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NutrInsight • Do we need dietary polyphenols for health?
His early work focussed on mechanisms of absorption from the gut, including work that established that lactase was essential for small intestinal absorption of dietary flavonoids. Subsequently, he has focussed his research on understanding how flavonoids are metabolised in humans including methods for measuring their appearance in blood, and exploiting this knowledge in two ways: firstly, by allowing the design of in vitro mechanistic studies that are physiologically relevant, and secondly by exploring what factors affect bioavailability and developing foods with improved bioavailability characteristics. He has published >100 peer-reviewed papers concerned with flavonoid absorption and metabolism in humans, the effects of metabolism on the properties of polyphenols, the effects of food processing and food matrix on polyphenol content, composition and bioavailability, and the efficacy and mechanisms by which polyphenols affect vascular function. Kroon’s papers have been cited >3000 times and his H-index is 33. He has been awarded >£2.5 million to fund his research over the past 8 years. He chaired the composition group of the EuroFIR BASIS project which developed an online database of composition and bioactivity data for bioactive substances in foods, and has led IFR’s contribution to various European research projects including FLAVO and two current projects (BaSeFood and ATHENA). Kroon is an Executive Editor for a leading food science journal, and an editor for the top-ranked food science/technology journal Molecular Nutrition & Food Science. He was Vice President of the International Society Groupe Polyphenols (2008-2010), and regularly presents his research at international scientific conferences.
Dr Francesco Visioli
Madrid Institute for Advanced Studies-Food, Madrid, Spain
francesco.visioli@imdea.org
Francesco Visioli earned a degree in Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Chemistry from the University of Milan and a PhD in Biotechnology from the University of Brescia. After being Full Professor of physiopathology at the UR4 of the Université Paris 6 “Pierre et Marie Curie”, where he directed the “Micronutrients and cardiovascular disease” unit, he is now Senior Investigator at the Madrid Institute for Advanced Studies (IMDEA)-Food. He is also Assistant Professor at the College of Pharmacy, Oregon State University. After being involved in neurochemistry, Dr. Visioli’s research currently concerns essential fatty acids, namely those of the omega 3, and series natural antioxidants, as related to atherosclerosis and cardiovascular disease. In particular, Dr. Visioli’s group discovered the biological and pharmacological properties of olive oil phenolics, including hydroxytyrosol. In addition, Dr. Visioli is being studying bioactive components of plant foods, including lycopene from tomato and biophenols from wild greens. His research ranges from in vitro studies of bioactivity (test tubes, cell cultures) to in vivo tests, performed on laboratory animals and/or humans. Dr Visioli has a publication record of over 170 papers and book chapters, which have been cited over 4000 times. He gave invited lectures in over 60 meetings. As related to human health, Dr. Visioli created a method to evaluate the nutritional profile of foods (foodprofile.org), which was published in 2007 and field-tested in 2009. Dr. Visioli is member of the Board of Directors of the International Society for the Study of Fatty Acids and Lipids (ISSFAL), member of EFSA’s expert database, and member of several learned societies, including the British Nutrition Society. Currently, Dr. Visioli is the Editor-in-Chief of Pharmacological Research, Associate Editor of Lipids and of Prostaglandins, Leukotrienes and Essential Fatty Acids, and First Editor of the British Journal of Nutrition, in addition to being a member of the Editorial Board of several other journals.
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