The evolution of human nutrition

This issue of Current Biology addresses the biology of food. Scientific and public interest in food covers many different perspectives, but since there is no discipline of food, food research tends to be carried out separately in such areas as ecology, physiology, and the neurosciences. The integration promised by Current Biology’s multiple reviews is therefore particularly valuable. Even areas of investigation with such similar interests as the nutritional sciences and evolutionary biology can benefit from a closer working relationship. Strikingly, despite the fact that studies of nutrition and research on human evolution emerged in parallel in the mid-19th century, and that both studies are concerned with biological adaptation including the importance of food, these sciences have such different aims that they have never informed each other richly. While many nutritionists might be interested to know how selection has shaped human dietary needs and adaptability, nevertheless their core concern is the public health problem of ensuring nutritional adequacy. And while evolutionary biologists might use humans as a model organism for some studies, human feeding systems with their meals and cuisine and modern problems of obesity are too different from those of other animals to fit easily into comparisons with other species. Thus, occasional efforts to reconcile nutrition and evolution are to be welcomed, including a book that goes further than any other in pulling the two fields together — Evolving Human Nutrition by Ulijaszek, Mann and Elton [1]. Ulijaszek et al. document variation in nutritional needs and food choice among individuals, populations and species, discuss theories of how human diet has evolved, and combine their review of physiology with societal problems of food distribution, cultural norms and globalization. Yet, despite their thorough approach to seeing human nutrition in broad overview, even they leave a core question Guest editorial