In recent years the definition of the human microbiome has been postulated as an essential tool for medicine, pharmacy, nutrition and other disciplines in order to understand the role of microorganisms present in the body on health and immunity. In fact, the microbiome affects aging, digestion, immune system, mood and cognitive functions.
But, what is the microbiome?
There are different definitions for this term. Generally speaking, we can say that the human microbiome is the set of microorganisms in each person (microbiota)and the genes these cells harbour.
Microbiome research area comprises a field of science associated primarily with advances in DNA / RNA sequencing and computational biology. Thus, the microbiome can be defined as the genomic content of all microorganisms recovered from a habitat or ecosystem (eg saliva, feces or skin).
The study of the microbiome started in the 17th century with the development of the first microscopes and the beginnings of the science of microbiology. However, it has been in recent years when the development of rapid sequencing methods, the reduction of the costs associated with these techniques and the development of data management techniques have been developed which has enabled the microbiome and its constituents.
And why is it important?
Taking into account that the number of microorganisms that we harbour is between 10 and 100 billion (ten times higher than our number of cells), that we can have more than ten thousand different species and that the types of microorganism vary greatly among different people, we can think that the microbiome has a special role in our health. In fact, the knowledge of these microorganisms, the functions of their genes, their metabolic and regulatory pathways is already allowing them to develop strategies to prevent diseases and improve general health.
However, the microbiome of each person is not something static. Nutritional imbalances, lifestyle, use (and abuse) of antibiotics, low exposure to pathogens (or excess of hygiene) permanently modify our microbiome.
And what is your relationship with the diet?
There is a clear relationship between what we eat and the balance of our native flora that has a direct impact on our health status. Indeed, is interesting that changes in diet are always accompanied by changes in the microbiota and the enrichment of their corresponding genes.
Balanced diets can promote a proper and well-structured microbiota and conversely, alterations in the composition of our microbiota or reduction of some of the microorganisms that make up the diversity of the microbiota, increase the risk of suffering from diseases related to lifestyle such as allergies, diabetes, obesity and / or irritable bowel syndrome. In addition, a prolonged state of these situations has been related to metabolic alterations.
Recent studies have shown that there are notable differences in the microbiota of people who follow rich meat diets versus those who follow more ancestral life-styles and diets based mainly on vegetable consumption. There are studies that suggest that a type of diet rich in proteins and animal fat is associated with a particular kind of flora while carbohydrate-rich diets are associated with the prevalence of another type of flora. These differences have been linked to the risk of developing non-communicable diseases such as atherosclerosis.
Over and undernutrition malnutrition has a direct impact on the microbiota that favours alterations of the same that, finally, lead to problems associated with an increase in inflammation and metabolic problems. A strong influence has been observed in nutrient-poor diets, especially those deficient in certain amino acids, in the positive incidence of intestinal inflammation. Likewise, the pathogenesis of various diseases is associated with certain components of the diet that promote disorders in the microbiota.
Therefore, the better balanced the diet, the more diverse the microbiota. Thus, intervention through personalized diets improves the response in individuals with low microbiome richness.
And then, can it be improved?
Of course we can! The importance of food, nutritional balance and life-style have a direct influence on the composition of our microbiota and its activity and, therefore, directly on our health. From this relationship arises the interest to develop new strategies to personalize our diet.
The term “malnutrition” refers to a state in which a deficiency, excess or imbalance of energy, proteins and other nutrients. According to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) more than 2 billion people on the planet suffers some form of malnutrition. When we think about malnutrition, children or adults with undernutrition come to our minds. However, malnutrition can occurs either due to a lack of certain essential micronutrients, e.g vitamins and minerals (dietary deficiency), insufficient calorie intake to ensure normal growth and life (undernutrition) or an excess of consumption of calories (overnutrition).
Nutrition-related diseases are becoming more prevalent in the world and are a serious problem, and overweight and obesity that were related to food abundance, are now a reflection of a clear malnutrition.
According to data from the World Health Organization (WHO), since 1980 obesity has doubled worldwide. Specifically, by 2014 more than 1,9 billion adults (aged 18 and over) were overweight, more than 600 million of them were classified as obese. In the same year, it was established that 41 million children under 5 were overweight or obese.
The global cost of malnutrition is about $3,5 billion per year due to associated public health costs and lack of productivity.
Overweight malnutrition is a prevalent problem and increases the risk of developing metabolic diseases such as diabetes, hypertension, coronary heart disease and stroke, atherosclerosis, and is linked to several cancers due to excess of calories or lack of nutrient balance from the diet.
Economic crisis, political and social factors, cultural and biological conditions are some of the factors that influence the evolution of this problem. In our developed world, the causes that characterize malnutrition are directly related to low nutritional quality diets characterized by an excess in consumption of fat, carbohydrates, low consumption of good quality proteins, vitamins, minerals and fibre and a decrease in physical activity.
New busy life style, increased intake of high-calorie foods (in some countries healthy foods are more expensive than processed food) or inactivity are factors that have contributed to the emergence of this problem.
During the last decade, a boost has been made on nutrition as a key to the development of countries. In 2015, however, the goals for sustainable development were to achieve the end ALL forms of malnutrition by 2030, challenging the world to think and act differently on malnutrition and to end all forms of malnutrition.
Nutrition begins with what we eat. Good nutrition gives us the energy we need to live and is the first defense against diseases. Adequate nutrition is essential for good health and, likewise, poor nutrition can affect the occurrence of diseases or physical and mental underdevelopment, especially in the case of children.
Food is the way to promote health. Recently the Spanish Society of Community Nutrition (SENC) has presented the dietary guidelines and the new nutritional pyramid on which basis, of course, includes daily exercise and emotional balance.
The nutritional pyramid should be our spiritual guide to achieve an adequate nutritional balance. However, the new pyramid also raises some issues such as the presence of sausages or coldmeats as part of daily servings of protein sources, or the presence of the scary industrial pastries, sweets and sugary drinks, or salty snacks as an “optional and moderate consum” and especially the appearance of the nutritional supplements flag waving at the top of the pyramid…
Undoubtedly, there are actions that have long been necessary to eradicate this problem associated with food and that require the full involvement of the competent authorities. For example, the urgency in defining nutritional profiles that would limit food producers’ ability to make use of nutritional claims in low-nutrient products, or limiting children’s advertising of calorie foods (action, of course, which WHO has already taken with “fast food” companies) or pressure on the food industry to reformulate certain products (part of this road is already under way).
On the other hand, the necessary (I would say even mandatory) empowering of consumers on nutrition education in order to choose healthy food and diets to obtain an adequate nutritional balance. Internalize the importance of a proper nutrition, choose fresh seasonal products (and if possible, local food), limit (or do without) the consumption of foods that are not necessary (they are almost certainly calorie-rich and very cheap food), check nutritional labels and practice some regular physical activity.
Artificial soils, also called tecnosoils, technosols or technosoil are, as the name implies, artificial soils made from mixtures of different non-hazardous waste and by-products. These technosoils are usually complemented with other raw materials for their application both in the improvement of agricultural soils and in the restoration of degraded areas.
The main applications of the tecnosoils are amendment for agricultural soils, material for the recovery of degraded and/or contaminated soils and water, covering of rubbish dumps, employment in areas affected by urban works and infrastructures (roundabouts, roadsides and areas non-recreational garden areas), material for the recovery of mines and quarries or soils degraded by erosion, fire or loss of productive capacity.
The elaboration of the mixtures in order to obtain these artificial soils has a double purpose; on one hand, waste are valorized, minimizing the potential environmental impacts derived from a poor management of these and, on the other hand, degraded soils are recovered without excessive costs.
The idea is to take advantage of all the available resources in the market to valorize and transform them into the best amendments, fertilizers and tecnosoils, essential for the optimal management of agricultural soils or for the correct restoration of soil and environmentally degraded spaces. In this way, wealth is also generated and it is managed to avoid the unwanted and unnecessary elimination of multiple residues and products currently underutilized, able to be reincorporated to a new life cycle, maintaining an environmentally and economically sustainable model that also favors the fight against climate change.
We are working on projects developing tecnosoils inCARTIF, one of them is SUSTRATEC Project, which aims to develop precisely innovative tecnosoils, i.e., artificial soils, which will also possess special features that will make them innovative.
The main novelty of these technological substrates is that they will have a self-fertilizing capacity as well as atmospheric pollutant uptake. The aim is to create “soils to the letter“ and to amend agricultural soils taking into account the different problems. The tecnosoils to be developed will come from the valorization of the sludge coming from the purification plants and agri-food industries. These soils will be complemented with other raw materials such as sugar foams, mussel shell, coffee residues, or pruning, in addition to other additives.
One of the main innovative elements will also be the inclusion of encapsulated bacteria in tecnosoils that will be developed, and that they exert beneficial effects in the field, improving the fertility due to its capacity to fix nitrogen. In addition, artificial soils fixes atmospheric pollutants and contribute to reduce greenhouse gas emissions into the atmosphere.
The quality control of the products we consume daily is carried out by means of reference methods that present great limitations as to the necessity of sampling (which may or may not be representative of the whole), which also entails the manipulation and even destruction of the sample (which is a significant economic expense) and does not offer us an immediate response, which makes difficult taking decisions.
The agro-food industry continuously seeks solutions of quick, simple and direct application in order to improve quality and security controls of food, both in the final product and in the different phases of its production chain, starting with the variability in raw materials.
The spectroscopic (near-infrared) NIR technique alone or combined with hyperspectral imaging methods and using chemometric tools in both cases is a technology that saves the tedious, costly and long laboratory tests that the product usually requires to control its production.
NIR technology in online mode allows the monitoring of a process and product without interfering in it, to carry out a continuous and individual control of the production and continuously supervising the quality of the product, which facilitates an immediate adjustment if it would be necessary, contributing directly to the profitability of the plant.
It is true that this technique requires prior preparation of equipment with a significant associated cost, but in the medium term, it is compensated by the ease and the speed in the response to this need.
There are a lot of applications in which agro-food industry has applied online NIR in its labs, for last 15 years, but very few have implemented it directly on the production line, where its advantages are clearly evident.
What would it bring us?
With the information obtained from each product in real time and on the processing line itself, we would facilitate the taking of decision to ensure its quality and safety.
Where do we start?
Identifying the moment in which the product requires the control of some critical parameter that ensure its quality.
How do we do it?
Creating calibrations for each parameter at each point in the process that we want to control.
In CARTIF, we are sure of these advantages because we have been working with this technology for more than 15 years. We have used it frequently to support companies in the agro-food sector, starting with a diagnosis of the process to identify in what way, how and when it is most advantageous and necessary its application and developing the methodology to implement it in the company.
During these years, we have developed a wide variety of applications for very different products: from cereals to pulses, feed, eggs, dairy products, meats, cured meat products, etc., saving important challenges in terms of heterogeneity of products and the determination of minority compounds.
Currently, in CARTIF, we carry on working to companies make the most of this technology and we go on developing new interesting applications for industry and, definitively, for the consumer, such as the identification of contamination of food with potentially dangerous products for sensitive people, whether due to allergies or intolerances.
There is no doubt that cereal grain are the main source of the diet of consumers around the world. In fact, global cereal production in 2016 was 2,6 million tonnes (FAO data) and account for 30 to 70% of daily energy consumption (FAO data). Cereal intake should be 2-3 servings a day, and, according to the Mediterranean diet model, the consumption of bread and cereal derivates (pasta, rice and other cereals) should preferably be done as whole grain form.
Cereal grains are a great source of carbohydrates, protein, dietary fiber, vitamins (especially from B group) and minerals. In addition to the germ and the endosperm, whole grains, in contrast to the refined ones, contain the bran fraction which is eliminated mainly during the refining process. Whole grains are a great source of vitamins, minerals and phytochemicals, and there are numerous studies linking these properties to the prevention of chronic diseases.
This clear evidence of the importance of the consumption of whole grains has encouraged that many countries recommend their consumption and in some of them, like the United States, the campaign has arrived at great restaurants and schools where all type of cereals are used with the aim of modify the consumer perception of “wholegrain concept“.
In Spain, despite these recommendations, most cereal products are still made from refined flour. This happens, in part, because the food industry finds difficulties to adapt the recipes from whole grain ingredients because the incorporation of fiber generates some technological problems. On the other hand, there is a lack of demand on the part of the consumers with an educated palate to certain flavors and textures in the canons of the refined products.
Undoubtedly, there is a huge need of training consumers in the knowledge of which are the healthy options. However, there is an awakening of the industrial instinct to improve the nutritional profile of cereal based food products, through the moderation of the physiological response that they exert in the organism (eg, through reducing the glycemic index) and through the feasibility in the industrial application of whole grains, improving their incorporation into products and reducing the detrimental effects of sensory quality associated with the incorporation of fiber
A technological revolution come up to rich this challenges and to develop new cereal products that bring a clear benefit to health, such as high protein content, high fiber or whole grains, with new sensory experiences, cereals and less common flours (chia, quinoa, legumes) and of course, rich and appetizing. More whole grains in our kitchens, in our tuppers and in our appetizers.
Some of the improvements that are being made by the sector in recent years and that put technology at the service of cereals are:
Fiber-rich pre-fermented doughs, has been shown to be an advantage in the production of bread, which allows the avoidance of defects in bread volume or crumb texture that direct application of the fiber can cause. In addition, the pre-fermentation of the mass of whole grains or fiber-rich doughs gives breads with less impact on the glycemic index.
Grinding or milling systems that remove only the parts of the grain that deteriorate the technological quality of the cereals and improve the retained concentration of bioactive compounds. This means that it is possible to obtain whole flours with more nutritional quality but without the detriment of the quality in final cereal product that causes the incorporation of bran.
Softening processes of whole grains; they are processes prior to the incorporation of the grain in baking dough that allow the appearance of whole grains with a soft and pleasant texture inside the dough and that do not affect the baking process.
Another option is the of the fiber aqueous extraction, which allows the same nutritional and healthy benefits, without the detrimental effects of incorporation of fiber into bakery products.
The fractionation technologies allow the production of ingredients rich in β-glucans easily applicable thanks to better physical properties (like hydration or viscosity) and technological.
Another technological improvement to be able to offer all the value of the whole cereals is the transformation of the part of the insoluble fiber to soluble through the application of the extrusion technology.
There are many whole grains, not just wheat, waiting for their opportunity to apply the appropriate technology to favor their use while maintaining their nutritional properties and giving rise to new products based on whole grains.
We start the new year fulfilling the promise of writing a second part of the post “Without sugar, please” of possible alternatives to elaborate food without sucrose or “table sugar”, the most commonly used sweetener in the industrialized world.
So this year, my letter to Three Wise Men was:
Dear Three Wise Men:
As you know, the search for alternatives to sucrose is a topic of general interest for the food industry, consumers, researchers, health professionals, etc.
So this year, in which I’ve endeavored to find the way to develop healthier foods, I would like to ask you a very special sweetener. First of all, I would like that this sweetener could be at least as sweet as sucrose, colorless, odorless, noncariogenic and, of course, low-calorie. I would like the taste could clean and could not provide foreign flavors. I would like it could be water soluble and stable in both acidic and basic conditions and over a wide range of temperatures. Thinking in industry, it would be ideal that it could be processed in a similar way to the sucrose so that they could continue to use the same equipment. I would love that I could include it in any food and does not harm the shelf life of the final product.
As you are wise and very nice, I also want to be price competitive in relation to sucrose and easy to produce, store and transport. And to conclude, please the most important thing, is that it is SAFE for the entire population, I mean that it is not toxic and is metabolized without causing any unwanted alteration.
Thank you very much and if you fulfill what I ask you I promise that next year we will have the healthiest sweet coal in the world!
Love,
María
So, I sent my letter really excited and January 6 th, my children who always get up 8 o´clock in the morning, came to wake me up screaming: “Mummyyy!, the Three Wise Men have left a letter for you!” They were right, Wise Men had bothered to reply to my letter and this is what they said:
Dear María:
We have received your letter and we are very proud that from Cartif, you continue betting on a healthier diet but we have to tell you that, although we are magicians, we do not perform miracles. We are sorry to inform you that sweetener you describe in your letter does not exist. We can only advise you to use sweeteners you have intelligently, combine them between themselves to achieve a synergistic effect and thus use less amounts. If you are looking for low-calorie sweetener than sucrose, you can use intensive sweeteners and polyols although we know than there are controversies about their effects on health, which can give strange flavors and are labeled as additives.
We have received news of the “Stevia-boom” that is living in the food industry. If you have time, we’d like you to tell that although stevia (E-960) is plant-derived this does not mean that it is natural. Remember that all or nothing is poison and that the difference is in the dose.
Keep in mind that you can also use soluble fibers such as inulin and polydextrose although they provide less sweetness, ferment the intestinal microbiota acting as prebiotics, provide few calories and are not labeled as additives.
And before saying goodbye, as we all know that it has not won the lottery, still encouraging enterprises to develop products with a more balanced nutritional profile.
