Research needs in human nutrition.

The NICHD (National Institute of Child Health and Human Development) supports research related to nutrition and human development. Nutrition science had by the mid-1930s revealed almost all of the essential nutrients and the approximate amount of each necessary to prevent poor nutrition which in turn led to the assembly of data necessary for the recommendation of daily dietary allowances of essential nutrients. Advancing knowledge in nutrition has eliminated deficiencies resulting in pellagra beri-beri scurvy; on the other hand some of the leading causes of death in the U.S. heart disease cancer stroke diabetes are thought to be related to diet. Nutritional research today focuses on individual requirements recognizing a variety of internal and external factors affecting dietary requirements; such factors may be the genetic and ethnic background sex factors presence of disease or type of occupation. Another challenge for nutritional scientists is to define the nutritional elements of some chronic killing and crippling diseases. There is a need for a broader definition of the science of nutrition one which will take into account not only the role of food in the growth and maintainance of the organism and in the prevention and therapy of disease and disability but also the nature of the foods as related to biologic cultural and psychologic characteristics. Current research in nutrition focuses on protein and caloric requirements during pregnancy on infant feeding especially as related to breast feeding on nutritional needs of infants and children who require parenteral nutrition on the effects of dietary deficiency on the impairment of the immune system on inborn errors of metabolism and on the prevention of digestive diseases that begin in the early stages of life. An exapanded program sponsored by NICHD will complement the geography and population genetics. It will focus on the nutritional needs of ethnic and cultural groups and on the cause of obesity as a dietary.