Plant Biotechnology: Biotechnology Could Help Provide Healthier Diets
Council for Biotechnology Information
Excerpt…
Look no further than to America's recent past to discover the long-time link between chronic disease and food.
As recently as the 1920s, pellagra — which caused scaly skin, intestinal distress, depression and death in about 5 percent of cases — devastated areas of the South. It killed thousands and afflicted hundreds of thousands more. For the first third of the 20th century, there were many theories about the cause of the disease, including poor sanitation, rotten corn and that it was a virus transmitted by human contact.
But it wasn't until 1937 that a University of Wisconsin researcher discovered that the disease was actually caused by a deficiency in a B complex vitamin, nicotinic acid, which later became known as niacin.
During World War II, white bread was enriched with niacin, which so thoroughly eliminated any remaining traces of pellagra that the disease is now sometimes referred to as "The Forgotten Plague."
Today, some believe that what the fortification of foods did to vastly improve health in the 20th century, biotechnology can do for the 21st century.
"Biotechnology can help improve the health-promoting profile of food by increasing levels of desirable substances and decreasing allergens and other factors that increase the risk of disease," Catherine Woteki, who has a Ph.D. in human nutrition and is also dean of Iowa State University's College of Agriculture, told participants at a recent American Association for the Advancement of Science meeting.
Woteki says it's believed that dietary factors and the lack of physical activity in adulthood are related to about a third of all cancer deaths in the United States, as well as many other chronic diseases.
"Scientific evidence has shown diet to be a factor in many of the leading causes of death in the United States, including heart disease, cancer, diabetes and kidney disease," she says.
But what the exact link is between diet and many of these diseases is still not fully understood.
Sterols and polyphenols, micronutrients that are found in red wines as well as in fruits and vegetables, for example, are believed to help prevent heart disease. There are also many other substances in fruits and vegetables that are believed to stave off disease.
Once the role of these disease-preventing micronutrients is fully understood, plant biotechnology can be used to boost their levels in food to improve health — just as the fortification of food did in the 20th century.
"To the extent that we can use various techniques to improve the health-promoting quality of the food supply, we can be making a dent in the occurrence of these diseases," says Woteki.
Although there are currently no such biotech products on the market, Woteki says golden rice, which is enhanced with beta carotene that stimulates the production of vitamin A, is one of the best examples of a health-promoting biotech food in development. Every year, between 250,000 and 500,000 go blind because of vitamin A deficiency, according to the World Health Organization. And about half of these children die within a year of losing their sight.
There are many other health-promoting foods in development, including:
Tomatoes with increased levels of lycopene, which is believed to lower the risk of breast and prostate cancers, as well as coronary heart disease. Soybean, corn and canola oils that are enhanced with nearly 10 times the levels of healthy vitamin E, which is believed to improve the body's immune system, lower the risk of cardiovascular disease and some cancers, and slow the progress of degenerative diseases such as Alzheimer's. Lettuce that is enhanced with resveratrol, the ingredient in red grapes and red wine that is believed to help prevent heart disease and cancer by increasing levels of good cholesterol and lowering levels of bad cholesterol.
The link between food and health, of course, is nothing new. Hippocrates, the Greek physician who's known as the father of modern medicine, wrote in 400 B.C., "Let food be your medicine and medicine be your food."
Back in 1753, James Lind reported that two oranges and a lemon a day would cure scurvy, although it took the British Navy nearly half a decade to adopt his recommendations.
More recently, adding vitamin D to milk has helped prevent rickets (a childhood disease, caused by vitamin D deficiency and inadequate exposure to sunlight, characterized by a softening of the bones), adding thiamin to flour has helped eliminate beriberi (a nerve disease triggered by a vitamin B deficiency that causes paralysis in the limbs) and adding folic acid to cereals has helped prevent spina bifida, a birth defect often causing neurological impairment.
"Fortifying or supplementing the food supply with healthful substances has a proven track record," says Woteki, emphasizing that biotechnology is just one of several approaches to improving diets even more....
Full article at Council for Biotechnology Information.
