An integrative approach to dietary balance across the life course
David Raubenheimer,
Alistair M. Senior,
Christen Mirth,
Zhenwei Cui,
Rong Hou,
David G. Le Couteur,
Samantha M. Solon-Biet,
Pierre Léopold,
Stephen J. Simpson
Affiliations
David Raubenheimer
The University of Sydney, Charles Perkins Centre and School of Life and Environmental Sciences, Sydney, Australia; Zhengzhou University, Centre for Nutritional Ecology and Centre for Sport Nutrition and Health, Zhengzhou, China; Corresponding author
Alistair M. Senior
The University of Sydney, Charles Perkins Centre and School of Life and Environmental Sciences, Sydney, Australia; The University of Sydney, School of Mathematics and Statistics, Sydney, Australia
Christen Mirth
Monash University, School of Biological Science, Melbourne, Australia
Zhenwei Cui
Zhengzhou University, Centre for Nutritional Ecology and Centre for Sport Nutrition and Health, Zhengzhou, China
Rong Hou
Northwest University, Shaanxi Key Laboratory for Animal Conservation, College of Life Sciences, Xi’an, China
David G. Le Couteur
The University of Sydney, Charles Perkins Centre and Faculty of Medicine and Health, Concord Clinical School, ANZAC Research Institute, Centre for Education and Research on Ageing, Sydney, Australia
Samantha M. Solon-Biet
The University of Sydney, Charles Perkins Centre and School of Medical Sciences, Sydney, Australia
Pierre Léopold
Institut Curie, PSL Research University, CNRS UMR3215, INSERM U934, UPMC Paris-Sorbonne, Paris, France
Stephen J. Simpson
The University of Sydney, Charles Perkins Centre and School of Life and Environmental Sciences, Sydney, Australia; Corresponding author
Summary: Animals require specific blends of nutrients that vary across the life course and with circumstances, e.g., health and activity levels. Underpinning and complicating these requirements is that individual traits may be optimized on different dietary compositions leading to nutrition-mediated trade-offs among outcomes. Additionally, the food environment may constrain which nutrient mixtures are achievable. Natural selection has equipped animals for solving such multi-dimensional, dynamic challenges of nutrition, but little is understood about the details and their theoretical and practical implications. We present an integrative framework, nutritional geometry, which models complex nutritional interactions in the context of multiple nutrients and across levels of biological organization (e.g., cellular, individual, and population) and levels of analysis (e.g., mechanistic, developmental, ecological, and evolutionary). The framework is generalizable across different situations and taxa. We illustrate this using examples spanning insects to primates and settings (laboratory, and the wild), and demonstrate its relevance for human health.
