Showing papers by "J. Bruce German published in 2004"

Understanding Milk's Bioactive Components: A Goal for the Genomics Toolbox

Abstract: The challenges to food research are to propel foods beyond the successes of safety, convenience, and inclusion of all the essential nutrients, and to build the knowledge of genetics, metabolism, and biomolecules necessary for developing foods that deliver optimal health to each individual. How then can scientific and biological principles be developed to assemble this knowledge? The evolutionary success of milk has afforded compelling examples of a food material designed by selective pressure to provide optimal health to healthy mammalian offspring. Milk contains components that are more than assembled essential amino acids and that provide biological activities that improve the competitive success of offspring who consume them. Many of these molecules are proteins that protect individuals from exogenous stresses, toxins, and pathogens; encourage optimal growth, development, and adaptation to a chosen environment; and promote metabolic regulation for physical and intellectual performance. These structures and their actions are the basis of nutritional benefits that were not recognized when freedom from amino acid deficiency was the sole criterion of protein quality. The rapidly expanding tools of biotechnology are enabling a new perception of ingested proteins, how they are regulated, and how they achieve their specific functions. Genomes and their analyses are revealing the molecular details of their remarkable structural complexity and design. Milk proteins, either exclusively synthesized in the mammary gland during lactation or transported from plasma and concentrated in the mammary gland, have been largely co-opted from other functions. Establishing the evolutionary lineage of orthologous milk proteins, including the physiological process from which they were recruited, will lead to identification of their bioactivity. While most emphasis has been placed on the genes per se, our approaches implicate the regulatory regions of the genome as additional targets of milk's biological information content. Understanding the structures is guiding scientists to new food ingredients. Understanding structures and regulation will guide scientists to new benefits and ultimately to the knowledge to build a new generation of delicious foods that genuinely deliver on the promise of safety and maintenance of optimal health.

Saturated fats: what dietary intake? 1-3

Abstract: Public health recommendations for the US population in 1977 were to reduce fat intake to as low as 30% of calories to lower the incidence of coronary artery disease. These recommendations resulted in a compositional shift in food materials throughout the agricultural industry, and the fractional content of fats was replaced principally with carbohydrates. Subsequently, high-carbohydrate diets were recognized as contributing to the lipoprotein pattern that characterizes atherogenic dyslipidemia and hypertriacylglycerolemia. The rising incidences of metabolic syndrome and obesity are becoming common themes in the literature. Current recommendations are to keep saturated fatty acid, trans fatty acid, and cholesterol intakes as low as possible while consuming a nutritionally adequate diet. In the face of such recommendations, the agricultural industry is shifting food composition toward lower proportions of all saturated fatty acids. To date, no lower safe limit of specific saturated fatty acid intakes has been identified. This review summarizes research findings and observations on the disparate functions of saturated fatty acids and seeks to bring a more quantitative balance to the debate on dietary saturated fat. Whether a finite quantity of specific dietary saturated fatty acids actually benefits health is not yet known. Because agricultural practices to reduce saturated fat will require a prolonged and concerted effort, and because the world is moving toward more individualized dietary recommendations, should the steps to decrease saturated fatty acids to as low as agriculturally possible not wait until evidence clearly indicates which amounts and types of saturated fatty acids are optimal? Am J Clin Nutr2004; 80:550 –9.

Bioguided Processing: A Paradigm Change in Food Production

Abstract: individual dietary needs, and facilitate more personalized nutrition. In the past few centuries, we have used our knowledge of the physical and biological sciences to improve the situation of our daily lives. In the 19th century, a fundamental knowledge of chemistry was acquired, and Mendeleev’s periodic table began to take shape. This knowledge not only provided a deeper understanding of our world and ourselves, but also became applicable as the means to manipulate molecular structures to address specific end-points. Moving into the 20th century, knowledge of chemistry was used to affect and manipulate biology; examples of this activity range from pharmaceuticals to synthetic fertilizers to pesticides and food ingredients. These compounds not only changed the yields achievable on a given area of land, but also illustrated the ability to rationally modify agriculture and food production using scientific knowledge. However, chemical techniques have broad specificity in biological applications and thus do not offer precise control. In the 21st century, it will be our knowledge of biology and biological processes emerging from genomics which will guide our approaches to agriculture and food production toward sustainable, safe, nutritious, and delicious products. Functional genomics is a term which has been applied to the field of discovering gene activities, and is a logical followup to genome acquisition. A beneficial by-product of functional genomics investigations will be the ability to use our mechanistic understanding of biology’s structures and Bioguided Processing: A Paradigm Change in Food Production

Personalizing Foods for Health and Preference Consumer goods have become increasingly individualized over the past 50 years, and the scientific knowledge of genetics, diet, and metabolism will bring similar personal values to foods and health.

Abstract: J. Bruce German, Chahan Yeretzian,and Heribert J. Watzkeoods and food products have been a major part of a revolution inconsumer trends, with increasingly personalized values of conve-nience, cost, packaging, and taste all emerging as distinguishingvariables in the food marketplace. Now food is poised to take a major step toincrease the value to the consumer by personalizing diet and health.

The French Paradox

Abstract: Epidemiologic studies of populations in most developed countries show that dietary intakes of high amounts of cholesterol, saturated fat, total fat, and calories are associated positively with mortality from cardiovascular disease (CVD) (1). In France, a paradoxical epidemiological situation was identified because despite high intakes of saturated fat and high serum cholesterol concentrations, mortality from heart attacks was only one third of the average in other Western countries. This low incidence of CVD mortality, despite consumption of dietary fats and possession of blood lipid profiles that would predict otherwise, has become known popularly as the “French Paradox” (2).

Bioguided Processing: A Paradigm Change in Food Production Our understanding of biology derived through functional genomics will allow processing of foods to maintain or improve, rather than diminish, their nutritional and functional value. Milk is a good example.

Abstract: individual dietary needs, and facilitate more personalized nutrition. In the past few centuries, we have used our knowledge of the physical and biological sciences to improve the situation of our daily lives. In the 19th century, a fundamental knowledge of chemistry was acquired, and Mendeleev’s periodic table began to take shape. This knowledge not only provided a deeper understanding of our world and ourselves, but also became applicable as the means to manipulate molecular structures to address specific end-points. Moving into the 20th century, knowledge of chemistry was used to affect and manipulate biology; examples of this activity range from pharmaceuticals to synthetic fertilizers to pesticides and food ingredients. These compounds not only changed the yields achievable on a given area of land, but also illustrated the ability to rationally modify agriculture and food production using scientific knowledge. However, chemical techniques have broad specificity in biological applications and thus do not offer precise control. In the 21st century, it will be our knowledge of biology and biological processes emerging from genomics which will guide our approaches to agriculture and food production toward sustainable, safe, nutritious, and delicious products. Functional genomics is a term which has been applied to the field of discovering gene activities, and is a logical followup to genome acquisition. A beneficial by-product of functional genomics investigations will be the ability to use our mechanistic understanding of biology’s structures and Bioguided Processing: A Paradigm Change in Food Production