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ARS Home » Northeast Area » Boston, Massachusetts » Jean Mayer Human Nutrition Research Center On Aging » Research » Publications at this Location » Publication #208391

Title: Nutritional Epidemiology

Author
item Tucker, Katherine

Submitted to: Encyclopedia of Epidemiology
Publication Type: Book / Chapter
Publication Acceptance Date: 1/21/2007
Publication Date: 12/19/2007
Citation: Tucker, K. 2007. Nutritional Epidemiology. In: Boslaugh, S., editor. Encyclopedia of Epidemiology. Volume 2. Los Angeles, CA: Sage Publications, Inc. pg. 750-754.

Interpretive Summary:

Technical Abstract: Although observations on relationships between diet and health have always been recognized—the systematic science of nutritional epidemiology in populations is relatively recent. Important observations propelling the field of nutrition forward were numerous in the 18th and 19th centuries, as it was recognized that deficiencies in certain classes of foods led to important diseases like scurvy, rickets, pellagra and beriberi. This was followed by the rapid sequential discovery of the vitamins in the early 20th century. Since then, the focus of diet and health has shifted to include the problems of obesity and the role of diet on chronic disease risk. Just as the parent field of epidemiology is defined as the investigation of the frequency, distribution and risk factors influencing disease in populations, nutritional epidemiology may be defined as the frequency and distribution of nutritional related diseases as well as the relation of nutritional intake and status to disease outcomes.