17. Nutrition and health

Abstract

Since the 1980s, functional foods have been developed as products that deliver benefits beyond their normal nutritional value. Increased welfare has allowed consumers to buy food products not merely to prevent hunger, but also to maintain or improve their health. At the same time, important technological and scientific advances have allowed for the development of and research into healthy food products. Today, nutrition and health are key topics in the development of foods, both for the general public as well as for targeted groups that benefit from specific developments. But what does it mean when a product is proved to be healthy? What kind of scientific evidence is needed to be able to claim such health effects? Following an introduction to the terminology used to define ‘healthy food products’, I describe how nutritional science and pharmacology have developed over the last decades, and how this has influenced the definition of health. And whereas from a regulatory perspective, health effects of food (components) need to be substantiated by well-controlled trials, scientific evidence providing insights into nutrition can come from various types of studies. Finally, this chapter highlights potential developments in designing research for substantiating health effects, such as N-of-1 trials for personalised nutrition.