Nutrition labels� strengths & weaknesses and strategies for improving their use in Iran: A qualitative study

Background This study aimed to explain the strengths and weaknesses of the Traffic light label (TLL) and nutrition facts label (NFL) and the strategies for improving their use in Iran, based on the perspectives of different stakeholders, including mothers, food quality control experts (FQC), nutritionists and food industry experts. Methods We conducted 10 Focus Group Discussions (FGDs) with 63 mothers, 10 semi-structured interviews with FQCs, 1 FGD with 6 nutritionists and 1 FGD with 8 food industry experts. To clarify some of the questions that arose from the interviews, the researcher interviewed three policy makers who had sufficient information about the TLL. The discussions and interviews were transcribed verbatim and MAXQDA10 software was used for coding. Results The most important findings of this study based on different stakeholders� perspectives were as follows: mothers believed that nutrition labels reduced the consumption of high-calorie products, although they found the TLL to be easier to understand than the NFL because of its red color. However, their weaknesses were their incompatibility with culture and the lack of trust in the information provided by manufacturers. FQCs pointed out the possibility of changing formulations and the appropriateness of the traffic light for patients, but like mothers, they believed that the labels did not suit the governing culture. Further weaknesses were, misleading the consumer, problems in the colorings reported by different laboratories, and different approaches adopted by regulatory experts. The simplicity of understanding TLL for the general public has been suggested by some nutritionists. Nevertheless, the multiplicity of colors of the TLL was the most important weakness presented by nutritionists and food industry experts and the failure to implement nutrition labels was another issue raised by experts. To improve the use of nutrition labels, notification via media especially television, community education and culture building were suggested by all stakeholders. Conclusions The findings of this study underscore the importance of implementing the policy of nutrition labeling in Iran. Mothers and nutritionists believed TLL to be more appropriate for the public to understand, however, FQCs and food industry experts believed that NFL was more suitable in guiding consumers toward healthy food choices. Education and information dissemination via media on interpretive TLL may affect consumer behavior toward food purchases. © 2020 Seyedhamzeh et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited

Engineering and development of a tissue model for the evaluation of microneedle penetration ability, drug diffusion, photothermal activity, and ultrasound imaging: a promising surrogate to <i>ex vivo</i> and in vivo tissues

Driven by regulatory authorities and the ever-growing demands from industry, various artificial tissue models have been developed. Nevertheless, there is no model to date that is capable of mimicking the biomechanical properties of the skin whilst exhibiting the hydrophilicity/hydrophobicity properties of the skin layers. As a proof-of-concept study, tissue surrogates based on gel and silicone are fabricated for the evaluation of microneedle penetration, drug diffusion, photothermal activity, and ultrasound bioimaging. The silicone layer aims to imitate the stratum corneum while the gel layer aims to mimic the water-rich viable epidermis and dermis present in in vivo tissues. The diffusion of drugs across the tissue model is assessed, and the results reveal that the proposed tissue model shows similar behavior to a cancerous kidney. In place of typical in vitro aqueous solutions, this model can also be employed for evaluating the photoactivity of photothermal agents since the tissue model shows a similar heating profile to skin of mice when irradiated with near-infrared laser. In addition, the designed tissue model exhibits promising results for biomedical applications in optical coherence tomography and ultrasound imaging. Such a tissue model paves the way to reduce the use of animals testing in research whilst obviating ethical concerns.</p