An assessment of the potential health impacts of food reformulation

• Published in: European journal of clinical nutrition Vol. 70; no. 6; pp. 694 - 699
• Main Authors: Leroy, P, Réquillart, V, Soler, L-G, Enderli, G
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: London Nature Publishing Group UK 01.06.2016; Nature Publishing Group
• Subjects: 692/499; 692/699/67/2195; Aged; Cardiovascular Diseases - prevention & control; Categories; Clinical Nutrition; Consumer behavior; Consumers; Consumption patterns; Diet; Epidemiology; Fatalities; Female; Food; Food - classification; Food Analysis; Food consumption; Food habits; Food intake; Food Quality; France; Health aspects; Health behavior; Health policy; Health Promotion; Health risk assessment; Humanities and Social Sciences; Humans; Income; Internal Medicine; Male; Management; Medicine; Medicine & Public Health; Metabolic Diseases; Methods; Mortality; Neoplasms - prevention & control; Nutrients; Nutrition; Nutrition Policy; Nutrition research; Nutritive Value; original-article; Poverty; Public Health; Safety and security measures; Stroke - prevention & control
• ISSN: 0954-3007; 1476-5640; 1476-5640
• DOI: 10.1038/ejcn.2015.201

Background/Objectives: Policies focused on food quality are intended to facilitate healthy choices by consumers, even those who are not fully informed about the links between food consumption and health. The goal of this paper is to evaluate the potential impact of such a food reformulation scenario on health outcomes. Subjects/Methods: We first created reformulation scenarios adapted to the French characteristics of foods. After computing the changes in the nutrient intakes of representative consumers, we determined the health effects of these changes. To do so, we used the DIETRON health assessment model, which calculates the number of deaths avoided by changes in food and nutrient intakes. Results: Depending on the reformulation scenario, the total impact of reformulation varies between 2408 and 3597 avoided deaths per year, which amounts to a 3.7–5.5% reduction in mortality linked to diseases considered in the DIETRON model. The impacts are much higher for men than for women and much higher for low-income categories than for high-income categories. These differences result from the differences in consumption patterns and initial disease prevalence among the various income categories. Conclusions: Even without any changes in consumers’ behaviors, realistic food reformulation may have significant health outcomes.