Tag Archives: Nutrition Society

News

The Nutrition Society establishes the APPG for Nutrition: Science and Health

The Nutrition Society has established The All Party Parliamentary Group for Nutrition: Science and Health, and, in its first year, The Nutrition Society is conducting an inquiry, including a call for evidence, in order to prepare a report for circulation to Members of Parliament this Spring/Summer.

The Inquiry is titled ‘The Role of Nutrition as the New Preventative Medicine: Positive nutrition interventions to reduce the burden and costs on the UK health services’.

The report will examine how applying cutting-edge nutrition science can make a difference to health and support the work of the NHS, according to 3 themes:

  • ‘The Dual Health Burden of Malnutrition and Obesity in the UK’: Focusing on the costs and burdens of poor diet, hidden hunger, and malnutrition.
  • ‘Food and Mood’: The impact of nutrition on cognition and mental health, dementia, Alzheimer’s, the gut microbiome, and healthy ageing.
  • ‘Prevention and Resilience through Empowerment’: Solutions through empowering front line Health care Professionals and informing local policy interventions.

Mark Hollingsworth, CEO of the Nutrition Society calls for evidence “I would greatly appreciate your organisation’s or your individual participation in this important initiative, and invite you to contribute written evidence to the Inquiry. Adding your perspective to this work will, I believe, add significant gravitas to the Inquiry and its impact upon policy makers and politicians, at a crucial time for UK public health.”

Submitting evidence is brief and will only require 10-15 minutes (the submission window allows ‘copy and paste’), and answers will be autosaved if you choose to complete and submit the form later.

The Nutrition Society will close the submission window on April 14th.

The form is linked below.

Call For Evidence Form

 

News

Nutrition Society announce Winter Conference Live!

This year, the Nutrition Society will be holding its winter conference online.

The format will broadly follow that used for the highly successful Nutrition Society Live event held in July.

Date 8 – 9 December 2020

Registration link: https://www.nutritionsociety.org/events/winter-conference-live-2020

The topic

Micronutrient malnutrition, the deficiency of vitamins and minerals, is an issue across the whole life course, even in high-income countries.  Micronutrient malnutrition often accompanies low intakes of both protein and energy and leads to serious developmental issues in children, affecting cognition, physical function, and growth. At the other end of the life-course, in older adults, recent research shows micronutrient malnutrition leads to a decline in physical function, loss of muscle and cognition, and poor quality of life, therefore, contributing to the diseases of ageing, including sarcopenia and frailty.

Micronutrients also help to maintain immune resilience, likely conferring protection against COVID-19. A number of clinical conditions including bariatric surgery and gastrointestinal diseases also lead to micronutrient malnutrition.

Despite the high prevalence and importance of micronutrient malnutrition this is less well recognised in older western populations. On the other hand, low and middle-income countries are experiencing the ‘double burden of disease’ where malnutrition coexists alongside the non-communicable diseases of ageing; obesity, type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease.

As micronutrient malnutrition leads to irreversible changes in growth, body composition and cognition in childhood as well as in older age rectifying deficiency of micronutrients is highly important.

Meeting Highlights

The meeting will highlight recent scientific developments, current understanding and debate surrounding micronutrient deficiency and requirements across the life-course. The four symposia of the conference will cover the topics of the importance and impacts of vitamin and mineral deficiencies in ageing and disease; sarcopenia, frailty, osteosarcopenic obesity and bariatric surgery.  The symposia also cover the emerging issue of the ‘double burden of disease’ in low and middle-income countries as well as the importance of micronutrients during pregnancy and neural development in childhood. Finally, speakers in symposium four will focus on how issues of micronutrient malnutrition can be addressed, differences in micronutrient requirements across the life course and the development of dietary recommendations.

Click here to see the video of highlights

Full Programme available here