Artificial intelligence to detect unknown stimulants from scientific literature and media reports. (December 2021)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Gavai, Anand K.; Bouzembrak, Yamine; van den Bulk, Leonieke M.; Liu, Ningjing; van Overbeeke, Lennert F.D.; van den Heuvel, Lukas J.; Mol, Hans; Marvin, Hans J.P.
• Is Part Of: Food control. Volume 130(2021)
• Publication Date: 2021-12
• Subjects: Stimulants -- Enhancers -- Social media -- MedISys -- Word embedding -- Text mining -- Emerging risk; Food -- Quality -- Periodicals; Food -- Analysis -- Periodicals; Food handling -- Periodicals; Food industry and trade -- Quality control -- Periodicals; Aliments -- Industrie et commerce -- Qualité -- Contrôle -- Périodiques; Aliments -- Qualité -- Périodiques; Aliments -- Analyse -- Périodiques; Hygiène alimentaire -- Périodiques; Food -- Analysis; Food handling; Food -- Quality; Periodicals; Electronic journals; 664.07
• DOI: 10.1016/j.foodcont.2021.108360
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0956-7135

Abstract

Abstract: The world market for food supplements is large and is driven by the claims of these products to, for example, treat obesity, increase focus and alertness, decrease appetite, decrease the need for sleep or reduce impulsivity. The use of illegal compounds in food supplements is a continuous threat, certainly because these compounds and products have not been tested for safety by competent authorities. It is therefore of the utmost importance for the competent authorities to know when new products are being marketed and to warn users against potential health risks. In this study, an approach is presented to detect new and unknown stimulants in food supplements using machine learning. Twenty new stimulants were identified from two different data sources, namely scientific literature applying word embedding on > 2 million abstracts and articles from formal and social media on the world wide web using text mining. The results show that the developed approach may be suitable to detect "unknowns" in the emerging risk identification activities performed by the competent authorities, which is currently a major hurdle.