title: Role of Commodity Boards in Advancing the Understanding of the Health Benefits of Whole Foods: California Dried Plums.
abstract: Food and agriculture commodity boards have become important funders of nutrition research. There are benefits and cautions (biases toward health benefits, failure to publish negative results, and aggressive promotion of single studies) for this activity. The California Dried Plum Board, along with other commodity boards, have developed independent Scientific Nutrition Advisory Panels to guide and evaluate the research they fund. In the case of the California Dried Plum Board, this has resulted in research that has distinguished the nature and dose of dried plum and juice to maintain bowel health and opened up a surprising new function for dried plum in the prevention of age-related bone loss.
authors.affiliation: is professor emerita of the Department of Kinesiology and Nutrition of the University of Illinois at Chicago. She was a member of the faculty of the Department of Nutrition and Dietetics (now Kinesiology and Nutrition) for 30 years and her areas of research concentration have been the human metabolism of carotenoids and oxidative stress.
authors.forename: Phyllis E
authors.initials: PE
authors.lastname: Bowen