Predicting fatty acid profiles in blood based on food intake and the FADS1 rs174546 SNP

SCOPE: A high intake of n-3 PUFA provides health benefits via changes in the n-6/n-3 ratio in blood. In addition to such dietary PUFAs, variants in the fatty acid desaturase 1 (FADS1) gene are also associated with altered PUFA profiles. METHODS AND RESULTS: We used mathematical modelling to predict levels of PUFA in whole blood, based on MHT and bolasso selected food items, anthropometric and lifestyle factors, and the rs174546 genotypes in FADS1 from 1,607 participants (Food4Me Study). The models were developed using data from the first reported time point (training set) and their predictive power was evaluated using data from the last reported time point (test set). Amongst other food items, fish, pizza, chicken and cereals were identified as being associated with the PUFA profiles. Using these food items and the rs174546 genotypes as predictors, models explained 26% to 43% of the variability in PUFA concentrations in the training set and 22% to 33% in the test set. CONCLUSIONS: Selecting food items using MHT is a valuable contribution to determine predictors, as our models' predictive power is higher compared to analogue studies. As unique feature, we additionally confirmed our models' power based on a test set

A framework to extract biomedical knowledge from gluten-related tweets: the case of dietary concerns in digital era

Journal pre proofBig data importance and potential are becoming more and more relevant nowadays, enhanced by the explosive growth of information volume that is being generated on the Internet in the last years. In this sense, many experts agree that social media networks are one of the internet areas with higher growth in recent years and one of the fields that are expected to have a more significant increment in the coming years. Similarly, social media sites are quickly becoming one of the most popular platforms to discuss health issues and exchange social support with others. In this context, this work presents a new methodology to process, classify, visualise and analyse the big data knowledge produced by the sociome on social media platforms. This work proposes a methodology that combines natural language processing techniques, ontology-based named entity recognition methods, machine learning algorithms and graph mining techniques to: (i) reduce the irrelevant messages by identifying and focusing the analysis only on individuals and patient experiences from the public discussion; (ii) reduce the lexical noise produced by the different ways in how users express themselves through the use of domain ontologies; (iii) infer the demographic data of the individuals through the combined analysis of textual, geographical and visual profile information; (iv) perform a community detection and evaluate the health topic study combining the semantic processing of the public discourse with knowledge graph representation techniques; and (v) gain information about the shared resources combining the social media statistics with the semantical analysis of the web contents. The practical relevance of the proposed methodology has been proven in the study of 1.1 million unique messages from more than 400,000 distinct users related to one of the most popular dietary fads that evolve into a multibillion-dollar industry, i.e., gluten-free food. Besides, this work analysed one of the least research fields studied on Twitter concerning public health (i.e., the allergies or immunology diseases as celiac disease), discovering a wide range of health-related conclusions.SING group thanks CITI (Centro de Investigacion, Transferencia e Innovacion) from the University of Vigo for hosting its IT infrastructure. This work was supported by: the Associate Laboratory for Green Chemistry-LAQV, which is financed by national funds from and the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT) under the scope of the strategic funding of [UIDB/50006/2020] and [UIDB/04469/2020] units, and BioTecNorte operation [NORTE010145FEDER000004] funded by the European Regional Development Fund under the scope of Norte2020Programa Operacional Regional do Norte, the Xunta de Galicia (Centro singular de investigacion de Galicia accreditation 2019-2022) and the European Union (European Regional Development Fund - ERDF)- Ref. [ED431G2019/06] , and Conselleria de Educacion, Universidades e Formacion Profesional (Xunta de Galicia) under the scope of the strategic funding of [ED431C2018/55GRC] Competitive Reference Group. The authors also acknowledge the post-doctoral fellowship [ED481B2019032] of Martin PerezPerez, funded by the Xunta de Galicia. Funding for open access charge: Universidade de Vigo/CISUGinfo:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Regulating in Uncertainty: Animating the Public Health Product Safety Net to Capture Consumer Products Regulated by the FDA that Use Innovative Technologies, Including Nanotechnologies, Genetic Modification, Cloning, and Lab Grown Meat

The past several decades have seen the creation of transformative new technologies that are being used to design innovative consumer product ingredients never seen before in nature. Examples include the use of nanotechnology and genetic modification, and, right around the corner, cloning and lab grown meat. These innovative technologies are harbingers of more pioneering consumer product ingredients to come. The remarkable pace of the development of ground-breaking new technologies means that the population is being steadily exposed to novel ingredients with unknown health risks. Optimally, the Food & Drug Administration ( FDA ) should be regulating these innovative, novel ingredients in consumer products to meet the twin goals of protecting public health while fostering innovation. However, the current litmus test that the FDA is using to trigger regulation to protect public health is focused on hazard. Linking public health protections to the degree of hazard when operating in the area of scientific uncertainty that prevails with most novel technologies is outcome determinative – it means no public health regulatory protection at all. This Article will use nanotechnology as the main example that highlights how a simple change in focus to regulating innovative ingredients based on novelty rather than hazard can achieve the proper balance between protecting public health while encouraging innovation. Novel ingredients should be listed on product ingredient labels to allow for the use of big data strategies to link health impact information collected from electronic health records and social media, to the data generated by the state and federal consumer product reporting systems. Linking these data streams will create a highly sensitive, state-of-the-art product safety surveillance system. This system will work to identify early warnings of product safety problems so that public health officials can proactively mitigate their effects. This focus on novelty and big data strategies will animate what this Article calls the “public health product safety net.” As envisioned by this Article, the public health product safety net is a powerful, interactive network that involves consumers as well as the healthcare system, the state and federal public health protection agencies, and the tort system. Together, these private and public actors can act to ensure consumer safety through: (1) consumer self-protection; (2) appropriate injury treatment by healthcare providers using the correct identification of novel ingredients as causative agents; (3) proper reporting of the injury-causing agents to the state and federal public health protection agencies in charge of the early warning and product recall systems; and, (4) the instrumental use of the tort system to both encourage the proper investment in product safety and to insulate against the overuse and overconsumption of relatively risky products. After walking through how the public health product safety net will operate to achieve the proper balance between public health protection and fostering innovation in the context of nanotech ingredients in consumer products, this Article will show how this safety net will work with other novel technologies used as ingredients in consumer products such as cloned animals, genetically modified plants and animals used for food, cloned animals used for food and lab grown meat. This Article concludes by pointing out that the exploding number and variety of novel ingredients never seen before in nature will be limited only by the ingenuity of engineers and scientists creating these novel ingredients. As such, it is time to put into place a post market surveillance system to protect public health that will work for all of these novel ingredients, regardless of their composition – and that system is the public health product safety net described in this Article

Consumers' Need for Information on Supplements

In Canada, many individuals are unable or do not meet the recommended nutrient intake from food alone, supplements may be one intervention strategy to help compensate for some of these inadequacies. The 2004 Canadian Community Health Survey found that 28 to 60 percent of individuals use supplements. Supplement use is positively associated with income and education level, with higher income individuals consuming a higher amount of supplements and supplement use increasing with education level. Previous research has identified several barriers to supplement usage, one of them being knowledge. The purpose of this qualitative research study was to develop a resource to help inform and educate consumers to select a supplement. A total of 31 participants were included in data collection. Three focus groups with participants residing in low income neighbourhoods in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, as well as, seven key informant interviews were conducted using a semi-structured interview guide. Audio tapes were transcribed and analyzed using thematic analysis to identify emergent themes. Data analysis yielded over 400 codes from the focus groups and key informant interviews. These codes were then grouped into themes and then further divided into three major topics: Barriers to Use, Resource, and Other. These data were subsequently used to create a new tool to help consumers choose an appropriate multivitamin. The aim of this resource is not to convince individuals that they need a supplement, but rather to provide information to help them choose an appropriate supplement once they have already decided to take one. This study will help to enhance the quality of information available regarding supplement selection through the use of an innovative online tool which is user friendly and meets the consumers’ needs. A newly created resource based on the expressed needs, ideas, and beliefs of community members and health care professionals will serve to help to fill a void in currently available information. This provides individuals with a resource to educate themselves to select an appropriate multivitamin