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ready, so the food industry believes, for a wave of positivity with
foods that have added ingredients that will actually improve
health. These foods with special health ingredients, called func-
tional foods or neutraceuticals, cornered $16 billion in the USA
alone in 2005 according to the market research group Leather-
head International.
Functional foods have been around for a long time. Iodine
was added to salt, and vitamins added to milk over half a cen-
tury ago to compensate for deficiencies in the diets of poor
people. But it was in the 1990s that the idea of functional foods
really began to take off.
Of course, all food is functional in some sense in that it con-
tains ingredients that affect your health by providing nutrients,
or simply calories. And many natural products are identified for
their special health-giving ingredients such as calcium in milk
and Omega-3 in oily fish. Moreover, the potential value of mar-
keting food as functional has encouraged many food companies
to simply shoehorn ingredients such as extra vitamins and
minerals into existing products. Nonetheless, there are some
genuinely new products with original functional ingredients,
such as Yakult yoghurt with its Lactobacillus casei Shirota which
101 FACTS YOU SHOULD KNOW ABOUT FOOD " 119
promote friendly bacteria in the gut, and Benecol margarine
with the plant sterols that help reduce cholesterol.
More and more scientific research is being done to explore
the relationship between diet and disease, and into particular
substances that provide protection against particular ailments.
However, the research is still in its infancy, and there are actually
very few scientifically validated health claims that can be made.
Among the exceptions seem to be the beneficial effects of pro-
biotic yoghurts on the gut s bacteria.
One of the problems for governments is the way functional
foods cross over between pharmaceuticals and food and fall
into a grey area for legislation. The three largest markets Japan,
the USA and the UK all have regulations that permit food-
makers to make health claims for products in order to encourage
healthy eating. But there is as yet little regulation to cover the
validity of claims, or even to guarantee safety.
120 " 101 FACTS YOU SHOULD KNOW ABOUT FOOD
65. Blueberries may be more effective in
protecting people against heart disease
than statin drugs
or some time now, many people around the world have
Fregularly been taking statin drugs to reduce blood cholesterol
levels and lower their risk of heart disease. Indeed, statins are big
pharmaceutical business, generating huge amounts of money
for drug companies. Millions of apparently healthy people go
into health centres to test the level of their blood cholesterol,
and millions are recommended to start taking statin drugs if the
tests show raised cholesterol levels. They will probably stay on
the drugs for the rest of their life. Not all experts agree with the
wisdom of this widespread statin attack, but those who take the
drugs are convinced that it s the key to staying healthy.
In 2004, however, Dr Agnes Rimando, a researcher with the
US Drug Administration, found that the common blueberry con-
tains a compound called pterostilbene. This remarkable natural
compound (pronounced ter-a-STILL-bean ) may be able to lower
blood cholesterol even more effectively than statins.
Rimando and other scientists had long suspected that the
antioxidant chemicals in blueberries might help lower choles-
terol or rather the more dangerous LDL cholesterol. So she and
her colleagues exposed four chemicals found in blueberries,
including pterostilbene, to liver cells taken from rats and found
that pterostilbene activates a receptor that plays a role in lower-
ing LDL and other fats in the blood.
Statins work in the same way, but are less specific and can
101 FACTS YOU SHOULD KNOW ABOUT FOOD " 121
have side effects such as muscle pain and nausea. Because
pterostilbene targets a specific receptor, it s likely to have fewer
side effects. Indeed, since it s effective in even low concentra-
tions, people might get the benefits by just eating blueberries.
No one knows, yet, how many blueberries people would need to
eat, but it adds to the growing list of health benefits which the
tiny berry is being credited with. Its rich antioxidant content
means that it s already a favourite with those who believe that
antioxidants may help guard against the effects of ageing. Blue-
berries are also thought to help protect the body against cancer
and diabetes and even boost memory. As more and more people
have come to know of the blueberry s power, so vast areas are
being planted with blueberry bushes in places like Poland and
California, as well as in traditional centres for blueberry-growing
such as Maine.
122 " 101 FACTS YOU SHOULD KNOW ABOUT FOOD
66. 28 million Americans are at risk of
osteoporosis because their diet is not
rich enough in calcium
ecause it comes on mainly in old age, most people think little
Bof the threat of the bone disease osteoporosis. But because
many of us are living longer, it s coming to affect more and more
people. A crucial element in protection against osteoporosis is
taking in sufficient calcium in your diet. Most experts recom-
mend that this should be about 1,000mg a day the equivalent
of three servings of calcium-rich food such as milk, cheese,
broccoli and sardines with bones. Yet according to a survey by
the US Drug Administration, 8 out of 10 women and 6 out of 10
men have an intake that is less than three-quarters or even a half
of the recommended dose. The risk of osteoporosis is exacerbated
when this lack of calcium is combined with a lack of the vitamin
D needed to absorb the calcium usually obtained from sun-
light and also a lack of weight-bearing exercise.
101 FACTS YOU SHOULD KNOW ABOUT FOOD " 123
67. The world produces and eats over 134 million
tonnes of sugar a year
here s no doubt that the world has a very sweet tooth. The
Tannual sugar production of 134 million tonnes means that
we are growing enough sugar for every man, woman and child
to consume over 30kg a year! That s a very big pile of sugar. It s
called table sugar, but only a little is spooned directly into our
tea and coffee, or sprinkled on our cereal. Most goes into
processed foods. 70% comes from sugar cane, mostly grown in
warm regions such as South America, India and China, and 30%
from beet grown in cooler regions such as Europe and parts of
the USA.
And that s not the only sugar we get. Table sugar or sucrose
is only one of the many types of sugar, each with varying degrees
of sweetness. The sweetest is fructose, which is found in fruit
and honey. Then comes sucrose, then glucose, found in honey,
fruit and vegetables; then maltose from grains and lactose from
milk. Nutritionists sometimes talk about intrinsic sugars, the
sugars which occur naturally in food such as fruit and vegetables.
Extrinsic sugars are the ones we add to food.
In the past, the main concern about eating too much sugar
was the damage it does to teeth by promoting tooth decay.
However, experts are now increasingly concerned by its role in
diabetes and obesity. In 2003, the World Health Organization
and the Food and Agriculture Organization commissioned a
report from 30 international experts. They concluded that sugars
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