Fighting obesity and illness with a novel approach to...( The syndrome's principal clinical ma...)

The syndrome's principal clinical manifestations are abdominal obesity and high levels of a type of blood fat called triglycerides which are a strong predictor for a person's risk for stroke. The potential complications are serious: hardening of the arteries, an increased risk of cardiovascular disease, kidney disease and stroke.

Omega-3 fats are a type of poly-unsaturated fat thought to play an important role in reducing the risk of heart disease, stroke, cancer, obesity and other serious diseases. Humans are unable to synthesise Omega-3 for themselves and obtain it from meat, fish and dairy products.

French company Valorex, the lead partner in EUREKA Project E! 3407 EUROAGRI+ OMS, has developed an innovative way of thermo-extruding the seeds from linseed, a plant rich in Omega-3, which makes it highly suitable as an additive for cattle feed.

Previous studies conducted by Valorex indicated that animal feeds enriched with extruded linseed improve the health and fertility of animals and the nutritional quality of their meat and dairy products by lowering the level of fat and saturated fats and increasing the level of Omega-3. When the company conducted a further study to determine the effect of a diet enriched by thermo-extruded linseed on obese diabetics, the volunteers showed a partial loss of abdominal obesity and a reduction in their triglycerides levels.

"Our thermo-extrusion technology makes it possible to transfer the Omega-3 right along the food chain, creating a bridge between animal and human nutrition," says Pierre Weill, Valorex's CEO. "We set up Project EUROAGRI+ OMS with our Israeli partners, the Alonim Linseed Importing and Marketing Company, to test our hypothesis that eating a diet enriched with thermo-extruded linseed could alleviate the clinical manifestations of Metabolic Syndrome."