Year: 2011
Type: other
Abstract: The American journalist Michael Pollan has said 'Nutrition science is […] a flawed science that knows much less than it cares to admit'. 1 Nutrition scientists are familiar with such denunciations of their field, but there are serious scholars who share Pollan's concern.2,3 Often, yesterday's miracle food turns out to be not so great today.Think of low-fat high-carbohydrate diets and obesity, beta-carotene and cancer, or antioxidants and heart disease.All turned out not to work; beta-carotene even increased cancer rates.How could this happen?And how can we create nutrition knowledge that will stand the test of time? Vitamins and the power of reductionist scienceNutrition became a science through the discovery of the vitamins.The approach there was strictly reductionist.Diseases like scurvy, beri-beri and rickets were traced back to a single substance in foods which in small amounts prevented or cured the disease.I myself became involved in nutrition through vitamin A and its effects on children's eyes.I am a physical chemist and biochemist by training, [4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11] and I strayed into nutrition because of a Chinese doctor.Almost 40 years ago doctor The Sie Po, the director of Saint Elisabeth hospital in Medan, wrote a letter to his Alma Mater, the University of Amsterdam.He was looking for help to start up a department of biochemistry at the Medical School of the University of Northern Sumatra.Prof. Piet Borst responded, and helped him and his colleagues to set up teaching and research.That research dealt with vitamin A deficiency and blindness in children.At the time, I was a Ph.D. student in Piet Borst's laboratory, where I studied the biogenesis of mitochondria in yeast.When help was needed to set up an assay for vitamin A binding protein for the Medan project, I volunteered.The idea that my biochemistry skills might keep children from going blind was irresistible.Thus started my journey into nutrition.
Authors: M.B. Katan, Vu
Language: English
Subfield: Food Science
Domain: Life Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W2136094510