L’Express has placed the defense of rationality at the heart of its DNA. This is why, every week, we highlight the benefits that research bring to society, without ever hesitating to make our contribution to the fight against scientific disinformation. We have chosen, this year again, to extend this commitment by supporting researchers who share these fights thanks to a dedicated event: the Awards for Science and Health Personalities.
Did you know that Actimel contains so much, or even more sugar than a soda ? This earned him a mediocre note, D, during the last update of the Nutri-Score. The news did not please the Danone group. The industrialist, known to communicate largely on his commitment to health, has Simply withdrawn The Nutri-Score indication of his drinking yogurts.
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This episode illustrates the persistence of attacks against the nutrition logo launched in 2017 by Professor Serge Hercberg, who passed the torch in 2019 in Mathilde Touvier. Their team, which brings together researchers from CNAM, INSERM, INRAE and Sorbonne Paris Nord University, has faced, since the adventure, a reluctant agrifood industry, not to say hostile, in their approach. Inform consumers about what they eat and drink, even if it means pointing “bad” foods, visibly displeases some. Despite more than 150 scientific publications showing the interest of Nutri-Score to improve health, and despite a Report signed by 320 scientists from around the worldthe European Commission has still not rendered the system compulsory. The fault of industrial pressure groups.
The 5 categories of Nutri-Score, from dark green to red, are defined by an algorithm calculating the composition of a food or a drink. They offer a precious benchmark for consumers and a solid scientific base for applications like Open Food Facts, which everyone can download for free on their smartphone. Adopted in six other countries -Germany, Spain, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg -, the famous five -colored label has become “an essential component of public health action for feeding food”, welcomes Serge Hercberg, epidemiologist and nutritionist, whose research had previously been at the origin of the campaign “5 fruits and vegetables per day”. This Polish emigrant grandson was marked by his two years of cooperation in El Jadida, Morocco, in 1975-1976. An experience which he describes as “terribly painful”. “We felt helpless in the face of serious situations of malnutrition and undernutrition,” he said. Back in France, he “discovers his vocation” as an epidemiologist of nutrition in public health during his studies at the Faculty of Medicine of Pitié Salpêtrière, following the professor’s courses Henri Dupin.
“With our work, we have given power to consumers and forced manufacturers to change their offer,” confirms her sister Mathilde Touvier, research director in nutritional epidemiology at Inserm. The stakes are high: according to A scientific article Posted in September in the Lancet Regional Health-Europe,, The consumption of poorly classified food in Nutri-Score is associated with an increased risk of cardiovascular disease. According to the OECD, which published an eloquent report on the subject last year, its Generalization on a European level would avoid two million diseases by 2050, would decrease health spending and increase the number of people who are able to work. “I hesitated, for my studies, between public health and medicine. In the second case, I would have saved perhaps one person per day. Our work can save thousands of lives,” says Mathilde Touvier.
“Economic powers have mobilized against Nutri-Score”
Nutri-score has made a place on the shelves of supermarkets, and even In the Larousse dictionary. However, his saga was immediately that of a confrontation between a group of scientists and food giants as powerful as Mars or Lactalis. Mastodons with colossal financial interests. “At the start of the adventure, representatives of the sector wrote to the Ministries of Health, Agriculture and the Economy to request the suspension of our work. Fortunately, in our country, such an attempt at obstruction does not succeed,” recalls Mathilde Touvier, rewarded with the research price of INSERM (2019), that of the Bettencourt Foundation (2021), as well as by funding of 2 million euros European Research Council (ERC).
Serge Hercberg relates their fight and the hard blows they had to take in his book Eat and shut up (Humensciences, 2022). “Economic powers have mobilized to block, delay or distort public health measures that we recommend. The fight is completely uneven, but we have science with us and we benefit from the support of the company: health professionals, consumer and patient associations, NGOs, the media …”, estimates the 74 -year -old teacher. He nevertheless continues to receive personal attacks, anti -Semitic insults and death threats on social networks.
The adoption of the label, for the time to be optional, still depends on the goodwill of the manufacturers. How to go further? A few months agomore than a thousand scientists and health professionals have called, in a column, to make the Nutri-Score compulsory in France. Above all, an showdown is engaged with the European Commission, whose strategy Farm to fork (from the farm to the fork) provides for the compulsory implementation of a simplified nutritional labeling, for which the Nutri-Score is favorite. But the president of the Council Giorgia Meloni reproach him harm traditional Italian products. Subject to the pressure of Rome, the new procrastin commission.
“We won’t let go”
Frustrations like this, Serge Hercberg and Mathilde Touvier have known a lot. Failures, too. Their pleads to tax junk food, for example, or to regulate food advertising, have not succeeded. Not enough to discourage the two scientists, whose team has grown and now has a hundred people – researchers, dietitians and other statisticians who decipher their cohort Nutrine-Santé Composed of some 180,000 participants. “We are going in the direction of history. The lobbies may be able to postpone public health measures like the Nutri-Score by a few months or years, but not to prevent them,” wants to believe Serge Hercberg. “The steamroller of public opinion and the media is launched. As for us, we will not let go”, adds Mathilde Touvier, who compares the disinformation strategy of the food industry to that of the tobacco industry.
This 45 -year -old researcher, from Var, is also interested in another essential part of the quality of our meals: ultra -formed food, which represent a third of the energy contribution in France. She would like to integrate this important data into the Nutri-Score, for example in the form of a black banner. Last year, his team highlighted a link between emulsifying additives, sweeteners, nitrites and cancer development, cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes and hypertension.
Work executioner, she also has Launched last month [MOU2] A new study, this time devoted to contaminants from packaging. “There are more than 12,000 chemical compounds that can enter the composition of materials in contact with food, but there is almost nothing of their impact on health,” points out Mathilde Touvier. One more challenge for our two scientists.
An article in our special file “Personalities of L’Expresss the 2025 prices for science and health”, published on March 13.