Our food highlights just how closely the health of humans, animals, plants and the environment is interlinked. The soil in which the grain grows, the water in which fish live, and the animals from which milk, eggs and meat come: whatever happens there has an impact right up to our plates. At the symposium ‘One Health – Healthy Together: People, Animals, Environment’, leading experts from several Austrian universities and AGES shed light on these interconnections.
“As a health-focused university, we train the next generation of doctors and healthcare professionals to think in an integrated way about humans, animals and the environment,” said Andrea Olschewski, Vice-Chancellor of the Karl Landsteiner Private University. “Nutrition is where medicine, the environment and agriculture converge. If you want to keep people healthy, you need to understand what’s in their food, where it comes from and under what conditions it is produced.”
“Nowhere is One Health more tangible than in our food. Throughout the food chain, from farm to fork, it becomes clear just how closely the health of humans, animals, plants and the environment is interconnected,” emphasised Johannes Pleiner-Duxneuner, Managing Director of the Austrian Agency for Health and Food Safety (AGES). “That is why One Health is more than just a concept for us: it is the foundation for working together with national and European partners on healthy and sustainable agricultural and food systems.”
From farm to fork
The symposium in Krems brought together medical and veterinary professionals, as well as agricultural, environmental and water scientists.
It all starts with the soil: up to 80 per cent of the world’s crops contain measurable traces of mycotoxins. Climate change is exacerbating the problem here too, as Rudolf Krska (BOKU) made clear in his presentation. (Drinking) water resources play an equally central role: these are no longer available in inexhaustible quantities at all times and in all places, emphasised Andreas Farnleitner (Vienna University of Technology and Karl Landsteiner Private University, ICC Water & Health). Together with Regina Sommer (MedUni Vienna, ICC Water & Health), she will examine the importance of safe water for human consumption, right through to water hygiene in healthcare facilities.
Martin Kainz (University of Applied Sciences Krems) illustrated the interconnection between water bodies, animals and nutrition using the example of the Waldviertel carp: A 200-gram portion can provide more omega-3 fatty acids than the WHO’s daily recommendation – provided the pond ecosystem remains intact. AGES expert Johanna Keßner presented the AquaFeed project, which investigates how fish feed can be produced regionally and sustainably in Austria, whilst utilising fish by-products in line with the principles of the circular economy. Petra Weiermayer (University of Witten/Herdecke) highlighted the role of integrative veterinary medicine in the One Health approach.
Once it reaches our plates, all of this has an effect on humans. Environmental stress alters plants right down to the level of their proteins and can thus also influence their biological properties, explained Victor Zevallos (Karl Landsteiner Private University). Sepp Fegerl (klu Academy) demonstrated how diet, the gut, the liver, the microbiome and the immune system interact. For Kurt Widhalm (MedUni Vienna), diet plays a key role in climate protection: around 20 per cent of greenhouse gas emissions in Austria are attributable to it. He therefore called for less meat and a greater focus on regional and seasonal produce.
The complexity of these interrelationships is illustrated by antibiotic resistance, which Wolfgang Graninger (MedUni Vienna) examined from a human medicine perspective. Resistance genes can also enter agricultural soils via manure and circulate between the environment, animals and humans, explained Markus Wögerbauer (AGES). The cycle is completed via wastewater: Claudia Kolm (Karl Landsteiner Private University, ICC Water & Health) presented a new EU directive which will, in future, require the mandatory monitoring of antimicrobial resistance in municipal wastewater from large urban areas.
The symposium thus demonstrated that healthy eating begins long before food reaches our plates.