INVITATION TO THE SECOND CONGRESS OF FOOD SUPPLEMENTS

Dear colleagues,

It is our pleasure to invite You to Second Congress on Dietary Supplements/Second Congress of Food Supplements with international participation which will be held in Belgrade from 10th to 12th of December 2009. After successful First Congress of Food Supplements and publication “Dijetetski suplementi na tržištu Srbije” (Dietary supplements on Serbian market), Second dietary supplements congress will come as logical follow up, with cooperation of all previous participants and many new colleagues who have discovered importance of dietary supplements in their respective areas of work.

Scientific program of the Congress has been composed in cooperation among Institute of Bromatology, Faculty of Pharmacy in Belgrade, Sports Medicine Association of Serbia, Serbian Nutrition Society and Anti-Doping Agency of Serbia. Such cooperation created prerequisites for Second Congress to represent a unique multidisciplinary training grounds that will bring together experts of different profiles who have daily experience with supplements in their work. During past two years, number and variety of supplements on world market as well as Serbian market, increased significantly; number of areas in which supplements are used continuously increases, and so does the number of supplements users and number of scientific papers dedicated to this subject. We hope that this year’s Congress will also assemble local experts who will take the opportunity to present results and experiences from their own research. Along with standard oral presentations, posters will be presented in electronic form within Poster forum, in the same manner as it has been done in last Congress.

Motto of the Congress is “By supplementation to wellness/Supplementation in service of healthy lifestyle”, which signifies the basic aim of supplementation which is safe use, user safety, improvement and preservation of health. In a world in which many supplements become principles of healthy lifestyle, especially in physically and intellectually active population, information about rational supplements usage is very useful.

Specific segment of the Congress pertains to organizing of mini-symposia of pharmaceutical companies and dietary supplements manufacturers, at which products will be presented in original way, with emphasis on their quality, appliance and usage safety.

Together with scientific program, an appropriate cultural program will make socializing of all the participants of the Congress more intense. We sincerely hope that you will join the pioneering joint effort on Your and our Congress, and that Your participation will become a rich and valuable experience.

Best regards,

Professor Dr. Sladjana Sobajic & Dr. Nenad Dikic

FIRST NOTIFICATION ABOUT SECOND CONGRESS

FIRST CONGRESS REPORT

In 15th – 17th March of 2007. period First Congress of Food Supplements was held in Belgrade, with international participation, organized by Sports Medicine Association of Serbia and Institute of Bromatology, Faculty of Pharmacy in Belgrade, under auspices of the Ministry of Health of Serbia and Sports Department of Ministry of Education and Sports. After two weekdays, 7 plenary presentations of national complimentary speakers, 11 oral and 39 poster presentations which presented results of a number of national scientific research and professional projects in the field of dietary supplementation and 7 mini-symposia organized by pharmaceutical companies and dedicated to specific topics, and after dynamic and comprehensive discussion, it is possible to conclude the following:

• Interest of users and the industry for this kind of products grows constantly in recent years, so it is therefore necessary to devote more attention to this group of products.

• Proper and rational use of dietary supplements may have an important role in the process of self medication, prevention and dietotherapy. A number of presentations on the Congress was dedicated to results of latest research on the possibilities of natural biologically active substances use in treatment of variety of medical conditions, among different population groups, in the maintenance of good health as well as possibilities of supplements abuse (eg. in athletes).

• Up to date legislation is required to ensure safe and rational use, traffic, import, advertising, declaring and control of dietary supplements in our country. Current legislation is outdated, it is not appropriate and it does not provide the possibility of regulating numerous products on the market. It is necessary to set a clear boundary that will separate this group of products from medications, in order to avoid many dilemmas present today.

• Multidisciplinary approach is necessary for efficient supplementation of users and patients and in this team task special role is reserved for doctors, pharmacists, nutritionists and sports workers, whose education in terms of importance, possibilities and restrictions of supplements use is extremely important. Through cooperation with technologists, chemists, economists and biologists it would be possible to utilize domestic potentials (scientific potentials and potentials in raw materials) in design and manufacturing of new products. Number of papers presented the results of investigation of new biologically active substances that can be used in manufacturing of new dietary supplements and functional foods as well.

• Regular control of dietary supplements is extremely important because certain data presented at the Congress show that percentage of these products may be bad (incorrectly declared, sanitary invalid or of unsatisfactory quality or content). Current control laboratories equipment isn’t satisfying and cannot answer to very demanding analyzes linked to this group of products, so it is therefore necessary to think about equipping a laboratory that would specialize in development of methods for supplements and foods quality verification.

• Lack of data on the national diet quality and data on certain nutrients intake prevents determining values for daily intake of vitamins and minerals, giving recommendations for use of some of the existing recommended values tables as well as appointment of health workers regarding need of supplementation using certain nutrients. If such analyzes have been carried out in past 5 years, gathered data must be made available to broader expert and scientific public in the country. Some data presented in the congress regarding our national diet, representation of certain victuals within daily diet and evaluation of nutrients intake is very disquieting and is pointing towards possible nutrient deficiencies.

Due to all presented here, we consider it necessary to support these attainments with quality information regarding supplements on our web site, which has been proved to be valuable information portal during congress preparation.

Best regards,

Professor Dr. Sladjana Sobajic & Dr. Nenad Dikic