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The present study aimed to evaluate the effect of the school-based educational intervention “FOODcamp” on dietary habits among 6th–7th graders (aged 11–13 years), focusing on the food groups: fruits and vegetables, fish, meat, discretionary food, and sugar-sweetened beverages. In this cluster-based quasi-experimental controlled intervention study, 16 intervention classes (322 children) and 16 control classes (267 children) from nine schools were recruited during the school year 2019–2020. The children were asked to record their food intake for four consecutive days (Wednesday to Saturday) before (baseline) and after (follow-up) attending FOODcamp, using a validated self-administered web-based dietary record. Eligible dietary intake registrations from 124 and 118 children from the control and interventions classes, respectively, were included in the final statistical analysis. Hierarchical mixed model analysis was used to evaluate the effect of the intervention. No statistically significant effects of participating in FOODcamp were found on the average food intake of the food groups eaten regularly (vegetables, fruit, vegetables/fruit/juice combined, or meat) (p > 0.05). Among the food groups not eaten regularly (fish, discretionary foods, and sugar-sweetened beverages), a non-significant tendency to lower odds of consuming sugar-sweetened beverages from baseline to follow-up (OR = 0.512; 95% CI: 0.261–1.003; p = 0.0510) was seen among FOODcamp participants compared to control participants. In conclusion, this study found no effect of the educational intervention FOODcamp on the dietary intake of vegetables, fruit, vegetable/fruit/juice combined, meat, fish, or sugar-sweetened beverages. The intake frequency of sugar-sweetened beverages tended to decrease among FOODcamp participants.

Iodine deficiency is one of the most common nutritional disorders worldwide. In Denmark, the mandatory iodine fortification of salt of 13 ppm was introduced in 2000 to eradicate mild to moderate iodine deficiency and the fortification level was increased to 20 ppm in 2019. However, the optimal iodine intake is a narrow interval, and the risk of disease increases with intakes both below and above this interval. In this study, we quantified the risk-benefit balance in the Danish adult population by increasing the mandatory fortification level. We applied a risk-benefit assessment approach in which population-level iodine intakes before and after the increase in fortification were integrated with epidemiological evidence of the association between iodine nutrition status and risk of relevant diseases to estimate the number of cases caused or prevented and estimated health impact in terms of disability-adjusted life years (DALY). We estimated an overall beneficial health impact and prevention of 34.9 (95% UI: -51.6; -21.7) DALY per 100,000 adults in the population annually with the increase in fortification level. Prevention of low IQ in children due to maternal iodine deficiency was the primary contributor to overall health gain. The gain in healthy life years comes at the expense of extra cases of goiter due to iodine excess. Due to lack of data, hypo- and hyperthyroidism related to iodine status were not included. Neither were children as a population group. Because of this, as well as uncertainties inherent in the model and data used, results should be interpreted with caution. We argue that nation-specific, quantitative assessments of the public health impact of fortification programs provide transparent, evidence-based decision support. Future research should aim to enable the inclusion of all relevant health effects as well as children in the assessment.

We present the GrowBot as an educational robotic system to facilitate hands-on experimentation with the control of environmental conditions for food plant growth. The GrowBot is a tabletop-sized greenhouse automated with sensors and actuators to become a robotic system for the control of plant's growth. The GrowBot includes sensors for humidity, CO2, temperature, water level, RGB camera images, and actuators to control the grow conditions, including full spectrum lights, IR lights, and UV lights, nutrients pump, water pump, air pump, air change pump, and fan. Inspired by educational robotics, we developed user-friendly graphical programming of the GrowBots on several means: a touch display, a micro:bit, and a remote webserver interface. This allows school pupils to easily program the GrowBots to different growth conditions for the natural plants in terms of temperature, humidity, day light cycle, wavelength of LED light, nutrient rate, etc. The GrowBot system also allows the user to monitor the environmental conditions, such as CO2 monitoring for photosynthesis understanding, on both the touch display and the remote web-interface. An experiment with nine GrowBots shows that the different parameters can be controlled, that this can control the growth of the food plants, and that control to make an environmental condition with blue light results in higher and larger plants than red light. Further, the pilot experimentation in school settings indicates that the comprehensive system design method results in a deployable system, which can become well adopted in the educational domain.

Low selenium status may be associated with increased risk of prostate cancer (PC), particularly aggressive PC, and variation in selenoprotein genes may constitute an important modifying factor. We aimed to investigate the association between two selenium status biomarkers [toenail selenium, plasma selenoprotein P (SELENOP)] and risk of advanced, high-grade and advanced-stage PC. We further studied whether variations in selenoprotein genes were associated with PC risk and selenium biomarker concentrations. In the “Diet, Cancer and Health” cohort, 27 178 men aged 50 to 65 years were enrolled from 1993 to 1997. Between baseline and 2012, 1160 cohort participants were diagnosed with advanced PC; among these 462 had high-grade and 281 had advanced-stage disease at diagnosis. Each case was risk set-matched to one control. Toenail selenium and plasma SELENOP concentrations were measured by neutron activation analysis and a SELENOP-ELISA, respectively, and genotyping was performed for 27 selected single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in 12 selenium pathway genes (including seven selenoproteins) by allele-specific PCR. Toenail selenium and circulating SELENOP concentrations were not associated with advanced, high-grade or advanced-stage PC. After adjustment for multiple testing, none of the genes were associated with PC risk. Neither toenail selenium nor plasma SELENOP was associated with advanced, high-grade or advanced-stage PC.

One of the challenges in quantitative risk-benefit assessment (RBA) of foods is the choice of approach for health effect characterization to estimate the health impact of dietary changes. The purpose of health effect characterization is to describe an association between intake of a food or food component and a health effect in terms of a dose-response relationship. We assessed the impact of the choice of approach for health effect characterization in RBA in two case studies based on substitution of (i) white rice by brown rice and (ii) unprocessed red meat by vegetables. We explored this by comparing the dose-response relations linking a health effect with (i) a food component present in the food, (ii) a food based on non-specified substitution analyses, and (iii) a food based on specified substitution analyses. We found that the choice of approach for health effect characterization in RBA may largely impact the results of the health impact estimates. Conducting the calculations only for a food component may neglect potential effects of the food matrix and of the whole food on the diet-disease association. Furthermore, calculations based on associations for non-specified substitutions include underlying food substitutions without specifying these. Data on relevant specified substitutions, which could reduce this type of bias, are unfortunately rarely available. Assumptions and limitations of the health effect characterization approaches taken in RBA should be documented and discussed, and scenario analysis is encouraged when multiple options are available.

I Danmark er Fødevarestyrelsen ansvarlig for de officielle nationale kostråd. I 2011 besluttede Fødevarestyrelsen at igangsætte en opdatering af De officielle Kostråd 2005. Arbejdet resulterede i 10 kostråd som styrelsen lancerede i 2013 (De officielle Kostråd 2013). Et af de 10 råd vedrører indtag af næringsstoffet mættet fedt: ”Spis mindre mættet fedt”. Et andet råd vedrører indtag af magre mejeriprodukter: ”Vælg magre mejeriprodukter”. Den primære grund til, at Fødevarestyrelsen anbefaler befolkningen at reducere indtag af mættet fedt er, at indtag af mættet fedt øger risiko for iskæmisk hjertesygdom (IHS) medieret af blandt andet effekten på low-density lipoprotein kolesterol i blodet, der er en væsentlig risikofaktor for udvikling af aterosklerotiske hjerte-kar-sygdomme, herunder IHS. Baggrunden for, at Fødevarestyrelsen anbefaler befolkningen at vælge de magre varianter af mejeriprodukter, er, at de magre varianter har et lavere indhold af mættet fedt sammenlignet med de fede varianter. De seneste år har ernæringsforskningen dog fokuseret på effekten af indtag af hele fødevarer og fødevaremønstre på helbredet, da næringsstofferne, andre biologisk aktive stoffer, deres indbyrdes sammenspil samt fødevarens fysiske struktur (for eksempel fast struktur versus flydende) sandsynligvis har betydning. Formålet med nærværende projekt er derfor at gennemgå den videnskabelige litteratur omhandlende indtag af mejeriprodukter og udvikling af hjerte-kar-sygdomme, type 2 diabetes (T2D) og metabolisk syndrom (MetS), da en sådan gennemgang af den videnskabelige litteratur vil kunne bidrage til at opdatere det videnskabelige grundlag for Fødevarestyrelsens anbefaling om indtag af mejeriprodukter. Vi benyttede i store træk de metoder til at identificere, udvælge og gennemgå litteratur, som blev anvendt i forbindelse med opdateringen af De officielle Kostråd 2005. Her blev lagt størst vægt på konklusioner i vidensopsummeringer, hvor uafhængige organisat, In Denmark, the Danish Veterinary and Food Administration (DVFA) is responsible for the official national dietary guidelines. In 2011, DVFA decided to initiate an update of The Official Dietary Guidelines 2005. The work resulted in 10 recommendations, which DVFA launched in 2013 (The Official Dietary Guidelines 2013). One of the 10 recommendations concerns the nutrient saturated fat: “Eat less saturated fat”. Another recommendation concerns intake of low-fat dairy products: “Choose low-fat dairy products”. The primary reason why DVFA recommends the population to decrease intake of saturated fat is that intake of saturated fat increases the risk of ischemic heart disease (IHD), mediated partly by the effect on low-density lipoprotein cholesterol in the blood, which is an important risk factor for development of atherosclerotic cardiovascular diseases, among these IHD. The reason why DVFA recommends the population to choose the low-fat dairy product variants of dairy products is that the low-fat variants have a lower content of saturated fat compared with the high-fat variants. During the last years, however, nutritional research has focused on the effect of intake of whole foods and dietary patterns on health as nutrients, other biologically active components, their mutually interplay as well as the physical structure of the food (for example solid versus liquid) probably all are of importance. The aim of the current project is therefore to review the scientific literature on intake of dairy products and development of cardiovascular diseases, type 2 diabetes (T2D) and metabolic syndrome (MetS), as such a review of the scientific literature could contribute to update the scientific evidence of DVFA’s recommendation of intake of dairy products. We used similar methods to identify, select and review literature as used when updating The Official Dietary Guidelines 2005. Most emphasis was put on conclusions in systematic expert reports, where i

The epidemiological evidence regarding the association of coffee and tea consumption with prostate cancer risk is inconclusive, and few cohort studies have assessed these associations by disease stage and grade. We examined the associations of coffee (total, caffeinated and decaffeinated) and tea intake with prostate cancer risk in the European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition. Among 142,196 men, 7,036 incident prostate cancer cases were diagnosed over 14 years of follow-up. Data on coffee and tea consumption were collected through validated country-specific food questionnaires at baseline. We used Cox proportional hazards regression models to compute hazard ratios (HRs) and 95% confidence intervals (CI). Models were stratified by center and age, and adjusted for anthropometric, lifestyle and dietary factors. Median coffee and tea intake were 375 and 106 mL/day, respectively, but large variations existed by country. Comparing the highest (median of 855 mL/day) versus lowest (median of 103 mL/day) consumers of coffee and tea (450 vs. 12 mL/day) the HRs were 1.02 (95% CI, 0.94-1.09) and 0.98 (95% CI, 0.90-1.07) for risk of total prostate cancer and 0.97 (95% CI, 0.79-1.21) and 0.89 (95% CI, 0.70-1.13) for risk of fatal disease, respectively. No evidence of association was seen for consumption of total, caffeinated or decaffeinated coffee or tea and risk of total prostate cancer or cancer by stage, grade or fatality in this large cohort. Further investigations are needed to clarify whether an association exists by different preparations or by concentrations and constituents of these beverages.

Low-Se status may be associated with a higher risk of notably advanced prostate cancer. In a Danish population with a relatively low Se intake, we investigated the association between pre-diagnostic Se status and (1) the risk of total, advanced and high-grade prostate cancer and (2) all-cause and prostate cancer-specific mortality among men with prostate cancer. Within the Danish ‘Diet, Cancer and Health’ cohort, including 27 179 men, we identified 784 cases with incident prostate cancer through 2007. Each case was risk set-matched to one control. Two-thirds (n 525) of the cases had advanced disease at the time of diagnosis, and among these 170 had high-grade disease; 305 cases died (n 212 from prostate cancer) during follow-up through 2012. Plasma Se was not associated with total or advanced prostate cancer risk, but higher Se levels were associated with a lower risk of high-grade disease (HR 0·77; 95 % CI 0·64, 0·94; P=0·009). In survival analyses, a higher level of plasma Se was associated with a lower risk of all-cause (HR 0·92; 95 % CI 0·85, 1·00; P=0·04), but not prostate cancer-specific mortality. Higher levels of selenoprotein P were associated with a lower risk of high-grade disease (HR 0·85; 95 % CI 0·74, 0·97; P=0·01), but not with the risk of or mortality from advanced prostate cancer. In conclusion, levels of plasma Se and selenoprotein P were not associated with the risk of total and advanced prostate cancer, but higher levels of these two biomarkers were associated with a lower risk of high-grade disease.

Suboptimal intakes of the micronutrient selenium (Se) are found in many parts of Europe. Low Se status may contribute to colorectal cancer (CRC) development. We assessed Se status by measuring serum levels of Se and Selenoprotein P (SePP) and examined the association with CRC risk in a nested case-control design (966 CRC cases; 966 matched controls) within the European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition. Se was measured by total reflection X-ray fluorescence and SePP by immunoluminometric sandwich assay. Multivariable incidence rate ratios (IRRs) and 95% confidence intervals (CIs) were calculated using conditional logistic regression. Respective mean Se and SePP levels were 84.0 μg/L and 4.3 mg/L in cases and 85.6 μg/L and 4.4 mg/L in controls. Higher Se concentrations were associated with a non-significant lower CRC risk (IRR = 0.92, 95% CI: 0.82-1.03 per 25 μg/L increase). However, sub-group analyses by sex showed a statistically significant association for women (ptrend = 0.032; per 25 μg/L Se increase, IRR = 0.83, 95% CI: 0.70-0.97) but not for men. Higher SePP concentrations were inversely associated with CRC risk (ptrend = 0.009; per 0.806 mg/L increase, IRR = 0.89, 95% CI: 0.82-0.98) with the association more apparent in women (ptrend = 0.004; IRR = 0.82, 95% CI: 0.72-0.94 per 0.806 mg/L increase) than men (ptrend = 0.485; IRR = 0.98, 95% CI: 0.86-1.12 per 0.806 mg/L increase). The findings indicate that Se status is suboptimal in many Europeans and suggest an inverse association between CRC risk and higher serum Se status, which is more evident in women.

Selenium status of the Danish population is below that assumed optimal for the suggested protective effects against chronic diseases, including certain cancers. Fish and shellfish are important dietary sources of selenium in Denmark. We investigated the effect of increased fish and mussel intake on selenium blood concentrations in a population with relatively low habitual dietary selenium intake. We randomly assigned 102 healthy men and women (all non-smokers) aged 48-76 years to an intervention group (n = 51) or a control group (n = 51). Intervention participants received 1000 g fish and mussels/week for 26 weeks (similar to 50 mu g selenium/day). Controls received no intervention. Non-fasting blood samples were taken and whole blood selenium was determined using inductively coupled plasma-mass spectrometry (ICP-MS), and plasma selenoprotein P (SelP) was determined by high performance liquid chromatography coupled to ICP-MS. All available observations were included in linear multiple regression analysis to evaluate the effect of the intervention. The difference in mean change for intervention compared with control persons was 14.9 ng/mL (95% CI: 10.2, 19.7) for whole blood selenium, and 7.0 ng/mL (95% CI: 3.1, 10.9) for plasma SelP (Weeks 0-26). Selenium concentrations were significantly increased after 26 weeks of intervention, albeit to a lower degree than expected.

Background: Hypertension and obesity are important risk factors for cardiovascular diseases. Since both hypertension and obesity are common in the adult Danish population, a potential effect of fish consumption on blood pressure (BP), body weight (BW) and waist circumference (WC) could be of importance to reduce cardiovascular diseases in Denmark.Aim: The aim of this thesis was to investigate the association between fish intake and BP, BW, and WC in a cross-sectional study. Furthermore, the aim was to investigate the effect of increased fish intake on BP, BW, and WC in a randomised controlled trial (RCT). Methods: In the cross-sectional study, associations between fish consumption and BP, BW, and WC was investigated at baseline in a population attending the Danish Diet, Cancer and Health cohort (n=55,456). In the RCT, an intervention group (n=51) consumed one kg of fish per week while a parallel control group (n=45) were advised to adhere to their habitual diet. After 26 weeks of intervention, changes in BP, BW, and WC were investigated.Results: In the cross-sectional study, total fish intake was not associated with systolic blood pressure (SBP) in both genders (P≥0.108). Total fish intake was also not associated with diastolic blood pressure (DBP) in men (P=0.086), but a positive association was found in women (P=0.047). Lean fish intake was not associated with SBP or DBP in women or men (all P≥0.164). Fatty fish intake was positively associated with SBP (P=0.006) and DBP (P=0.050) in women. Whereas in men, no association was found between fatty fish and SBP (P=0.521) but the association with DBP (P=0.004) was inverse. In the RCT, no effect of the intervention was found on SBP (P=0.761) or DBP (P=0.240). In the cross-sectional study, total fish intake was positively associated with BW both in women (P<0.001) and men (P=0.002). Total fish was also positively associated with WC in women (P<0.001) whereas no association was found in men (P=0.195). Lean fish inta

Acrylamide (AA) is a probable human carcinogen that is formed in heat-treated carbohydrate-rich foods. The validity of FFQ to assess AA exposure has been questioned. The aim of the present cross-sectional study was to investigate dietary determinants of Hb-AA and Hb-glycidamide (GA) adducts. The study included 537 non-smoking women aged 50-65 years who participated in the Diet, Cancer and Health cohort (1993-97). At study baseline, blood samples and information on dietary and lifestyle variables obtained from self-administered questionnaires were collected. From blood samples, Hb-AA and Hb-GA in erythrocytes were analysed by liquid chromatography/MS/MS. Dietary determinants were evaluated by multiple linear regression analyses adjusted for age and smoking behaviour among ex-smokers. The median for Hb-AA was 35 pmol/g globin (5th percentile 17, 95th percentile 89) and for Hb-GA 21 pmol/g globin (5th percentile 8, 95th percentile 49). Of the dietary factors studied, intakes of coffee and chips were statistically significantly associated with a 4% per 200g/d (95% CI 2, 7; P<00001) and an 18% per 5g/d (95% CI 6, 31; P=0002) higher Hb-AA, respectively. This model explained 17% of the variation in Hb-AA. Intakes of coffee and biscuits/crackers were statistically significantly associated with a 3% per 200g/d (95% CI 1, 6; P=0005) and 12% per 10g/d (95% CI 3, 23; P=001) higher Hb-GA, respectively. This model explained 12% of the variation in Hb-GA. In conclusion, only a few dietary determinants of Hb-AA and Hb-GA were identified. Thus, the present study implies that dietary intake measured by an FFQ explains only to a limited extent the variation in Hb-AA and Hb-GA concentrations.