Preclinical assessment of infant formula.

Infant formulas are the sole or predominant source of nutrition for many infants and are fed during a sensitive period of development and may therefore have short- and long-term consequences for infant health. Preclinical safety assessment therefore needs to include both short-term and long-term studies in animals. It is recommended that procedures are instituted by which experts may serve as independent scientists for companies developing novel products, without having their integrity compromised, and later serve the legislative institutions. A two-level assessment approach to determine the potential toxicity of a novel ingredient, its metabolites, and their effects in the matrix on developing organ systems has been suggested by IOM. This appears reasonable, as novel ingredients can be of different levels of concern. The use of modern methods in genomics and proteomics should be considered in these evaluation processes as well as novel methods to evaluate outcomes, including metabolomics and molecular techniques to assess the microbiome.