Browsing by Author "Jagdish P. Sharma"

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Modernization of policy for food manufacturing and farming may be necessary for global health
(Elsevier, 2018) Ram B. Singh; Jagdish P. Sharma; Toru Takahashi; Lekh R. Juneja; Ronald R. Watson; Rukam S. Tomar; Mukta Singh; Poonam Jaglan; Meenakshi Singh; Ester Halmy; Anil K. Chauhan; Ekasit Onsaard
The major noncommunicable diseases (NCDs)-obesity, type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, cancer, and chronic obstructive pulmonary diseases-are rapidly increasing in almost all countries and are now among the world’s biggest killers. NCDs are polygenic and multifactorial and pose a major challenge to economic development and urbanization being due to increased prosperity of populations with food security across the world. The contributing factors are multifaceted and complex, characterized with food production by farming and food manufacturing by the industry as well as by food prices determined by the governments. Other factors may be extensive advertisements by the food industry and inadequate legislation in labeling food contents. Health behavior related to population aging, urbanization, the globalization of trade and marketing, and the resulting progressive increase in unhealthy patterns of diets and eating also appear to be important. A change in policy aimed at manufacturing only slowly absorbed functional foods to be available at affordable price can increase the consumption of these foods. Plant breeding and genetic engineering should be used to develop new foods as a weapon to reduce the cost of expensive healthy foods such as walnuts and almonds as well as vegetables and fruits. © 2019 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
The thailand declaration of the international college of nutrition: Can functional foods and functional crops decrease the risk of chronic diseases and provide wellness?
(Nova Science Publishers, Inc., 2017) Wiriya Phomkong; Ekasit Onsaard; Dherapol Bansiddhi; R.B. Singh; Buncha Ooraikul; Arunporn Itharat; Fabien De Meester; Jagdish P. Sharma; Rana G. Singh; Usha Singh; Harpal S. Buttar; Istvan G. Telessy; Toru Takahashi; Lech Ozimek; Jae-Kwan Hwang; Kohei Oda; Douglas W. Wilson
There is evidence that optimal nutrition is fundamental to human health and in the prevention of non-communicable diseases (NCDs) later in adult life. The identification, production and consumption of functional foods worldwide can increase health benefits for all who can access and afford such foods subject to advice from nutritionists. Recent meetings organized by the health agencies, give a crucial opportunity to make nutrition a central part of the post-2015 sustainable human and agricultural development agenda. The aim of discussions in these meetings was to provide functional crops and foods to achieve optimal health by prevention of NCDs. It is possible that these efforts might ensure that the goals and targets set in the agenda are adequate to address the many challenges of global undernutrition as well as obesity which are major risk factors of NCDs. In many developing and middle income countries, food security provided by the governments, in one sense understandably, gave least consideration to functional foods supply and the prevention of obesity and metabolic syndrome, resulting in to emergence of NCDs. The Thailand Declaration reiterates commitments to eradicate hunger and undernutrition as well as over-nutrition, and to increase investments in effective interventions such as designer foods and designer crops. However, in planning coherent policies, our past experience on rapidly absorbed, energy-rich processed foods should be taken into account while developing sustainable food systems. The food industry should be educated to exploit the expertise of food scientists and health professionals in designing functional foods taking cognizance of manufacturing and processing. Similarly, agriculture scientists may be actively involved in educating farmers so as to grow cash crops providing functional foods. The aim should be to achieve an increase in the availability of functional foods to an extent, or by a policy, by which such foods are available to poor people at affordable cost to prevent hunger and undernutrition and related diseases as well as NCDs. In addition our efforts might help in developing an international consensus on how to approach the development of new designer foods by farmers and the food industry to produce low-glycemic-index foods. Such efforts may establish an international framework for the prevention of NCDs, so that human susceptibility to these diseases is substantially diminished. © 2018, Nova Science Publishers, Inc.. All rights reserved.