Non-essential dietary factors: From test tube to lifespan

The agriculture and food industries have an opportunity to change the future of food production by providing foods containing non-essential dietary factors (NEDFs) that improve health beyond a freedom from disease. In order to accomplish this in a safe and tune-effective manner, however, each NEDF needs to be tested on a number of levels before it is incorporated into foods. In vitro assays are useful for discovering potential beneficial NEDFS, but in vivo studies are needed to both confirm positive effects and to detect negative effects. The genetic and metabolic similarities between humans and Caenorhabditis elegans, combined with the ease with which this nematode can be manipulated in the laboratory make it an attractive candidate to fulfill the role of an early stage in vivo model. Measuring the lifespan of C. elegans cultured in the presence of a range of concentrations of a NEDF would be of both mechanistic and strategic value in identifying those NEDFs that warrant further testing.