Mandana Arabi

An evolving perspective about the origins of childhood undernutrition and nutritional interventions that includes the gut microbiome

The Sackler Institute for Nutrition Science and the World Health Organization (WHO) have worked together to formulate a research agenda for nutrition science. Undernutrition of children has profound effects on health, development, and achievement of full human capacity. Undernutrition is not simply caused by a lack of food, but results from a complex interplay of intra‐ and intergenerational factors. Representative preclinical models and comprehensive well‐controlled longitudinal clinical studies are needed to further understand the contributions and the interrelationships among these factors and to develop interventions that are effective and durable. This paper summarizes work on mechanisms underlying the varied manifestations of childhood undernutrition and discusses current gaps in knowledge and challenges to our understanding of undernutrition and infection/immunity throughout the human life cycle, focusing on early childhood growth. It proposes a series of basic and clinical studies to address this global health challenge.

Toward an integrated approach to nutritional quality, environmental sustainability, and economic viability: research and measurement gaps

Nutrition is affected by numerous environmental and societal causes. This paper starts with a simple framework based on three domains: nutritional quality, economic viability, and environmental sustainability, and calls for an integrated approach in research to simultaneously account for all three. It highlights limitations in the current understanding of each domain, and how they influence one another. Five research topics are identified: measuring the three domains (nutritional quality, economic viability, environmental sustainability); modeling across disciplines; furthering the analysis of food systems in relation to the three domains; connecting climate change and variability to nutritional quality; and increasing attention to inequities among population groups in relation to the three domains. For an integrated approach to be developed, there is a need to identify and disseminate available metrics, modeling techniques, and tools to researchers, practitioners, and policy makers. This is a first step so that a systems approach that takes into account potential environmental and economic trade‐offs becomes the norm in analyzing nutrition and food‐security patterns. Such an approach will help fill critical knowledge gaps and will guide researchers seeking to define and address specific research questions in nutrition in their wider socioeconomic and environmental contexts.

Technical considerations for maize flour and corn meal fortification in public health: consultation rationale and summary

Fortification is the purposeful addition of vitamins and minerals to foods during their industrial processing, as a way to improve the nutrition and health of populations who consume these foods. Twelve countries have mandatory maize (Zea mays subsp. Mays) flour or meal fortification. The World Health Organization (WHO) is updating evidence‐informed guidelines for the fortification of staple foods in public health, including the fortification of maize flour and corn meal with iron and other micronutrients. Although there is limited experience with fortification of maize, mass fortification of maize flour with at least iron has been practiced for many years in several countries in the Americas and Africa: Brazil, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Kenya, Mexico, Nigeria, Rwanda, South Africa, Tanzania, Uganda, the United States, and Venezuela. The WHO, in collaboration with the Sackler Institute for Nutrition Science and the Flour Fortification Initiative (FFI), convened a consultation on technical considerations for fortification of maize flour and corn meal in public health in New York, New York on April 8–9, 2013 to provide input into the guideline‐development process and to discuss technical considerations of the fortification processes for maize flour and corn meal.

Foreword to Every Child's Potential: Integrating Nutrition and Early Childhood Development Interventions

The Sackler Institute for Nutrition Science at the New York Academy of Sciences is pleased to present this collection of papers, which stems from a partnership with the Global Child Development Group to explore the critical question of how to optimize and fully integrate two highly complementary fields: nutrition and child development. In 2007, the first childhood development series in The Lancet estimated that more than 200 million children under the age of five in lowand middle-income countries were not attaining their development potential. Recent estimates published by UNICEF showed that 165 million children below the age of five were still stunted worldwide. Thus, despite remarkable progress in improving the situation of children and women in the past decade and as the year 2015 approaches—marking the designated endpoint of the current Millennium Development Goals—many researchers in the field hope that such daunting statistics can show further significant improvement through more integrated, synergistic implementation of key early childhood interventions. Hosted by the Sackler Institute for Nutrition Science in 2012, a convening of thought-leaders in the fields of nutrition, early childhood development, public health, economics, and related human development disciplines concluded that studies must determine whether integrated interventions associating nutrition and early childhood development objectives are more effective—and, possibly, more cost-effective—than non-integrated efforts to address suboptimal child growth and development. There was also a need to review evidence on integrated interventions from several disciplines, to observe and document what works (and what does not), to examine what causes interventions either to succeed or fail, and to evaluate whether successful integrated interventions may be brought up to scale within current delivery systems. The Sackler Institute for Nutrition Science consequently initiated a process to engage key authors in developing a series of scholarly papers to address various aspects of these questions. A public conference April 3–4, 2013 at the New York Academy of Sciences, “Every Child’s Potential: Integrating Nutrition, Health, and Psychosocial Interventions to Promote Early Childhood Development,” served as a forum to present papers in advance of publication in Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences. This publication would not have materialized without the leadership and contribution of our late beloved friend and colleague, Patrice L. Engle, to whom we are dedicating the issue, to honor her immense contribution to the advancement of early childhood development and nutrition worldwide. On behalf of the Sackler Institute for Nutrition Science, I would like to express my gratitude to the guest editors Maureen M. Black and Kathryn G. Dewey and all the scientists who contributed to this volume; to Douglas Braaten, editor-in-chief of Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences and executive director of science publications at the New York Academy of Sciences; to Mireille Mclean for managing the project at the Sackler Institute for Nutrition Science, and to the staff of the New York Academy of Sciences for their support of the conferences and other logistics throughout the development, publication, and launch of the issue. Mandana Arabi Executive Director, The Sackler Institute for Nutrition Science The New York Academy of Sciences

An evolving perspective about the origins of childhood undernutrition and nutritional interventions that includes the gut microbiome: Origins of childhood undernutrition and nutritional interventions

The Sackler Institute for Nutrition Science and the World Health Organization (WHO) have worked together to formulate a research agenda for nutrition science. Undernutrition of children has profound effects on health, development, and achievement of full human capacity. Undernutrition is not simply caused by a lack of food, but results from a complex interplay of intra‐ and intergenerational factors. Representative preclinical models and comprehensive well‐controlled longitudinal clinical studies are needed to further understand the contributions and the interrelationships among these factors and to develop interventions that are effective and durable. This paper summarizes work on mechanisms underlying the varied manifestations of childhood undernutrition and discusses current gaps in knowledge and challenges to our understanding of undernutrition and infection/immunity throughout the human life cycle, focusing on early childhood growth. It proposes a series of basic and clinical studies to address this global health challenge.

Issue:A Global Research Agenda for Nutrition Science: An evolving perspective about the origins of childhood undernutrition and nutritional interventions that includes the gut microbiome

The Sackler Institute for Nutrition Science and the World Health Organization (WHO) have worked together to formulate a research agenda for nutrition science. Undernutrition of children has profound effects on health, development, and achievement of full human capacity. Undernutrition is not simply caused by a lack of food, but results from a complex interplay of intra‐ and intergenerational factors. Representative preclinical models and comprehensive well‐controlled longitudinal clinical studies are needed to further understand the contributions and the interrelationships among these factors and to develop interventions that are effective and durable. This paper summarizes work on mechanisms underlying the varied manifestations of childhood undernutrition and discusses current gaps in knowledge and challenges to our understanding of undernutrition and infection/immunity throughout the human life cycle, focusing on early childhood growth. It proposes a series of basic and clinical studies to address this global health challenge.