An integrated approach to using precision nutrition, responsive agriculture, and behavioral research to reduce diet-related chronic disease -- scientists with the institute for advancing health…

An integrated approach to using precision nutrition, responsive agriculture, and behavioral research to reduce diet-related chronic disease -- scientists with the institute for advancing health through agriculture (IHA) will collaborate with CO-located USDA, ARS responsive agricultural food systems research unit (RAFSRU) scientists, and with scientists at other ARS and university locations to conduct a broad range of research activities that will address how agriculture, food and human nutrition can promote human health and lower rates of diet-related chronic disease. Agriculture directly influences human health by supplying the foundation of a food system that then provides the basis for human diets, which directly affect nutrition, health, and risk of chronic disease. Responsive agriculture and precision nutrition, two of the three foci of this research agreement, seek to better refine and meet the dietary needs for the U.S. Population and to more carefully tailor the agricultural process to meet those needs. The other foci of this research, healthy living, will quantify the effectiveness of community-centered programs with a similar goal. Diet quality has been shown to affect the health of americans through the maintenance of essential functions and by reducing the risk of chronic disease, which include obesity, certain cancers, heart disease, and type 2 diabetes. The cost of chronic disease in the united states is estimated to be greater than $1 trillion annually. Reducing the risk of these diet-related chronic diseases and, thus, reducing associated health care costs requires a transdisciplinary partnership of scientists working in agriculture, food, and human health. This research effort will employ multi-disciplinary approaches that will integrate agricultural production management, breeding, environmental and economic sustainability, consumer attitudes, and public health/nutrition. Central to this approach is understanding how agriculture affects the nature and abundance of the food supply and, thus, human health, and developing methods to link diverse primary and secondary data sources and decipher the dynamics of complex biological, geographic, seasonal, and socioeconomic interactions within agricultural systems. Specifically, research will be conducted to address the following three foci: precision nutrition: precision nutrition can assist with refining the dietary needs more carefully for the U.S. Population by better understanding individual and population subgroup differences in how diet relates to health. Healthy living: community-centered programs can prevent or minimize diet-related and physical inactivity-related chronic diseases, such as obesity, heart disease, hypertension, and diabetes. Responsive agriculture: there is a need to transform the U.S. Food system from one that primarily addresses hunger to one that focuses on nutrition and health outcomes. A need exists for adapting agriculture and food supply systems to reduce the major gaps that exists in nutrition research at the critical intersection of responsive agriculture, quality food production, and human nutrition and health; with the goal of lowering rates of diet-related chronic disease and reducing health care costs of americans.