Epidemiological Issues in Nutrition

As has been the case of the specific etiology school of the bacteriological era, proportionately greater emphasis on animal experimentation and biochemical research has tended to put disproportionately greater emphasis on specific etiological factors in the causation of various nutritional disorders. However, as, unlike the disorders caused by pathogenic microbes, nutritional disorders are mostly caused by absence of certain nutritional components, rather than entry into the body of noxious disease causing agents, study of nutritional problems has got even more complicated and confused by the determination of the so-called recommended allowances for various nutrients, such as calories, proteins, class of proteins, essential amino acids, essential fatty acids, vitamins, minerals and other trace elements.