About this Research Topic
"Let food be thy medicine" - a mantra famously attributed to Hippocrates - captures the central role of nutrition and dietary patterns in human health. Not only is the food we consume linked to prevention of diseases of dietary deficiency such as scurvy, pellagra, and Kwashiorkor, so too is it related to diseases of caloric abundance, such as type 2 diabetes, obesity, and hypertension. Moreover, patterns of food consumption are increasingly linked to restoration of health and maintenance of disease-free states following diagnoses such as cardiovascular disease, stroke, and cancer. Finally, our ever-expanding knowledge of the human microbiome's role in health and disease continues to implicate patterns of food consumption to microbial diversity and function, and their impact on mood, cognitive status, and metabolic health. Never has the scientific examination of Hippocrates' famous tenet been more timely and needed. Food As Medicine is complementary to the field of lifestyle medicine, which promotes health behavior change across six domains, including nutrition, exercise, sleep, stress, or substance use/exposure to prevent, treat, and potentially reverse lifestyle-related, chronic disease.
In this Research Topic, we holistically examine the role of nutrition and dietary patterns on health and disease states at the individual, community, and population levels. We aim to synthesize the current state of knowledge in the Food As Medicine arena, and highlight effective nutrition-based interventions while also elucidating gaps in our understanding and identifying scientific strategies to close them. The methods used in this Research Topic will be representative across evidentiary pathways and will include illustrative cases, systematic topical reviews, cohort studies, intervention trials, and expert commentary. One core goal for this issue is to attract high-quality, original research demonstrating improvements in intermediate health metrics or hard endpoints based on nutrition interventions administered to individuals with the current illnesses. The Research Topic will additionally propose approaches to operationalize and validate effective tools and strategies at a population and health care systems level.
We are accepting papers on the themes of diet and sustainability; dietary assessment methods; benefits of nutrition education on nutrition literacy and dietary quality among individual patients; health benefits from nutrition interventions among patients diagnosed with chronic conditions; clinical practice tools and implementation of food as medicine such as with medically tailored meals or produce prescription programs; economics of food as medicine interventions; and the intersection of food as medicine with lifestyle medicine. We are accepting article types that include clinical trials, methods and protocol papers, policy and practice reviews, systematic reviews and meta-analyses, case reports, perspectives, policy briefs, and narrative reviews.
In this Research Topic, we holistically examine the role of nutrition and dietary patterns on health and disease states at the individual, community, and population levels. We aim to synthesize the current state of knowledge in the Food As Medicine arena, and highlight effective nutrition-based interventions while also elucidating gaps in our understanding and identifying scientific strategies to close them. The methods used in this Research Topic will be representative across evidentiary pathways and will include illustrative cases, systematic topical reviews, cohort studies, intervention trials, and expert commentary. One core goal for this issue is to attract high-quality, original research demonstrating improvements in intermediate health metrics or hard endpoints based on nutrition interventions administered to individuals with the current illnesses. The Research Topic will additionally propose approaches to operationalize and validate effective tools and strategies at a population and health care systems level.
We are accepting papers on the themes of diet and sustainability; dietary assessment methods; benefits of nutrition education on nutrition literacy and dietary quality among individual patients; health benefits from nutrition interventions among patients diagnosed with chronic conditions; clinical practice tools and implementation of food as medicine such as with medically tailored meals or produce prescription programs; economics of food as medicine interventions; and the intersection of food as medicine with lifestyle medicine. We are accepting article types that include clinical trials, methods and protocol papers, policy and practice reviews, systematic reviews and meta-analyses, case reports, perspectives, policy briefs, and narrative reviews.
Keywords: Food as Medicine, nutrition, chronic diseases, dietary intervention, lifestyle intervention, micronutrients
Important Note: All contributions to this Research Topic must be within the scope of the section and journal to which they are submitted, as defined in their mission statements. Frontiers reserves the right to guide an out-of-scope manuscript to a more suitable section or journal at any stage of peer review.
