Feedback from the third congress of the SFN

The third congress of the SFN, Société Française de Nutrition (French Nutrition Society), in collaboration with the British Nutrition Society, was held in Lille, France, on the 6 and 7^th December 2007. As mentioned in a previous communication on this website, on this occasion, Roquette co-sponsored with Lesaffre a parallel session on "New Satiating Ingredients", dealing through four talks with :

• The criteria to meet in order to demonstrate a satiating effect (Professor Monique Romon, Faculté de Médecine, Head of the Nutrition Department of the CHU, Lille),
• The links between low glycemic index and a satiating effect (Professor Jeya Henry, Oxford Brookes University),
• Satiety induced by proteins, with yeast proteins taken as an example (Professor Daniel Tomé, AgroParisTech, Paris),
• Satiating ingredients and claims (Professor Jean-Louis Bresson, Paediatrician and Professor at the Necker Medical School, Head of a Clinical Research Center, and Member of the EFSA Scientific Panel on Dietetic Products, Nutrition and Allergies since 2003).
  
  

 

• No absolute indicator of satiety can be defined and we are on the threshold of new fields of knowledge. Biomarkers of appetite can be measured through visual analogical scales. The satiety cascade shows that numerous factors are implied in this phenomenon, such as those of a sensorial, digestive, metabolic or hormonal nature. Different exploratory methods are being developed at the current time, such as medical imaging of the brain or satiety hormone dosages, but many are still only designed for medium-term measures and not long-term studies or still suffer from inter-individual variability.
  
  
  
• In the current epidemic obesity context, reliable food biomarkers would be very useful to evaluate proper impact on food intake management. The glycemic index has been evaluated for such targets and it has been demonstrated that low glycemic index foods could be in some studies (breakfasts for children at school) inducing a lower caloric intake at the subsequent meal and even for a period of 24 hours. But these are short-term studies and what is taken into account is the global GI of the meal, not individual GIs of the components of the meal. Once again the mechanisms by which low GI foods are thought to induce a decrease in the food intake are not elucidated, but innovative ingredients such as the soluble fibre NUTRIOSE^® 06 could be useful tools for this purpose.
  
  
  
• Satiety induced by proteins has been demonstrated in short and medium-term trials in rats with a subsequent decrease in food intake and adiposity during high-protein diets. The influence of the protein's nature remains controversial. In rats, it has been shown, not only in 24-hour high-protein diets, but also in 21-day normal diets, that some yeast proteins induced a decrease in food intake and in weight gain. Even a specific purified fraction tested in rats and in humans has demonstrated a short-term effect, probably implying some specific areas of the brain linked to anorexia effect.
  
  
  
• Nutritional claims, aimed at highlighting such nutritional properties of foods or ingredients, are subject to very strict regulations. Complete files grouping together all the data on the characteristics and properties claimed should be presented to the official authorities (EFSA) who decide whether or not they comply with the regulations. They should be classified either as "Nutritional claims”, which means with a specific composition, or as "Health claims", separated into 2 types. The "Functional" type claims an effect differing from a reduction in the risk of illness and has to be included in a pre-defined list (to be published in 2009), the content of which is likely to increase over the course of time with the registering of fresh convincing files. The "Risk reduction" type claims a decrease in the risk of illness and each product with such a claim should be submitted for authorisation with appropriate demonstrations. In any case, in order to be "qualified", each product will have to go through the filter of Nutritional profiles.

During the final roundtable, presided over by Professor Dominique Turck, (President of the Nutrition Committee, AFSSA, France), a summary of two other symposia on omega 3 and probiotics was given. Participants such as doctors and dieticians were able to evaluate and question the interest of food supplements with such nutritional properties for their daily professional activity, compared with advising changes in dietary habits, taking into account the present socio-economical context.