Studying vanishing dietary diversity before it is lost: the World Diet Initiative

15 Jul 20264 min read0 viewsJournal Feed

GIST (Key Takeaways)

Heritage diets are disappearing as food systems homogenize; their effects on immunity, metabolism and host–microbiome biology remain poorly understood. The World Diet Initiative offers a framework to document heritage diets and investigate their effects before they are lost. Spinosa, J. P., Lee, D. C., Duraj, T. & Seyfried, T.
N. Nutr. Metab. 22 , 123 (2025). Jones, J. P.
H., Abdullah, M. M. H., Wood, D. & Jones, P. J. H.
Food Nutr. Res . 63 , (2019). This Comment was enabled in part by collaboration within the Africa–Europe Cluster of Research Excellence “Translational Research in Infection, Immunity and Inflammation” (Tri-I), led by the African Research Universities Alliance (ARUA) and The Guild of European Research-intensive Universities. The authors also acknowledge funding from ZonMw (the Netherlands Organisation for Health Research and Development) for the TransMic and TransInf studies (grant 5290162210003), which informed the development of the scientific rationale for the World Diet Initiative.