Qualitative Fat Intake – Closed Task Force, finalising Expert Group

Quantity or quality: understanding the health effects of dietary fats

Strategic vision

This recent task force aims at understanding the effects of the intake of dietary fats on human health, both when they occur as part of food or as individual fatty acids.

Background

Recent data is challenging the old dogma that intake of specific classes of fats must be limited. We now investigate the scientific knowledge on
different dietary fats on health and the apparent discrepancies between effects of different fatty acids within each class.

Objectives

  • Provide an evidence-based perspective on future trends for health/risk benefits associated with individual fats.
  • Assess country-specific differences in dietary recommendations on dietary fats, some of which are food-based dietary guidelines while others are nutrient-based guidelines.

Expected Scientific Impact

The expected scientific outputs could be used to improve food quality and will pave the way forward for future strategies in food reformulations and the food processing chain in Europe.

For more detailed information, please contact Matthieu Flourakis at mflourakis@ilsieurope.be or Toula Aslanidis at taslanidis@ilsieurope.be

Task Force Members

*Scientific Advisor

Expert Groups

Update on Health Effects of Different Dietary Saturated Fats

Background & Objectives

Recent data indicated that both the type of Saturated Fatty Acids (SFA) and the food source of SFA may differentially affect health and especially the development of cardiometabolic diseases.

The objectives of these activities are:

  • to evaluate the validity of these recent data;
  • to assess if the recent results could indeed be used to adjust current dietary guidelines.

Output

The expert group will develop 2 publications:

  • a systematic review on the impact of individual dietary SFAs on traditional and novel biomarkers of cardiometabolic risk, on the one hand, and
    associations between dietary intake of individual SFAs and health outcomes, on the other hand;
  • a publication exploring whether the health effect of SFA depends on the food matrix.

Expert Group Members

Update on Health Effects of Different Dietary Saturated Fats