Alessandra Bordoni

• MD, PhD
• Full professor at University of Bologna

Cold plasma (CP) is a non-thermal technology, successfully used to decontaminate and extend the shelf-life of various foods. However, CP can cause quality deterioration in sensitive matrices, such as fish products. This research aimed to evaluate the effect of CP treatment obtained using different gas mixtures (80% Ar/20% O2, or 80% N2/20% O2) with...

This study aimed at investigating the effects of pomegranate juice (POMJ) consumption on inflammatory biomarkers and gene expression in patients with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) in clinical remission. In this randomized, placebo‐controlled trial, 16 subjects with IBD in remission consumed POMJ or placebo for 12 weeks. POMJ consumption signific...

Despite growing interest in ancient wheat varieties, the functional and nutritional properties of einkorn (Triticum monococcum) in cereal-based foods remain not fully elucidated. This study examined the chemical composition and functional properties of wholegrain einkorn pasta through cooking and simulated gastrointestinal digestion, comparing it w...

Background/Objectives: The water footprint (WF) provides information on the impact of individual foods on water consumption, but to better direct food production toward water saving, we need to understand how to reduce the WF of our diets while keeping it healthy. In this study, we compared the WF of healthy diets based on national food-based dieta...

Zooplankton such as copepods and krill are currently used to produce marine oil supplements, with the aim of helping consumers achieve the recommended intake of n-3 long chain polyunsaturated fatty acids (n-3 LC-PUFAs). Oils from lower trophic levels differ from fish oil in the distribution of lipids into different classes, and this can influence t...

Fish is a fundamental component of the human diet, and in the near future the proportion of aquatic foods originating from aquaculture production is expected to increase to over 56%. The sustainable growth of the aquaculture sector involves the use of new sustainable raw materials as substitutes for traditional fishmeal and fish oil ingredients, bu...

Buckwheat is a pseudo-cereal widely grown and consumed throughout the world. Buckwheat is recognized as a good source of nutrients and, in combination with other health-promoting components, is receiving increasing attention as a potential functional food. Despite the high nutritional value of buckwheat, a variety of anti-nutritional features makes...

At present, as we face climate change and natural resource scarcity, one of the major challenges linking humans and the environment is to ensure sufficient, nutritious, safe, and affordable food for a rapidly growing world population. In a nutshell, “feed the world without destroying it”. The water footprint (WF), i.e., the withdrawals of fresh wat...

Milk is an essential food, but a large part of adult's population is uncapable to digest lactose. Lactose intolerance can seriously affect the intestinal ecology and compromise the host's well‐being. In this scenario, the role of human gut microbiota is crucial, but little is known about that because few research studies were conducted, via either...

Curing salts composed of mixtures of nitrates and nitrites are preservatives widely used in processed meats. Despite many desirable technological effects, their use in meat products has been linked to methemoglobinemia and the formation of nitrosamines. Therefore, an increasing “anti-nitrite feeling” has grown among meat consumers, who search for c...

The availability of omics data providing information from different layers of complex biological processes that link nutrition to human health would benefit from the development of integrated approaches combining holistically individual omics data, including those associated with the microbiota that impacts the metabolisation and bioavailability of...

Increasing consumer awareness on good health has drawn the attention to health promoting natural dietary substances. However, since the organoleptic profile of foods highly influences the consumers' preference, and it is often decisive in the purchase, it is important to objectively describe and evaluate the effect of the applied bioactive ingredie...

Although epidemiological studies indicate a strong correlation between high sugar intake and metabolic diseases, the biological mechanisms underlying this link are still controversial. To further examine the modification and crosstalk occurring in enterocyte metabolism during sugar absorption, in this study we evaluate the diffusion and intestinal...

Reducing the salt content in food is an important nutritional strategy for decreasing the risk of diet-related diseases. This strategy is particularly effective when applied to highly appreciated food having good nutritional characteristics, if it does not impact either upon sensory or nutritional properties of the final product. This work aimed at...

Bioactive polyphenolic compounds, recovered by nanofiltration of Cabernet Sauvignon wine lees were encapsulated with maltodextrin to obtain a spray dried micro powder with enhanced nutritional value. A Central Composite Design allowed setting up optimal spry‒drying conditions using a commercial grape extract‒polyphenol as the reference polyphenolic...

Excess intake of energy, sugars, salt and saturated fats is an important causal factor of obesity and related non-communicable diseases. In order to help consumers to make healthy food choices, many European countries have developed proposals for "front-of-pack" food labeling, intended as an integration to the nutritional information provided by th...

Although lifestyle-based interventions are the most effective to prevent metabolic syndrome (MetS), there is no definitive agreement on which nutritional approach is the best. The aim of the present retrospective analysis was to identify a multivariate model linking energy and macronutrient intake to the clinical features of MetS. Volunteers at ris...

The use of olive pomace could represent an innovative and low-cost strategy to formulate healthier and value-added foods, and bakery products are good candidates for enrichment. In this work, we explored the prebiotic potential of bread enriched with Polyphenol Rich Fiber (PRF), a defatted olive pomace byproduct previously studied in the European P...

The balsamic vinegar of Modena (BVM), a food specialty under the European Protected Geographical Indication system, is made from grape must blended with wine vinegar exclusively in the Italian province of Modena or Reggio Emilia. Vinegar is associated to an improved digestive function and glycemic response to carbohydrate-rich meals, appetite stimu...

The aim of the present study was to determine to what extent the food matrix could affect the release of docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) during digestion and its incorporation into systemic circulation. In this aim, three DHA-enriched egg products having the same composition but different structure were developed: omelet, hard-boiled egg, and mousse. Th...

Long-chain n-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids (n-3 LC-PUFAs) are collectively recognized triglyceride-lowering agents, and their preventive action is likely mediated by changes in gene expression. However, as most studies employ fish oil, which contains a mixture of n-3 LC-PUFAs, the docosahexaenoic acid (DHA)-specific transcriptional effects on lipid...

It is widely recognized that the biological effects of phytochemicals cannot be attributed to the native compounds present in foods but rather to their metabolites endogenously released after intake. Bioavailability depends on bioaccessibility, which is the amount of the food constituent that is released from the matrix in the gastrointestinal trac...

BACKGROUND Although phenolic compounds have a role in the health benefits of fruit juice consumption, little is known about the effect of processing on their bioaccessibility. The release of phenolic compounds from the food matrix during digestion is an important pre‐requisite for their effectiveness within the human body, and so it is fundamental...

Hemp seed flour represents a potential ingredient for protein enrichment of gluten-free bakery products, the nutritional value of which could be further increased by fermentation with sourdough or with beneficial lactic acid bacteria strains. In this study, a metabolomic approach was used to evaluate the effect of hemp seed flour addition and sourd...

Holistic methods at the basis of the foodomics approach are allowing the in-depth understanding, at molecular and supramolecular level, of the complexity of food matrix. The latter, in turn, affects the nutrient bioaccessibility, one of the crucial factors impacting on the final effect of diets. However, many levels of complexity are emerging, rela...

This paper presents data on the influence of the use of a nutrition-information app (Edo) on healthy eating. The methodology adopted included a baseline (t0) and a follow-up online questionnaire (t1). The first survey was sent to 7000 consumers who had already downloaded the app. This survey collected data on users’ perceived healthiness of their o...

By-products represent a major disposal problem for the food industry, but they are also promising sources of bioactive compounds. Olive pomace, one of the main by-products of olive oil production, is a potential low-cost, phenol-rich ingredient for the formulation of functional food. In this study, bakery products enriched with defatted olive pomac...

Docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) has been reported to have a positive impact on many diet-related disease risks, including metabolic syndrome. Although many DHA-enriched foods have been marketed, the impact of different food matrices on the effect of DHA is unknown. As well, the possibility to enhance DHA effectiveness through the co-administration of ot...

Nowadays, the strong demand for adequate nutrition is accompanied by concern about environmental pollution and there is a considerable emphasis on the recovery and recycling of food by-products and wastes. In this study, we focused on the exploitation of olive pomace as functional ingredient in biscuits and bread. Standard and enriched bakery produ...

Nutritional research is currently entering the field of personalised nutrition, to a large extent driven by major technological breakthroughs in analytical sciences and biocomputing. An efficient launching of the personalised approach depends on the ability of researchers to comprehensively monitor and characterise inter‐individual variability in t...

Around a quarter of the global adult population have metabolic syndrome (MetS) and therefore increased risk of cardiovascular mortality and diabetes. Docosahexaenoic acid, oat beta-glucan and grape anthocyanins have been shown to be effective in reducing MetS risk factors when administered as isolated compounds, but their effect when administered a...

The traditional Mediterranean diet has been shown to be a healthy eating pattern that protects against the development of many diseases in adults and children. Pregnancy is a critical period of plasticity during which foetal development may be significantly influenced by different environmental factors, including maternal nutrition. In this context...

Many naturally-occurring compounds in dietary plants and animal products possess a variety of physiological functions which promote human health and wellbeing, and contribute to better diet-related-disease (DRD) prevention and particularly the Metabolic Syndrome (MS). These compounds, known collectively as bioactives (natural components of foods th...

Some food bioactives potentially exert anti-obesity effects. Anthocyanins, catechins, beta-glucan, and n-3 long chain polyunsaturated fatty acids are among the most promising candidates and have been considered as a strategy for the development of functional foods counteracting body weight gain. At present, clinical trials, reviews and meta-analyse...

Einkorn wheat (Triticum monococcum) is characterized by high content of proteins, bioactive compounds, such as polyunsaturated fatty acids, fructans, tocols, carotenoids, alkylresorcinols, and phytosterols, and lower α-, β-amylase and lipoxygenase activities compared to polyploid wheat. These features make einkorn flour a good candidate to provide...

Although selenium is of great importance for the human body, in several world regions the intake of this essential trace element does not meet the dietary reference values. To achieve optimal intake, fortification of bread by using selenium-enriched flour has been put forward. Less is known on the potential effect of sourdough fermentation, which m...

Dietary intake of food bioactives in a cohort of European adults with metabolic syndrome enrolled in the Pathway-27 trial - Volume 77 Issue OCE4 - S. Sutulic, M.J. Holmes, S. Garelli, M. Herrmann, S. Seifert, J. Amat, A. Blot, E. Marcato, C. Malpuech-Brugère, A. Bub, L. Ricciardiello, A. Bordoni, C. Orfila

Over the past years, researchers and food manufacturers have become increasingly interested in olive polyphenols due to the recognition of their biological properties and probable role in the prevention of various diseases such as inflammatory bowel disease. Olive pomace, one of the main by-products of olive oil production, is a potential low-cost,...

During consumption of fruits, the breakdown of the fruit tissue due to oral processing (chewing, mixing with saliva) may activate or increase the rate of endogenous enzyme activities via the disruption of the cell wall, cellular de‐compartmentalization and particle size reduction allowing the enzymes to reach their substrates. The aim of this study...

Background The multidisciplinary nature of nutrition research is one of its main strengths. At the same time, however, it presents a major obstacle to integrate data analysis, especially for the terminological and semantic interpretations that specific research fields or communities are used to. To date, a proper ontology to structure and formalize...

Obesity is characterized by excess body fat accumulation due to an increase in the size and number of differentiated mature adipocytes. Adipocyte differentiation is regulated by genetic and environmental factors, and its inhibition could represent a strategy for obesity prevention and treatment. The current study was designed with two aims: (i) to...

Nowadays the higher nutritional value of whole grains compared to refined grains is recognized. In the last decade, there has been a renewed interest in the ancient wheat varieties for producing high-value food products with enhanced health benefits. This study compared two ancient grains, two heritage grains, and four modern grains grown in the sa...

Scope According to Eurostat 2016, approximately 119 million European citizens live at‐risk‐of‐poverty (ROP). This subpopulation is highly diverse by ethnicity, age and culture in the different EU states, but they all have in common a low income, that could represent an increased risk of nutrients deficiencies due to poor nutritional habits. This st...

Nowadays the high nutritional value of whole grains is recognized, and there is an increasing interest in the ancient varieties for producing wholegrain food products with enhanced nutritional characteristics. Among ancient crops, einkorn could represent a valid alternative. In this work, einkorn flours were analyzed for their content in carotenoid...

Background Foodstuffs of both plant and animal origin contain a wide range of bioactive compounds. Although human intervention studies are mandatory to assess the health effects of bioactives, the in vitro approach is often used to select the most promising molecules to be studied in vivo. To avoid misleading results, concentration and chemical for...

The guidelines presented here have been developed through consultation with PATHWAY-27 project partners to provide practical guidance for designing, implementing and reporting pilot intervention studies using bioactive enriched foods (BEF). These guidelines update and complement previously published guidance documents, but are unique in providing p...

Human nutrition encompasses an extremely broad range of medical, social, commercial, and ethical domains and thus represents a wide, interdisciplinary scientific and cultural discipline. The high prevalence of both disease-related malnutrition and overweight/obesity represents an important risk factor for disease burden and mortality worldwide. It...

Cell supplementation with bioactive molecules often causes a perturbation in the whole intracellular environment. Omics techniques can be applied for the assessment of this perturbation. In this study, the overall effect of docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) supplementation on cultured human hepatocyte lipidome and metabolome has been investigated using nu...

Although the composition of poultry meat significantly depends on the bird species, the feeding, the cuts, and the presence of skin, overall it is considered of good nutritional value and low energy content. Besides containing good amounts of proteins and many micronutrients, poultry meat is relatively low in fats and cholesterol, particularly when...

After WWII, the industrialized agriculture selected modern varieties of Triticum turgidum spp. durum and spp. aestivum (durum wheat and common wheat) based on higher yields and technological characteristics. Nowadays, the use of whole ancient grains and pseudo cereals is considered nutritionally important. How ancient grains have positive effects i...

Introduction et but de l’étude Le projet Pathway-27 permettra d’évaluer l’efficacité de l’acide docosahexaénoïque (DHA), seul ou en combinaison avec d’autres familles de composés bioactifs (b-glucanes [BG] et anthocyanes [AC]), dans la réduction des facteurs de risque du syndrome métabolique (SM). Ces composés « bioactifs » (BEF) ont été utilisés c...

Anthocyanins, water soluble polyphenols, have been associated with several beneficial health effects. The aim of this study was to determine how the baking process and food matrix affect anthocyanin stability and bioaccessibility in bakery products in order to develop functional foods. Three well known regularly consumed bakery products (buns, brea...

The aim of the present study was to understand to what extent the inclusion of anthocyanins into dairy and egg matrices could affect their stability after processing and their release and solubility during digestion. For this purpose, individual and total anthocyanin content of four different enriched matrices, namely custard dessert, milkshake, pa...

Although an increased dietary intake of long-chain n-3 PUFA is considered an effective preventive strategy, a theoretical concern related to the possible increase of lipid peroxidation induced by a PUFA-rich diet still remains a problem. In this study, the effects of different PUFA (linoleic, α-linolenic, arachidonic, eicosapentaenoic and docosahex...

Effects of a 4-week intervention with ready-made bioactive enriched pancakes on biomarkers of the metabolic syndrome - Volume 75 Issue OCE2 - S. Sutulic, C. Bösch, L. Marshall, A. Bordoni, H. Hingyi, M. Muller, C. Orfila, on behalf of the PATHWAY-27 consortium Grant agreement 311876

Foods are complex matrices containing many different compounds, all of which contribute to the overall effect of the food itself, although they have different mechanisms of action. While evaluating the effect of bioactive compounds, it is important to consider that the use of a single compound can hide the effects of the other molecules that can ac...

Background: Previous studies suggest that intake of specific bioactive compounds may have beneficial clinical effects on adipose tissue partly due to their anti-inflammatory and insulin-sensitizing properties. With the overall aim to contribute to better understanding of the mechanisms of selected bioactive nutrients on fat metabolism, we investig...

During the development of products with health claims the collaboration and interaction of several disciplines and independent partners is necessary such as the production, quality, marketing, legal functions of the company, the external providers of the knowledge on the constituent having the claimed physiological effect, the clinics carrying out...

Pomegranate (Punica granatum) has gained widespread popularity as a potential functional food due to its high content of phenolics and other antioxidant components. The increasing knowledge about the positive effects of pomegranate, and the public awareness of the impact of food on health, have greatly expanded the demand for the pomegranate fruit...

In Western countries the dietary guidance emphasizes the need to decrease the intake of saturated fatty acids and to replace them with polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFA), particularly long chain n-3 PUFA (LC-PUFA). The production of poultry meat having a lower fat content and healthier fatty acid (FA) profile is a hot topic for the poultry industry...

There is an increased amount of evidence showing that consumption of whole grains and whole-grain-based products is associated with a reduction of the risk of developing many diseases, due mainly to the anti-inflammatory and antioxidative effects of their components.In this study, cookies, baked using different types of flours and fermentation meth...

Inflammation is a major biological process regulating the interaction between organisms and the environment, including the diet. Because of the increase in chronic inflammatory diseases, and in light of the immune-regulatory properties of breastfeeding, the ability of dairy products to modulate inflammatory processes in humans is an important but u...

As a broad range of professionals in clinical and nonclinical settings requires some expertise in human nutrition, the university system must offer academic courses tailored to these different specific needs. In the Italian university system there is still uncertainty with regard to the learning objectives regarding human nutrition. In the minister...

Although the prevalence of malnutrition in the old age is increasing worldwide a synthetic understanding of the impact of aging on the intake, digestion, and absorption of nutrients is still lacking. This review article aims at filling the gap in knowledge between the functional decline of the aging gastrointestinal tract (GIT) and the consequences...

A bioactive compound is a food component that may have impact on health. Its bioaccessibility, defined as the fraction released from the food matrix into the gastrointestinal tract during digestion, depends on compound stability, interactions with other food components and supramolecular organization of food. In this study, the effect of pH on the...

Over the last decade, many studies have demonstrated the potential benefits of using anthocyanins (ACs) in the prevention of metabolic syndrome. Nevertheless, most of these studies have only considered ACs as pure compounds rather than ingredients of bioactive-enriched foods. However, the AC -food matrix interaction could deeply impact on its diges...

In recent years, the number of scientific papers concerning pomegranate (Punica granatum L.) and its health properties has increased greatly, and there is great potential for the use of bioactive-rich pomegranate extracts as ingredients in functional foods and nutraceuticals. To translate this potential into effective strategies it is essential to...

PATHWAY-27 will evaluate the effectiveness of docosahexaenoic acid (DHA), anthocyanins (AC)and beta-glucan (BG) alone or in combination with two other bioactives, chosen for known/claimed effectiveness in reducing some risk factors of Metabolic Syndrome (MS). Determinationof changes in AC profile of AC enriched bakeries is one of the outputs of thi...

It has been suggested that ancient grains show lower immunogenic properties and therefore can be introduced in the diet of non-celiac wheat-sensitive people. In the present study we investigated the possible difference in inflammation caused by feeding ancient Kamut® wheat pasta (KP) compared to modern durum wheat pasta (WP) to rats. The effect of...

Bresaola is traditionally produced by curing and air-drying entire anatomic cuts of lean bovine hindquarters. Because of its low-fat and high-protein content, Bresaola is increasingly appreciated for the nutritional properties and has become one of the best known and exported Italian meat products. Both sarcoplasmic and myofibrillar protein fractio...

Purpose of review: To understand how the principles of foodomics could improve the assessment of the nutritional status and needs. Recent findings: The knowledge that metabolic pathways may be altered in individuals with genetic variants in the presence of certain dietary exposures offers great potential for personalized nutrition advice, and ep...

The present work describes a foodomics protocol coupling an in vitro static simulation of digestion to a combination of omics techniques, to grant an overview of the protein digestibility of a meat‐based food, namely Bresaola. The proteolytic activity mediated by the digestive enzymes is evaluated through Bradford and SDS‐PAGE assays, combined...