Personalized nutrition advice : an everyday-life perspective

This thesis presents societal preconditions for Personalized Nutrition Advice (PNA) that result from an everyday-life perspective on this innovative approach. Generally, PNA is regarded as promising, because it provides users with highly specific information on individual health risks and benefits of eating habits and the desirable changes, which may induce a high sense of personal relevance. Rapid developments in interactive computer technology (ICT) and nutrigenomics science are the innovative drivers in this area. Although indicated as promising, the limited impact of personalized advice on eating practices up to now, signals a mismatch with consumers’ everyday life. In our studies, we found that the pursuance of nutrition advices assumes that consumers have a focal concern on health, which is not always the case. Consumers value uncomplicatedness and convenience of healthful eating and the flexibility to eat for pleasure as well. More flexible advice would therefore better match with consumers’ complicated everyday life, in which health is just one of several ambitions, including social ones. A change of eating practices requires the alteration of other practices besides those directly related to the food choice chain. Advice should provide for consumers’ ability to organize healthful eating within existing chains of social practices, including discursive ones. In everyday-life, consumers have to persist in their intentions to eat healthfully vis-a-vis relevant others. In our study, consumers presented themselves as being uncomplicated, to avoid the image of health freakiness. Based on the finding that being someone who makes great effort in relation to healthful eating is a disfavored image, we conclude that for structural change, the healthy choice should become a ‘practically and socially easy choice’. We propose that PNA can contribute to this goal by using an ‘Action Approach’. The basic idea of this approach is that, besides being well-informed and motivated, consumers need to become actively involved in eating for health. By this, we mean that they are able to practically and socially organize their eating practices in order to ensure health benefits. This would involve the stimulation of a process of critical reflection on the uncomplicatedness of healthful eating and the integration of advice on the practical and social organization of changing eating practices towards health. Consumers themselves should become co-designers of this advice, as they are experts on everyday-life problems and solutions which occur when they try to pursue their healthful eating intentions. The integration of a diversity of expertise on social, ethical and practical requirements in early stages of the development process of innovative PNA is essential. Yet, our study showed that actors in diverse societal sectors were reluctant to engage in the development process of ICT and gene-based PNA. Their evidence-based working practices required that first, scientific support on the effectiveness should become available. Based on their expertise on public needs and wants, they called for a request to slow down the innovation process on behalf of the public. Current working life also does not allow for much change in roles and responsibilities, which may be needed to integrate the innovation in working practices of societal actors. In our qualitative study amongst general practitioners (GPs), we found that participants hold rather critical views on nutrition advice, and certainly on the innovative drivers. A lack of robustness, a low match with patients’ needs and equivocalness of nutritional studies were perceived as blocking GPs involvement. The social acceptability of PNA requires a participatory process. But an invitation to join the innovation process does not of necessity elicit pro-active involvement. This requires the stimulation of a critical reflection process on the meaning of ‘evidence’ from the perspectives of concerned actors and the consequences for the innovation processes. Such an exercise should aim at finding solutions, as to overcome the block about involvement. It should also target reflection on the meaning of expertise, keeping in mind the required increasing role of consumers in the design of PNA. In sum, we conclude that the alignment of PNA with societal preconditions is possible if the development process evolves as a participatory process, in which all societal actors are convinced about the valuable contribution their experience and expertise offers to this search for new ways to effectively promote healthful eating. <br/

Salutogenic Window of Opportunity in Nutrition Promotion

Their workshop will discuss Antonovsky’s Salutogenic Framework and how it offers a window of opportunity for enabling healthy lifestyle practices and nutrition promotion. During the interactive workshop, participants will have the opportunity to practice Salutogenic thinking through discussion, group exercises, and case studies. The conference will be a great opportunity to share expertise and network as it provides reports from top scientists and practitioners on what we know about strategies to enhance motivation, build skills, and create environments that make the healthy choices the easiest choices

Gezocht: dé gezonde eter

Wageningse wetenschappers heb- ben een eerste profielschets ge- maakt van dé gezonde eter

Campylobacter jejuni & Inflammation: Grilling the pathogen

Campylobacter jejuni is the most common cause of bacterial foodborne disease. Yet, little is known about how this pathogen causes intestinal inflammation. The clinical pathology during human infection points to invasive bacterial behavior accompanied by the induction of potent pro-inflammatory responses. However, research on the pathogenesis of C. jejuni has been hampered by its highly variable behavior in vitro and the lack of a suitable animal model of infection. The aim of the study described in this thesis was to better understand Campylobacter pathogenesis by focusing on the molecular events that drive the direct interaction of the pathogen with epithelial cells and macrophages, and its interaction with the innate immune system. These topics were selected as our lab recently discovered that C. jejuni displays highly invasive behavior under conditions of specific nutrient limitation and that C. jejuni is able to elicit a powerful innate immune response in in vitro cell systems. In our study, we discovered that C. jejuni invades epithelial cells via a novel mechanism independent of the very common actin filament or microtubules-mediated cellular uptake processes. After this highly efficient invasion process, C. jejuni enters the endolysosomal pathway. In addition, we discovered a novel Campylobacter-specific pathogen-associated molecular patterns secreted by C. jejuni that induces a potent inflammatory immune response in epithelial cells. This response was independent of Toll-like receptors and Nod-like receptors. The discovery of a C. jejuni-specific innate immune agonist fits with the emerging concept of the existence of bacterial species-specific immune stimuli that contribute to the innate immune response and could be of great importance in C. jejuni pathogenesis. Finally, we demonstrated for the first time that C. jejuni activates the NLRP3 inflammasome in macrophages. Inflammasome activation resulted in the secretion of the potent inflammatory cytokine IL-1β and thus may provide a molecular basis for the presence of high levels of this cytokine in patients during C. jejuni infection. Overall, our results support the scenario that C. jejuni is capable of invading epithelial cells while the host senses the pathogen through different innate immune pathways, generating the potent pro-inflammatory environment typically present during natural symptomatic infection. The interaction with the innate immune system may play a major role in C. jejuni pathogenesis and could contribute to the observed pathology. Together our findings increase the understanding of the mechanisms through which C. jejuni causes disease and will advance the development of novel therapeutic intervention strategies

Campylobacter jejuni & Inflammation : Grilling the pathogen

Campylobacter jejuni is the most common cause of bacterial foodborne disease. Yet, little is known about how this pathogen causes intestinal inflammation. The clinical pathology during human infection points to invasive bacterial behavior accompanied by the induction of potent pro-inflammatory responses. However, research on the pathogenesis of C. jejuni has been hampered by its highly variable behavior in vitro and the lack of a suitable animal model of infection. The aim of the study described in this thesis was to better understand Campylobacter pathogenesis by focusing on the molecular events that drive the direct interaction of the pathogen with epithelial cells and macrophages, and its interaction with the innate immune system. These topics were selected as our lab recently discovered that C. jejuni displays highly invasive behavior under conditions of specific nutrient limitation and that C. jejuni is able to elicit a powerful innate immune response in in vitro cell systems. In our study, we discovered that C. jejuni invades epithelial cells via a novel mechanism independent of the very common actin filament or microtubules-mediated cellular uptake processes. After this highly efficient invasion process, C. jejuni enters the endolysosomal pathway. In addition, we discovered a novel Campylobacter-specific pathogen-associated molecular patterns secreted by C. jejuni that induces a potent inflammatory immune response in epithelial cells. This response was independent of Toll-like receptors and Nod-like receptors. The discovery of a C. jejuni-specific innate immune agonist fits with the emerging concept of the existence of bacterial species-specific immune stimuli that contribute to the innate immune response and could be of great importance in C. jejuni pathogenesis. Finally, we demonstrated for the first time that C. jejuni activates the NLRP3 inflammasome in macrophages. Inflammasome activation resulted in the secretion of the potent inflammatory cytokine IL-1β and thus may provide a molecular basis for the presence of high levels of this cytokine in patients during C. jejuni infection. Overall, our results support the scenario that C. jejuni is capable of invading epithelial cells while the host senses the pathogen through different innate immune pathways, generating the potent pro-inflammatory environment typically present during natural symptomatic infection. The interaction with the innate immune system may play a major role in C. jejuni pathogenesis and could contribute to the observed pathology. Together our findings increase the understanding of the mechanisms through which C. jejuni causes disease and will advance the development of novel therapeutic intervention strategies

Behavior

Health behaviors are people’s actions, some purposefully deployed to promote or protect health; some thoughtlessly undertaken without concern for their potential risk to health; some consciously, even defiantly, deployed regardless of consequences to health. Risk behaviors are specific forms of behavior proven to be associated with increased susceptibility to a specific disease or ill health on the basis of epidemiological or other social data. Lifestyles are patterns of behaviors determined by the interplay between an individual’s personal characteristics, social interactions, and socioeconomic and environmental living conditions. Unhealthful diets, sedentary lifestyle, smoking, and unprotected sex can lead to noncommunicable diseases such as cancers, cardiovascular diseases, and diabetes. These account for approximately 60 percent of the global disease burden. Disease prevention and health promotion aim to change risk behavior by using a combination of policy, organizational, and health educational approaches. Health behavior literature and practice, however, have been dominated by cognitive behavioral approaches, which start from the idea that what people know and think affects how they act. Yet, many studies fail to show a relationship among psychological concepts such as motivation, beliefs, attitudes, and actual behavior. Within health promotion, risk behavior is viewed as a mechanism for coping with adverse living conditions that can be influenced by creating supportive environments for health. The ecological perspective that underlies health promotion starts from the idea that patterns of behavior both shape and are shaped by the social environment. Action must therefore be directed at the individual as well as the social and living conditions that interact to produce and maintain these patterns of behavior

Terug in het zadel

Dreigende epidemieën van overigens niet besmettelijke aandoeningen als obesitas en diabetes type 2 leiden tot - soms tegenstrijdige - aanbevelingen voor gezond eten. Meer groenten, minder vet maar wel meer vette vis, minder rood vlees, meer koolhydraten of juist minder en een Magnum, passen in een gezond dieet. Dat laatste was overigens een advies van de vorige directeur van Unilever dus dat moeten we met een korreltje zout nemen. Hoewel, zout? Mag dat? Volgens Laura Bouwman zijn we terechtgekomen in een situatie van ‘you are what you are told to eat’, waarbij mensen weten dat ze ongezond eten, er ook iets aan willen doen, maar vandaag nog even niet. Ze pleit voor een andere benadering, gericht op verbinding en het bevorderen van het ‘goede leven’