ReviewAdvances in nutrition (Bethesda, Md.)2014
Toward a new philosophy of preventive nutrition: from a reductionist to a holistic paradigm to improve nutritional recommendations.
Review in Advances in nutrition (Bethesda, Md.), 2014. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 77 papers, 11 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
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Who cites it
77 citing papers in PubMed, 11 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.
- Traditional place-based diets and their effects on healthy and sustainable food transitions: a systematic literature review.Public health nutrition · 2025Pooled it
- Evolving Research Focus on Diet and Cardiovascular Disease: A Systematic Review of 298 Cohort Studies Published from 2019 to 2024.Nutrients · 2025Pooled it
- Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension (DASH) for the primary and secondary prevention of cardiovascular diseases.The Cochrane database of systematic reviews · 2025Pooled it
- Evidence-Based Dietary Practices to Improve Osteoarthritis Symptoms: An Umbrella Review.Nutrients · 2023Pooled it
- Pooled it
- The effects of dietary patterns and food groups on symptomatic osteoarthritis: A systematic review.Nutrition & dietetics : the journal of the Dietitians Association of Australia · 2023Pooled it
- Dietary Patterns and Obesity in Chinese Adults: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis.Nutrients · 2022Pooled it
- Ultra-processed foods and obesity and adiposity parameters among children and adolescents: a systematic review.European journal of nutrition · 2022Pooled it
- Systematic Review on the Potential Effect of Berry Intake in the Cognitive Functions of Healthy People.Nutrients · 2022Pooled it
- An updated systematic review and meta-analysis on adherence to mediterranean diet and risk of cancer.European journal of nutrition · 2021Pooled it
- Dairy Intake and Acne Vulgaris: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of 78,529 Children, Adolescents, and Young Adults.Nutrients · 2018Pooled it
- Integrating HPLC-determined vitamins A, E and B-complex (BEuropean journal of nutrition · 2026Article
- Beyond Nutrient Profiling: Strengths, Limitations, and Emerging Challenges for Nutri-Score and Related Front-of-Pack Labeling Systems.Nutrients · 2026Review
- We Are in This Together-Advancing the Collaboration Between Nutrition Science and Food Science to Improve Public Health.Journal of food science · 2026Article
- Intake of Fiber From Different Food Sources and Type 2 Diabetes Risk: An Integrated Analysis of Epidemiological and Multiomic Data.Diabetes care · 2026Article
- The Association of Maternal Dietary Patterns With Asthma and Wheeze Diagnosis in Canadian Children.Nutrition bulletin · 2026Article
- The Ability of Vibrational Spectroscopy to Analyze Holistically the Food Matrix-Moving Away from the Concept of Individual Compounds.Methods and protocols · 2026Review
- Shortcomings of food-based dietary guidelines worldwide: a focus on sustainability and food processing issues.Frontiers in nutrition · 2026Article
- Schoolchildren as health promoters: a community strategy for healthy eating and physical activity to reduce nutritional risk.Frontiers in public health · 2026Article
- Impact of Bacterial Fermentation on Phytochemical Profile and Bioactivity ofInternational journal of food science · 2026Article
17 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
2 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
The reductionist approach has been predominant to date in human nutrition research and has unraveled some of the fundamental mechanisms at the basis of food nutrients (e.g., those that involve deficiency diseases). In Western countries, along with progress in medicine and pharmacology, the reductionist approach helped to increase life expectancy. However, despite 40 y of research in nutrition, epidemics of obesity and diabetes are growing each year worldwide, both in developed and developing countries, leading to a decrease in healthy life years. Yet, interactions between nutrition-health relations cannot be modeled on the basis of a linear cause-effect relation between 1 food compound and 1 physiologic effect but rather from multicausal nonlinear relations. In other words, explaining the whole from the specific by a bottom-up reductionist approach has its limits. A top-down approach becomes necessary to investigate complex issues through a holistic view before addressing any specific question to explain the whole. However, it appears that both approaches are necessary and mutually reinforcing. In this review, Eastern and Western research perspectives are first presented, laying out bases for what could be the consequences of applying a reductionist versus holistic approach to research in nutrition vis-à-vis public health, environmental sustainability, breeding, biodiversity, food science and processing, and physiology for improving nutritional recommendations. Therefore, research that replaces reductionism with a more holistic approach will reveal global and efficient solutions to the problems encountered from the field to the plate. Preventive human nutrition can no longer be considered as "pharmacology" or foods as "drugs."
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.