Food, glorious food!

by Peter Drake McHugh and Clare Stanfield

They say you are what you eat. And nutraceuticals and functional foods are proving it.

Who wouldn’t like to live longer and stay in good health? A rhetorical question, yes, but growing awareness of the link between nutrition and health – particularly the role diet plays in combating certain health conditions and diseases – is driving a whole new attitude toward food as medicine. Indeed, the disciplines of nutrition and medicine continue to merge as scientists enhance their understanding of food components, nutrition and their relationship to human health and well-being.

“Functional food” and “nutraceutical” are the new buzzwords in value added agri-food and health circles. In the U.S., “nutraceutical” is an umbrella term that includes functional foods, but Canada has opted for more precise definitions. Here, functional foods are defined as those which have a demonstrated health benefit beyond basic nutrition. For example, a nutritional snack bar made with oat bran, which contains beta glucan, can reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease with its cholesterol lowering effects.

Nutraceuticals are defined as products that have been isolated, or purified, from foods, demonstrate a health benefit and are generally sold in medicinal forms, such as pills, capsules and tinctures. So, if you isolate beta glucan from oat bran and put it into a pill, it becomes a nutraceutical.

All well and good, but what does it mean to you? “It’s about customizing your diet so you have some control in preserving and maintaining your health,” says Penny Mah, coordinator of the Alberta-based Canadian Functional Foods Network (CFFN). “We’re all different, and an individual’s health cannot be considered a ‘one size fits all’ service. Functional foods give us the ability to customize our health needs.”

“If you feel you have a predisposition to a chronic health problem, say heart disease, and if you eat functional foods specifically targeted toward that problem, you’re going to find prevention of that condition to be enhanced,” says Greg Wilkes, industry director for the Functional Foods Alberta Centre of Excellence (FFACE).

They both say it’s an exciting new frontier in health and wellness, and one where Alberta is poised to lead.

From commodity to curative

Both functional foods and nutraceuticals depend on high quality basic commodities, such as flax, barley, milk and so on. “We take these basic commodities and add value to them,” says Wilkes. Functional foods, as a result, tend to be highly processed before hitting the store shelves.

Take probiotics, for example. “These are the largest selling functional foods in the world,” says Wilkes. In Europe and Japan, probiotics are sold under the brand name Yakult. It’s a dairy-based functional food sold in seven-bottle packages and it’s how millions of people consume probiotics. “It’s a yogurt-like food that contains a specific number of live bacteria,” says Wilkes. “You take one every morning and it creates flora in your gut that enhances your ability to digest food without creating toxins.” It means less gas or indigestion but, more importantly, because the human gut is the centre of the immune system, probiotic food influences much more than simple digestion, it affects the entire body’s health.

Interestingly, in Japan there is a regulatory designation for foods like Yakult – FOSHU – which stands for “Food For Specific Health Use”. FOSHU is distinct, it should be noted, from food merely fortified with vitamins or minerals and dietary supplements. There are 150 FOSHU designated foods in Japan, 95% of which are aimed at gut health and in 1998, these foods accounted for over $1 billion in sales.

As an opportunity for Alberta, says Wilkes, probiotics and prebiotics (substances that enhance the growth of good bacteria already in the gut) are a natural. Take a strong dairy industry, strong university research programs on everything from gastrointestinal health to immune systems and FFACE, which links them all together, and we’re ready to turn the raw commodity into functional food.

Building an industry

While Alberta might not be making probiotics yet, the emergence of a world-class life sciences, functional food and nutraceutical industry here has been rapid. Companies such as CV Technologies, Ceapro, New Era Nutrition and Agri-Partners International are pioneering new extraction technologies and functional food products all based on fresh produce from the farmer’s field – like tomatoes which contain lycopene, an antioxidant shown to reduce the risk of some cancers.

CV Technologies, based in Edmonton, is a leader with a patented method to standardize natural food products based on their biological activities – or, more simply put, they can isolate the active components in things like ginseng, develop concentrated extracts, then put standardized amounts of those extracts into nutraceutical form.

With this process, each pill has a specific, measured amount of proven active ingredient – a giant step forward in a world of nutraceutical manufacture which is fraught with inconsistent (and sometimes totally absent) levels of active ingredient among brands. CV Technologies attained an even higher level of achievement when its product Cold-FX became the first nutraceutical in Canada to be given a DIN (Drug Identification Number).

The situation begs the question of regulation. DINs are part of Canada’s drug regulatory system, but functional foods are not drugs and nutraceuticals aren’t really either, in the traditional sense. Still, without a DIN, a medicinal-type product can not be tied to a disease. In other words, a manufacturer cannot claim the natural product cures or alleviates, say, hypertension. What’s interesting about Cold-FX is the product isn’t a drug, per se. It’s a plant extract. Yet the DIN carries a certain weight of credibility and safety.

Should Canada classify nutraceuticals as drugs and give them all DINs? Good question, and one we’re still trying to answer. “The Canadian regulatory agencies are working very hard to put regulations in place to ensure the safety and efficacy of these products,” says Penny Mah.

Both Mah and Wilkes say regulations are coming, and they eagerly await the day because regulatory standards will only strengthen Alberta’s functional food and nutraceutical industry.

The road ahead

Wilkes says FFACE has a major role to play in helping Alberta become a North American leader in functional food and nutraceutical markets. He says in order for our efforts as a province to be successful in the long term, “science-based, market-driven products will be the focus.”

The Centre was established with a grant from the Alberta Agriculture and Food Council and works with many academic centres, including the universities of Alberta, Calgary and Lethbridge, Olds College, the Alberta Research Council and Alberta Agriculture, Food and Rural Development. FFACE is building on Alberta’s solid foundations in food production and medical research. We have, in this province, a critical mass of researchers who are supported by technologically excellent facilities with expertise in functional foods and nutraceuticals. It’s a powerful force.

“We have great potential because the three universities offer a powerhouse of intellectual resources, and because the basic commodities produced here are recognized worldwide as being of uniformly good quality,” says Wilkes. “Several other factors put us in a position to play a significant role internationally, not the least of which are our clean air and pristine growing environment.”

“This is where the growth is going to be,” says Penny Mah. The way forward lies in synergy and part- nerships among all players in the agri-food industry. “The linkages between science, diet and health are becoming increasingly important to society,” she says. “Successful functional food products will be those that offer consumers premium taste, nutrition and health benefits as well as being accessible and reasonably priced.”

Says Wilkes: “Our strategy is to develop commercially viable food products that clearly impact human health positively and provide a base for increased value of Alberta agri-products. What we keep focused on is the potential of functional foods to mitigate disease, promote health, reduce health care costs and create ways to add value to Alberta’s basic commodities.”

Back to basics

Not all foods have to be functional to gain health benefits. Dr. Carolyn Pim of the Alberta Cancer Board (ACB) says research shows eating five to ten daily servings of fruits and vegetables could lower cancer rates by 20%.

However, a recent survey found that, on average, Albertans eat 3.8 servings of vegetables and fruits a day. “That means we have our work cut out for us if we are going to make progress preventing cancer,” says Pim. “Cancer is the second leading cause of death in Alberta and yet many cancers are preventable,” says Pim. “Up to 2,000 cases of cancer per year in Alberta could be prevented by people eating more vegetables and fruits.”

According to Cathy Leinweber, also of ACB, cancers of the mouth and throat, esophagus, lung, stomach, colon and rectum show the best response to a diet rich in vegetables and fruits. Risk is probably also reduced for a number of other cancers.

At the University of Calgary Sports Medicine Centre, registered dietician Kelly Anne Carter- Erdman works with the public as well as world class athletes on nutrition issues. “Even superb athletes who retire from sport have similar nutrition concerns as the general population,” she says. “We’re talking about lifestyle changes as opposed to the short-term fix. If you keep the fresh fruit and vegetables around the house, after a while it’s just habit to enjoy the produce. You will feel better and possibly even lose weight.”

A healthy diet is a powerful tool – go buy some fruit!

Eat to win: A healthy diet is part of Canadian Olympian Haley Wickenheiser’s training regime.