Australian consumer attitudes to health claim - food product compatibility for functional foods

This study with Australian consumers investigated how appealing different health claims combined with particular food carriers were to Australian consumers, and compared the results of a similar study with Dutch consumers. 149 shoppers considered up to 30 different food concepts, rating how ‘attractive’, ‘believable’, and ‘new and different’ they found each concept and their ‘intention to try’. Each variable was significantly related to intention to try (p\u3c0.001) and together explained 56% of the intention score. Claims and carriers independently had a significant effect on ratings of attractiveness and intention to try but, unlike the Dutch study, the carrier was a more important predictor of intention to purchase than the claim. Implications for regulation of health claims for food are discussed

Zebrafish screen identifies novel compound with selective toxicity against leukemia

To detect targeted antileukemia agents we have designed a novel, high-content in vivo screen using genetically engineered, T-cell reporting zebrafish. We exploited the developmental similarities between normal and malignant T lymphoblasts to screen a small molecule library for activity against immature T cells with a simple visual readout in zebrafish larvae. After screening 26 400 molecules, we identified Lenaldekar (LDK), a compound that eliminates immature T cells in developing zebrafish without affecting the cell cycle in other cell types. LDK is well tolerated in vertebrates and induces long-term remission in adult zebrafish with cMYC-induced T-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia (T-ALL). LDK causes dephosphorylation of members of the PI3 kinase/AKT/mTOR pathway and delays sensitive cells in late mitosis. Among human cancers, LDK selectively affects survival of hematopoietic malignancy lines and primary leukemias, including therapy-refractory B-ALL and chronic myelogenous leukemia samples, and inhibits growth of human T-ALL xenografts. This work demonstrates the utility of our method using zebrafish for antineoplastic candidate drug identification and suggests a new approach for targeted leukemia therapy. Although our efforts focused on leukemia therapy, this screening approach has broad implications as it can be translated to other cancer types involving malignant degeneration of developmentally arrested cells

The older people, omega-3, and cognitive health (EPOCH) trial design and methodology: A randomised, double-blind, controlled trial investigating the effect of long-chain omega-3 fatty acids on cognitive ageing and wellbeing in cognitively healthy older adults

Extent: 18p.Background: Some studies have suggested an association between omega-3 long-chain polyunsaturated fatty acids (n-3 LC PUFAs) and better cognitive outcomes in older adults. To date, only two randomised, controlled trials have assessed the effect of n-3 LC PUFA supplementation on cognitive function in older cognitively healthy populations. Of these trials only one found a benefit, in the subgroup carrying the ApoE-ε4 allele. The benefits of n-3 LC PUFA supplementation on cognitive function in older normal populations thus still remain unclear. The main objective of the current study was to provide a comprehensive assessment of the potential of n-3 LC PUFAs to slow cognitive decline in normal elderly people, and included ApoE-ε4 allele carriage as a potential moderating factor. The detailed methodology of the trial is reported herein. Methods: The study was a parallel, 18-month, randomised, double-blind, placebo-controlled intervention with assessment at baseline and repeated 6-monthly. Participants (N = 391, 53.7% female) aged 65-90 years, English-speaking and with normal cognitive function, were recruited from metropolitan Adelaide, South Australia. Participants in the intervention arm received capsules containing fish-oil at a daily dosage of 1720 mg of docosahexaenoic acid and 600 mg of eicosapentaenoic acid while the placebo arm received the equivalent amount of olive oil in their capsules. The primary outcome is rate of change in cognitive performance, as measured by latent variables for the cognitive constructs (encompassing Reasoning, Working Memory, Short-term Memory, Retrieval Fluency, Inhibition, Simple and Choice-Reaction Time, Perceptual Speed, Odd-man-out Reaction Time, Speed of Memory Scanning, and Psychomotor Speed) and assessed by latent growth curve modeling. Secondary outcomes are change in the Mini-mental State Examination, functional capacity and well-being (including health status, depression, mood, and self-report cognitive functioning), blood pressure, and biomarkers of n-3 LC PUFA status, glucose, lipid metabolism, inflammation, oxidative stress, and DNA damage.Vanessa Danthiir, Nicholas R Burns, Ted Nettelbeck, Carlene Wilson and Gary Witter

Survey of health claims for Australian foods made on Internet sites

Aim: Australia and New Zealand are currently preparing a new food standard code, which will allow the use of health claims on food products and in associated advertising. The aim of this study was to obtain preliminary information about the current use of health claims on the Internet and the level of compliance of these claims with existing regulations. Methods: From August to October 2005 a survey was conducted of 1068 websites associated with the top 20 food processing companies in Australia, and an additional 683 websites for food products found to carry health claims in previous studies of product labels and magazine advertisements. The results were compared with those from a 2003 survey of health claims on the labels of 7850 products. Results: The survey found that 14.5% of food product websites carried a health claim, and 40.7% and 37.0% of products previously identified as carrying claims on product labels or in magazines respectively, had Internet claims. 21.4% of claims were located directly on the food product web page, but the majority (78.6%) were on associated links within the manufacturer’s website. Many of the claims (19.7%) were high level or therapeutic claims not permitted by current food standards. Conclusions: Health claims are not being made more frequently on websites compared to product labels, but there is a greater prevalence of high level and therapeutic claims made on the Internet. In future food standards enforcement will need to give greater priority to monitoring the use of health claims on the Internet

Consumer reactions to different health claim formats on food labels

Health claims on foods act as health messages and have a role in communicating and educating the consumer about diet-disease related issues. Previous studies have suggested that different formats of health claims communicate differently with the consumer. The aim of our study was to investigate whether splitting of the claim (a brief claim at the front package directing consumers to the back of the package where the full health claim is located) and/or endorsement of the claim (by Food Standards Australia New Zealand), have an impact on the acceptance of the claim by the consumer. Participants were recruited by a shopping mall intercept method in two areas of Wollongong and were interviewed face-to-face using a questionnaire. Split health claims were found, in some cases, to produce more positive responses than not-split claims in several areas: they created a higher level of satisfaction with the labelling, they produced a higher level of trust, and they communicated better the health risk on the claim. Endorsement of the claim did not appear to have an influence on participants’ response, possibly because of the small print of the approval statement or insufficient levels of awareness of FSANZ among consumers

Designing an Extensive Conservation Reserve Network with Economic, Ecological and Spatial Criteria

This paper presents a two-stage optimization approach that involves linear integer programming models in each stage for determining optimal expansion alternatives for the Cape Floristic Region conservation areas in South Africa, with an emphasis on the protection of mammal species. While determining the optimal expansion areas, the following spatial and ecological criteria are taken into account: (i) a spatial connectivity of individual reserves, (ii) a minimum population of each species in each designated reserve, and (iii) an overall minimum population target for each species. We also aim for optimum economic efficiency by minimizing the total expansion area. The data set includes about 4000 candidate reserve sites and 38 species of large and medium-sized mammals. Empirical results indicate that the integer programming models can be solved without serious computational difficulty and the optimal reserve design provides substantial savings in financial resources

The C-Plan Conservation Planning System: Origins, Applications, and Possible Futures

Work on the development of C-Plan began in 1995. The idea of an interactive software system to present spatial options for conservation management arose from previous work on irreplaceability in the early 1990s (Pressey 1992, 1999; Pressey et al. 1993, 1994b) (Chapter 2). At that time, this research on irreplaceability added a new dimension to the problem of selecting indicative sets of sites to achieve quantitative targets for features such as vegetation types or species (the set covering problem, Camm et al. 1996). The basic ingredients for the set covering problem are: (a) planning units, the sites to be assessed and compared as potential conservation areas, (b) maps of biodiversity features, (c) a target for each feature (e.g. number of hectares of each vegetation type and number of locality records for each species), and (d) a data matrix listing the extent or occurrence of each feature in each planning unit (see Chapter 3). Using these same ingredients, irreplaceability was conceived and implemented as a solution to an important limitation of reserve selection software at the time. The limitation was that any selected set of sites required to achieve targets is usually only one of the many possible sets, all of which differ to some extent in their composition and configuration of individual sites