Plant Biotechnology: Biotechnology Could Help Provide Healthier Diets
Council for Biotechnology Information
July 27, 2007
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, 4 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….
Full article at Council for Biotechnology Information.
