DETERMINING TYPES OF CONSCIOUS CONSUMERS WHO PREFER NUTRITION LABELING

One of the most important pillars of a healthy lifestyle is healthy nutritional value, in which FOP nutrition labels can support consumers in making the right decision. Nutrition-related diseases of civilization are a worldwide problem. A healthy diet is essential for overall well-being and the prevention of many chronic diseases. Special attention must be paid to the use of FOP nutrition values in order to prevention and healthy decision-making. It is important that people can interpret the nutritional quality of foods as simply as possible. The packaging has to provide realistic and accurate infromation about the product. This study describes four types of FOP nutrition labels used in the European Union: Nordic Keyhole, Nutri-Score, Traffic-Lights, NutrInform Battery. JEL-Code: M31

One of the most important pillars of a healthy lifestyle is healthy nutritional value, in which FOP nutrition labels can support consumers in making the right decision. Nutrition-related diseases of civilization are a worldwide problem. A healthy diet is essential for overall well-being and the prevention of many chronic diseases. Special attention must be paid to the use of FOP nutrition values in order to prevention and healthy decision-making. It is important that people can interpret the nutritional quality of foods as simply as possible. The packaging has to provide realistic and accurate infromation about the product. This study describes four types of FOP nutrition labels used in the European Union: Nordic Keyhole, Nutri-Score, Traffic-Lights, NutrInform Battery. JEL-Code: M31

Introduction

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Movement and nutrition play a pivotal role in the promotion of long-term health and the prevention of chronic disease. Obesity and physical inactivity are among the leading causes of premature death, while lifestyle factors such as exercise and healthy eating can reduce the risk of becoming obese and developing related diseases. Movement and nutrition may therefore be able to assist in the prevention and therapy of chronic diseases. Regular physical activity and better dietary choices are effective means of extending not only lifespan but also healthspan. Healthy nutrition is important throughout life, and diet is the most important risk factor of illness worldwide. Moreover, childhood obesity has become a global health crisis. While high body-mass index and high fasting plasma glucose contribute substantially to the rising burden of disease, they also provide promising opportunities for intervention. In addition, mounting evidence suggests vital relationships between nutritional quality and mental health. Approaches tackling dietary improvements include community-based health promotion, school-based interventions, mass media campaigns, open online platforms and policies sanctioning unhealthy food choices. The high prevalence of sedentary behavior and physical inactivity is a major health risk and a leading cause of death worldwide. The extensive health benefits of a physically active lifestyle are well established. Exercise is a viable way to help prevent and combat many chronic diseases, and an increase in physical activity could markedly improve health worldwide. A challenge in this context is the promotion of an active lifestyle, including the initiation of and adherence to effective exercise and sport programs.

Since the dawn of human civilization, human beings have found remedies within their habitat and have adopted different therapeutic strategies depending upon climatic, phytogeographic, sociocultural, floral, and faunal characteristics. Traditional systems thus contain beliefs and practices in order to avoid, prevent, or avert ailments, which constitute traditional preventive medicine. The use of medicinal herbs and herbal medicine is an age-old tradition and the recent progress in modern therapeutics has stimulated the use of natural product worldwide for diverse ailments and diseases. The educated public and health care professionals have enormous interests in the medicinal uses of herbs, but there is a great deal of confusion about their identification, effectiveness, therapeutic dosage, toxicity, standardization, and regulation. According to WHO, traditional medicine is popular in all regions of the world and its use is rapidly expanding even in developed countries. For example, in China, traditional herbal preparations account for 30–50% of the total medicinal consumption and now the annual global market for herbal medicine is over 60 billion USD. Thus, Western trained physicians should not ignore the impact of traditional medicine on their patients. This special issue on medicinal plants in the prevention and treatment of chronic diseases is an attempt to summarize the current knowledge of promising traditional medicines and their phytophores to compounds tested against diverse chronic diseases. The therapeutic properties and structure activity relationship of some important and potentially useful phytoformulations are addressed with a focus on how these age-old wisdom can led to the development of useful therapeutics lead for preclinical or clinical evaluation. Manuscripts in this special issue covered several aspects of recent developments in the fields of (1) natural substances as lead compounds in chronic and degenerative diseases research, (2) natural products involved in the prevention of chronic diseases, (3) herbal pharmacotherapy and phytochemical studies, (4) role of functional foods and nutraceuticals in chronic diseases, and (5) studies involving toxicology and pharmacological and toxicological mechanisms of action of medicinal plants used in the treatment and prevention of chronic diseases. In-depth information prepared by experts from diverse fields provide the use of diverse medicinal herbs and their active components as antioxidants, antidiabetic, antihypertensive, antiatherosclerosis, gastroprotective, analgesic, anticancer, antidepressant, antiasthma, antiobesity, antiatherosclerosis, antimicrobial, anti-inflammatory agents and as immunomodulators, along with their safety issues and toxic effects. In the coming days, more issues of eCAM will be released to offer researchers working on diverse aspects of medicinal plants with a complete coverage of ethnology, pharmacology, toxicology, and medicinal properties. This special issue will provide essential materials to those who are working in the fields of traditional systems of medicine and drug industry. It is the outcome of our research involvement for the last two decades with the subject and consultations among biomedical scientists and clinicians. Our group of four coeditors active in phytotherapy research in three continents has been very pleased to receive a substantial feedback of 59 submissions to this special issue.

Since the dawn of human civilization, human beings have found remedies within their habitat and have adopted different therapeutic strategies depending upon climatic, phytogeographic, sociocultural, floral, and faunal characteristics. Traditional systems thus contain beliefs and practices in order to avoid, prevent, or avert ailments, which constitute traditional preventive medicine. The use of medicinal herbs and herbal medicine is an age-old tradition and the recent progress in modern therapeutics has stimulated the use of natural product worldwide for diverse ailments and diseases. The educated public and health care professionals have enormous interests in the medicinal uses of herbs, but there is a great deal of confusion about their identification, effectiveness, therapeutic dosage, toxicity, standardization, and regulation. According to WHO, traditional medicine is popular in all regions of the world and its use is rapidly expanding even in developed countries. For example, in China, traditional herbal preparations account for 30–50% of the total medicinal consumption and now the annual global market for herbal medicine is over 60 billion USD. Thus, Western trained physicians should not ignore the impact of traditional medicine on their patients. This special issue on medicinal plants in the prevention and treatment of chronic diseases is an attempt to summarize the current knowledge of promising traditional medicines and their phytophores to compounds tested against diverse chronic diseases. The therapeutic properties and structure activity relationship of some important and potentially useful phytoformulations are addressed with a focus on how these age-old wisdom can led to the development of useful therapeutics lead for preclinical or clinical evaluation. Manuscripts in this special issue covered several aspects of recent developments in the fields of (1) natural substances as lead compounds in chronic and degenerative diseases research, (2) natural products involved in the prevention of chronic diseases, (3) herbal pharmacotherapy and phytochemical studies, (4) role of functional foods and nutraceuticals in chronic diseases, and (5) studies involving toxicology and pharmacological and toxicological mechanisms of action of medicinal plants used in the treatment and prevention of chronic diseases. In-depth information prepared by experts from diverse fields provide the use of diverse medicinal herbs and their active components as antioxidants, antidiabetic, antihypertensive, antiatherosclerosis, gastroprotective, analgesic, anticancer, antidepressant, antiasthma, antiobesity, antiatherosclerosis, antimicrobial, anti-inflammatory agents and as immunomodulators, along with their safety issues and toxic effects. In the coming days, more issues of eCAM will be released to offer researchers working on diverse aspects of medicinal plants with a complete coverage of ethnology, pharmacology, toxicology, and medicinal properties. This special issue will provide essential materials to those who are working in the fields of traditional systems of medicine and drug industry. It is the outcome of our research involvement for the last two decades with the subject and consultations among biomedical scientists and clinicians. Our group of four coeditors active in phytotherapy research in three continents has been very pleased to receive a substantial feedback of 59 submissions to this special issue.

Objective A new view is proposed for the mechanism of exercise prevention and improvement of chronic disease, that exercise may play a role by promoting the expression of anti-aging protein α-Klotho.
 Methods By means of literature review and prospective analysis, this paper summarizes the research status of the application of exercise in the prevention and improvement of chronic diseases and the effects of anti-aging protein α-Klotho on chronic cardiovascular disease, diabetes, chronic kidney disease and cancer and other chronic diseases and the effect of exercise on the expression of plasma α-Klotho and its possible mechanism. The research prospects of exercise to interfere with chronic diseases by promoting the expression of α-Klotho are envisioned
 Results (1) At present, the incidence and mortality of chronic diseases are high on a global scale. With the development of aging, chronic diseases will cause a serious economic burden and great waste of resources. Therefore, research on how to prevent and treat chronic diseases related to aging and lifestyle has become a top priority. Strong evidence suggests that exercise is an economical and efficient way to slow down the progress of some chronic diseases and to control symptoms such as diabetes, chronic kidney disease, heart failure, cardiovascular disease, and so on. However, we have not fully understood the cellular and molecular mechanisms underlying the effects of exercise.(2) α-Klotho is an anti-aging protein that regulates calcium and phosphorus metabolism, inhibits Wnt signaling, inhibits oxidative stress, and inhibits tumor and fibrosis. It has been proved to play an important role in the occurrence and development of chronic diseases such as chronic cardiovascular disease, diabetes, chronic kidney disease, tumor and other chronic diseases.(3) Exercise has been proved to be effective in promoting the expression of plasma α-Klotho protein, and the degree of response may be related to physical fitness and age. However, the mechanism of exercise to promote the expression of α-Klotho protein has not been reported. Combined with the existing research results, it is presumed that it may be related to DNA methylation, Peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor gamma(PPARγ) signal transduction and vitamin D receptor. 
 Conclusions Exercise has gradually become an important way to intervene in chronic diseases, but the lack of understanding of its mechanism hinders the development of exercise in the field of prevention and treatment of chronic diseases. It is found that exercise can promote the expression of plasma α-Klotho protein, and the expression of α-Klotho protein will be beneficial to the prevention and improvement of chronic diseases such as chronic cardiovascular disease, diabetes, chronic kidney disease and tumor. Therefore, it is speculated that promoting the expression of α-Klotho may be one of the mechanisms of exercise prevention and improvement of chronic diseases, but there is still a research gap on the mechanism of exercise promoting α-Klotho expression. In addition, the current research on the expression of plasma α-Klotho is aimed at healthy people, and the effect of exercise on the expression of α-Klotho in chronic diseases, such as chronic cardiovascular disease, diabetes, chronic kidney disease, is also needed to be studied more. The study of the mechanism of exercise prevention and improvement of chronic diseases provides a theoretical basis for the selection and formulation of related exercise programs, and may provide new ideas for the development of new drugs for chronic diseases. Therefore, studies on exercise to interfere with chronic diseases by promoting the expression of α-Klotho have good research prospects.

ObjectiveUnhealthy foods were a major contributor to the occurrence of chronic non-communicable diseases. The promotion of nutrition labeling in the community can effectively help residents to choose healthy foods, which plays an important role in the prevention of chronic diseases. However, the public awareness of this measure is not clear. Our study used a structural equation model based on the KAP theory to analyze the interaction mechanisms among knowledge, attitude, and practice and aimed to evaluate the relationships among nutrition knowledge, attitude, and practice of residents, which can provide the basis of policy formulation for nutrition education and behavior intervention.MethodsWe carried out a cross-sectional study from May 2022 to July 2022 in the “Community Health Service Center”, and each “Community Service Station” in Yinchuan use a self-designed questionnaire and convenience sampling to evaluate resident nutrition labeling KAP status. This study adopted the structural equation modeling approach to analyze a survey of Chinese individuals through the cognitive processing model, interrelated nutrition knowledge, nutrition label knowledge, attitude, and practice.ResultsAccording to the principle of sample size estimation, a total of 636 individuals were investigated, with the ratio of male to female being 1:1.2. The average score of community residents' nutrition knowledge was 7.48 ± 3.24, and the passing rate was 19.4%. Most residents had a positive attitude toward nutrition labeling, but the awareness rate was only 32.7% and the utilization rate was 38.5%. Univariate analysis showed that women had higher knowledge scores than men (p < 0.05), and young people had higher scores than older adults (p < 0.05), and the difference was significant. Based on the KAP structural equation model (SEM), residents' nutrition knowledge will directly affect their attitude toward nutrition labeling. Attitude played a greater role as an indirect effect between knowledge and behavior, while trust limits residents' practice of nutrition labeling and then affects their practice. It could be explained that nutrition knowledge was the prerequisite for label reading behavior, and attitude was the intermediary effect.ConclusionThe nutrition knowledge and nutrition labeling knowledge of respondents hardly directly support the practice of nutrition labeling, but it can influence the use behavior by forming a positive attitude. The KAP model is suitable for explaining residents' use of nutrition labeling in the region. Future research should focus on better understanding the motivations of residents to use nutrition labeling and the opportunity to use nutrition labeling in real-life shopping settings.

Background: using functional food in diet planning and diet therapy is one of the newest approaches in prevention and treatment of non-communicable chronic diseases. Lentil has many bioactive and functional compounds and we have reviewed the influence of lentil in prevention and treatment of chronic diseases in this review study. Materials and methods: In order to do search about mentioned objective key words including Lentils (Lens culinarisL.), functional foods, bioactive peptides, nutritional value, health polyphenol in combination with glycemic index (GI), insulin resistance, diabetes, cancer and hypertension, the sources in PubMed database were examined in the years between1986-2013. Key words such as lentils (Lens culinarisL.), functional foods, bioactive peptides, nutritional value, diabetes, cancer and hypertension were studied with access to Persian sources of Scientific Information Database (SID). Cell studies, animal models, clinical studies and review articles were used with favorable quality. Results: Lentils are rich sources of fibers, resistant starches, prebiotic compounds, phytochemicals, proteins and bioactive peptides, phenolic acids and antioxidants. Lentil has the highest total antioxidant capacity among other foods including apples, dates, raspberries, cherries, figs, oranges, garlic, cabbage and peanuts. High content of fibers and other phytochemicals are found in lentils that could improve glycemic response in diabetic patients, lipid and lipoprotein metabolism and weight management. Lentils may have favorable effects in prevention of diabetes, cancer and cardiovascular diseases (CVDs) prevalence. Conclusion: Increased dietary intake of lentils is considered as an important key in prevention and treatment of chronic diseases, especially type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular and cancer diseases.

A Role for Government: An Observation on Federal Healthcare Efforts in Prevention

In 2014, Ecuador became the first country in Latin America to adopt the nutritional traffic light labeling system as a public policy aimed at guiding informed food choices. To describe the differences in comprehension and use of the new nutrition label in 2 different ethnic populations residing in a limited resource area of central Ecuador. A total of 394 women (18-75 years, 54.8% indigenous and 45.2% mixed-race mestizas) were randomly selected in the Chimborazo Province and were requested by a questionnaire to provide information regarding their awareness and comprehension of the traffic light nutritional labeling system and personal use of the food label in food selection. Indigenous women had a high percentage who lacked any formal education (43.5%) and a greater proportion were not aware of the labeling system when compared with the mestizas (84.3% vs 46%; P = .001). In both groups, the main reason for not reading labels was lack of understanding of its meaning (50% indigenous vs 32.7% mestiza; P < .05). The reported use of the labeling system for food choices was low-on average, 32% of the mestizas and 5% of the indigenous women reported using nutrition label information to guide their purchase and consumption of packaged food items. The use of nutritional labeling is low in both mestiza and indigenous Ecuadorians, although higher among the mestizas. Among the indigenous women, mostly likely owing to less education, limited nutrition-related health knowledge, and higher risk for food insecurity, the utility of the new traffic light food label is limited.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) define chronic diseases as conditions that last 1 year or more and that require ongoing medical attention or limit activities of daily living, or both (1). Chronic diseases may be influenced by a combination of genetics, lifestyle and social behaviors, health care system factors, community influences, and environmental determinants of health (2). These risk factors often coexist and interact with each other. Therefore, a better understanding of determinants of chronic diseases such as tobacco use, unhealthy eating, and physical inactivity stands to benefit from effective strategies for improving primary, secondary, and tertiary disease prevention and management in diverse global settings (3). Strategies to prevent and manage chronic disease outcomes such as diabetes and cardiovascular diseases (CVDs) have global commonalities (4–7). The impact of chronic diseases is disproportionately evident in Black and Brown communities (8,9). Chronic disease prevention and management typically focus on behavioral interventions such as healthy eating, increased physical activity, and cessation of unhealthy practices such as tobacco and alcohol use (10–15). In 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic added to the fact that chronic diseases disproportionately affect low-resource communities, where many Black and Brown populations live (16,17). COVID-19 demonstrated that chronic disease disparities actually present as preexisting conditions in Black and Brown communities, who are disproportionately affected by COVID-19 outcomes. Although most of the articles in this Preventing Chronic Disease (PCD) collection were published before the pandemic, the insights they present, combined with the racial and ethnic data on the burden of COVID-19 thus far, support this reality. Many researchers and public health practitioners often consider the need to sufficiently address the relationships between chronic diseases and social, behavioral, and community factors (18). Global lessons in the prevention and management of chronic diseases, therefore, can help researchers and practitioners benefit from the shared lessons and experience derived from research and interventions conducted in different parts of the world. There are more than 7 billion people worldwide, who speak diverse languages and who have different nationalities, identities, and health systems. Yet, if we share challenges and opportunities for chronic disease prevention and management, many of the global adversities to improving health and well-being can be ameliorated, which is the purpose of this collection. The authors in this collection share lessons that represent experiences in diverse contexts across countries and regions of the world.