Over the years, people have viewed the health benefits of vitamins and nutrients found in food individually. Most nutrition studies have isolated beta carotene, calcium,vitamin E, lycopene, omega-3, among other nutrients, to study its individual health benefits in the body. However, the disappointing results of various research studies only strengthened the growing belief that there is more to food and diet than just the sum of its nutrient parts. David R. Jacobs, a professor of epidemiology at the University of Minnesota, argues in a recent commentary for the Nutrition Reviews journal that nutrition researchers should focus on whole foods rather than only on single nutrients. We argue for a need to return to food as the source of nutrition knowledge. Dr. Jacobs co-authored the article with Linda C. Tapsell, a nutrition researcher at the University of Wollongong in Australia.
According to Dr. Jacobs, nutrition science needs to consider the effects of food synergy — the notion that the health benefits of certain foods arent likely to come from a single nutrient but rather combinations of compounds that work better together than apart. Every food is much more...