Dietary guidelines and health—is nutrition science up to the task?

History of modern nutrition science

A reasonable birthdate for modern nutrition science is 1932, when vitamin C was first isolated and proved to cure scurvy. Other single nutrient deficiencies were identified in the following decades, including vitamin A and night blindness, vitamin D and rickets, thiamine and beriberi, niacin and pellagra. At the same time, the Great Depression and second world war heightened concern over food shortages. This coincidence of scientific discovery and geopolitics produced a strong focus on single nutrient deficits.

By 1980, less than 50 years later, these diseases had been largely eradicated in wealthier nations through successes in nutrition science and improvements in farming and food production. As chronic diseases such as cancer and heart disease began to take centre stage, the previously successful, reductionist approach to nutrition science was carried forward1: identify the relevant nutrient for a disease, establish its target intake, and translate this as a simple message. Thus, saturated fat and dietary cholesterol became “the” causes of heart disease and …