ILSI Europe’s Session on ‘Human Microbiome and Health’ at the IUFoST 2016 World Congress of Food Science

ILSI Europe’s Session on ‘Human Microbiome and Health’ at the IUFoST 2016 World Congress of Food Science
Dublin, Ireland
24/08/2016
10:55 am – 12:55 pm

ILSI Europe’s session on ‘Human Microbiome and Health’ was part of the IUFoST 2016 World Congress of Food Science and Technology which took place from the 21-25 August 2016 in Dublin, Ireland. For more information about 18th World Congress of Food Science and Technology, please visit the official congress website: www.iufost2016.com

SCIENTIFIC BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE OF THE SESSION

An unhealthy gut contributes to a wide range of diseases including diabetes, obesity or inflammatory diseases. Since it is increasingly acknowledged that the gastrointestinal microbiota plays a major role in the improvement of host health, scientists have a strong interest in the effects of diet on human gastrointestinal microbiota composition. ILSI Europe’s Functional Foods and Prebiotics Task Forces are currently reviewing the available data on different gut microbiota clusters, microbial metabolism and its impact on the bio-availability of a large number of nutrients and non-nutrients.

Furthermore, the intestinal barrier function, microbiota composition and activity can be affected by dietary factors. Thus, functional foods are directed towards digestive health, with prebiotics and probiotics probably being the most common, worldwide. ILSI Europe’s Probiotics Task Force recently assessed the potential impact of probiotics on intestinal barrier function. ILSI Europe’s Prebiotics Task Force also re-evaluated the role of bacterial metabolites, and concluded that changes in bacterial fermentation metabolites could be valuable markers of (prebiotics) health benefits.

The recent conclusions of ILSI Europe’s scientific achievements in prebiotics, probiotics as well as functional foods research was presented in this session on 24 August 2016. In addition, Prof. Fergus Shanahan, Director of the APC Microbiome Institute of the University College Cork, was invited to draw an overall picture of ‘Diet, Nutrition and Microbial Man’.

PROGRAMME (24/08/16 14:00 - 15:25)

Click here to view the ILSI Europe session flyer, which included the programme.

SESSION PROGRAMME

Diet, Nutrition and Microbial Man
Prof. Fergus Shanahan, University College Cork, Ireland

Impact of the Gut Microbiota on Metabolism of Nutrients and Non-nutrients
Prof. Ian Rowland, University of Reading, United Kingdom

Toward Microbial Fermentation Metabolites as Markers for Health Benefits of Prebiotics
Prof. Kristin Verbeke, KU Leuven, Belgium

Human Intestinal Barrier Function in Health & Disease
Dr Julia König, Örebro University, Sweden

VENUE

The Event was held at:

Royal Dublin Society
Anglesea Road
Ballsbridge
Dublin 4
Dublin, Ireland
Tel: +353 (0)1 668 0866
Email: reception@rds.ie

CONTACT

For more information about the session programme, please contact our Scientific Project Manager Dr Tobias Recker at trecker@ilsieurope.be.

For more information about ILSI Europe and ILSI Europe’s Prebiotics, Probiotics and Functional Foods Task Forces please have a look at the respective task force websites or visit our booth at IUFoST 2016 World Congress of Food Science and Technology.