Epidemiology is the study of the occurrence of human
diseases. Nutritional epidemiology focuses on the relationship between
our diet and our health. The field is often dated to 1753, when Lind
observed that fresh fruits and vegetables could cure scurvy and
conducted one of the earliest clinical trials with lemons and oranges,
which, he noted, had "most sudden and good effects" in treating the
disease. Much later, it was found that vitamin C deficiency was the
cause.
Other milestones in nutritional epidemiology include:
Kanehiro Takaki in 1884 links Japanese sailors' diet of polished rice
to the disease beriberi. He adds milk and vegetables to their diet and
eliminates the disease. Much later, in 1933, Robert R. Williams
synthesizes and names the key nutrient, (vitamin B1), completing
research begun by Japanese J. Suzuki and colleagues in 1912.
Polish-American scientist Casimir Funk suggests in 1912 that
dietary deficiencies in substances that he names "vitamins" may cause
beriberi, rickets, pellagra, sprue and other diseases.
Dr.Joseph Goldberger's tracing of pellagra among poor, corn-dependent
people in the Southern states to a dietary deficiency in 1915. The
missing vitamin component, niacin (vitamin B3) is not indentified until
1938, however, by Conrad Elvehjem---JW.
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Fall 1996
