A new Transatlantic Foods for Health Consortium has been established by leading food scientists from Denmark and the University of California, Davis, to investigate how foods can be developed to fight malnutrition and lifestyle diseases, and provide the greatest health benefits.

The new consortium represents the first broad research alliance between the University of California and four Danish universities. It grew out of the recent UC Davis Centennial Symposia “Foods for Health in the 21st Century: A Roadmap for the Future,” coordinated by the Centre for Advanced Food Studies in Denmark and UC Davis’ Foods for Health Institute.

“This historic agreement is an important step in the fight against malnutrition and lifestyle diseases,” said UC Davis nutrition professor M.R.C. Greenwood, who is director of the Foods for Health Institute and served in the Clinton administration as associate director for science at the White House Office of Science and Technology.

"This is not about just adding more vitamin A to carrots. We have to develop novel foods for important needs,” Greenwood said. “Often, consumers have to pay up to 20 times more for 1,000 healthy calories in fruit and vegetables than they would pay for 1,000 unhealthy calories in, for example, fast food. We have to look at how we get more healthy properties into food that is safe, convenient and economically accessible."

Helge Sander, the Danish minister for science, technology and innovation, stressed Denmark’s position in the development of food science.

“We have strong traditions within this field,” Sander said. “I hope the food consortium will help further important research, enhance international collaboration and become a role model for new transatlantic initiatives in the future.”

Bruce German, a UC Davis professor of food chemistry, says that the collaboration with Denmark “truly exemplifies how the ‘foods for health’ concept comes together.”

“Danes have led the way in scientific research in food analysis and food processing, while our competencies here at Davis focus on how specific foods and diets affect our health,” German said. “Combining the two knowledge areas creates an enormous synergy effect."

Greenwood pointed to the encouraging sign that previously rising obesity rates have leveled off in Denmark in recent years.

"Are Danes more sensible about their diet? Is the population more homogeneous or more active — or are they just 10 years behind us? These are essential questions that we will shed light on,” she said. “Important tools in this context are Denmark's incredible public health statistics, which are more comprehensive than any we have ever produced in the U.S."

She also noted that the food industry is a crucial partner.

"The consortium will be an important lever in creating co-operations with the food industry in order to produce more foods that fulfill nutritional guidelines," she said.

The Danish participation in the consortium will be coordinated through The Centre for Advanced Food Studies, where Alan Friis, the chairman of the executive committee, also views the consortium as a unique possibility to get Danish research in contact with foreign companies.

”Danish food research is, in many ways, on its way to becoming more international,” Friis said. “The consortium will provide us with a fantastic new platform benefitting our Danish industry partners, with whom we already have a great collaboration.”

The consortium is a concrete result of a longtime relationship between UC Davis and Innovation Center Denmark in Silicon Valley. Lars Beer Nielsen, technology and research attaché at the center, can now see a dream come true.

”This is the first time ever that such a strong research alliance has been established between Danish and UC universities. Now, we need to take this to the next level,” Nielsen said. “I hope we can establish a joint Danish-UC research school for Ph.D.s in foods and health.”

One of the Danish project participants is Professor Anne Meyer from the Technical University of Denmark, Chemical Engineering. She works with technologies for producing dietary fibers and natural antioxidants from biomass. The fibers have a beneficial effect on the intestinal flora and are to be used as functional, health-promoting ingredients in foods.

“The goal is to discover how specific compositions of fiber and natural antioxidants affect the immune system and can assist in preventing, for example, cardiovascular diseases and diabetes,” Meyer said. “It is a new research field where we today know very little about what exactly happens at the molecular level in the body. In Denmark, we have not had a tradition of linking food and medical research in this way, so the consortium is really an example on how one plus one equals more than two.”

The consortium will also include other UC researchers, including UCLA's David Heber, one of the most recognized obesity researchers in the U.S. Heber is looking forward to a closer cooperation with Arne Astrup, head of the Institute for Human Nutrition at the Faculty of Life Sciences at Copenhagen University. Heber hopes to test in his own weight-loss clinics Astrup’s findings on how protein-rich diets can lead to weight loss.

”We are also interested in Dr. Astrup’s supermarket concept, where consumers, via barcodes on products, can be told whether they meet their nutritional goals,” Heber said. “I'm going to contact local sponsors to see if we can implement this idea over here."

Astrup views the consortium as an important tool for applying knowledge about food products that are of special interest in Denmark and California.

“Our stronghold is within the development of healthy dairy products, whereas California’s research focus has been on the products that they widely export, such as pomegranates, almonds and olive oil,” Astrup said. “Most excess weight is created by ingesting just 100 calories too much a day. It is possible to reverse this trend by developing foods that provide a greater feeling of satiety and increase the metabolism, while also preventing the fat from being absorbed in the body.”

Peter Olesen is chairman of the Danish Council for Strategic Research, sponsoring the Danish delegation. He predicts that the consortium will assist in providing a more holistic view on the development of healthy foods.

“It takes a comprehensive effort to analyze all the potential health-related features that one single food item may consist of,” Olesen said. “The product itself may not have notable nutritional benefits, but may, instead, affect the metabolism or the immune system in a positive way.

“In order to identify these types of biological markers, we must look at enormous bodies of data sets,” he said. “A Danish-California division of research into this area will take us a lot further.”

More information about the consortium is available online at: http://www.siliconvalley.um.dk/en.

About UC Davis

For 100 years, UC Davis has engaged in teaching, research and public service that matter to California and transform the world. Located close to the state capital, UC Davis has 31,000 students, an annual research budget that exceeds $500 million, a comprehensive health system and 13 specialized research centers. The university offers interdisciplinary graduate study and more than 100 undergraduate majors in four colleges — Agricultural and Environmental Sciences, Biological Sciences, Engineering, and Letters and Science — and advanced degrees from five professional schools: Education, Law, Management, Medicine, and Veterinary Medicine. The UC Davis School of Medicine and UC Davis Medical Center are located on the Sacramento campus near downtown.