Editorial

The first year of CNF has been completed. The first birthday has been reached after the publication of 3 issues with a total number of 28 manuscripts. Initial steps are always the most difficult and delicate to accomplish when launching a new journal. Our main goal since the very beginning of the journal is quality. We are very happy and thankful with the support received from our CNF Editorial Advisory Board Members as well as from many other scientists throughout the world that have trusted CNF either by submitting manuscripts for publication or by kindly collaborating in the review of the submitted manuscripts, a very important and essential task to guarantee a high scientific quality to the journal. I wish to express my most sincere thanks to all of them for the important collaboration as well as to Miss Samreen Laeeq, the Manager Publications, for the great job she is doing. The editorial team has noticed the good reception that CNF has got in the area and this encourages us to continue our task with more and renovated stimuli. Day by day, the new scientific data improves our knowledge on what we eat, its nutritional composition and how it affects our health. It also supports dietary recommendations for promoting optimal health. But, in addition to professionals, consumers are also receiving better information on the relationship between diet, nutrition and health. The consumer awareness on daily diet and its effect on health is driving food industry towards the production of new foods with different nutritional claims. In this way, food companies are committed to provide healthier foods as demanded by consumers and thus, the number of new food products with healthy claims as well as the number of dietary supplements with any particular nutritional benefit are increasing at a very fast rate. The availability of scientific information constitutes an essential tool for the research and development of all these new foods. The same applies for the research on diets and/or specific nutrients and its relationship with diseases. Sometimes, research findings are somehow contradictory and new further data are required. In most cases, the amount of available information is huge and difficult to compile because the volume of published scientific information on nutrition and food is disperse and growing exponentially in recent years. Furthermore, the information is many times widely spread in the scientific literature making it rather difficult to the interested scientist to reach a clear and rapid conclusion. During 2005, CNF has published reviews on topics of interest in nutrition and food science. Just to mention some of the most interesting published topics, the reviews have dealt with the nutritional influence on diseases like cardiovascular, prostate cancer, anorexia nervosa, celiac disease, inflammation, Alzheimer, muscle disfunction, etc., the modulation of the metabolic syndrome by certain nutrients, parenteral nutrition, and the effect of several food bioactive compounds, like selenoproteins, resveratrol, vitamin E, n-3 PUFA, etc. on health. CNF will publish 4 issues in 2006. The journal will be indexed in Medline and this will facilitate its diffusion and the search of its published articles by any interested scientist. CNF provides reviews on different topics of interest in nutrition and food science, trying to provide an updated state-of-the-art on each focused topic and thus, helping scientists to reach clear ideas about the current knowledge and latest novelties on such topic. I am very confident that CNF will significantly contribute to disseminate interesting, updated and rigorous scientific information on nutrition and food science.