ABSTRACT

Nutritional epidemiology is defined as the study of the nutritional determinants of disease in human populations.

The function of nutritional epidemiology is to identify and study associations between diet and disease in defined populations. Although it originally focused on nutrient deficiency diseases, contemporary nutritional epidemiology concentrates on the study of heart disease, cancer, diabetes, osteoporosis, and neural tube defects (NTDs). These irreversible chronic conditions have multiple causes, long latency periods, occur with relatively low frequency (despite a substantial cumulative lifetime risk), and are associated with excessive as well as insufficient intake of nutrients and other food factors.