Preventive medicine through nutrition

PREVENTIVE MEDICINE THROUGH NUTRITION Nutritional epidemiology is concerned with exploring the relationship between nutrition and health in human populations. It has developed out of an epidemiological approach, classically defined as the study of the distribution and determinants of health-related conditions or events in defined populations, and the application of this study to the control of health problems. Distribution refers to analysis of time, place, and classes of persons affected determinants are all the physiological, biological, social, cultural, and behavioral factors that influence health. 

Whatever the reason for insufficient sleep, the sleepiness and neurobehav-ioral consequences seem inevitable. Prevention of sleep deprivation through lifestyle management, and perhaps with hypnotics, would be first- and second-line recommendations for most situations. However, there are instances in which sleepiness cannot be managed with those approaches. Wake-promoting agents would seem very appropriate for use in some of these situations. It should be noted that the use of medications to modulate the effects of lifestyle is not unique to sleep medicine. The use of artificial sweeteners or lipid-lowering agents, often to correct the effect of inappropriate nutritional choices, has become an acceptable part of daily food selection as well as medical practice. 

Foodomics, Functional Foods, and Nutraceuticals There is a clear trend in medicine and biosciences toward prevention of future diseases through adequate food intakes and the development of new functional foods and nutraceuticals. Although there is no officially accepted definition of functional foods, the definition proposed by Diplock et al. (73) is commonly used in the European Union and considers that a food is functional when it beneficially affects one or more target functions in the body beyond adequate nutrition in a way that is relevant to an improved state of health and well-being and/or reduction of risk of disease. Functional foods may include both natural (unmodified) foods and foods in which a component has been added, removed, or modified (including the bioavailability) by... 

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