SCRC: Review of health benefit research and development relevant to the Australian seafood industry and members of the Australian Seafood CRC
Development of a position on functional foods to support the Seafood CRC workshop and potential rebid for funds for Program 3 (Health benefits of Seafood)
Final report
This project was designed to assist the Australian Seafood CRC identify research gaps and opportunities and ultimately provide the necessary background information and rationale for a potential supplementary bid to DIISR for funding of a new program of health related research.
The Food Standards Australia New Zealand (FSANZ) website and websites for the Japanese Ministry of Health, Labour, and Welfare and the US Food and Drug Administration were the major sources of information regarding health claims for Australia, Japan and the US. Japan and the US were included in this report as they are two key export markets for the Australian Seafood industry. Examples of seafoods, using specific seafoods of interest to the Seafood CRC were modeled for nutrition content and general level health claims. A brief review of the potential mechanisms of some of the observed health effects of fish and omega-3 fatty acids was undertaken.
The research described in this report found that one of the important mechanisms for the observed widespread effect of seafoods on a range of health outcomes (such as coronary heart disease, cancer, arthritis, dementia) is the dampening of the inflammatory response by the 2 key bioactives in seafood, namely the long chain omega-3 fatty acids eicosapentaenoic (EPA) and docosahexaenoic acids (DHA). However there are other bioactives in fish worth exploring further. Several research gaps were identified as part of this project and these are outlined in the report.
Potential collaborators or partners beyond the current CRC members and affiliates were identified and have been included in the body of the report, as are some early suggestions for alternative funding and funding models.
Evaluating the Southern Bluefin Tuna cell lines as a platform for testing the effectiveness of antioxidants in preserving flesh quality
The vast majority of the Southern Bluefin Tuna (SBT) farmed in South Australia is sold fresh for sashimi production in Japan. Premium prices are obtained for sashimi grade tuna with a high fat content. Unfortunately, fatty fish tissues with their high polyunsaturated fatty acid (PUFA) content are prone to oxidation. This results in poor flesh quality, reduced shelf life and significant trimming of the tuna carcass at the market.
FRDC Project No. 2004/209 investigated the impact of dietary supplements on the flesh quality of farmed SBT. Specifically, it investigated the impact of the dietary antioxidants vitamins C and E and the mineral selenium. Project No. 2004/209 showed that these supplements can extend the shelf life of muscle samples taken from farmed SBT fed diets containing higher than normal concentrations of the antioxidants.
Although Project No. 2004/209 has been very successful, performing diet trials with live SBT is expensive and logistically difficult. It is also time-consuming and the statistical power of the experiments is limited by the fact that it is economically unfeasible to have multiple replicate sea-cages for each dietary treatment. As a result of these constraints, experiments must be repeated over several years to obtain statistically valid results.
Recently, we produced the world’s first SBT cell line and to our knowledge the first cell line for any tuna species. The cell line has the potential to reduce the number of experiments with live SBT and to greatly increase the number of dietary supplements that can be screened in a given period of time. With the cell line, it takes only one week to screen 24 different supplements with 3-4 replicates of each. This compares with years for similar experiments with live SBT.
This project will evaluate the cell line as a platform for testing dietary antioxidant supplements for SBT.