A critique of prevailing approaches to nutrient risk analysis pertaining to food supplements with specific reference to the European Union

Application of Gut Cell Models for Toxicological and Bioactivity Studies of Functional and Novel Foods

The concept of functional and novel foods undoubtedly bears great potential as an asset to human health. However, this very same quest for ever new bioactive ingredients calls for reliable and distinct risk assessment as they may be potentially hazardous to human health. Most of today's methodologies still rely on decades old routines of animal trials and use of tumor-derived cell lines. Since such methodologies are not in line with the actual processes in the human body and with the 3R (replacement, reduction, refinement) concept, the results are often unreliable and misleading. Therefore, in this paper we propose the utilization of available untransformed small intestinal cell lines derived from human and pig tissue of non-tumor origin and describe several available cell models of the gut that offer a functional, close resemblance with the in vivo environment.

State of the art in benefit-risk analysis: food and nutrition

Benefit-risk assessment in food and nutrition is relatively new. It weighs the beneficial and adverse effects that a food (component) may have, in order to facilitate more informed management decisions regarding public health issues. It is rooted in the recognition that good food and nutrition can improve health and that some risk may be acceptable if benefit is expected to outweigh it. This paper presents an overview of current concepts and practices in benefit-risk analysis for food and nutrition. It aims to facilitate scientists and policy makers in performing, interpreting and evaluating benefit-risk assessments. Historically, the assessments of risks and benefits have been separate processes. Risk assessment is mainly addressed by toxicology, as demanded by regulation. It traditionally assumes that a maximum safe dose can be determined from experimental studies (usually in animals) and that applying appropriate uncertainty factors then defines the 'safe' intake for human populations. There is a minor role for other research traditions in risk assessment, such as epidemiology, which quantifies associations between determinants and health effects in humans. These effects can be both adverse and beneficial. Benefit assessment is newly developing in regulatory terms, but has been the subject of research for a long time within nutrition and epidemiology. The exact scope is yet to be defined. Reductions in risk can be termed benefits, but also states rising above 'the average health' are explored as benefits. In nutrition, current interest is in 'optimal' intake; from a population perspective, but also from a more individualised perspective. In current approaches to combine benefit and risk assessment, benefit assessment mirrors the traditional risk assessment paradigm of hazard identification, hazard characterization, exposure assessment and risk characterization. Benefit-risk comparison can be qualitative and quantitative. In a quantitative comparison, benefits and risks are expressed in a common currency, for which the input may be deterministic or (increasingly more) probabilistic. A tiered approach is advocated, as this allows for transparency, an early stop in the analysis and interim interaction with the decision-maker. A general problem in the disciplines underlying benefit-risk assessment is that good dose-response data, i.e. at relevant intake levels and suitable for the target population, are scarce. It is concluded that, provided it is clearly explained, benefit-risk assessment is a valuable approach to systematically show current knowledge and its gaps and to transparently provide the best possible science-based answer to complicated questions with a large potential impact on public health.