Skip to main content

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

The unique challenges of studying the genetics of diet and nutrition

Nature Medicine volume 28, pages 221–222 (2022)Cite this article

Subjects

To the Editor — Nutrition science has faced a long-standing challenge of establishing causality for nutritional exposures with chronic health outcomes. In the absence of long-term tightly controlled intervention trials, researchers rely on observational studies — where difficulties in measuring food intake and confounding from other behaviors and environmental factors undermine certainty of the evidence. Many would therefore agree that nutrition science is overdue for a renovation.

Your institute does not have access to this article

Access options

Buy article

Get time limited or full article access on ReadCube.

$32.00

Buy

All prices are NET prices.

Fig. 1: Main methodological considerations of MR studies when implemented for nutritional exposures.

References

  1. Lawlor, D. A. et al. Stat. Med. 27, 1133 (2008).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  2. Hernán, M. A. & Robins, J. M. Causal Inference: What If? (CRC Press, 2021).

  3. Merino, J. et al. Nat. Hum. Behav. (in the press).

  4. Ibsen, D. et al. Am. J. Clin. Nutr. 113, 294 (2021).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  5. Millwood, I. Y. et al. Lancet 393, 1831 (2019).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  6. National Survey of Drug Use and Health (NSDUH) Releases (SAMHSA, 2019); https://www.samhsa.gov/data/release/2019-national-survey-drug-use-and-health-nsduh-releases

  7. Rosoff, D. B. et al. PLoS Med. 17, e1003410 (2020).

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgements

We thank S. Swanson (Erasmus University Rotterdam) and J. Speakman (University of Aberdeen) for their thoughtful contributions to earlier versions of the manuscript. Funding was received from National Institutes of Health grant P30DK40561 (J.M.) and American Diabetes Association grant no. 7-21-JDFM-005 (J.M.).

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Diabetes Unit and Center for Genomic Medicine, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, MA, USA

    Jordi Merino

  2. Programs in Metabolism and Medical & Population Genetics, Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, Cambridge, MA, USA

    Jordi Merino

  3. Department of Medicine, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA

    Jordi Merino

  4. Division of Preventive Medicine, Department of Medicine, Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA

    Deirdre K. Tobias

  5. Nutrition Department, Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health, Boston, MA, USA

    Deirdre K. Tobias

Authors
  1. Jordi Merino
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Deirdre K. Tobias
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Contributions

J.M. and D.K.T. contributed to the original draft and editing of the manuscript.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Deirdre K. Tobias.

Ethics declarations

Competing interests

The authors declare no competing interests.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and Permissions

About this article

Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Merino, J., Tobias, D.K. The unique challenges of studying the genetics of diet and nutrition. Nat Med 28, 221–222 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41591-021-01626-w

Download citation

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41591-021-01626-w

Search

Advanced search

Quick links

Nature Briefing

Sign up for the Nature Briefing newsletter — what matters in science, free to your inbox daily.

Get the most important science stories of the day, free in your inbox. Sign up for Nature Briefing