Human diet may present both risks and benefits to consumers. Risk-benefit assessment (RBA) intends to estimate the benefits and risks for humans following exposure (or lack of exposure) to a particular food or food component and to integrate them in comparable measures. For instance, any policy action directed at the adverse effects also affects the degree of beneficial effects and vice versa. In the last years, a few number of European projects within the RBA of foods have been conducted and some challenges remained and new became apparent, however the RBA methodologies are far from being well established. In contrast, risk assessment (RA) within food safety is a well established discipline across the EU. In Portugal, a recent example is the RA study performed under MYCOMIX, a national funded project that studied the toxic effects of children exposure to multiple mycotoxins. MYCOMIX revealed a potential health concern associated to aflatoxins intake through the consumption of cereal-based foods with different contents of whole-grain. The output of this project also highlighted the knowledge gaps on the contrabalance beneficial health effect of these foods, and the need to determine the risk-benefit, since they are vehicles of food components that could be assumed as beneficial. “RiskBenefit4EU – Partnering to strengthen the risk-benefit assessment within EU using a holistic approach” is a recent European project funded by EFSA integrating a multidisciplinary team from Portugal, Denmark and France. This project aims to strengthen the EU capacity to assess and integrate food risks and benefits in the areas of microbiological, nutritional and chemical components through the development of a harmonized framework. To validate all the developed tools, a Portuguese case study on cereal-based foods, gathering data as mycotoxins and Bacillus cereus intake (risks) and the consumption of fibres (soluble/insoluble) (benefits) will be considered. RiskBenefit4EU will contribute for the development and the establishment of RBA as a tool to provide scientific evidence to inform risk management decisions in the area of food safety and nutrition.

Human diet may present both risks and benefits to consumers. Risk-benefit assessment (RBA) intends to estimate the benefits and risks for humans following exposure (or lack of exposure) to a particular food or food component and to integrate them in comparable measures. For instance, any policy action directed at the adverse effects also affects the degree of beneficial effects and vice versa. In the last years, a few number of European projects within the RBA of foods have been conducted and some challenges remained and new became apparent, however the RBA methodologies are far from being well established. In contrast, risk assessment (RA) within food safety is a well-established discipline across the EU. In Portugal, a recent example is the RA study performed under MYCOMIX (https://youtu.be/CsKaz3mt2J4), a national funded project that studied the toxic effects of children exposure to multiple mycotoxins. The output of this project highlighted the knowledge gaps on the contra-balance beneficial health effect of these foods, and the need to determine the risk-benefit, since they are vehicles of food components that could be assumed as beneficial. “RiskBenefit4EU – Partnering to strengthen the risk-benefit assessment within EU using a holistic approach” (https://riskbenefit4eu.wordpress.com/) is a recent European project funded by EFSA integrating a multidisciplinary team from Portugal, Denmark and France. This project aims to strengthen the EU capacity to assess and integrate food risks and benefits in the areas of microbiological, nutritional and chemical components through the development of a harmonized framework. To validate all the developed tools, a Portuguese case study on cereal-based foods will be considered. RiskBenefit4EU will contribute for the development and the establishment of RBA as a tool to provide scientific evidence to inform risk management decisions in the area of food safety and nutrition.

State of the art. Data from a recent Portuguese national project that studied the toxic effects of children exposure (under 3 years old) to multiple mycotoxins in infant foods (MYCOMIX) reported the co-occurrence of 21 mycotoxins and metabolites present in breakfast cereals primarily marketed for children. This study showed that 96% of the analyzed breakfast cereal samples were contaminated with mycotoxins1,2. The output of this project also highlighted the knowledge gaps on the contra-balance beneficial health effect of these foods, and the need to determine the risk-benefit balance, since the evaluated food products, namely breakfast cereals, are simultaneously recognized vehicles of food components, like nutrients, vitamins and water soluble and insoluble fibers, which could be assumed as beneficial for children health.

Over the last years, the contamination of different foodstuffs with multiple mycotoxins has been highly reported. Data from a recent Portuguese national project that studied the toxic effects of exposure of children under 3 years old to multiple mycotoxins in infant foods (MYCOMIX) reported the co-occurrence of twenty-one mycotoxins and metabolites present in breakfast cereals primarily marketed for children. This study showed that almost all of the analyzed breakfast cereal samples (96%) were contaminated with mycotoxins. The output of this project also highlighted the knowledge gaps on the contra-balance beneficial health effect of these foods, and the need to determine the risk-benefit balance, since the evaluated food products, namely breakfast cereals, are simultaneously recognized vehicles of food components, like nutrients, vitamins and water soluble and insoluble fibers, which could be assumed as beneficial for children health. Health risks associated with consumption of cereal-based foods, an important source of nutrients with beneficial health effects, could increase in the near future due to climate changes in Europe (dry conditions and increased ambient temperatures) thus the dissemination and use of the Risk-Benefit Assessment (RBA) harmonized tools in Europe would be of utmost importance to support food and health policies. Can we ever have a harmonized tool that enables food and health authorities to estimate the balance between risk and benefit of foods usually contaminated by mycotoxins, as cereals-based products? is a question that can be raised in an attempt to contribute to brainstorm under the topic of the 10th Conference of the World Mycotoxin Forum. “RiskBenefit4EU – Partnering to strengthen the risk-benefit assessment within EU using a holistic approach” (Grant Agreement Number GP/EFSA/AFSCO/2017/01 - GA02) is a recent European pilot project funded by EFSA and coordinated by Portugal (PT), integrating a multidisciplinary team from health and food institutes, national food safety authorities, R&D institutions and academia from PT, Denmark (DK) and France (FR). The main objectives of RiskBenefit4EU concerns the development of a set of RBA tools that can estimate the overall health effects of foods, food ingredients and diets and that can be applied to data from different countries. RiskBenefit4EU aims to strengthen the EU capacity to assess and integrate food risks and benefits in the areas of microbiological, nutritional and chemical components through the development of a harmonized framework. This pilot project will validate the RBA framework created using a Portuguese case study on breakfast cereals, including results obtained under MYCOMIX project.