Don't Trust The Headlines Making Huge Health Claims About a Single Food. Here's Why

You have probably read the stories that claim that eating fruit reduces your risk of dementia, red wine is good for your heart, or coffee protects against type 2 diabetes. What is the truth in these statements?

We are not responsible for the headlines because we have been involved in this type of research. There are important and serious research that will help keep us all happier and healthier.

We study the effects of certain parts of food on health. Certain compounds found in tea and apples are not essential for survival, but still affect our health.

The biggest challenge with research on bioactives is to separate the effects of a food and a compound. There are some compounds in coffee that have a positive effect on heart health, but other compounds that can increase cholesterol. It makes our research difficult, but also exciting.

We need to find a way to distinguish between the health effects of different parts of food to give us more confidence in our recommendations.

If you want to find out more about the effect of individual foods on health, compare people with different diet and follow them for a long time. The approach helped us show that the Mediterranean diet and the Nordic diet keep us healthier for longer. This approach is flawed when we want to know more about individual foods.

It is difficult to separate foods from each other in such studies. The results of such research are often converted into food equivalents, such as cups of tea or bottles of wine, to make it easier to understand. It is more difficult in reality.

There are many things to consider when researching diet and health. We need essential vitamins to survive. The basis for recommendations, such as the UK government's Eatwell guide, is the influence of diet on overall health.

There are compounds in plant foods that may have a beneficial effect on health.

headlines about amazing foods are a result of research into bioactives. It is just a small part of the food, found elsewhere as well. Blueberries are a notable example. They contain bioactives, but they are also expensive. The same bioactives can be found in blackberries and plums.

We have learned a lot about the chemicals naturally occurring in foods and how they affect the body. Some of them will help us sprint faster, cycle longer, concentrate harder, and relax more easily.

Focus on variety

They cause problems when consumed in excessive amounts. Green tea can cause damage to the bile duct. We are just beginning to find out if there is an ideal amount of these compounds that give the most benefits. It is safe to say that a varied diet is the best approach.

Our understanding of nutrition is constantly evolving and improving, and we are able to better understand what foods to look out for as research progresses.

Everyone should build up a portfolio of diet that includes essential vitamins and minerals. Our bodies are complex and need a lot of different vitamins and minerals. It seems likely that we need to add bioactives to this list. It is not important where they are coming from.

You should be wary of advice that suggests you exclude the range of wonderful foods on offer and focus on a few foods that seem to have magical properties. Eating a healthy diet is much easier than nutrition is.

Charlotte Mills, Professor of Human Nutrition, University of Reading, and Jeremy Spencer, Professor of Nutrition and Food Science, University of Reading, are also professors.

This article is free to use under a Creative Commons license. The original article is worth a read.