Publications by authors named "Sofie T Thomsen"

Human biomonitoring (HBM) data indicate that exposure to pyrethroids is widespread in Europe, with significantly higher exposure observed in children compared to adults. Epidemiological, toxicological, and mechanistic studies raise concerns for potential human health effects, particularly, behavioral effects such as attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) in children at low levels of exposure. Based on an exposure-response function from a single European study and on available quality-assured and harmonized HBM data collected in France, Germany, Iceland, Switzerland, and Israel, a preliminary estimate of the environmental burden of disease for ADHD associated with pyrethroid exposure was made for individuals aged 0-19 years.

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Policy decisions in public health require consideration and evaluation of trade-offs for which transparency and science-based evidence is needed. Improvement of decision-support tools is essential to help guide food policy decisions that promote healthy diets and meet the challenges of food systems without compromising food security, food safety, and sovereignty. Risk-benefit assessment of foods (RBA) is an established methodological approach designed to inform policy decisions within the area of nutrition and food safety.

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Consumption of linseeds has been suggested to have beneficial effects on human health. However, toxic constituents of linseed may compromise these benefits. We conducted a quantitative risk-benefit assessment to evaluate the overall health impact of increasing linseed intake up to 45 g/day in the Danish population (15-74 years).

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Exposure to chemical contaminants found in foods has been associated with various adverse health effects. Burden of disease studies are increasingly used to estimate the public health impact of such exposures. The aims of this study were to estimate the burden of disease due to dietary exposure to four chemicals in France in 2019 (lead (Pb), cadmium (Cd), methylmercury (MeHg), and inorganic arsenic (i-As)), and to develop harmonized methods that can be applied for other chemicals and countries.

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Investigating the impact of diet on public health using risk-benefit assessment (RBA) methods that simultaneously consider both beneficial and adverse health outcomes could be useful for shaping dietary policies and guidelines. In the field of food safety and nutrition, RBA is a relatively new approach facing methodological challenges and being subject to further developments. One of the methodological aspects calling for improvement is the selection of components to be considered in the assessment, currently based mainly on non-harmonized unstandardized experts' judgment.

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Cereal-based foods, including breakfast (BC) and infant cereals (IC), are among the first solid foods introduced to infants. BC and IC are sources of macro and micronutrients that have beneficial effects on health, but can also be sources of harmful chemical and microbiological contaminants and nutrients that may lead to adverse health effects at high consumption levels. This study was performed under the RiskBenefit4EU project with the aim of assessing the health impact associated with consumption of BC and IC by Portuguese children under 35 months.

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To evaluate the health impact of current and alternative patterns of rice consumption in Chinese adult men (40-79 years of age). We applied a risk-benefit assessment (RBA) model that took into account the health effects of selenium (Se), cadmium (Cd), and inorganic arsenic (i-As). The health effects included the prevention of prostate cancer associated with exposure to Se, and an increased risk of lung, bladder, and skin cancer for i-As and chronic kidney disease (CKD) for Cd.

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One of the challenges in quantitative risk-benefit assessment (RBA) of foods is the choice of approach for health effect characterization to estimate the health impact of dietary changes. The purpose of health effect characterization is to describe an association between intake of a food or food component and a health effect in terms of a dose-response relationship. We assessed the impact of the choice of approach for health effect characterization in RBA in two case studies based on substitution of (i) white rice by brown rice and (ii) unprocessed red meat by vegetables.

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Fish and other seafood are important sources of nutrients, but they are also sources of chemical contaminants that may cause adverse health effects. This article aimed to identify existing risk-benefit assessments (RBA) of fish, shellfish, and other seafood, compare methodologies, discuss differences and commonalities in findings, and identify limitations and ways forward for future studies. We conducted a scoping review of the scientific literature of studies in all languages published from 2000 through April 2019.

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Risk-benefit assessment is the comparison of the risk of a situation to its related benefits, i.e. a comparison of scenarios estimating the overall health impact.

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Lifestyle and sociodemographics are likely to influence dietary patterns, and, as a result, human exposure to chemical contaminants in foods and their associated health impact. We aimed to characterize subgroups of the Danish population based on diet and sociodemographic indicators, and identify those bearing a higher disease burden due to exposure to methylmercury (MeHg), cadmium (Cd) and inorganic arsenic (i-As). We collected dietary, lifestyle, and sociodemographic data on the occurrence of chemical contaminants in foods from Danish surveys.

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Background: Diets consisting of high amounts of animal-based protein have been associated with adverse public health effects and are often deemed environmentally unsustainable. Therefore, replacing red meat by pulses has been proposed to reduce the adverse impact on human health and environment. However, unprocessed red meat is an important source of nutrients, such as vitamin B, iron, zinc and selenium, and the substitution may have negative impact on nutrient adequacy.

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Despite increased political attention, foodborne diseases still cause a substantial public health, economic, and social burden worldwide. Children younger than 5 years, people living in developing regions, and in the poorest areas of the world are disproportionally affected, bearing a large proportion of the global burden of foodborne disease. Yet, food safety is a prerequisite to ensuring food security globally: Foods that are responsible for important food safety problems are also crucial to ensure food security in some regions and are essential sources of nutrition.

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Background: Evidence has emerged showing that elderly people and those with pre-existing chronic health conditions may be at higher risk of developing severe health consequences from COVID-19. In Europe, this is of particular relevance with ageing populations living with non-communicable diseases, multi-morbidity and frailty. Published estimates of Years Lived with Disability (YLD) from the Global Burden of Disease (GBD) study help to characterise the extent of these effects.

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Accounting for substitution of foods is inevitable when evaluating health impact of dietary changes. But substitution behavior and the associated health impact may vary between individuals. We therefore propose the use of probabilistic methods to model substitution and assess health impact distributions in risk-benefit assessment (RBA) of foods.

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Whilst risk management measures, including food policy, are developed for the protection of public health and the environment, they may also lead to a reduction in health benefits. Policy decisions require then consideration of these necessary trade-offs, which leads to an increasing need to apply formal risk-benefit assessment (RBA) of foods. In this context, the European Food Safety Authority sponsored a Risk-Benefit Assessment Workshop on "past, current and future developments within the risk-benefit assessment of foods (RBA)" held in May 2017.

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Danish dietary guidelines recommend the Danish population to increase the consumption of fish while decreasing the consumption of red and processed meat to prevent nutrition-related diseases. However, the presence of contaminants in these foods may affect the overall risk-benefit balance of such substitution. We performed a quantitative risk-benefit assessment on substituting red and processed meat with fish in a Danish diet.

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