European initiatives: HELENA and IDEFICS study

Non-communicable diseases, such as coronary heart disease, stroke, obesity, hypertension, type 2-diabetes, eating disorders, allergies, and various cancers are still the most common causes of morbidity and mortality in European countries. Most chronic diseases have their origin during childhood and adolescence; however, the relationship between the development of non-communicable diseases and the adolescence process is poorly understood. Adolescence is a crucial period in life and implies multiple physiological and psychological changes that affect nutritional and physical activity needs and habits.

The HELENA project includes cross-sectional, crossover and pilot community intervention multi-centre studies, as an integrated approach to the above-mentioned problems. The following aspects will provide the full information about the nutritional status of the European urban adolescents: (1) dietary intake, nutrition knowledge and eating attitudes; (2) food choices and preferences (3) body composition; (4) plasma lipids and metabolic profile; (5) vitamin status; (6) immune function related to nutritional status; (7) physical activity and fitness; and (8) genotype (to analyse gene-nutrient and gene-environment interactions). The requirements for health promoting foods will also be identified, and three sensory acceptable products for adolescents will be developed. Both scientific and technological objectives should result in reliable and comparable data of a representative sample of European adolescents, concerning: foods and nutrients intake, food choices and preferences, obesity prevalence, dislipidemia, insulin resistance, vitamin and minerals status, immunological markers for subclinical malnutrition, physical activity and fitness patterns, and variations of the nucleotide sequence in selected genes.

The HELENA Study Group will describe the nutritional status and lifestyle of the adolescents across Europe, in order to improve the health-related nutritional aspects by proposing a lifestyle education intervention and developing new healthy foods attractive for the European adolescents.

References

1. De Henauw S, Gottrand F, De Bourdeaudhuij I, Gonzalez-Gross M, Leclercq C, Kafatos A, Molnar D, Marcos A, Castillo M, Dallongeville J, Gilbert C, Bergman P, Widhalm K, Manios Y, Breidenassel C, Kersting M, Moreno LA on behalf of the HELENA Study Group. Nutritional status and lifestyles of adolescents in a public health perspective. The HELENA Project - Healthy Lifestyle in Europe by Nutrition in Adolescence. J Publ Health 2007; 15: 187-197.

2. Moreno LA, González-Gross M, Kersting M, Molnár D, de Henauw S, Beghin L, Sjöström M, Hagstromer M, Manios Y, Gilbert CC, Ortega FB, Dallongeville J, Arcella D, Wärnberg J, Hallberg M, Fredriksson H, Maes L, Widhalm K, Kafatos AG, Marcos A, on behalf of the HELENA Study Group. Assessing, understanding and modifying nutritional status, eating habits and physical activity in European adolescents. The HELENA Study. Publ Health Nutr 2007, Jul 6;:1-12 [Epub ahead of print].

Sponsorship

The HELENA Study takes place with the financial support of the European Community Sixth RTD Framework Programme (Contract FOOD-CT-2005-007034). The content of this article reflects only the author’s views and the European Community is not liable for any use that may be made of the information contained therein.