A Cork-based study looking at links between gut health and chronic disease is among 30 projects benefitting from a \u20ac37.5m fund being announced by the minister for agriculture on Thursday.<\/p>\n
The University College Cork and Teagasc project suggests fermented foods offer \u201ca promising solution\u201d to growing rates of ill-health and the impact of over-use of antibiotics.<\/p>\n
The project team pointed to growing concerns about a rise of chronic diseases, including autoimmune conditions around the world.<\/p>\n
The research will follow other studies suggesting issues such as \u201cantibiotic use, highly processed diets and reduced consumption of fermented foods\u201d have led to a negative impact on gut health.<\/p>\n
\u201cFermented foods offer a promising solution by supporting gut health,\u201d a spokesman said.<\/p>\n
The NiMe Foods project will use advanced microbiome science to develop new function fermented foods.<\/p>\n
He said these could \u201crestore beneficial microbes and deliver accessible, everyday solutions for disease prevention”.<\/p>\n
Fermented foods include sauerkraut, kimchi, and the drink kefir.<\/p>\n
The work will include identifying and assessing \u201cnew microbial strains for their safety and potential health benefits\u201d, he said.<\/p>\n
These will be evaluated in different foods, including how they grow during fermentation.<\/p>\n
It is expected to benefit the agri-food sector also. The project coordinator is Jens Walter at UCC.<\/p>\n
Agriculture minister Martin Heydon and minister of state Noel Grealish will announce the funding on Thursday in Dublin.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The multi-million-euro funding package will support pioneering research projects for the agri-food, forest and bioeconomy sectors.<\/p>\n
Another project will develop functional foods to meet the protein needs of older people and people on weight-loss treatments.<\/p>\n
A separate project will apply advanced microbiome science to develop next-generation functional fermented foods which could help with disease prevention generally.<\/p>\n
Another project will look at developing compostable, fibre-based packaging from brewers\u2019 spent grain and seaweed-derived biopolymers.\u00a0<\/p>\n
It could extend the shelf life of horticultural products by as much as 30%-60%.<\/p>\n
One project will use AI, advanced microbiology, and genomics to examine antimicrobial resistance across farms, abattoirs and the natural environment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A Cork-based study looking at links between gut health and chronic disease is among 30 projects benefitting from…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":424299,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[1111,103,61,60,43,1112],"class_list":["post-424298","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-health","tag-court-and-crime","tag-health","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-news","tag-politics-and-analysis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/424298","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=424298"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/424298\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/424299"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=424298"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=424298"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=424298"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}