Partially hydrogenated oils (PHO), the products of incomplete catalytic hydrogenation of food oils, have been widely employed by the food industry for more than a century. Their exceptional stability and technologic characteristics made them the preferred choice for the production of several food products including margarines, bakery goods, and frying oils. Some of these highly prized characteristics were provided by the high content intransfatty acids (TFA), defined as fatty acids with one or more isolated double bond in trans configuration. The discovery of negative health effects associated with dietary intake of TFA triggered world-wide a wave of regulatory actions aimed to curb their consumption. PHO became the main target of most campaigns aimed to reduce consumption of TFA, and their fortune in the food industry progressively faded. At the 2017, AOCS Annual Meeting in Orlando, a group of experts from regulatory agencies and industry from North America and Europe met to discuss the current status of government regulations and industry adaptations regarding the productions and use of PHO. The discussion was enriched by including the impact on fats and oils production of the 2016 amendment of the Toxic Substances Control Act of 1976 (TSCA). The present publication may not include all regulatory changes that took place after this symposium, in 2017.

The number of Individuals that use dietary supplements and herbal medicine products are continuous to increase in many countries. The context of usage of a dietary supplement varies widely from country-to-country; in some countries supplement use is just limited to general health and well-being while others permit use for medicinal purposes. To date, there is little consensus from country to country on the scope, requirements, definition, or even the terminology in which dietary supplement and herbal medicines categories could be classified. Transparent science-based quality standards for the ingredients across these regulatory frameworks/definitions becomes even more important given the international supply chain. Meanwhile, there has been a rapid advancement in emerging technologies and data science applied to the field. This review was conceived at the Global Summit on Regulatory Sciences that took place in Beijing on September 2018 (GSRS2018) which is organized by Global Coalition for Regulatory Science Research (GCRSR) that consists of the global regulatory agencies from over ten countries including the European Union. This review summarizes a significant portion of discussions relating to a longitudinal comparison of the status for dietary supplements and herbal medicines among the different national jurisdictions and to the extent of how new tools and methodologies can improve the regulatory application.

Personalized nutrition (PN) approaches have been shown to help drive behavior change and positively influence health outcomes. This has led to an increase in the development of commercially available PN programs, which utilize various forms of individual-level information to provide services and products for consumers. The lack of a well-accepted definition of PN or an established set of guiding principles for the implementation of PN creates barriers for establishing credibility and efficacy. To address these points, the North American Branch of the International Life Sciences Institute convened a multidisciplinary panel. In this article, a definition for PN is proposed: "Personalized nutrition uses individual-specific information, founded in evidence-based science, to promote dietary behavior change that may result in measurable health benefits." In addition, 10 guiding principles for PN approaches are proposed: 1) define potential users and beneficiaries; 2) use validated diagnostic methods and measures; 3) maintain data quality and relevance; 4) derive data-driven recommendations from validated models and algorithms; 5) design PN studies around validated individual health or function needs and outcomes; 6) provide rigorous scientific evidence for an effect on health or function; 7) deliver user-friendly tools; 8) for healthy individuals, align with population-based recommendations; 9) communicate transparently about potential effects; and 10) protect individual data privacy and act responsibly. These principles are intended to establish a basis for responsible approaches to the evidence-based research and practice of PN and serve as an invitation for further public dialog. Several challenges were identified for PN to continue gaining acceptance, including defining the health-disease continuum, identification of biomarkers, changing regulatory landscapes, accessibility, and measuring success. Although PN approaches hold promise for public health in the future, further research is needed on the accuracy of dietary intake measurement, utilization and standardization of systems approaches, and application and communication of evidence.

Antibiotic resistance in bacteria can arise due to the acquisition of extrachromosomal genetic elements, and/or loss or reduction in normal gene function through mutations and enzymatic modifications. The drug resistance phenotypes conferred by these genetic determinants are usually drug and mechanism specific. The first such adaptive mechanism discovered was mapped to the multiple antibiotic resistance mar locus at 34.05 min of the Escherichia coli linkage map. As such, the discovery of the mar locus is significant for two reasons: first, it confers a multidrug resistance phenotype and second, recent findings have demonstrated that this locus controls genes in cellular metabolism, physiology, and virulence. The E. coli mar locus comprises two transcriptional units that are divergently transcribed from a common operator region, marO. Transcriptional unit 1 (TU 1) encodes MarC, which has a hydropathy profile suggestive of a putative integral transmembrane protein with six transmembrane helices. Despite MarR mediated repression, low-levels of marA are still detectable in unmutated strains, where this basal constitutive expression of marA may be needed for some expression of the marRAB locus and other members of the regulon. The gene arrangement of the marRAB locus appears to be conserved in 14 out of 53 species of Enterobacteriaceae, as was shown by Southern hybridization. Southern hybridization analysis with an E. coli marRAB probe has demonstrated that the marRAB locus is widespread and highly conserved among members of Enterobacteriaceae such as Shigella flexneri, Citrobacter freundii, Klebsiella pneumoniae, Klebsiella oxytoca, and Enterobacter cloacae.

The science of lipid research continues to rapidly evolve and change. New knowledge enhances our understanding and perspectives on the role of lipids in health and nutrition. However, new knowledge also challenges currently held opinions. The following are the proceedings of the 2013 Canadian Nutrition Society Conference on the Advances in Dietary Fats and Nutrition. Content experts presented state-of-the-art information regarding our understanding of fish oil and plant-based n-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids, nutrigenomics, pediatrics, regulatory affairs, and trans fats. These important contributions aim to provide clarity on the latest advances and opinions regarding the role of different types of fats in health.

All over the world, authorities responsible for the assessment and surveillance of foods and feeds derived using gene technology and the environmental impacts of genetically modified organisms (GMO) have chosen specific strategies to assess their safety. Although different regulatory frameworks are in place, almost all adopted risk assessment strategies are based on a common set of principles and guidelines. Here we provide some examples of these strategies and we compare them to highlight areas where an international consensus exists. Our hope is that even if limited, this short review can represent a first step towards the recognition of an international consensus and a broader dialog on GMOs regulation worldwide.