TOBACCO, NUTRITION & AGROFOOD

We can help you to better select or test compounds,

then find the best one

TOBACCO APPLICATIONS

In cigarettes, tobacco combustion produces many different substances, some of which being toxic to the body, including tars, toxic gases such as carbon monoxide and heavy metals (cadmium, mercury, lead, …).

Tobacco industry is therefore focused on the search for alternatives to cigarettes. In the recent years, they have turned to electronic systems where proposed products are no longer burned, as with cigarettes, but heated to much lower temperatures. However, these new techniques, while generating lower concentrations of the most well-known cigarette toxins in inhaled smoke, seem to produce new molecules, generally not produced during combustion, or new chemical mixtures with unexpected toxicological properties, whose impact on cell metabolism must be estimated.

The challenge now is to find the best electronic process, as well as the best mixture that will generate the cocktail of inhaled molecules that will satisfy the consumer without harming him.

We can participate to this selection by suggesting to study smoke impact, on oxidative stress, anti-oxidant status, and consequently on OXPHOS, both on cell cultures or on animals, and even on voluntary consumers.

NUTRITION & AGROFOOD APPLICATIONS

A large part of the population, assaulted by daily life numerous stresses, is nowadays aware of the need to take care of both body and mind. Having been widely warned by mass media of health harmful effects of either stresses or ultra-processed industrial food, these people are looking for efficient means to prevent or at least diminish stress, without turning to drug-based solutions. Likewise, people who are concerned about their well-being, amateur sportsmen and women and elite athletes are even more sensitive than others to these arguments. They therefore turn to alternative solutions. Some are interested in dietary supplements, others in modifying their diet, or turning to supplemented foods. This is why food industries and nutrition specialists, in human or animal fields, are developing new product lines: alicaments and neutraceuticals, with specific properties. Strictly speaking, these products do not have therapeutic properties, such as drugs, but are foods that contain « a multitude of components, classified or not as nutrients, recognized as capable of influencing a wide variety of functions involved in the state of well-being and health or the reduction of the risk of disease ». However, the relevance of nutrition claims must take into account the right of consumers to get reliable nutrition messages. Indeed, claims « must be based on well-founded, objective and appropriate evidence after analysis of all available data ». This evidence must be underpinned « by convergent elements that are consistent with current scientific requirements and plausible in terms of mechanism ». Even if these products do not have any particular virtues, manufacturers will seek to communicate on the quality of their products (healthy product, balanced product, …) guaranteed to consumers of a protection of their health. The challenge is to find the supplement, the extract, the plant, the preparation, which will be the most effective with respect to the proposed claim. We can participate in this selection by proposing to study the impact, on oxidative stress, anti-oxidant status, and consequently on OXPHOS of the selected products, both on cell cultures and on animals, and even on voluntary consumers.