INFOODS contributions to fulfilling needs and meeting challenges concerning food composition databases

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The European Nutrient Database (ENDB) for nutritional epidemiology

Food composition databases (FCDB), as well as standardized calculation procedures are required for international studies on nutrition and disease to calculate nutrient intakes across countries. Comparisons of national FCDBs have shown that major improvements are needed in standardization and documentation at the food and nutrient levels to minimize systematic and random errors in nutrient intake estimations. The International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), together with national FCDB compilers, researchers in international studies (EURALIM, SENECA) and industry, is currently developing a standardized and critically assessed nutrient database for the 10 countries involved in the European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition (EPIC): Denmark, France, Germany, Greece, Great Britain, Italy, The Netherlands, Norway, Spain and Sweden. It will be compiled using the general concept for a standardized FCDB, food classification and description, and calculation procedures developed for EPIC. National compilers will provide and document a subset of their nutrient data and some will evaluate them. Updated ‘Food Table Input’ (FTI) software will be used to evaluate and compile the data. The European Nutrient Database (ENDB) will contain values for approximately 100 nutrients for 1000 foods per country, which is mainly derived from EPIC consumption data. In the future, this database could be extended to include more foods, components and countries. Additionally, methodological issues should be addressed elsewhere and awareness of the need for standardizing FCDBs and their procedures has to be increased among users and funding agencies. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved

Harnessing global fisheries to tackle micronutrient deficiencies

Micronutrient deficiencies account for an estimated one million premature deaths annually, and for some nations can reduce gross domestic product(1,2) by up to 11%, highlighting the need for food policies that focus on improving nutrition rather than simply increasing the volume of food produced(3). People gain nutrients from a varied diet, although fish-which are a rich source of bioavailable micronutrients that are essential to human health(4)-are often overlooked. A lack of understanding of the nutrient composition of most fish(5) and how nutrient yields vary among fisheries has hindered the policy shifts that are needed to effectively harness the potential of fisheries for food and nutrition security(6). Here, using the concentration of 7 nutrients in more than 350 species of marine fish, we estimate how environmental and ecological traits predict nutrient content of marine finfish species. We use this predictive model to quantify the global spatial patterns of the concentrations of nutrients in marine fisheries and compare nutrient yields to the prevalence of micronutrient deficiencies in human populations. We find that species from tropical thermal regimes contain higher concentrations of calcium, iron and zinc; smaller species contain higher concentrations of calcium, iron and omega-3 fatty acids; and species from cold thermal regimes or those with a pelagic feeding pathway contain higher concentrations of omega-3 fatty acids. There is no relationship between nutrient concentrations and total fishery yield, highlighting that the nutrient quality of a fishery is determined by the species composition. For a number of countries in which nutrient intakes are inadequate, nutrients available in marine finfish catches exceed the dietary requirements for populations that live within 100 km of the coast, and a fraction of current landings could be particularly impactful for children under 5 years of age. Our analyses suggest that fish-based food strategies have the potential to substantially contribute to global food and nutrition security