The Science Policy Briefing N°36 jointly published by ESF and COST in March 2009 clearly stated that the links between food and human health was a top research priority for Europe. EU legislation, as advised by EFSA, now demands proper scientific data in nutrition and health claims.
There is a lot of data being generated on the link between the food digestion and human health and a significant effort continues to be expended separately in each EU country on optimizing food for preventing the development of food-related diseases.

This COST Action will gradually build a European network that will spread and improve current basic knowledge on food digestion and promote harmonization of currently used digestion models used including validation with human data from different populations such as infants, elderly, sport professionals etc.
A multidisciplinary scientific community will be built on this topic gathering scientists from different disciplines (food science, nutrition, physiology, immunology, cell biology…). The Action will facilitate the transfer of new scientific advances to European food companies (large groups as well as SMEs) for developing new functional foods and reinforcing their competitiveness in a growing world market.

Project partners

Coordinator of this project in France : M. Didier Dupont
National Institute for Agricultural Research, Science and Technology of Milk and Egg

Other partners :

France :

• AgroParisTech, Biology and human nutrition
• National Institute for Agricultural Research, Human Nutrition
• National Institute for Agricultural Research, Livestock Production System, animal and human nutrition
• National Institute for Agricultural Research, Microbiology and Food Processing
• National Institute for Agricultural Research, Poultry Research

Belgium :

• University of Gent, Department of Food Safety and Food Quality, Faculty of Bioscience Engineering

Germany :

• University of Greifswald Institute of Pharmacy, Department of Biopharmaceutics and Pharmaceutical Technology

Denmark :

• Technical University of Denmark, Department of Toxicology and Risk Assessment, National Food Institute

Spain :

• Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (CSIC), Department of Biotechnology and Microbiology, Research Institute in Food Science

Finland :

• MTT Agrifood Research, Biotechnology and Food Research

Irland :

• Teagasc, Moorepark Food Research Centre

Italy :

• Milan State University, Department of Food Science and Technology
• University of Bologna, Department of Food Science, BioNMR Laboratory
• University of Bologna, Research Center on Nutrition and Vitamins, Dept. of Biochemistry "G. Moruzzi,"

Netherlands :

• Wageningen University Research (WUR), Agrotechnology & Food Innovations, Postharvest quality and technology

Norway :

• Norwegian University of Life Sciences, Department of Chemistry, Biotechnology and Food Science

Poland :

• Polish Academy of Science, Food Immunology and Microbiology Department, Institute of Animal Reproduction and Food Research

Serbia :

• University of Belgrade, Department of Biochemistry, Faculty of Chemistry

United Kingdom :

• Institute of Food Research, Structuring Food for Health
• Leatherhead Food Research, Nutrition