BioFactors 12 (2000) 39–43 39 IOS Press Mini-review Food system-based approaches to improving micronutrient nutrition: The case for selenium Gerald F. Combs, Jr. Division of Nutritional Sciences, 122 Savage Hall, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY 14853, USA Tel.: +1 607 255 2140; Fax: +1 607 255 1033; E-mail: gfc2@cornell.edu Abstract. Micronutrient deficiencies affect nearly half the world’s population, impairing child development, reducing work productivity, and increasing mortality and morbidity rates by affecting both infectious and chronic diseases. To feed a growing world, it will be necessary to consider agriculture in the broad context of a food system as an instrument of public health and, thus, to address nutrient balance while also seeking sustainability. Such efforts would include increasing cropping system diversity, enhancing micronutrient outputs and promoting environmental sustainability. Example of this approach are presented for the essential trace element selenium (Se), which at high intakes can reduce cancer risks but is deficient in many parts of the world. Food systems-based approaches are discussed for preventing Se deficiency by enhancing intakes of any of several biologically available forms of Se, and for reducing cancer risk by enhancing intakes of forms of the element that support anti-tumorigenic Se-metabolites. Keywords: Food system, micronutrient, selenium, cancer, carcinogenesis, chemoprevention 1. Introduction Micronutrient malnutrition affects some 40% of the world’s people [11], particularly the poor in developingnations who suffer from deficiencies that impair growth and cognitive development, potentiate infectious diseases, and result in other physical disabilities. In industrialized countries, micronutrient deficiencies contribute to heart disease, cancer, stroke, diabetes, anemia, low birth weight and child growth retardation [23]. These problems erode life quality and have substantial social and economic costs, making them both consumer and public health issues. A new paradigm is needed to achieve sustainable solutions to diet-related health problems while meeting increasing global food demands. This task calls for health to be viewed as an explicit outcome of food systems. Conceptual models of the Food System [11,19] encompass all activities relating to the production, acquisition and utilization of food; they accept food systems to be integrated, multi- component systems with multiple inputs and outcomes, including human health and well-being (Table 1). This concept implies that the development of sustainable solutions to diet-related health problems in both industrialized and developing settings will be best addressed by approaches that consider all relevant causal variables and conceive of objectives in multi-disciplinary terms. Such systems-based approaches contrast with traditional ones; while the agricultural sector has historically measured its success in terms of production, systems approaches would expand that view to include measures of impact on human nutrition and health. They make agriculture a consumer issue. 0951-6433/00/$8.00  2000 – IOS Press. All rights reserved