Omega-3 Fatty Acids from Fish Oil Lower Anxiety, Improve Cognitive Functions and Reduce Spontaneous Locomotor Activity in a Non-Human Primate

Omega-3 (ω3) polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFA) are major components of brain cells membranes. ω3 PUFA-deficient rodents exhibit severe cognitive impairments (learning, memory) that have been linked to alteration of brain glucose utilization or to changes in neurotransmission processes. ω3 PUFA supplementation has been shown to lower anxiety and to improve several cognitive parameters in rodents, while very few data are available in primates. In humans, little is known about the association between anxiety and ω3 fatty acids supplementation and data are divergent about their impact on cognitive functions. Therefore, the development of nutritional studies in non-human primates is needed to disclose whether a long-term supplementation with long-chain ω3 PUFA has an impact on behavioural and cognitive parameters, differently or not from rodents. We address the hypothesis that ω3 PUFA supplementation could lower anxiety and improve cognitive performances of the Grey Mouse Lemur (Microcebus murinus), a nocturnal Malagasy prosimian primate. Adult male mouse lemurs were fed for 5 months on a control diet or on a diet supplemented with long-chain ω3 PUFA (n = 6 per group). Behavioural, cognitive and motor performances were measured using an open field test to evaluate anxiety, a circular platform test to evaluate reference spatial memory, a spontaneous locomotor activity monitoring and a sensory-motor test. ω3-supplemented animals exhibited lower anxiety level compared to control animals, what was accompanied by better performances in a reference spatial memory task (80% of successful trials vs 35% in controls, p<0.05), while the spontaneous locomotor activity was reduced by 31% in ω3-supplemented animals (p<0.001), a parameter that can be linked with lowered anxiety. The long-term dietary ω3 PUFA supplementation positively impacts on anxiety and cognitive performances in the adult mouse lemur. The supplementation of human food with ω3 fatty acids may represent a valuable dietary strategy to improve behavioural and cognitive functions

Exposure to contaminants and nutritional intakes in a French vegetarian population

The NutriNet Santé study collected, on a voluntary basis, the dietary consumption of French vegetarian populations (N = 1766, including 188 vegan individuals) from 18 to 81 years (18-77 years for the vegan). Taking advantage of the availability of contamination data generated in the context of the second French total diet study, dietary exposures of French vegetarian populations to several contaminants were estimated. Results showed that exposures to persistent organic pollutants (PCBs, PCDD/Fs for instance) was dramatically lower than those of the general French population due to the non consumption of food of animal origins. On the other hand, exposures to phytoestrogens, some mycotoxins (T2 and HT2 toxins) and some trace elements (Cd, Al, Sn, Ni) were higher in the vegetarian population compared to those of the general population. Despite some limitations of this approach (both the consumption study and the total diet study were not aimed to estimate dietary exposure of the vegetarian populations), this study showed that dietary habits can dramatically influence the exposure of some contaminants

Exposure to contaminants and nutritional intakes in a French vegetarian population

The NutriNet Santé study collected, on a voluntary basis, the dietary consumption of French vegetarian populations (N = 1766, including 188 vegan individuals) from 18 to 81 years (18-77 years for the vegan). Taking advantage of the availability of contamination data generated in the context of the second French total diet study, dietary exposures of French vegetarian populations to several contaminants were estimated. Results showed that exposures to persistent organic pollutants (PCBs, PCDD/Fs for instance) was dramatically lower than those of the general French population due to the non consumption of food of animal origins. On the other hand, exposures to phytoestrogens, some mycotoxins (T2 and HT2 toxins) and some trace elements (Cd, Al, Sn, Ni) were higher in the vegetarian population compared to those of the general population. Despite some limitations of this approach (both the consumption study and the total diet study were not aimed to estimate dietary exposure of the vegetarian populations), this study showed that dietary habits can dramatically influence the exposure of some contaminants

Assessment of infant exposure to food chemicals: the French Total Diet Study design

<div><p>As part of the previous French Total Diet Studies (TDS) focusing on exposure to food chemicals in the population aged 3 years and older, the French Agency for Food, Environmental and Occupational Health & Safety (ANSES) launched a specific TDS on infants to complete its overall chemical food safety programme for the general population. More than 500 chemical substances were analysed in food products consumed by children under 3 years old, including nutrients, several endocrine disruptors resulting from human activities (polychlorinated biphenyls, dioxins and furans, brominated flame retardants, perfluoroalkyl acids, pesticide residues, etc.) or migrating from food contact materials such as bisphenol A or phthalates, but also natural substances such as mycotoxins, phytoestrogens and steroids. To obtain a representative and general view of infant food consumption, food items were selected based on results of a national consumption survey conducted specifically on this population. Moreover, a specific study on food was conducted on 429 households to determine which home-cooking practices are employed to prepare food consumed by infants. Overall, the targeted chemical substances were analysed in more than 450 food samples, representing the purchase and home-cooking practices of over 5500 food products. Foods included common foods such as vegetables, fruit or cakes as well as specific infant foods such as infant formula or jarred baby food. The sampling plan covered over 80% of the total diet. Specificities in infant food consumption and habits were therefore considered to define this first infant TDS. This study, conducted on a large scale and focusing on a particularly sensitive population, will provide accurate information on the dietary exposure of children under 3 years to food chemicals, especially endocrine disruptors, and will be particularly useful for risk assessment analysis under the remit of ANSES’ expert committees.</p></div

Attribution of the French human Salmonellosis cases to the main food-sources according to the type of surveillance data.

International audienceSalmonella are the most common bacterial cause of foodborne infections in France and ubiquitous pathogens present in many animal productions. Assessing the relative contribution of the different food-animal sources to the burden of human cases is a key step towards the conception, prioritization and assessment of efficient control policy measures. For this purpose, we considered a Bayesian microbial subtyping attribution approach based on a previous published model (Hald et al., 2004). It requires quality integrated data on human cases and on the contamination of their food sources, per serotype and microbial subtype, which were retrieved from the French integrated surveillance system for Salmonella. The quality of the data available for such an approach is an issue for many countries in which the surveillance system has not been designed for this purpose. In France, the sources are monitored simultaneously by an active, regulation-based surveillance system that produces representative prevalence data (as ideally required for the approach) and a passive system relying on voluntary laboratories that produces data not meeting the standards set by Hald et al. (2004) but covering a broader range of sources. These data allowed us to study the impact of data quality on the attribution results, globally and focusing on specific features of the data (number of sources and contamination indicator). The microbial subtyping attribution model was run using an adapted parameterization previously proposed (David et al., 2012). A total of 9076 domestic sporadic cases were included in the analyses as well as 9 sources among which 5 were common to the active and the passive datasets. The greatest impact on the attribution results was observed for the number of sources. Thus, especially in the absence of data on imported products, the attribution estimates presented here should be considered with caution. The results were comparable for both types of surveillance, leading to the conclusion that passive data constitute a potential cost-effective complement to active data collection, especially interesting because the former encompass a greater number of sources. The model appeared robust to the type of surveillance, and provided that some methodological aspects of the model can be enhanced, it could also serve as a risk-based guidance tool for active surveillance systems

The Bayesian microbial subtyping attribution model: robustness to prior information and a proposition

International audienceAttributing foodborne illnesses to food sources is essential to conceive, prioritize, and assess the impact of public health policy measures. The Bayesian microbial subtyping attribution model by Hald et al. is one of the most advanced approaches to attribute sporadic cases; it namely allows taking into account the level of exposure to the sources and the differences between bacterial types and between sources. This step forward requires introducing type and source-dependent parameters, and generates overparameterization, which was addressed in Hald's paper by setting some parameters to constant values. We question the impact of the choices made for the parameterization (parameters set and values used) on model robustness and propose an alternative parameterization for the Hald model. We illustrate this analysis with the 2005 French data set of non-typhi Salmonella. Mullner's modified Hald model and a simple deterministic model were used to compare the results and assess the accuracy of the estimates. Setting the parameters for bacterial types specific to a unique source instead of the most frequent one and using data-based values instead of arbitrary values enhanced the convergence and adequacy of the estimates and led to attribution estimates consistent with the other models' results. The type and source parameters estimates were also coherent with Mullner's model estimates. The model appeared to be highly sensitive to parameterization. The proposed solution based on specific types and data-based values improved the robustness of estimates and enabled the use of this highly valuable tool successfully with the French data set. tel: +33 1 47 10 79 08; fax: +33 1 47 14 49 03; [email protected]

Trace element contamination in fish impacted by bauxite red mud disposal in the Cassidaigne canyon (NW French Mediterranean)

From 1966 to 2015, the Gardanne alumina refinery discharged some 20 million tons of bauxite residue (called red mud) into the Cassidaigne Canyon (northwest French Mediterranean) with impacts on local ecosystem functioning. Although these red muds contained high levels of trace elements (TE), in particular titanium (Ti), vanadium (V), aluminum (Al) and arsenic (As), surprisingly, their impacts on fish contamination levels and the risk related to fish consumption have been little studied until now. Here, 11 trace elements (Al, As, Cd, Cr, Co, Cr, Mn, Ni, Pb, Ti and V) were analyzed in muscle and, when possible, liver, from 1308 fish of 26 species from an impacted zone in the vicinity of the Cassidaigne Canyon and a reference zone, unaffected by red mud disposals. Moreover, 66 arsenic speciation analyses were performed. Although the impact of human activities on the levels of fish contamination by trace elements is generally not easy to assess in situ because it is blurred by interaction with biological effects, we highlighted significant contamination of the fish species collected from the Cassidaigne Canyon, especially by the main trace elements attributable to the discharges of the Gardanne alumina refinery, namely Al, V and Ti. Moreover, inorganic toxic As concentrations were higher in the impacted zone. The results of this baseline research also confirmed the concern previously raised regarding Hg in Mediterranean organisms and that trace element contamination levels in fish are generally negatively related to fish length for all TE except Hg