Better decisions affecting public and environmental health and safety are made when they are based on good science.
ILSI science – as part of the larger body of scientific information – helps industries make safer, healthier products and helps governments, civil society organizations, and individual health professionals provide effective and practical guidance to promote safety, health, and well-being.
Here are just a few ways our science has made a difference.
Food and Water Safety
ILSI South Africa and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) are partnering on ground-breaking microbial food safety training in southern Africa and together are improving the safety of millions of people.
FAO News Release | Namibian TV Coverage | New Training (recently announced)
ILSI Europe’s two decades of work on application of the Threshold of Toxicological Concern to the food supply has led to recognition of the concept by governments and health agencies.
ILSI Europe Task Force on Threshold of Toxicological Concern | European Food Safety Authority Statement on TTC
ILSI North America has funded over 3 million USD in original research on microbial food safety; knowledge that has been used to improve food production for reduced risk of food-borne illness and to better respond when outbreaks occur.
Committee on Food Microbiology
In the 1970s, the US Food and Drug Administration lacked data on caffeine as a food and beverage ingredient to guarantee its continued status as Generally Recognized as Safe (GRAS). ILSI research helped demonstrate caffeine’s safety. A Case Study
Project SWAN (Safe Water and Nutrition) – active in Vietnam and being explored for implementation in Indonesia – is improving access to clean water and reducing malnutrition caused by waterborne diseases. A Case Study
ILSI Europe study on ways growers and sugar processors improve efficiency of water use and reduce environmental impact provides a template for the water use assessment of other crops.
Publication: Understanding the Impact of Crop and Food Production on the Water Environment – Using Sugar as a Model
Nutrition and Health
Ying Yang Bao supplemental nutrition program reduces infant anemia by 48% and reached 1.4 million infants in rural China in 2014.
Project IDEA (Iron Deficiency Elimination Action) efficacy studies show a reduction in iron deficiency from 22.3 to 4.0% and in the prevalence of anemia from 24.7 to 8.5% in control groups.
ILSI Japan Center for Health Promotion’s Project Idea
Children participating in ILSI’s TAKE 10! in-classroom physical activity and nutrition program experienced higher physical activity levels (13%>), reduced time-off-task (20.5%), and improved reading, math, spelling and composite scores (p<0.01).
Publication: Ten Years of TAKE 10!®: Integrating physical activity with academic concepts in elementary school classrooms.
Risk Science and Toxicology
ILSI HESI’s Animal Alternatives in Environmental Risk Assessment Committee works to ensure the technical soundness of alternative test methods as a means to reduce, refine, or replace standard ecotoxicity test procedures around the globe. Their most recent publication calls for the development of an Ecological Threshold of Toxicological Concern or Eco-TTC.
Animal Alternatives in Environmental Risk Assessment Committee
Currently there is a lack of reliable and reproducible data derived from in vitro clearance assays to estimate the rate of chemical bioaccumulation. ILSI HESI, the US Environmental Protection Agency, industry, and other science/health organizations are collaborating on a ring trial as part of larger efforts to standardize in vitro methods to improve their applicability.
Presentation: In vitro to in vivo extrapolation of hepatic metabolism in fish: an inter‐laboratory comparison of in vitro methods
ILSI HESI Bioaccumulation Committee
ILSI Research Foundation’s South Asia Biosafety Program leverages support from the United States Agency for International Development to assisting Bangladesh, India, and Pakistan strengthen institutional governance of biotechnology.
Sustainable Agriculture and Nutrition Security
ILSI Research Foundation’s “Seven Food System Metrics of Sustainable Nutrition Security” make it possible — for the first time — to holistically and accurately measure food system performance across all relevant domains of interest: nutrition, environment, economic, social, resilience, safety, and waste.
Publication: Seven Food System Metrics of Sustainable Nutrition Security
ILSI Research Foundation is leading an effort to greatly expand the use of open data in nutrition modeling, in close collaboration with the Global Open Data for Agriculture and Nutrition (GODAN) initiative. Initial public announcements about this work are planned to take place at an international Open Data Summit that GODAN has planned for New York City in September 2016.
ILSI Research Foundation Scientific Session: Harvesting Open Data for Nutrition Security
ILSI Europe is participating in the European Union-funded program SUSFANS (Metrics, Models and Foresight for European SUStainable Food And Nutrition Security). This multipartner and multisector effort will result in an analytical framework for a comprehensive assessment of food and nutrition security in Europe. SUSFANS