Top Health Threats from Food and Diet

Improve Diet

Comprehensive analyses of a region's food and dietary trends, together with their respective effects on human health, can help maximize the public health effects of government campaigns and research programs, a report published by the Dutch National Institute for Public Health and the Environment (RIVM) says.

For example, "much greater health gains are to be made through encouraging a healthy diet than through improving food safety,' the report's authors conclude after extensive research into the effects of current food trends in The Netherlands.
Also, after reviewing the full spectrum of dietary habits and potential government measures, they state that "substantial health gains can be made through dietary interventions which are considered feasible."

Of all dietary factors insufficient consumption of fish, fruit and vegetables currently causes the most cases of serious illness and death in The Netherlands. About 50 percent of those can be avoided through interventions which appear feasible from small-scale experiments. In particular, attempts at reducing saturated and trans fatty acid uptake and increasing fish, fruit and vegetables consumption could save many lives, the authors say.

Leading document

"This report will be a leading document in Europe and probably beyond when it comes to making risk-benefit analyses of our food and diets," said Herman Ko