History of Nutrition: History and Current Status of

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with Samuel W. Johnson, who was trained in Liebig's. Munich laboratory and ... grant from the Mead Johnson Nutrition Group, Bristol-Meyers. Squibb Company ...
Symposium

History of Nutrition: History and Current Status Research in Human Energy Metabolism1'2

of

BÃœFORD L. NICHOLS, JR.* AND PETER J. REEDS U.S. Department of Agriculture/Agricultural Research Service Children's Nutrition Research Center, Department of Pediatrics, Baylor College of Medicine and Texas Children's Hospital, Houston, TX 77030

0022-3166/91

$3.00 ©1991 American

Institute

of Nutrition.

to those of a nutrition community concerned with total nitrogen and carbon balance and expenditure. His concepts were actively pursued in the United States by a graduate of the Sheffield School, Elmer McCollum (4). McCollum's work led to the discovery of several of the fat-soluble and water-soluble vi tamins (5). He wrote, "It seems logical to close this history of ideas with the year 1940. Essentially that year marks the achievement of the primary objectives set by pioneers in this field of study. They sought to discover what, in terms of chemical substances, con stituted an adequate diet for man and domestic animals, and that purpose was realized" (6). A subsequent golden age of biochemistry resulted from the abiUty to define the organic chemical trans formations in the body. Intermediary metabolism became the replacement for Chittenden's physio logical chemistry (7). In turn, molecular biology has replaced intermediary metaboUsm as we explore the production and regulation of enzyme actions in the "minute workshops" that make up the Ufe of the body (8).Today we know that the carbon and nitrogen in food are constituents of macromolecules that

'Presented as part of a symposium, "History of Nutrition: History and Current Status of Human Energy Metabolism," at the annual meeting of the American Insti tute of Nutrition, Washington DC, April 1-5, 1990. The symposium was supported in part by a grant from the Mead Johnson Nutrition Group, Bristol-Meyers Squibb Company, Evansville, IN. Guest editors were Buford L. Nichols, Jr. and Peter J. Reeds. 2This is a publication of the U.S. Department of Agriculture/ Agricultural Research Service Children's Nutrition Research Center, Department of Pediatrics, Baylor College of Medicine and Texas Children's Hospital, Houston, TX. This project was funded in part with federal funds from the Agricultural Research Service under cooperative agreement number 58-7MOZ-1-001. The con tents of this publication do not necessarily reflect the views or policies of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, nor does mention of trade names, commercial products or organizations imply en dorsement by the U.S. government. 'To whom correspondence should be addressed.

Received 21 September 1990. Accepted 30 April 1991. J. Nut. 121: 1889-1890.

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Research on carbon metabolism began in France with the work of Antoine Lavoisier whose discovery that carbon was oxidized in the body as it is in a burning flame led to quantitative studies that com pared CO2 production with heat production. Since that time the physics and chemistry of carbon metab olism have been a major focus in the field of nutri tion. Lavoisier penetrated the curtain of "dephlogisticated air" and began the era of quantitative chemistry. He coined the word "oxygen" (1). On the basis of the work of Justus Liebig, Germany was the center for research into carbon metabolism. With improved techniques, Liebig extended Lavois ier's method for organic analysis, and in so doing, created the discipline of organic chemistry. Agricul tural chemistry and nutrition were born in Liebig's laboratory. One of Liebig's disciples, Carl Voit, wrote that "the Ufe of the body is the sum of the activity of all the thousands of minute workshops of which it was composed; that a combination of oxygen is not the first step, but that there was a preliminary cleavage of materials into simpler materials, which under certain circumstances might remain unoxidized." Research into energy metabolism peaked with the students of Voit, Rubner, Atwater, Müller, Cremer, Lusk and Cathcart (2). The North American school of nutrition began with Samuel W. Johnson, who was trained in Liebig's Munich laboratory and later contributed to the founding of the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the Sheffield Scientific School at Yale University (3). There, Russell H. Chittenden demonstrated the use fulness of physiological chemistry in the health sciences. A new Une of inquiry in nutrition research began in England with Fredrick Gowland Hopkins. He ob served the inadequacy of zein and gelatin to maintain Ufe and growth and questioned the existing concepts of the adequacy of pure proteins, fats, carbohydrates and minerals in the diet. His questions led to the discovery of vitamins. Hopkins' inquiries ran counter

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NICHOLS AND REEDS

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS We thank J. D. Eastman and E. R. Klein for editorial assistance.

LITERATURE CITED 1. Lusk, G. (1933) Clio Medica (A Señes of Primers on the History of Medicine): Nutrition. Paul B. Hoeber, Inc. New York, NY. 2. Lusk, G. (1931) The Elements of the Science of Nutrition. W. B. Saunders, Co., Philadelphia, PA, and London, U.K. 3. Rossiter, M. W. (1975) The Emergence of Agricultural Science: Justus Liebig and the Americans, 1840-1880. Yale University Press, New Haven, CT, and London, U.K. 4. Needham, J. (1949) Hopkins and Biochemistry, 1861-1947. W. Heifer and Sons, Ltd., Cambridge, U.K. 5. McCoIlum, E. V. (1922) The Newer Knowledge of Nutrition: The Use of Food for the Preservation of Vitality and Health. The MacMillan Co., New York, NY. 6. McCoIlum, E. V. (1957) A History of Nutrition: The Sequence of Ideas in Nutrition Investigations. Houghton Miff lin Com pany, Boston, MA. 7. Hill, R., Young, F. G., Dixon, M., Harris, L. J., Gale, E. F., Teich, M., Dixon, K. & Peters, Sir R. (1971) The Chemistry of Life: Eight Lectures on the History of Biochemistry. Cam bridge University Press, Cambridge, U.K. 8. Rucker, R. & Tinker, D. (1986) Critical Review: The Role of Nutrition in Gene Expression: A Fertile Field for the Appli cation of Molecular Biology. J. Nutr. 116: 177-189.

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provide far more than just essential nutrients. In the view of "molecular nutrition," foods provide mes sages that not only contribute to carbon oxidation and storage but also control biological functions in the body. The evolution of our understanding of carbon me tabolism has proceeded in parallel with that of bio logical chemistry. Our understanding has advanced from Lavoisier's identification of carbon as the end product of oxidative activity, to carbon as an oxidized component in breath. The physical constants nec essary to convert carbon oxidation to energy equiva lents were derived by Rubner and Atwater and have been used for nearly one hundred years. Even so, in the field of nutrition, when we define human energy requirements, we are in fact defining carbon require ments. During the present era of burgeoning molecular biological studies, new issues are de veloping and must be addressed if we are to under stand the carbon needs of the human. Both new and existing methods must be used if we are to move beyond the limitations of the factorial method in our determinations of carbon requirements, and if we are to improve our understanding of the relationship be tween the chemistry of CO2 and the physics of heat production.