Research
The goal of Smartfood research is to integrate the existing knowledge on the molecular mechanisms of metabolism and chronic diseases with the influence of nutrition on the metabolic processes.
The quantity, quality and frequency of the foods we consume are the most powerful environmental factors affecting health status and life expectancy.
The body of scientific literature in support of this observation is as follows.
- Epidemiologic studies, which analyze associations between dietary habits and the development of disease.
- Nutritional intervention studies that assess the effects of food consumption on markers of disease risk and investigate the mechanisms of these observed effects.
- Studies using cellular and animal models.
This area of the program focuses on surveys and epidemiological studies, particularly on the role of nutrients in specific metabolic pathways that affect health status and, in turn, life expectancy.
Communication
The Smartfood program also aims to promote healthy lifestyles, providing practical tools to adapt information from scientific research to people's daily eating habits.
The communication program focuses on providing useful tools for making practical and informed food choices on a daily basis. This is in line with the fact that a healthy diet can also be varied, appetizing and appropriate for all ages, meeting all nutritional needs.
Therefore, the program covers several areas of mass communication such as: books, magazines, newspapers, radio, television, Internet and social networks.
Education and Training
The in-depth knowledge of nutritional science allows the Smartfood team to translate national and international guidelines, recommendations and scientific studies into practical tools that can be useful to both healthcare professionals in their clinical practice and corporate employees in their daily lives.
Smartfood's activities also include "Workplace Health Promotion", which provides an opportunity not only to improve health and well-being at work, but importantly, to prevent non-communicable diseases (NCDs) by improving healthy lifestyles and changing modifiable risk factors. Specifically, the Smartfood team is working both to improve the food choices available in the cafeterias and vending machines, and to organize workshops for the employees on healthy eating habits.
Examples of activities
- Attend public events and accredited courses.
- Consulting services for HORECA (hotellerie-restaurant-café) retail, catering and food industry (R&D).
All these activities are organized with the contribution of the Fondazione IEO-CCM.
New Food Products Research and Development
Applying scientific knowledge to healthy eating, the Smartfood team develops new food products according to:
- food legislation;
- international guidelines on healthy eating and nutritional parameters.
This emerging activity allows the Smartfood program to practically bridge the gap between the nutritional recommendations to the population and their daily eating habits, offering novel food products designed to achieve specific nutritional goals.