Epidemiology to pharmacy—a bridge too far?

Abstract

Following disclosure of epidemiologic associations between diet and health new foods or dietary supplements are produced, whilst old products take on a new lease of life in the marketing arena. In some instances such products are enriched with, or composed solely of, a particular compound present in the purported health promoting diet. The level of dietary enrichment with the compound of choice, however, may have no scientific basis. Arguments used include if a little is good then a lot is better, 1 1 Britton, G., Liaaen-Jensen, S. and Pfander, H. (1995) ‘Carotenoids Today and Challenges for the Future’, In: Carotenoids. Vol. 1a: Isolation and Analysis. (Britton, G., Liaaen-Jensen, S. and Pfander, H. eds), pp. 13–26 Birkäuser Verlag or if amounts in a health promoting diet are good then some (no matter how little) added, possibly to another type of food, will also be good. At this point, bridges between observation, hypothesis, experiment and verification of function in human consumers are often lacking or poorly constructed. However, these bridges are essential if nutritional scientists want to understand diet–health relationships, and if the industry want to exploit that understanding in a sustainable fashion.