Food and Health

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Research group

01.01.2012 -

Institute of Public Health and Clinical Nutrition, School of Medicine, Faculty of Health Sciences

Information People

Top left: Hani El-Nezamy, Carlos Gomez Gallego, Kaisa Raninen, Kristiina Kinnunen, Jenni Korhonen, Kati Väkeväinen, Iman Zarei, Marjukka Kolehmainen, and Ehsan Shad. Bottom left: Kalle Karvonen, Valeria Iannone, Darren Healy, Jonhson Lok, Vilma Liikonen, and Moona Partanen. Missing: Ida Tikkanen, Suchetana De Storvik, Eveliina Helenius, Svetlana Podergina, and Otto Savolainen.

Research areas cover widely the impacts of food on our health and well-being. Our research laboratories offer facilities to study the digestion of food constituents, gut health and permeability, and relationships between food items and other ingredients with the host and the gut microbiota. Especially we aim to study new protein sources, their structure, safety, bioavailability, and health effects in vitro and in vivo; existing and new probiotics, prebiotics, and other functional foods and ingredients, their identification, safety and availability, and related technologies. Furthermore, we carry out short- and long-term clinical intervention studies as well as organoleptic evaluations. In food safety research, we are currently working on new technological solutions that can increase food quality and extend the shelf life of food products. We work openly with stakeholders and strive to promote open science in the food sector.

Projects

Cooperation

We study the health effects of foods and their components both with in vitro laboratory methods and in clinical dietary interventions. Regarding foods, studies have been done for example with whole grain cereals, berries and other plant-based foods and their bioactive components. The recent research focus has been in the effects mediated by the gut microbiota and related gut barrier function. Thus, we have been setting up in vitro model for studying gut microbiota activity and will continue developing it further with modular gut barrier interaction modelling.
Among the areas related to food safety, we have strong research expertise in food microbiology. In addition to microbiological analyses, we use chemical and sensory analyses to test the preservation of food and it´s components and develop new methods to study the quality of food and the possibilities to extend the shelf-life. Our recent research interests have included technological solutions related to high-pressure processing and freeze drying. Controlled, research-based extension of shelf-life for food contributes to global targets for the wise use of resources and aims to reduce food waste.
We have the research infrastructure, which focus to study the health effects and quality of food:

Research on food health effects
- Clinical Nutrition Interventions and Meal Trials
- Examination of intestinal effects
- Study of protein cleavage and usability
Our research infrastructure: clinical research laboratory, sensory evaluation facilities, teaching kitchen, intestinal and fermentation research environment (including Infogest intestinal model, in vitro colon model, dynamic intestinal model, UPLC equipment) including microbiology and cell culture laboratories.

Food preservation and quality
- Microbiological and sensory quality of food
- Examining the effects of preservation-promoting food processes (including high-pressure processing and freeze-drying)
- Antimicrobial effects
Our research infrastructure: microbiology laboratory (including Tempo equipment, miniVidas equipment), food chemistry laboratory (nutrient specifications, fat quality, viscosity, Kjelldahl equipment, Sohlex equipment), sensory evaluation facilities, teaching kitchen (including freeze dryer)

Our key activities are research projects and cooperation with companies. In addition to these, we can implement customized food research services. Contact us!

Research on the health effects of food: marjukka.kolehmainen@uef.fi

Food preservation and quality: jenni.korhonen@uef.fi

Keywords

berries climate impact dietary interventions fermentation fibers food food analytics food microbiology food safety freeze drying gastro intestinal model gastro intestinal system gut gut barrier function health high pressure processing inflammation metabolism microbiome microplastics plant protein protein sensory evaluation wellbeing whole grain cereals