As a new generation of diseases crop up, health, food and medical researchers are collaborating in an effort to teach people how to eat. Haydn Shaughnessy reports.
Academics at University College Cork recently gave up an evening to teach people how to eat. They were not teaching people how to cook. Cooking is not an academic pursuit. Instead they presented a mixed menu of how and when to eat, along with a helping of what.
For the decisions the average animal makes with a sniff, we, it seems, need lessons. The evening is to become a regular feature of UCC's Alimentary Pharmabiotic Centre (APC) outreach programme, according to co-ordinator Catherine Buckley.
The APC is a pioneering collaboration between health, food and medical researchers, which suggests that a wide range of diseases associated with our eating habits have, or will take on, epidemic proportions.
While the world focuses on obesity, the APC's focus is on what happens inside our stomachs and intestines. APC is one of the world's leading centres of expertise on probiotics - the good gut bacteria that previously made up a large part of our diet and which act as a major line of defence in our immune response to illness.
The interaction between eating habits, the nature of our diets and immunity is where the APC is carving out a significant industrial lead for Ireland.
According to Prof Eamonn Quigley, vice-president of the World Organisation of Gastroenterologists and an APC principal investigator, a new generation of diseases is now emerging around poor eating habits.
Cancers of the throat and upper stomach have taken on an entirely new character.
Although throat cancers have been around for decades, they were previously of a different nature from the current plague of deadly adenocarcenomas.
But if they are the worst consequence of poor eating patterns, there are many more. Prof Quigley lists: a well-established association between bad gut bacteria and arthritis and liver disease; a new recognition of the link between bad diet and asthma; and a well-founded relationship between gut inflammation and osteoporosis.
"There's no question this is an epidemic of disease associated with increases in body mass index," says Prof Quigley, "It is an enormous issue."
But he acknowledges that there may be too much emphasis on causation rather than a simple association. The APC's real focus is the inside of the stomach rather than its size or the spare tyre.
The major concern of gastroenterologists is with the acidity of the gut and our failing ability to process acid secretions.
Rising acidity, in the form of heartburn, is thought to be a cause of the new throat and upper stomach cancers.
But a recent study in the US, quoted by Prof Quigley, suggests that this problem is even complicating our sleeping patterns.
Sponsored by the National Institutes of Health, the study shows an increasing number of people suffer nocturnal acidity and the presumption is that the root cause is people eating too late and drinking too much alcohol with their food.
To address these problems the APC recently hosted an evening of talks for parents and children that focused on the practicalities of eating.
Dr Nora O'Brien, a nutritionist at UCC, says the problem is of course in part the types of food people eat. The bulk of food industry advertising is aimed at convincing us to eat foods that lie at the top of the food pyramid, particularly the sweet drinks and confectionary.
What's more, while the US revises its food pyramid every five years and recently changed its focus to incorporate a much higher proportion of fruit and vegetables, we have been slow to respond to new disease patterns with dietary advice.
Prof Quigley contends that we may not have the stomach for much of the food we now eat and hence he and his colleagues have pioneered the isolation and investigation of naturally occurring gut bacteria and their effect on our health.
"The ideal solution to many health problems would be to get back to a diet that is truly balanced," says Prof Quigley, "but we are dealing with an imbalance in the intestinal tract that most likely now needs to be corrected pharmacologically."
The APC has already patented several strains of gut bacteria for later inclusion in our food, once clinical trials confirm their precise effect.
Its argument is that a corrected diet might be powerless to overcome new disease patterns, but by utilising naturally occurring probiotics, specific illnesses can be addressed.
The reason for the change, Prof Quigley suggests, is that we have traded outbreaks of bacterial and viral diseases, like cholera, that had an immediate and often fatal impact on people, for a new generation of diseases characterised by long-term chronic illnesses like diabetes.
"We need to adapt to the changes by re-educating the immune system in the gut to make up for the lack of exposure to bacteria," says Prof Quigley who agrees with the popular perception that changes in hygiene standards may have reduced the ability of our immunity to respond to modern health challenges.
The idea of the outreach programme is to teach people the simple concepts of eating well and avoiding digestive problems.
At least with reasonably careful eating habits we can resolve our immediate digestive problems before they make a permanent mark as a chronic disease.
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