Phytochemomics and other omics for permitting health claims made on foods María Dolores del Castillo a, ⁎, Nuria Martinez-Saez a , Miryam Amigo-Benavent b , Jose Manuel Silvan b a Food Bioscience Group, Department of Food Analysis and Bioactivity, Institute of Food Science Research (CIAL, UAM-CSIC), Nicolás Cabrera 9, 28049 Madrid, Spain b Department of Nutrition and Metabolism, Institute of Food Science, Technology and Nutrition (ICTAN-CSIC), José Antonio Novais 10, 28040 Madrid, Spain abstract article info Article history: Received 26 September 2012 Accepted 16 May 2013 Keywords: Food bioactive components Foodomics Health promoting properties Health claims Omics approaches Phytochemicals Phytochemome Phytochemomics Various food components positively affect human health and wellness. Phytochemicals have been proposed as health promoters. Several claimed healthy products including foods, dietary supplements, nutraceutics and cosmetics containing phytochemicals are commercialized worldwide. Products based on phytochemicals are nowadays very popular. Phytochemicals´ health promoting properties are under evaluation by scientists and regulators´ authorities. Phytochemomics is a comprehensive concept aimed to increase the knowledge on phytochemicals´ bioactivity and their impact in health, aging and diseases, which is of growing importance in food, medicine and cosmetic sciences. These achievements are based on up-to-date analytical platforms in- cluding, but not limited, to mass spectrometric approaches. Foods are very complex mixtures of bioactive components in different concentrations. Phytochemomics togeth- er with other omics are essential for authorizing or rejecting nutrition and health claims made on foods. On the basis of the data collected by using omic approaches a cause-effect relationship may be established between a food category, a food or one of its constituents and the claimed effect. © 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction According to article 10(1) of Regulation (EC) No. 1924/2006, health claims made on foods are prohibited unless they are authorized by the Commission in accordance with that Regulation and included in a list of permitted claims. One of the objectives of that Regulation is to ensure that health claims are truthful, clear, reliable and useful to the consumer. Permitted health claims must provide scientific evidence on the relation- ship existing between a food category, a food or one of its constituents and health, the claims should be subject to the same conditions of use indicated for the permitted health claims (Commission Regulation (EU) No. 432/2012). There is a number of health claims for which either a further evalua- tion is required before the authority considers their inclusion in the list of permitted claims. The Commission has identified a number of claims submitted for evaluation, referring to effects of plant or herbal substances, commonly known as ‘botanical’ substances or phytochemicals, for which the Authority has yet to complete a scientific evaluation (Commission Regulation (EU) No. 432/2012). Phytochemicals are very popular as healthy constituents and data on that have to be collected. Phyto- chemomics may greatly contribute to this knowledge, and its potential for certificating health claims ascribed to phytochemicals is discussed in the present review. Foods are complex mixtures of bioactive compounds. Each single food component contributes to the overall food bioactivity. The usefulness of phytochemomics and other related omics such as foodomics and lipidomics for a better understating of food components' effects in health is discussed in the present article. Foodomics has demonstrated to be a very useful approach for establishing health claims made on foods (Cifuentes, 2012; Garcia-Canas, Simo, Herrero, Ibáñez, & Cifuentes, 2012; Ibanez et al., 2012; Picariello, Mamone, Addeo, & Ferranti, 2012; Puiggros, Sola, Blade, Salvado, & Arola, 2011; Valdes et al., 2012). The term ‘ foodomics’ has been coined to define studies in the food and nutrition do- mains through the application of advanced “omics” technologies to im- prove consumer's well being and health (Cifuentes, 2009). Foodomics is intended to be a global discipline that includes all of the emerging working areas in which food (including nutrition), advanced analytical techniques (mainly omics tools), and bioinformatics are combined. Food processing, storage conditions and physiological events can dramatically affect food composition and bioactivity. Novel information allowing to understand the effect of all those processes on food and con- sequently on human health can be obtained by application of omics ap- proaches such as phytochemomics, which is a novel concept proposed Food Research International 54 (2013) 1237–1249 Abbreviations: EFSA, European Food Safety Authority and FDA or USFDA Food and Drug Administration. ⁎ Corresponding author. Tel.: +34 91 0017900x953; fax: +34 91 0017905. E-mail addresses: mdolores.delcastillo@csic.es (M.D. del Castillo), nur.martinez@titulado.uam.es (N. Martinez-Saez), miryam.amigo@ictan.csic.es (M. Amigo-Benavent), jm.silvan@csic.es (J.M. Silvan). URL's: http://www.cial.uam-csic.es (M.D. del Castillo), http://www.cial.uam-csic.es (N. Martinez-Saez), http://www.ictan.csic.es (M. Amigo-Benavent), http://www.ictan.csic.es (J.M. Silvan). 0963-9969/$ – see front matter © 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.foodres.2013.05.014 Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Food Research International journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/foodres