The Health College has a multidisciplinary focus on the links between food and health.
Issues, challenges and positioning
The Health section focuses on the impact of dietary and environmental factors on human health throughout the lifecycle. It focuses in particular on understanding the dietary needs of specific populations (seniors, pregnant women, children, athletes, people suffering from chronic diseases, etc.). A major challenge concerns chronic noncommunicable diseases, linked to our modern lifestyle.
Projects in the Health section focus on the impact of nutrition throughout life: the needs of pregnant women and infants during the first 1,000 days, and the impact of nutrition during this period on health in adulthood, as well as improving quality of life and health behaviors for the aging population and people with chronic diseases.
Every Tuesday from 4pm to 5pm, find out more about the expertise of Collège Santé's teacher-researchers on the NutriRadio webradio program 100% Food.
In this weekly program, they share their knowledge on the future of nutrition and the latest advances in food.
Skills and teams
The Health department comprises 11 teacher-researchers, 4 design engineers and 2 technicians, and is supported by two teams:
Food processing and transformation and their effects on health research team (PETALES, EA 7519 Transformations & Agroressources)
The PETALES team studies the functionalization and maintenance of intestinal homeostasis, which is a major factor in health, through the study of the positive and negative impact of food consumption, whether processed or not.
The teaching and research staff assess the impact of molecular assemblies resulting from processing and/or neoformed compounds on the establishment and maintenance of intestinal homeostasis, particularly during the early stages of life. Indeed, early disturbances can increase the risk of developing chronic non-communicable diseases.
In this context, the understanding of biological effects, molecular and cellular mechanisms and the measurement of their potential impact are based on the use of in vivo and in vitro models.
The Nutrition, Food and Human Health cluster (PANASH)
The main aim of the PANASH cluster is to improve the eating habits and health status of various at-risk populations. PANASH focuses on supporting patients with chronic illnesses and the elderly. Since 2010, PANASH has been working to identify the needs of patients undergoing treatment and able to eat, in order to validate operational food and culinary solutions. PANASH's expertise has thus enabled it to develop "Vite Fait - Bienfaits", a nutritional approach integrated into the therapeutic patient education scheme in oncology, which provides support for patients, direct or indirect caregivers, and catering professionals alike ("Grand Prix Spécial 2017" at SIRHA). PANASH also develops innovative interventional Prevention-Health programs for the elderly. These programs are set up in the form of workshops, ranging from balanced eating and culinary practice adapted to age-related chronic illnesses to mental health and adapted sports practice ("Innovation & Prevention" prize 2018 from Eurasanté & Santelys).
The missions
The Collège Santé is heavily involved in UniLaSalle's engineering training programs ("AgroAlimentation et Santé", "Agronomie et Agro-industries" in initial training, apprenticeship or VAE), in continuing education, as well as in international training programs piloted by UniLaSalle and focusing on the link between food and health ("Spring Semester in Nutritional Sciences" and "Culinary sciences and health benefits: from field to plate").
In collaboration with the Communauté d'Universités et les Etablissements Lille Nord de France and the Université de Lille, the Collège Santé is also behind the France Excellence pre-doctoral summer school "Impact of Food Processing on Human Health", designed to promote French research excellence to Chinese and South American audiences.
Our scientific activities include academic research as well as services, development and technology transfer in the fields of food and health.
Our activities cover a field of application ranging from the genome to the cell and from pre-clinical studies to clinical and epidemiological research and the application of intervention tools in health education and health catering.
Tools
To carry out their missions, our teams rely on research platforms, in particular :
- Microbiology platform (link to platform page)
- Molecular and cellular biology platform (link to platform page)
- Analytical chemistry platform (link to platform page)
- Culinary practices platform (link to platform page)