Nutrition Hobart 2003: the 27th annual scientific meeting of the Nutrition Society of Australia, 30 November-3 December 2003.

The Nutrition Society of Australia (NSA) is 28 years old, but this recent national conference was the first held south of Bass Strait. Given Tasmania's very low numbers of nutrition researchers and practitioners, organising it was a major challenge for the local group. An innovation was a session for students on writing a PhD thesis and surviving the experience. Two experienced academics and two recent PhD graduates each presented their perspectives, with many helpful insights, and vigorous discussion ensued. There was also was a very informative report on the new Centres of Excellence in Functional Foods and Food Safety, established through the National Food Industry Strategy, presented by their respective directors, Professor Linda Tapsell and Professor Tom McMeekin.

The role of NSA conferences is to share the results of nutrition research, from both human and animal studies, and there was plenty of that. Around 100 abstracts were submitted (and accepted) for presentation by nutrition researchers from Australia and beyond. Around 70 were presented orally, and 30 as posters. The topics were very diverse, as a listing of session titles indicates: obesity, diet and disease; public health nutrition; plant foods and cardiovascular disease; nutrition assessment; aquaculture; foods and nutrients; animal production; milk and lactation.

About a quarter of the submitted abstracts were from students giving their first presentation at an NSA conference--a promising indicator of the vigour of nutrition research in Australia. Most of these presentations were excellent, but the judges had only two prizes to award, and these went to Ms Qian Zhang who spoke on the effects of fortified-milk consumption on regional bone mineral accrual, and Ms Tuesday Udell who presented a meta-analysis of the effects on growth and development of supplementing infant diets with [alpha]-linolenate (ALA).

I hesitate to single out other submitted presentations but--simply to give some idea of the rich smorgasbord of papers--topics included high-protein diets for weight loss, an Australian follow-up to the US DASH diet and hypertension study (OZDASH), anxiety following increased hindgut fermentation, iodine and public health, the diets of African refugee children in Australia, protein turnover in barramundi, and many more.

The plenary symposia are the centrepiece of NSA conferences. There were four, one on each day, each with a diverse but stimulating mix of invited expert speakers. The first day's plenary on nutrition and physical activity featured Professor Mark Hargreaves guiding us through the complex interactions of diet, genes and exercise performance; Chris Forbes-Ewan (standing in for recently-parturient Dr Christine Booth) exploring the impact of undereating on the operational efficiency of soldiers on active duty; and Dr Phil Battley describing the extraordinary adaptations that allow some birds to fly several thousand kilometres without stopping (can you combine extreme obesity with sustained energy usage of seven times BMR for three to five days?).

The second day's plenary on nutrition and chronic disease included ophthalmologist Professor Paul Mitchell's review of nutritional factors in the development/prevention of the eye diseases, macular degeneration and cataract. The other speakers covered nutrition issues in relation to obesity and diabetes. Professor David Ludwig from Boston gave two addresses. The first concluded that the risk of developing insulin resistance is significantly lower on a diet high in fibre, with a low glycaemic index, plenty of dairy products and a generous amount of unsaturated fat. In the second he also concluded that reducing glycaemic index and/or load has potential for preventing obesity and urgently merits large-scale testing. Professor Boyd Swinburn strongly argued the case for public health interventions (decreasing the obesogenicity of the environment) in combatting the obesity epidemic. Finally, Professor Jacquie Rand reminded us that obesity and diabetes are not purely-human issues, with a review of their prevention in companion animals (i.e. cats and dogs) by dietary manipulation.

The next day's plenary covered nutrition and growth. Neonatologist Professor Jane Harding, whose research ranges from epidemiology to animal experiments, explained how the foetus's nutrition status affects its postnatal health and how far intervention is possible. Drawing on examples from the work of Hobart's Menzies Institute, Professor Terry Dwyer emphasised the importance of using biological and physical measurements in prospective studies of children. They were followed by aquaculturist Professor Chris Carter and pig researcher Dr Rob van Barneveld, who described the role of diet in optimising the growth of farmed fish and pigs respectively, including balancing producers' concern for costs against consumers' concern for product quality.

The final symposium was on nutrition and sustainable food production. This innovative session went beyond the 'feel-good' notion that food production should be environmentally sustainable, to look at the 'hard' science of achieving this. Professor Malcolm Haddon, an ecologist with expertise in modelling wild fish stocks, emphasised that we are already over-harvesting our fish stocks and even with the contribution of aquaculture, any recommendation by human nutritionists to increase seafood consumption is unsustainable. Dr John Donnelly, a senior researcher from CSIRO's Profitable Sustainable Agriculture program, reviewed how Australian farmers have successfully learned to cope with impoverished soils and erratic low rainfalls--and strategies for decreasing environmental degradation by agriculture in the future. The final speaker. Dr Peter O'Brien, Bureau of Rural Resources, focussed on the policy implications, including their interaction with dietary guidelines. Vigorous and constructive questions and discussion followed these presentations.

Abstracts of all presentations were published in a supplement to Asia Pacific Journal of Clinical Nutrition. The next annual scientific meeting of the Nutrition Society of Australia, 11-13 August 2004, Brisbane, in conjunction with the Nutrition Society of New Zealand, will share several sessions with the World Congress of Clinical Nutrition. (More details, regularly updated, are available at http://www.nsa.asn.au/conference2004/ for enquiries contact [e-mail]).

David Woodward PhD

Discipline of Biochemistry

University of Tasmania 

David Woodward declares a conflict of interest in providing this report, as he was the chair of the local organising committee.