Nine new projects to uncover link between diet and health

9 new projects aimed at uncovering links between diet and health and worth a total of £4M are announced today by a public-private partnership of three research councils (BBSRC, EPSRC and MRC) and 13 food and drink companies. The new projects tackle issues such as reducing fat content or proportion of saturated fat in food, fortification with bioactive compounds including Omega-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids and antioxidants and increasing the dietary fibre in white bread.

The Diet and Health Research Industry Club (DRINC), which is managed and led by BBSRC, was set up to improve our scientific understanding of the link between diet and health. All projects funded by DRINC are run independently in universities and research institutes and produce publicly-available information that is of use to the food industry.

Dr Celia Caulcott, BBSRC Director of Innovation and Skills said: "DRINC is a great chance for us to ensure the maximum opportunity for fundamental bioscience research to lead to real consumer benefits, including improvements to public health.

"The value of a public-private partnership like DRINC is that we ensure that industry are aware of and have access to the results from basic science so that they can use this knowledge to develop real products and processes."

DRINC aims to fund excellent projects that make the most of opportunities for collaboration and interdisciplinary working and are of relevance to industry. The projects draw on expertise from the biosciences and medicine and disciplines such as engineering in order to understand new ways of providing people with a healthy and enjoyable diet.

Dr Mark Fowler from Nestlé, on behalf of the DRINC Steering Group, said: "Once again, projects funded through DRINC represent world-class pre-competitive research that has the potential to underpin innovation in the food industry. It's particularly good to see some of the best diet and health researchers in the UK alongside scientists and engineers from other disciplines, making the most of interdisciplinary collaborations and drawing value from new and combined approaches to research. I'm really looking forward to seeing the results from these projects."

Projects include:

· Can diet slow the progression of osteoarthritis? As our population is ageing, strategies to maintain good health in old age are increasingly important. Researchers from the University of East Anglia will be investigating possible links between diet and osteoarthritis including the potential for compounds in broccoli and garlic to slow or prevent cartilage destruction.

· Healthier white bread. Future food security relies on quality of nutrition as well as quantity of food. Researchers from the University of Birmingham and the Institute of Food Research with colleagues at Rothamsted Research and Campden BRI, will be studying the natural variation of fibre in wheat with a view to making high-fibre white bread.

· New feeds for cows to reduce saturated fats in dairy products. In the UK we get one third of our saturated fat intake from dairy products so it is very desirable to reduce saturated fat in milk. A team at the University of Reading will carry out research that could cut 90,000 tonnes of saturated fat from the UK food chain per year. They plan to investigate dietary strategies for dairy cows to reduce saturated fats in milk whilst minimising any change in transfats. Such dietary changes may also reduce the amount of the greenhouse gas methane produced by cows.

Source : Diet and Health Research Industry Club