Kirsten Pilegaard
Senior adviser
DTU National Food Institute
Research Group for Risk-Benefit
Henrik Dams Allé
Building 201 Room 120
2800 Kgs. Lyngby
Danmark
Bioactive constituents Botanical Mushroom Food supplement Food toxicology Natural toxin Novel food Plant
Plants and mushrooms contain various bioactive constituents that may exert both potential beneficial and potential toxic effects on human health. I'm especially interested in the toxic effect of bioactive constituents. I advice the national food authorities (Danish Veterinary and Food Administration) on safety of natural toxins in plants and mushrooms used as food, in novel foods and on botanicals used as ingredients in food supplements. The evaluations on plants/botanicals used in food supplement have been published in the in the so-called Drogeliste. I have participated in various EFSA (European Food Safety Authority) working groups e.g. dealing with development of a guidance document for assessing the safety of botanicals used in food suplements and gathering information for a compendium on botanicals and their constituents with toxic effects. My scientific background is in toxicology and quantitative pathology.