Humanity in the Anthropocene faces enormous challenges in terms of the (a) a global population of 8 billion today and 10 billion predicted for 2080; (b) human impact on biodiversity and climate change; and (c) need for a sustainable health care system. Yet, humanity also disposes of powerful knowledge, technologies, and tools to meet these challenges: (a) the converging and mutually beneficial revolutions in bio- and information technology; and – despite remaining shortcomings – (b) the increasing international cooperation in science, economics, and politics (as evidenced in COVID vaccine development and distribution). Nutrition stands at both the forefront and the center of these opportunities to deliver better human, animal, and planetary health by facilitating (a) sustainable global food and feed supply for populations; (b) personalized and precision nutrition for enhanced individual health; and (c) unlocking the wealth of natural bioactives.
Nutrition needs to sustain human life, enhance health, and help prevent disease. Nutrition should furthermore prolong human healthspan in view of extended life span ("not only adding years to life but also life to years") and improve individual well-being. While doing that, it should sustainably use planetary resources and minimize the irreparable impact on the environment and climate. To meet these seemingly overwhelming and possibly conflicting challenges, nutrition science is (i) advancing towards a translational systems science supporting: (ii) a sustainable food system "from farm to fork"; (iii) an efficient yet affordable health care system; and (iv) nutritional and dietary strategies tailored to different ethnicities, consumer, and patient groups. A sustainable food system requires enhanced leverage of the plant kingdom for macronutrients, in particular the typically animal-derived protein, and for micronutrients and bioactive compounds. Efficient yet affordable health care means the inclusion of (medical, clinical) nutrition and prevention as a complement to pharmaceutical repair and cure. Tailored nutrition requires translational and comparable clinical studies with deeply phenotyped subjects, representative of population groups.
We welcome compelling science contributions addressing sustainable nutrition and healthcare as well as translational nutrition studies. (i) To consolidate nutrition as a systems science, we encourage contributions from systems biology and data science that facilitate understanding and influencing complex biological entities and physiological contexts in their entireties. (ii) To leverage the plant kingdom for nutritious protein, micronutrients and bioactives, we invite articles about e.g. plant proteomics and peptidomics and artificial intelligence- and bioinformatics-driven discovery and validation of plant-derived bioactives. (iii) To facilitate a sustainable health care system, we welcome submissions about how diet can help maintain health and prevent disease, with a special emphasis on nutritionally actionable chronic conditions such as metabolic, immune, gastrointestinal, and microbiome imbalances. (iv) To promote translational and comparable nutrition studies, we solicit research based on novel longitudinal, (aggregated) n-of-1, observational or interventional, and challenge trials that establish health trajectories and thereby deliver early biomarkers for disease prevention. Such studies should recruit deeply phenotyped subjects with holistically captured molecular, clinical, and environmental factors influencing individual health and predisposition to disease. We prefer original research, but will also accept reviews, perspectives, and opinions.
Humanity in the Anthropocene faces enormous challenges in terms of the (a) a global population of 8 billion today and 10 billion predicted for 2080; (b) human impact on biodiversity and climate change; and (c) need for a sustainable health care system. Yet, humanity also disposes of powerful knowledge, technologies, and tools to meet these challenges: (a) the converging and mutually beneficial revolutions in bio- and information technology; and – despite remaining shortcomings – (b) the increasing international cooperation in science, economics, and politics (as evidenced in COVID vaccine development and distribution). Nutrition stands at both the forefront and the center of these opportunities to deliver better human, animal, and planetary health by facilitating (a) sustainable global food and feed supply for populations; (b) personalized and precision nutrition for enhanced individual health; and (c) unlocking the wealth of natural bioactives.
Nutrition needs to sustain human life, enhance health, and help prevent disease. Nutrition should furthermore prolong human healthspan in view of extended life span ("not only adding years to life but also life to years") and improve individual well-being. While doing that, it should sustainably use planetary resources and minimize the irreparable impact on the environment and climate. To meet these seemingly overwhelming and possibly conflicting challenges, nutrition science is (i) advancing towards a translational systems science supporting: (ii) a sustainable food system "from farm to fork"; (iii) an efficient yet affordable health care system; and (iv) nutritional and dietary strategies tailored to different ethnicities, consumer, and patient groups. A sustainable food system requires enhanced leverage of the plant kingdom for macronutrients, in particular the typically animal-derived protein, and for micronutrients and bioactive compounds. Efficient yet affordable health care means the inclusion of (medical, clinical) nutrition and prevention as a complement to pharmaceutical repair and cure. Tailored nutrition requires translational and comparable clinical studies with deeply phenotyped subjects, representative of population groups.
We welcome compelling science contributions addressing sustainable nutrition and healthcare as well as translational nutrition studies. (i) To consolidate nutrition as a systems science, we encourage contributions from systems biology and data science that facilitate understanding and influencing complex biological entities and physiological contexts in their entireties. (ii) To leverage the plant kingdom for nutritious protein, micronutrients and bioactives, we invite articles about e.g. plant proteomics and peptidomics and artificial intelligence- and bioinformatics-driven discovery and validation of plant-derived bioactives. (iii) To facilitate a sustainable health care system, we welcome submissions about how diet can help maintain health and prevent disease, with a special emphasis on nutritionally actionable chronic conditions such as metabolic, immune, gastrointestinal, and microbiome imbalances. (iv) To promote translational and comparable nutrition studies, we solicit research based on novel longitudinal, (aggregated) n-of-1, observational or interventional, and challenge trials that establish health trajectories and thereby deliver early biomarkers for disease prevention. Such studies should recruit deeply phenotyped subjects with holistically captured molecular, clinical, and environmental factors influencing individual health and predisposition to disease. We prefer original research, but will also accept reviews, perspectives, and opinions.
