Food discovery: un approccio multimodale

Introduction. The aging of the Italian population, and industrialized countries, together with the increase of chronic degenerative diseases (cancer, hypertension, chronic heart disease, neurodegenerative diseases, diabetes, metabolic diseases, diseases of bones and joints) represent a scenario in which necessary to intervene with prevention strategies. They are multifactorial diseases, whose genesis takes years or decades and it is possible to prevent them effectively. Dietary factors play an important role in these diseases and could play a role in both induction and prevention, as they can both promote and inhibit inflammation and oxidative stress. These are the basic mechanisms of these diseases and, therefore a good quality of life or a painful old age. Unfortunately the eating habits of Italians, and especially of children and young people, are moving away from traditional Mediterranean diet of which have been widely demonstrated protective effects on health. In addition, the foods available are not what they empirically tested by tradition. On the other end, chemical tests, by themselves, do not provide information on their interaction with the body, in the long run. This information can be obtained by applying to food survey methods used by the Drug Discovery. Objectives. This research was carried out in order to develop algorithms that allow the investigation to evaluate a food and its interactions with the body in a "evidence-based " way. Accordingly, a further objective was to obtain new information through the use of high-performance technologies, typical of Drug Discovery. By analogy, the set of algorithms for food investigation was called Food Discovery. Materials and methods. The research is divided into six work packages, each aimed at studying a different aspect of food and their interaction with the body. Iin addition to the usual chemical analysis, on food were used multimodal imaging techniques (optical imaging and magnetic resonance imaging), nuclear magnetic resonance, optical, scanning electron and transmission electron microscopy. For in vivo studies we utilized animal models most frequently used. Inside different working packages, they were subjected to trial diets, at least, for thirty days. On live animals were carried out with magnetic resonance imaging and spectroscopy localized. On target organs and tissues (blood, intestines, liver, inguinal fat) have been conducting research using nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy, optical, scanning electron and transmission electron microscopy and molecular biology. To do we examined representative traditional Italian foods (olive oil, fish, chestnuts, coffee, milk, truffle). Results. From feedingstuffs, were obtained not only qualitative and quantitative information but also spatial, such as three-dimensional distribution of lipids or water. The studies on animal models have provided a very different nature (serum metabolites, gene expression of transport in duodenum, liver, inguinal fat, and histological information on the microstructure of the duodenum and liver, degree of methylation of certain genes in white blood cells) that have allowed us to evaluate even light interaction differences between different types of food and body, especially those induced by different extra virgin olive oils or other lipid sources. The results have shown the nutritional value of the products of traditional Italian food in the long run, especially the extra virgin olive oil Conclusion. The results show that by applying the methods of investigation of Food Discovery, you get new information on both food and animal models. With them we can assess the overall and long-term metabolic, biological, histological examinations, epigenetic effects of food. With the Food Discovery could be a new look so much studied food, such as extra virgin olive oil, being able to obtain evidence-based information with which to enhance and promote its use for prevention of chronic degenerative diseases.