Danielle Wolvers

• scientific expert at Netherlands Nutrition Centre

In 2010, British Journal of Nutrition published a consensus review article entitled Prebiotic effects: metabolic and health benefits(1). This was commissioned by International Life Sciences Institute, Europe and had twenty-one co-authors. The current article summarises how this review was planned and written. It deals with three questions regarding...

Objective To derive healthy and sustainable food-based dietary guidelines (FBDG) for different target groups in the Netherlands and describe the process. Design Optimised dietary patterns for children, adolescents, adults and the elderly were calculated using an optimisation model. Foods high in saturated and trans -fatty acids, salt and sugar, an...

Background: To improve the availability and accessibility of healthier food and drinks in schools, sports and worksites canteens, national Guidelines for Healthier Canteens were developed by the Netherlands Nutrition Centre. Until now, no tool was available to monitor implementation of these guidelines. This study developed and assessed the conten...

De jeugdgezondheidszorg (JGZ) kan sinds juli 2013 gebruik maken van de JGZ-richtlijn Voeding en eetgedrag. In deze richtlijn is de Schijf van Vijf van het Voedingscentrum opgenomen. Diverse adviezen van de Schijf van Vijf zijn in 2016 herzien. Om de richtlijn goed aan te laten sluiten op actuele kennis is in februari 2017 de informatie over de Schi...

Resilience or the ability of our body to cope with daily-life challenges has been proposed as a new definition of health, with restoration of homeostasis as target resultant of various physiological stress responses. Challenge models may thus be a sensitive measure to study the body's health. The objective of this study was to select a dietary chal...

Rotavirus is the main cause of viral gastroenteritis in young children. Therefore, the development of inexpensive antiviral products for the prevention and/or treatment of rotavirus disease remains a priority. Previously we have shown that a recombinant monovalent antibody fragment (referred to as Anti-Rotavirus Proteins or ARP1) derived from a hea...

The different compartments of the gastrointestinal tract are inhabited by populations of micro-organisms. By far the most important predominant populations are in the colon where a true symbiosis with the host exists that is a key for well-being and health. For such a microbiota, 'normobiosis' characterises a composition of the gut 'ecosystem' in w...

The rationale for the use of probiotics in the management of infectious diseases is supported by their potential to influence and stabilize the composition of gut microbiota, enhance colonization resistance, and modulate immune function parameters. A literature review was conducted to determine the efficacy of using probiotics in selected infection...

Probiotic bacteria are live microorganisms that, when administered in adequate amounts, confer a health benefit on the host. There is a growing interest in probiotics within the scientific community, with consumers, and in the food industry. The interactions between the gut and intestinal microbiota and between resident and transient microbiota def...

Probiotics are live microorganisms which, when administered in adequate amounts, confer a health benefit on the host. Therefore, probiotic strains should be able to survive passage through the human gastrointestinal tract. Human gastrointestinal tract survival of probiotics in a low-fat spread matrix has, however, never been tested. The objective o...

Probiotics and prebiotics have long been appreciated for their positive influences on gut health. Research on the mechanisms and effects of these agents shows that their impact reaches beyond the intestine. Effects on the microecology and pathology of the oral cavity, stomach, and vaginal tract have been observed. Likely mediated through immune inf...

Probiotics and prebiotics have long been appreciated for their positive influences on gut health. Research on the mechanisms and effects of these agents shows that their impact reaches beyond the intestine. Effects on the microecology and pathology of the oral cavity, stomach, and vaginal tract have been observed. Likely mediated through immune inf...

Supplementation of nutritional deficiencies helps to improve immune function and resistance to infections in malnourished subjects. However, the suggested benefits of dietary supplementation for immune function in healthy well nourished subjects is less clear. Among the food constituents frequently associated with beneficial effects on immune funct...

Apart from the use of oral rehydration solution, there are currently no treatment modalities for rotavirus induced diarrhoea, which is particularly relevant to developing countries. Fragments derived from llama heavy chain antibodies were previously shown to be highly stable, efficiently produced in yeast and exhibiting high epitope specific affini...

There is clear evidence that nutritional supplementation helps to restore immune function and contributes to optimal resistance to infections in malnourished people. However, the literature is less clear on the suggested benefits of dietary supplementation for immune function in healthy, well nourished subjects. Such studies are hampered by large v...

The mucosal immune system is uniquely adapted to elicit immune responses against pathogens but also to induce tolerogenic responses to harmless antigens. In mice, nasal application of ovalbumin (OVA) leads to suppression of both T(h)1 and T(h)2 responses. This tolerance can be transferred to naive mice by CD4(+) T(r) cells from the spleen. Using th...

The intestinal mucosa is in a constant state of controlled inflammation, but the processes whereby this occurs are poorly understood. The aims of this study were to look at the role of IL-10 and nerve growth factor (NGF) in intestinal epithelial cell regulation. The human colon epithelial cell lines T84, HT-29, and CACO-2 were used. RT-PCR, flow cy...

Mucosal tolerance is an immunological phenomenon specific to mucosal surfaces as found in the lungs and gastrointestinal tract. It results in the suppression of immune responses to inhaled or ingested antigens and prevents the body from unwanted and unnecessary immunological responses to harmless molecules, such as grass-pollen or food constituents...

Communication between nerves and mast cells is a prototypic demonstration of neuroimmune interaction. However, whether mast cell activation occurs as a direct response to neuronal activation or requires an intermediary cell is unclear. Addressing this issue, we used an in vitro coculture approach comprising cultured murine superior cervical ganglia...

Exposure to ultraviolet light, especially UVB wavelengths, can impair immune responses in animals and humans. It is remarkable that this immunomodulation is not restricted to the exposed skin but is also found at other sites, i.e. systemic (distant) immunosuppression. A frequently proposed hypothesis is that UVB exposure inhibits, specifically, T h...

Mucosal tolerance is a naturally occurring immunological phenomenon that prevents harmful inflammatory responses to ingested or inhaled environmental, predominantly nondangerous, Ags. The nasal mucosa is an extremely efficient compartment in the induction of immunological tolerance which can be exploited in Ag-specific treatment of autoimmune disea...

The induction of intranasal tolerance might be dependent on specific characteristics of mucosal, nose-draining lymph nodes. Such a specific characteristic might lie in the metabolism of the steroid hormone DHEA. Conversion of the prohormone DHEAS into DHEA is dependent on DHEAS-sulphatase activity in lymph nodes. This activity is low in mucosa-drai...

Intranasal administration of protein antigen is an efficient way to induce mucosal tolerance. Suppressive mechanisms that might be involved in this phenomenon include down-regulation of T-helper type-1 (Th1)-mediated processes by Th2 cells. However, since Th2 responses can also be subjected to mucosal tolerance, we wanted to investigate whether sup...

Feeding of proteins causes peripheral T-cell tolerance, as revealed by reduced delayed-type hypersensitivity (DTH) reactivity after immunization. Using ovalbumin-fed mice, we studied whether putatively immunostimulatory cytokines could reverse this state of mucosal tolerance. It was found that local administration of neither IL-2, IFN-gamma, nor GM...

Oral feeding of proteins causes peripheral T-cell tolerance, as revealed by reduced delayed-type hypersensitivity (DTH) reactivity after immunization. This type of tolerance can be due both to passive T-cell anergy and active immunosuppression. Using ovalbumin-fed mice we studied whether putatively immunostimulatory cytokines could break this state...

Specific binding sites for TNF-alpha in mouse and rat brain, spleen and pituitary gland have been visualized and characterized, using quantitative autoradiography. Mouse recombinant 125I-TNF-alpha has been used as a radioligand. In the spleen, TNF-alpha binding sites were highly concentrated in the white pulpe of mouse and rat spleen. The IG50, as...

The release of soluble factors, also known as cytokines, by macrophages and lymphocytes during infectious diseases is one of the earliest events that contributes to the host defence and outcome of infection. From these cytokines, interleukin-1 (IL-1) in concert with interleukin-6 (IL-6) and tumor necrosis factor (TNF) are considered as prominent fa...

The function of interleukin-1 alpha and interleukin-1 beta (IL-1 alpha, IL-1 beta) in tetanus toxoid (TT) induced T-cell proliferation in cultures of peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBL) obtained from healthy donors was assessed by using neutralizing antisera to IL-1 alpha and IL-1 beta. The neutralizing capacity and the specificity of the IL-1...

The function of interleukin-1α and interleukin-1β (IL-1α, IL-1β) in tetanus toxoid (TT) induced T-cell proliferation in cultures of peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBL) obtained from healthy donors was assessed by using neutralizing antisera to IL-1α and IL-1β. The neutralizing capacity and the specificity of the IL-1 antisera were tested by th...

Here, we report that emotional stressors (restraint, footshock) can affect humoral immune responses as well as the capacity of immune and accessory cells to secrete interleukins. Acute restraint stress (5 min) caused a 4- to 6-fold enhancement of splenic antibody responses to sheep red blood cells. In an attempt to study endocrine mechanisms, we ad...

Probiotic bacteria are live microorganisms that, when administered in adequate amounts, confer a health benefit on the host. There is a growing interest in probiotics within the scientific community, with consumers, and in the food industry. The interactions between the gut and intestinal microbiota and between resident and transient microbiota def...