Whole Grains and Health

The structure, outline and style of this book is designed to provide a comprehensive treatise on the subject covering the topic from the grains themselves, their components and distribution in different botanical fractions and products to the effect of whole grains on health and the molecular mechanisms/effects on risk factors underlying their health effects. The book also highlights the interest from the food industry and governmental and non‐governmental authorities to develop new food products rich in whole grains as well as to educate consumers about the health benefits of consuming whole grain foods (the whole grain stamp is an example of this communication to the consumer and the whole grain campaigns launched in Denmark and The Netherlands are other examples). The chapters are comprehensive in their coverage with the aim to provide founded knowledge and information for researchers, research students, authority and industry personnel that gives them a multidisciplinary understanding of this important topic.

Recent advances will to a great extent be covered by the update of book chapters of the first edition. As in the previous edition, we divide the book into sections with a slight modification of the suggested sections. More emphasis will be put on the section “whole grains, cereal fibre and chronic disease” and “grain technology and health‐related outcomes,” whereas consumer aspects are given somewhat less attention compared with the first edition. We also provide comprehensive material on the whole grain morphology constituents, fractions and technology as well as products for readers coming from the medical or public‐health sectors. The book comprises 5 sections and concluding remarks and future perspectives. In total, 23 chapters are included ( Table 1).

Table 1 Brief description of the content of the sections.

We hope that the current edition of Whole Grains and Health will be of use and great pleasure for researchers, research students, industry personnel, governmental authorities (nutritionists, technologists, product developers, epidemiologists, health professionals) and others with wider interest in foods and health!

Rikard Landberg and Nathalie Scheers

Gothenburg, Sweden, March 2020.

Editors’ Biographies

Nathalie ScheersAssociate Professor Food and Nutrition Science Department of Biology and Biological Engineering Chalmers University of Technology Gothenburg, Sweden

Associate Professor Nathalie Scheers and her research team conduct studies in the area of molecular nutrition with particular focus on metals, specific proteins, bioactive molecules and their physiological effects, on cellular or systemic level.

A core competence of Dr. Scheers includes human cell models. She investigates regulation of intestinal transport proteins, stress response and apoptosis, expression of cancer and inflammation markers, and bioavailability of nutrients. One of her main research topics is within iron nutrition, with a special focus on dietary iron supplements and fortificants. Together with collaborators, she is currently working on the mechanisms of cancer‐promoting and pro‐inflammatory effects of certain types of compounds used to fortify foods with iron. In addition, she is working on detoxification of gluten to celiacs. A few years back, she and her collaborators identified a food additive that can interfere with intestinal transglutaminase processing of gluten in vitro, which has the potential to render gluten non‐immunogenic to celiacs. At present, Dr. Scheers is leading a human intervention trial in healthy volunteers to verify the previous findings in vivo, with the ultimate goal to provide celiac safe gluten products. Dr. Scheers is also active in research about the fish‐protein parvalbumin beta and its association with physiological effects important for neurological diseases, toxicity of insects as human foods, and anti/pro‐inflammatory effects of marine collagen and shellfish processing waste.

Associate Professor Scheers has authored 39 scientific publications including original research, book chapters, proceedings etc. Her main publication area is within molecular iron nutrition and she has an H‐index of 10 according to Google Scholar.

Rikard LandbergProfessor Head of Division Food and Nutrition Science Department of Biology and Biological Engineering Chalmers University of Technology Gothenburg, Sweden Member of the Young Academy of Sweden