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Nutrients
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Food Composition and Dedicated Databases: Key Tools for Human Health...
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Food Composition and Dedicated Databases: Key Tools for Human Health and Public Nutrition (2nd Edition)

A special issue of Nutrients (ISSN 2072-6643). This special issue belongs to the section "Nutritional Policies and Education for Health Promotion".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 30 June 2024 | Viewed by 4725

Special Issue Editors

Dr. Alessandra Durazzo

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
CREA-Research Centre for Food and Nutrition, Via Ardeatina 546, 00178 Rome, Italy
Interests: bioactive compounds; natural products; nutraceuticals; antioxidants; dietary supplements; food quality; nutrition; food composition databases; bioavailability, metabolic pathway; nanoformulations
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Dr. Massimo Lucarini

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
CREA-Research Centre for Food and Nutrition, Via Ardeatina 546, 00178 Rome, Italy
Interests: natural compounds; nutraceuticals; natural products; food science and nutrition; food composition databases; bioaccesibility; dietary intake
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

To better understand nutrition, food chemistry, and medicine, it is necessary to study bioactive constituents, which requires detailed knowledge and coverage on the composition of compounds of nutritional and nutraceutical character; the need for the categorization of substances and for the implementation of specific and dedicated databases has emerged from both analytical data and collected data taken from the literature throughout harmonized and standardized approaches.

Food Composition Databases (FCDBs) aim to produce, collect, and present data in a standardized format to “speak a common language” that allows for the comparison of data from different national databases to foster exchange and collaboration between countries. At the same time, research is focused on the development of databases and models on metabolites in humans and novel dietary biomarkers.

The development of databases of nutrients, bioactive compounds, and metabolites are key tools for human health and public nutrition and represent resources for a wide range of applications in food, pharmaceutical, nutraceutical, epidemiology, and medicinal areas.

The initial construction of a dataset of specific nutrients and bioactive compounds or class bioactive compounds and their inclusion in a specified and standardized database will be monitored; in addition, updating and expanding the comprehensive database is welcome. Additionally, a database dedicated to a peculiar and characteristic category of foods: traditional, certified, and recipe databases are welcome.

The design and construction of food databases foremost requires the exact identification of foods throughout an adequate food nomenclature and a precise description. There is a consensus on the importance of the nomenclature, description, and classification of foods and food groups. A coherent food description system is essential for comparing and/or exchanging data from different databases, and data of the same nature from different organizations and countries. Matching procedures for linking different databases are here encouraged.

Food composition and other dedicated databases as well as metabolomic databases and biomarker repositories represent a unique data resource for nutritionists, dietitians, and researchers for several applications, i.e., dietary assessment, exposure studies, food labelling, health claims processes, epidemiological studies, and clinical trials.

Applications and uses of databases from nutrition and medicine-related fields in other contexts are here explored. Current research trends are defined.

Dr. Alessandra Durazzo
Dr. Massimo Lucarini
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Nutrients is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2900 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • food data
  • food groups
  • nutrients
  • natural substances
  • classification
  • categorization
  • food composition databases
  • dedicated databases
  • metabolites
  • dietary biomarkers
  • nutrition knowledge
  • human health
  • epidemiology studies
  • applications and benefits
  • health claims
  • food labelling
  • public health
  • health promotion

Published Papers (4 papers)

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18 pages, 274 KiB  
Article
Development of a Database of LanguaLTM and FoodEx2 Codes of 50 Ready-to-Eat Products
by Alessandra Durazzo, Tommaso D’Andrea, Paolo Gabrielli, Niccolò Pilla, Altero Aguzzi, Massimo Lucarini and Gianni Sagratini
Nutrients 2024, 16(8), 1151; https://doi.org/10.3390/nu16081151 - 12 Apr 2024
Viewed by 334
Abstract
Ready-to-eat (RTE) and ready-to-heat (RTH) dishes are food items that help save time, physical energy, and mental effort in all food-related activities. Convenience of use, variability of supply, and adaptability to different consumption occasions have led to an increase of acceptance among consumers [...] Read more.
Ready-to-eat (RTE) and ready-to-heat (RTH) dishes are food items that help save time, physical energy, and mental effort in all food-related activities. Convenience of use, variability of supply, and adaptability to different consumption occasions have led to an increase of acceptance among consumers through the years. Specialized databases can help in this context, where food composition databases can provide information and data to create sustainable nutritional models by reducing the now growing number of chronic diseases. This paper aims at developing a database of LanguaLTM and FoodEx2 codes of 50 food preparations and ready-to-eat dishes designed for consumption outside the home. LanguaLTM, as well as FoodEx2, are classification and description systems for indexing, in the sense of a systematic description, of foods based on a hierarchical model (parent–child relationship), thus facilitating the international exchange of data on food composition, consumption, assessing chronic and/or acute exposure to a certain agent, and not least the assessment of nutrient intake. The database, here presented, consists of the codes of fifty ready-to-eat products present on the market in Italy, obtained by using the two mostly commonly used and widely recognized coding systems: LanguaLTM and FoodEx2. This database represents a tool and a guideline for other compilers and users to apply coding systems to ready-to-eat products. Moreover, it can be represented a resource for several applications, such as nutritional cards, nutritional facts, food labels, or booklet and brochures for promotion of food products, to be used at health and food nutrition interface, useful for consumers, dieticians, and food producers. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Food Composition and Dedicated Databases: Key Tools for Human Health and Public Nutrition (2nd Edition))
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12 pages, 3233 KiB  
Article
Healthy Snack Project: Improving Healthy Choices through Multidisciplinary Food Education Actions
by Giuseppina Federici, Vincenzo Marcotrigiano, Erica Bino, Alberto Lovat, Angela Padoin, Gerardo Salerno, Pamela D’Incà, Christian Napoli and Sandro Cinquetti
Nutrients 2024, 16(2), 255; https://doi.org/10.3390/nu16020255 - 14 Jan 2024
Viewed by 1014
Abstract
School is one of the main settings where it is useful to guarantee health promotion actions, as it is well known that diet and eating habits that are shaped in the early stages of life are maintained through adulthood. The objective of this [...] Read more.
School is one of the main settings where it is useful to guarantee health promotion actions, as it is well known that diet and eating habits that are shaped in the early stages of life are maintained through adulthood. The objective of this study was to carry out the “Healthy Snack” project to promote nutritional education in primary schools in the Province of Belluno in the 2022–2023 school year, in which 925 students were enrolled, and to evaluate the intervention in terms of changes in eating habits during their school breaks. Following the workshops performed by the healthcare workers (HCWs), medals were awarded, taking into account the quality of the participating students’ mid-morning snacks, considering the food pyramid. The results collected in the annual survey period were related to the type and quantity of snacks consumed at school, and allowed students to gain a final score, comparing the period before and after the educational intervention to demonstrate the effectiveness of the actions promoted by HCWs and the increased nutritional quality of meals. In light of this evidence, public health strategies must continue to emphasize the importance of implementing health promotion interventions and actions aimed at children in order to prevent weight gain in this age group, and the potential development of cardiometabolic pathologies over their lifetime. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Food Composition and Dedicated Databases: Key Tools for Human Health and Public Nutrition (2nd Edition))
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13 pages, 3444 KiB  
Article
Application of a Two-Dimensional Mapping-Based Visualization Technique: Nutrient-Value-Based Food Grouping
by Ryota Wakayama, Satoshi Takasugi, Keiko Honda and Shigehiko Kanaya
Nutrients 2023, 15(23), 5006; https://doi.org/10.3390/nu15235006 - 04 Dec 2023
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 999
Abstract
Worldwide, several food-based dietary guidelines, with diverse food-grouping methods in various countries, have been developed to maintain and promote public health. However, standardized international food-grouping methods are scarce. In this study, we used two-dimensional mapping to classify foods based on their nutrient composition. [...] Read more.
Worldwide, several food-based dietary guidelines, with diverse food-grouping methods in various countries, have been developed to maintain and promote public health. However, standardized international food-grouping methods are scarce. In this study, we used two-dimensional mapping to classify foods based on their nutrient composition. The Standard Tables of Food Composition in Japan were used for mapping with a novel technique—t-distributed stochastic neighbor embedding—to visualize high-dimensional data. The mapping results showed that most foods formed food group-based clusters in the Standard Tables of Food Composition in Japan. However, the beverages did not form large clusters and demonstrated scattered distribution on the map. Green tea, black tea, and coffee are located within or near the vegetable cluster whereas cocoa is near the pulse cluster. These results were ensured by the k-nearest neighbors. Thus, beverages made from natural materials can be categorized based on their origin. Visualization of food composition could enable an enhanced comprehensive understanding of the nutrients in foods, which could lead to novel aspects of nutrient-value-based food classifications. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Food Composition and Dedicated Databases: Key Tools for Human Health and Public Nutrition (2nd Edition))
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11 pages, 1097 KiB  
Article
Food Composition Databases (FCDBs): A Bibliometric Analysis
by Andy Wai Kan Yeung
Nutrients 2023, 15(16), 3548; https://doi.org/10.3390/nu15163548 - 11 Aug 2023
Viewed by 1762
Abstract
Food composition databases (FCDBs) are important tools that provide information on the nutritional content of foods. Previously, it was largely unclear what nutritional contents and which FCDBs were involved in highly cited papers. The bibliometric study aimed to identify the most productive authors, [...] Read more.
Food composition databases (FCDBs) are important tools that provide information on the nutritional content of foods. Previously, it was largely unclear what nutritional contents and which FCDBs were involved in highly cited papers. The bibliometric study aimed to identify the most productive authors, institutions, and journals. The chemicals/chemical compounds with high averaged citations and FCDBs used by highly cited papers were identified. In July 2023, the online database Web of Science Core Collection (WoSCC) was queried to identify papers related to FCDBs. A total of 803 papers were identified and analyzed. The first paper indexed in WoSCC was published in 1992 by Pennington, which described the usefulness of FCDB for researchers to identify core foods for their own studies. In that paper, the FCDB described was the USDA 1987–88 NFCS (the United States Department of Agriculture 1987–88 Nationwide Food Consumption Survey). The most productive author was Dr. Paul M. Finglas, the Head of the Food Databanks National Capability at the Quadram Institute (Norwich, UK) and the Managing Director of EuroFIR. His most cited paper among this dataset was about the development of an online Irish food composition database together with EuroFIR. The most productive institutions were the USDA and the World Health Organization (WHO) instead of universities. Flavonoid was the most recurring chemical class among the highly cited ones. The anti-oxidative properties and protective effects against heart disease and cancer of flavonoids might be some of the reasons for their popularity in research. Among the highly cited papers, the most heavily used FCDBs were the USDA database for the flavonoid content of selected foods, Fineli, the USDA National Nutrient Database for Standard Reference (USNDB), EuroFIR eBASIS-Bioactive Substances in Food Information Systems, and Phenol-Explorer. High-quality national and international FCDBs should be promoted and made more accessible to the research and public communities to promote better nutrition and public health on a global scale. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Food Composition and Dedicated Databases: Key Tools for Human Health and Public Nutrition (2nd Edition))
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