How healthy is a particular food product or diet? TNO Food and Health focuses on finding the answers. To this end we develop methods that make it possible to measure the health effects of foods. Manufacturers can use the information to substantiate health claims, and the government can use it when communicating with the public on matters relating to food and health.
The answer to the question of how healthy a product or diet is turns out to be a complex one. Products contain many different substances, all of which have a particular effect on the body and on each other. Medicines, on the other hand, usually contain only one active ingredient. In foodstuffs, elements of the complex combination of substances have varied and subtle effects on the body. TNO develops new methods that can produce precise measurements of those effects. The methods are based on 'systems biology', which looks at biological systems (e.g. the human body) as a whole, as opposed to parts of systems. TNO can use new scientific insights to support individual manufacturers in product development and the scientific substantiation of health claims.
In order to determine whether something is healthy, it is important to be able assess human health easily and quickly. One way of assessing health is to look at the body's ability to cope with short-lived stress (e.g. the stress on the body resulting from a large meal or physical exertion). TNO develops measurement methods for determining how flexibly the human body can cope with such ´challenges´, or short bouts of stress. The more flexibly the body deals with this, the healthier the person. This line of research is known as the TNO Challenge Concept, and its aim is to develop groundbreaking measurement methods that can be used on a national and international scale, for example to test and substantiate health claims.
Within the broad field of food and health, TNO focuses on two highly relevant areas:
