ISHS Conference review

MacTavish:West attended the recent international conference FAV Health 2009 (ISHS 3^rd International Symposium on Human Health Effects of Fruit & Vegetables) October, 2009. http://favhealth2009.com/

Held at the Palais des Papes in Avignon, Southern France, and attended by 250 delegates from more than 20 countries globally including many from the US, Southern America, India and of course Europe. 75% of delegates were academics, 25% were from industry. The event brought together economists, nutritionists, medical experts, plant phytochemists, physiologists and biochemists. There were 92 oral presentations and 116 posters.

Topics covered included:

• FAV (Fruit & Veg) & prevention of disease
• Human studies
• Socio economic aspects & recommendations
• FAV & health actions
• Phytochemical extracts and health actions
• Crop improvement
• Nutritional quality – analysis, modelling and new technologies
• Nutritional quality – impact of pre- and post-harvest factors
• Mechanism of actions, phytochemicals, antioxidant and risk-benefits
• Molecular nutrition and nutrigenomics
• Nutritional quality – Agricultural practices, processing and food profiling
• Nutritional quality – crop improvement
• Innovative technologies
• Food, agriculture and health policy

There were some excellent presentations. We noted particularly findings such as:

1. A 2.5g a day increase in FAV consumption over a lifetime would make school intervention for years 1-10 cost effective.
2. We should work towards 600g/day to decrease population preventable diseases.
3. There is no current evidence for a link between increased FAV consumption and a decreased risk of breast, renal cell carcinoma, non-Hodgkinsons, ovarian or pancreatic cancers. There is a link with upper aero digestive, colon, bladder, lung, gastric and prostate cancers (the latter from carotenoids).
4. UK adults consume 2.8 portions FAV a day.
5. Tomato enriched bread (40% w/w) statistically decreased measures of hunger in young women.
6. Children like red berries, bananas, yellow fruits (peach, apricot) – i.e. fruits which are energy dense, red in colour, are sweet and with which they are familiary. Carrots were equal with strawberries and raspberries in terms of liking and energy density.
7. Re: how to motivate people. We need to ask questions like: ‘What endangers your life or your living?’ ‘Why?’ Find out what motivates people to care about the risk of dying early from non communicable diseases or other benefits which FAV consumption confers. Will eating more FAV make a difference to these issues? If it doesn’t – it won’t motivate them. If they don’t believe the evidence, or if they have over-riding urges (alcohol, drugs, food) they won’t either.
8. Fruit juices are already perceived to be intrinsically healthy and do not benefit a lot from providing additional health information.
9. The foods most often lacking in real diets (compared with the French national recommendations) were: unsalted nuts, dried fruits, legumes and oily fish. Red meats, processed meats, cheese needed to be reduced.
10. Consumption of diets rich in antioxidant agents (FAV) lowers the risk of developing Alzheimers.
11. FAV are as significant as dairy for maintaining bone health.
12. Re: the Mediterranean diet. The importance of nuts (30g a day) and legumes in relation to cardiovascular health was noted.
13. Actual proof that lettuce (with relatively low in vitro antioxidant activity) was far more biologically active in terms of antioxidant activity than chocolate – which on paper looks like it should be better. So: here is proof that lettuce really is better for your than chocolate! (should you need that proof?).
14. Milk binds the epicatechin in chocolate – which is why dark chocolate is better for you, and has implications for fruit smoothies with dairy.
15. Higher light levels increased all phytochemicals in rocket.
16. The data supporting FAV consumption and reduction in cardiovascular disease risk reduction is far stronger than cancer prevention, except for cruciferous veg.
17. Eating broccoli more than once a week decreases prostate cancer risk by 50% compared with eating it less than once per month. There were recommendations to eat 400g cooked broccoli per week (approx one mature head).
18. The abscisic acid (ABA) content of berries has an impact on diabetes. ABA is very similar structurally to the anti-diabetic drug Rosiglitazone. 1mg ABA is ingested when a serve of blueberries, cranberries or Saskatoon berries is ingested.
19. Rigorously studied conventional vs organic production of tomatoes and showed year on year higher levels of ascorbic acid, flavonoids in organic produce, and higher nitrates in conventional produce (but did not mention yield).
20. Spinach has particularly complex flavonoids.

Overall comments:

FAV contain a wide variety of components.

Many of these are good for health – every aspect of health pretty much

You can alter the concentration of specific components with variety, treatments etc

Generally, people don’t eat enough FAV (but they also eat too much saturated fat)

Its hard to get people to eat more FAV – telling them about healthiness won’t make then do it

As an individual:  I learned:

• To identify why good health is important to me (long life, illness free)
• To eat even more FAV
• To eat 30g nuts per day
• Lettuce is better for me than chocolate (duh!)
• Its all about taste and opportunity to eat FAV
• Antioxidant activity of food in vitro is not the same as antioxidant effect in vivo.
• A change in diet (reducing sat fat and increasing FAV) doesn’t fix problems – it prevents them. 
• We need to find out how to motivate people to do something which has long term benefits.

This conference brought together a number of general info and trends which were interesting – one of the key ones being that cancer is less supported and discussed now in terms of effects of FAV consumption than cardiovascular health.  Also that anti-oxidants in food have far more effect if they are actually needed – i.e. the body is stressed. This follows on from the fact that they are bioactive within the plant when it is stressed also. 

There were also almost endless presentations and posters about the effect of this or the other environmental treatment/variety/analysis method on the concentration/bioactivity of that or another antioxidant etc.  They key point which I received was we actually need to focus on how to get people to eat more, repeatedly.  Its all about choice, value, enjoyment, demand, availability, price etc.

The other point which was mentioned repeatedly was that FAV does not generically imply specific nutrients.  Rather than focusing on FAV – may be best to focus on foods from plants, as this also brings in legumes and nuts?

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