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Dietary strategies to reduce the burden of cancer and cardiovascular disease in the UK

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 March 2007

John C. Mathers
John C. Mathers*
Affiliation:
Human Nutrition Research Centre, Department of Biological and Nutritional Sciences, University of Newcastle, Newcastle upon Tyne NE1 7RU, UK
*
*Corresponding author: John Mathers, tel 0191 222 6912, fax 0191 222 8684, email john.mathers@ncl.ac.uk
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Abstract

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The importance attributed to dietary change as a means of helping to achieve the major goals of the UK's public health policy as articulated in the Health of the Nation White paper (Department of Health, 1992) is less apparent in the most recent strategy document (Department of Health, 1999). Greater emphasis is given to amelioration of the socio-economic circumstances that are believed to contribute to inequalities in health. Better understanding of the elements of foods and diets which help protect health together with better evidence of effective dietary interventions are essential if the opportunities to use diet to reduce the burden of noncommunicable diseases are to be realised. This is likely to need new research strategies that take advantage of emerging information from genomics and proteomics to produce evidence of safety, efficacy and applicability. Ethical exploitation of the rapid growth in interest in ‘functional foods’ by the food industry will require a level of investment in biomedical research unusual in the past.

Keywords

Cardiovascular diseaseCancersFunctional foods
Type
Research Article
Information
British Journal of Nutrition , Volume 84 , Issue S2 , December 2000 , pp. S211 - S216
Copyright
Copyright © The Nutrition Society 2000

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