory bodies with product oversight and health professionals providing advice to the general public.
Research Design Challenge Objective: Demonstrate proof of principle for novel research designs to integrate more safety measures in research with the primary purpose of testing efficacy of dietary bioactives.
Team Rutgers, led by Alexandra Kreitman, Department of Nutritional Sciences
“Measuring Safety and Efficacy of a Health Promoting Dietary Component: Monitoring GI Side Effects of a Putative α-Glucosidase Inhibitor.”
Team University of Alabama, Birmingham, led by Yuanyuan Rose Li, Department of Pharmacology and Toxicology
“An Effective Method to Balance Efficacy and Safety Test for Bioactive Soybean Isoflavone-Enhanced Chemotherapy in Breast Cancer Patients.”
Acknowledgements:
This challenge session was supported by the IAFNS Bioactive Committee.
Design challenge judges were Paul Coates, Office of Dietary Supplements; James Coughlin, Coughlin & Associates; and Christina Khoo, Ocean Spray Cranberries. Research teams were mentored by Jiang Hu, Herbalife; and Tia Rains, Ajinomoto Health & Nutrition North America, Inc.
Dietary recommendations from numerous governmental and health organizations recommend reduced intake of added sugars due to the health risks, including the risk of overweight and obesity. Some recommendations include avoiding dietary sweetness - regardless of the source - based on the hypothesis that reduced exposure to dietary sweetness will reduce the preference and desire for sweet foods/beverages. Given the limited or lack of association between dietary sweetness and food choice, it is unclear whether reducing dietary sweetness would result in beneficial changes in body composition. Before a conclusion on the association between dietary sweetness and body weight could be determined, it was necessary to determine the availability of evidence in the published literature. This evidence map was conducted to characterize the evidence on the association between dietary sweetness and body weight-related outcomes. The objective of this work was to determine whether there was sufficient evidence to conduct a systematic evidence review and identify future research priorities.
Institution: USDA Agricultural Research Service
Principal Investigators: Kelly Higgins, PhD; David Baer, PhD
Year Awarded: 2021
View a recording of IAFNS' April 20 webinar "Dietary Sweetness & Body Weight: What Do We Know and Where Do We Go From Here?"
View this project on the Center for Open Science’s Open Science Framework here.
This work is supported by the IAFNS Low- and No-Calorie Sweeteners Committee and Carbohydrates Committee.
Despite robust research on the implications of modifying the fat content and composition of the diet on health, this has not been systematically studied in those following various low carbohydrate diets. Recommendations for lower carbohydrate diets should be clear about how to make food substitution choices that promote overall health.
Institution: Tufts University
Principal Investigator: Paul Jacques, D.Sc.
Year Awarded: 2021
View this project on the Center for Open Science’s Open Science Framework.
This work was supported by IAFNS Dietary Lipids Committee.