Nutrition research to affect food and a healthy life span

Advances in Nutrition: …, 2012

Nutrition research, ranging from molecular to population levels and all points along this spectrum, is exploring new frontiers as new technologies and societal changes create new possibilities and demands. This paper defines a set of frontiers at the population level that are being created by the increased societal recognition of the importance of nutrition; its connection to urgent health, social, and environmental problems; and the need for effective and sustainable solutions at the population level. The frontiers are defined in terms of why, what, who, and how we study at the population level and the disciplinary foundations for that research. The paper provides illustrations of research along some of these frontiers, an overarching framework for population nutrition research, and access to some of the literature from outside of nutrition that can enhance the intellectual coherence, practical utility, and societal benefit of population nutrition research. The frontiers defined in this paper build on earlier forward-looking efforts by the American Society for Nutrition and extend these efforts in significant ways. The American Society for Nutrition and its members can play pivotal roles in advancing these frontiers by addressing a number of well-recognized challenges associated with transdisciplinary and engaged research. Adv. Nutr. 4: 92-114, 2013.

The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, 2020

Background The US faces remarkable food and nutrition challenges. A new federal effort to strengthen and coordinate nutrition research could rapidly generate the evidence base needed to address these multiple national challenges. However, the relevant characteristics of such an effort have been uncertain. Objectives Our aim was to provide an objective, informative summary of 1) the mounting diet-related health burdens facing our nation and corresponding economic, health equity, national security, and sustainability implications; 2) the current federal nutrition research landscape and existing mechanisms for its coordination; 3) the opportunities for and potential impact of new fundamental, clinical, public health, food and agricultural, and translational scientific discoveries; and 4) the various options for further strengthening and coordinating federal nutrition research, including corresponding advantages, disadvantages, and potential executive and legislative considerations. Met...

Frontiers in pharmacology, 2016

Improving health through better nutrition of the population may contribute to enhanced efficiency and sustainability of healthcare systems. A recent expert meeting investigated in detail a number of methodological aspects related to the discipline of nutrition economics. The role of nutrition in health maintenance and in the prevention of non-communicable diseases is now generally recognised. However, the main scope of those seeking to contain healthcare expenditures tends to focus on the management of existing chronic diseases. Identifying additional relevant dimensions to measure and the context of use will become increasingly important in selecting and developing outcome measurements for nutrition interventions. The translation of nutrition-related research data into public health guidance raises the challenging issue of carrying out more pragmatic trials in many areas where these would generate the most useful evidence for health policy decision-making. Nutrition exemplifies all the types of interventions and policy which need evaluating across the health field. There is a need to start actively engaging key stakeholders in order to collect data and to widen health technology assessment approaches for achieving a policy shift from evidence-based medicine to evidence-based decision-making in the field of nutrition.

Nutrition Bulletin, 2016

On 26 April 2016, the British Nutrition Foundation (BNF) held a half-day conference in London on 'Nutrition sciencepast, present and future'. This began by considering the dramatic changes that have influenced diets over the past 25 years in relation to government policy, the food supply, food in schools and communications. Dietary surveys, particularly the National Diet and Nutrition Survey, have allowed the nation's dietary intake to be monitored over this period. These surveys have played an important role in supporting science and policy, and highlighted changes and trends in nutrient intakes and status of the UK population over the past 25 years. In terms of health, there has been a dramatic increase in average life expectancy globally during the 20th century and the conference considered recent advances in understanding of the ageing process, epigenetics and nutrition across the life-course. A number of lifestyle factors are recognised to influence risk of chronic diseases in later life. For example, dietary recommendations reflect the link between fat, particularly saturated fatty acids, and cardiovascular disease, although this has been widely debated in recent years. The conference concluded with considerations to what the future might hold for nutrition, as we grapple with decisions about what to grow and produce to ensure sustainability of the food supply in the face of likely climate change and a growing and more prosperous global population.

Advances in Nutrition: An International Review Journal, 2014

Cuts to the NIH budget decreased funding for nutrition research. It is even more necessary now to understand and elevate the role of nutrition research at the NIH. This symposium shed light on where nutrition research stands today and what the future holds for nutrition research at the NIH. In his introduction, the ASN president shared an overview of nutrition research at the NIH and a description of what the ASN is doing to advance the future of nutrition research. Nutrition program directors from various NIH institutes and offices, including the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Disease, the National Cancer Institute, and the Office of Dietary Supplements, discussed nutrition research advances supported by past and present federal funding and highlighted nutrition research opportunities through forthcoming funding opportunity announcements of interest to ASN members.

Frontiers in Nutrition

Research in the field of sustainable and healthy nutrition is calling for the application of the latest advances in seemingly unrelated domains such as complex systems and network sciences on the one hand and big data and artificial intelligence on the other. This is because the confluence of these fields, whose methodologies have experienced explosive growth in the last few years, promises to solve some of the more challenging problems in sustainable and healthy nutrition, i.e., integrating food and behavioral-based dietary guidelines. Focusing here primarily on nutrition and health, we discuss what kind of methodological shift is needed to open current disciplinary borders to the methods, languages, and knowledge of the digital era and a system thinking approach. Specifically, we advocate for the adoption of interdisciplinary, complex-systems-based research to tackle the huge challenge of dealing with an evolving interdependent system in which there are multiple scales—from the me...

Philosophical Transactions of …, 2003

Sequencing of the human genome has opened the door to the most exciting new era for nutritional science. It is now possible to study the underlying mechanisms for diet-health relationships, and in the near future dietary advice (and possibly tailored food products) for promoting optimal health could be provided on an individual basis, in relation to genotype and lifestyle. The role of food in human evolution is briefly reviewed, from palaeolithic times to modern-day hunter-gatherer societies. The aetiology of 'diseases of modern civilization', such as diabetes, heart disease and cancer, and the effect of changes in dietary patterns are discussed. The risk of disease is often associated with common single nucleotide polymorphisms, but the effect is dependent on dietary intake and nutritional status, and is often more apparent in intervention studies employing a metabolic challenge. To understand the link between diet and health, nutritional research must cover a broad range of areas, from molecular to whole body studies, and is an excellent example of integrative biology, requiring a systems biology approach. The annual cost to the National Health Service of diet-related diseases is estimated to be in excess of £15 billion, and although diet is a key component of any preventative strategy, it is not given the prominence it deserves. For example, less than 1% of the £1.6 billion budget for coronary heart disease is spent on prevention. The polygenic and multifactorial nature of chronic diseases requires substantial resources but the potential rewards, in terms of quality of life and economics, are enormous. It is timely therefore to consider investing in a long-term coordinated national programme for nutrition research, combining nutritional genomics with established approaches, to improve the health of individuals and of the nation.

PloS one, 2017

The question of which factors drive human eating and nutrition is a key issue in many branches of science. We describe the creation, evaluation, and updating of an interdisciplinary, interactive, and evolving "framework 2.0" of Determinants Of Nutrition and Eating (DONE). The DONE framework was created by an interdisciplinary workgroup in a multiphase, multimethod process. Modifiability, relationship strength, and population-level effect of the determinants were rated to identify areas of priority for research and interventions. External experts positively evaluated the usefulness, comprehensiveness, and quality of the DONE framework. An approach to continue updating the framework with the help of experts was piloted. The DONE framework can be freely accessed (http://uni-konstanz.de/DONE) and used in a highly flexible manner: determinants can be sorted, filtered and visualized for both very specific research questions as well as more general queries. The dynamic nature of ...