ABSTRACT
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Toward the end of last century a major lifestyle trend emerged in the Western world,
emphasizing wellness and disease prevention in the human population rather than
treatment therapies-a development not lost on approaches to food and nutrition [1].
This focus is expected to strengthen as the relatively affluent and well educated
“baby boomers” of the 1950s and 1960s progressively reach middle age and begin to
contemplate their retirement years. It has been calculated that in the U.S. alone, in
the period from 1996 through to 2006, a “baby boomer” (defined as someone born
between 1946 and 1964) will turn 50 years of age every seven and a half seconds [2].
Such individuals are acutely aware of health and lifestyle issues. A further
significant driver of this trend is the escalating cost of traditional disease treatment.
Allied to this, there has been a growing realisation of the pivotal role of nutrition in
disease prevention and the maintenance of human health [3]. Epidemiological
studies have exposed statistical correlations between the intake of certain dietary
constituents and the development or prevention of various non-communicable
diseases. In many cases, controlled human intervention studies have supported the
epidemiological observations and a considerable body of knowledge has developed
around the nexus of nutrition, health, and longevity. It has been postulated (the
Barker hypothesis), and considerable supportive evidence has been amassed, that a
propensity to develop certain diseases in later life may be related to maternal
nutrition and subsequently modified by the nutritional habits of the individual [4,5].
