Food choice is increasingly being influenced by health issues, creating opportunities for new product development, say El and Simsek in a 2012 review. Food scientists call for “optimal nutrition,” as the optimization of a daily nutrition model with nutrients and bioactive compounds to prevent diseases an promote healthy life. [1]

Toby Lasserson and David Tovey commented in an Editorial of 18 Jan 2012 the issue of The Cochrane Library  Jefferson et al 2012 ”Neuraminidase inhibitors for preventing and treating influenza in healthy adults and children (review)”. The review of unpublished data on oseltamivir unveiled inconsistencies.

Cicerale, Riddell and Keast 2012 report that taste is important to choose food, however perceived sweetness intensity alone does not influence decisively food behaviours related to sugar consumption and dietary intake in adults. [1]

The authors studied the behaviour of 85 adults which tasted a sugar solution and rated the percepted sweetness. The study found no correlation between perceived sweetness and total caloric intake,  food behaviours relating to sugar consumption dietary intake and micronutrients.

In Bavaria, Germany, 25 farms were closed off in mid January 2012 after urine of  pigs tested positive for chloramphenicol, an important antibiotic. Officials found that feed supplied to pig farms by the Bavarian dairy factory Ehrmann contained the antibiotic.

Clinical trials focused on vitamin E were not successful to lower cholesterol. Das et al 2012 assessed the LDL reducing  role of isomers of vitamin E, the tocotrienols. Rabbits were submitted to cholesterol-rich diet supplemented with tocotrienols. [1]

The authors report that left ventricular function including aortic flow, the developed pressure, and the myocardial infarct size exhibited significantly improved recovery with tocotrienol-γ and -α, but not with tocotrienol-δ.

Larsson and Wolk 2012 conducted a meta-analysis of 11 prospective studies with 6643 pancreatic cancer cases. The authors found that consumption of red meat was associated with an increase in pancreatic cancer risk in men (RR=1.29),  but not in women (RR=0.93) and 120 g red meat per day was associated with an overall relative risk (RR=1.13), 50 g per day increase in processed meat consumption was  (RR=1.19). [1]

Stevia is being obtained from the leaves of Stevia rebaudiana. Its sweetnes has a slower onset and longer duration than that of sugar, and some extracts may have a bitter or licorice-like aftertaste at high concentrations. Steviol glycoside extracts have up to 300 times the sweetness of sugar. are heat-stable, pH-stable, and do not ferment. They also do not induce a glycemic response when ingested, making them attractive as natural sweeteners to diabetics and others on carbohydrate-controlled diets. [1]

The World Health Organization in 2002 recommended governments to stockpile oseltamivir and zanamivir (Relenza, GlaxoSmithKline) - neuraminidase inhibitor drugs as treatment in the event of an influenza pandemic. Billions of dollars were spent, now doubts on its safety and efficacy arises. [1]

A group of 39 researchers signed a statement announcing a moratorium of 60 days on any research involving highly pathogenic avian influenza H5N1 viruses leading to the generation of viruses that are more transmissible in mammals. In addition, no experiments with live H5N1 or H5 HA reassortant viruses already shown to be transmissible in ferrets will be conducted during this time. [1]

The Food Watch report highlights incomplete or not available  data  related to bioavailability, there were no animal feeding trials performed, safety assessment is incomplete; there are no data on stability of the carotinoids during storage conditions; there are almost no data published related to possible formation of undesired contents of the plant; spread of the genetic material to other plants is most probable. [1]