Intake Pattern and Needs Assessment for the Development of Web-Contents on Health Functional Foods according to Age of Adults / 대한지역사회영양학회지

This study was done to analyze the consumption patterns of health functional food (HFF) as well as to perform needs assessment for the development of web-contents on HFF according to age of adults. The subjects were 238 male and female adults, divided into 4 groups by their age. This study collected all information by self-administrated questionnaires. The awareness on HFF was high in the older adults. The younger adults showed more negative responses to reliability and safety on HFF. The main reason for the consumption of HFF was to supplement nutrients and to prevent diseases. The main types of HFF consumed by adults were nutritional supplementary food, red ginseng products, and glucosamine products. There was higher consumption of nutritional supplementary food in the younger adults and glucosamine products in the older adults. Internet users had low level of satisfaction, with tendency to complain poor contents, reliability, difficulties in searching as problems of the pre-existing HFF websites. As useful methods for provision of information on HFF, most adults wanted general information, articles written by experts and videos. They also wanted to know the safety and side effects of HFF. Requirement of contents composition were various in-depth information, clear indication of citation, fresh updated data while that of display composition was easily-findable, uncomplicated, allowing mutual exchange of communication through bulletin board. These results can be used as basic data that reflect the consumer's needs for developing HFF web-contents according to age of adults.

Effects of freeze-dried cranberry powder on serum lipids and inflammatory markers in lipopolysaccharide treated rats fed an atherogenic diet

This study investigated the effects of freeze-dried cranberry powder on anti-inflammation and lipid profiles of lipopolysaccharide (LPS)-treated rats fed an atherogenic diet for 6 weeks. Forty Sprague-Dawley male rats (6-weeks-old) were equally divided into the following five groups: 1) normal diet group + saline (NC); 2) atherogenic diet + saline (HFC); 3) atherogenic diet + LPS (HL); 4) atherogenic diet with 5% cranberry power + LPS (C5); 5) atherogenic diet with 10% cranberry power + LPS (C10). LPS (0.5 mg/kg) was injected into the abdominal cavities of rats 18 hours prior to sacrifice. At the end of the experimental period, we measured serum lipid profiles as well as levels of serum C-reactive protein (CRP), nitric oxide (NO), and pro-inflammatory cytokines such as tumor necrosis factor-alpha (TNF-alpha), interleukin (IL)-1beta, IL-6, and IL-10 as an anti-inflammatory cytokine. The mean serum high density lipoprotein (HDL)-cholesterol level in C5 rats was significantly higher than that in NC and HL rats (P < 0.05). The mean serum levels of CRP and IL-1beta were significantly lower (P < 0.05) in the cranberry powder groups compared to those in HL rats. Additionally, mean serum IL-6 levels tended to be lower in the cranberry groups than that in the HL group, whereas serum IL-10 and NO showed 29% and 88% higher mean values in the C5 group and 49% and 24% higher in the C10 group than those in the HL group, respectively. These results suggest that freeze-dried cranberry powder may have beneficial effects on cardiovascular diseases by modifying serum lipids and the early inflammatory response.