The Nature of Nutrition

Stephen J. Simpson is an Australian Research Council Laureate Fellow in the School of Biological Sciences and academic director of the Charles Perkins Centre for the Study of Obesity, Diabetes, and Cardiovascular Disease at the University of Sydney. David Raubenheimer is professor of nutritional ecology at Massey University in New Zealand.

Acknowledgments ix CHAPTER ONE Nutrition and Darwin's Entangled Bank 1 1.1 Nutrition Touches and Links All Living Things 3 1.2 Nutrition Is Complex 5 1.3 Dealing with Nutritional Complexity: Enough but Not Too Much 7 1.4 Charting the Void between Nutritional Detail and Generality: The Geometric Framework 10 CHAPTER TWO The Geometry of Nutrition 11 2.1 The Geometric Framework: Basic Theory 11 2.2 The Geometric Framework in Practice 22 2.3 Conclusions 34 CHAPTER THREE Mechanisms of Nutritional Regulation 35 3.1 How to Defend an Intake Target 35 3.2 Postingestive Regulation 48 3.3 Conclusions 56 CHAPTER FOUR L ess Food, Less Sex, Live Longer? 57 4.1 How Does Macronutrient Balance Affect Life Span? 62 4.2 Less Sex, Live Longer? 66 4.3 Conclusions 70 CHAPTER FIVE Beyond Nutrients 71 5.1 The Distinction between Nutrients and Toxins 72 5.2 Self-medication and Ecological Immunology: The Distinction between Nutrients and Medicines 79 5.3 Toxins and Nutrients Interact 84 5.4 Conclusions 87 CHAPTER SIX Moving Targets 88 6.1 Moving Targets in the Short Term 88 6.2 Moving Targets in Developmental Time 91 6.3 From Parents to Offspring--Epigenetics 95 6.4 Evolving Targets 97 6.5 Evolving Rules of Compromise: Nutrient Specialists and Generalists 99 6.6 Evolving Postingestive Responses 105 6.7 Conclusions 106 CHAPTER SEVEN From Individuals to Populations and Societies 108 7.1 Cannibal Mormon Crickets 109 7.2 Locusts Are Cannibals Too 113 7.3 Communal Nutrition in Ants 114 7.4 The Blob 117 7.5 Conclusions 119 CHAPTER EIGHT How Does Nutrition Structure Ecosystems? 120 8.1 From Individual Fitness to Population Growth Rates 121 8.2 Interactions among Organisms and the Environment 122 8.3 Do Predators Regulate Nutrient Intake? 124 8.4 The Nutritional Geometry of Food Webs 130 8.5 The Nutritional Niche 138 8.6 Agent-Based Modeling of Nutritional Interactions: From Individuals to Ecosystems 144 8.7 Conclusions 145 CHAPTER NINE Applied Nutrition 147 9.1 Domestication 147 9.2 Wildlife Conservation 157 9.3 Conclusions 165 CHAPTER TEN The Geometry of Human Nutrition 167 10.1 The Modern Human Nutritional Dilemma 167 10.2 Do Humans Regulate to an Intake Target? 170 10.3 What Is the Human Rule of Compromise? 175 10.4 What Are the Implications of Protein Leverage? 182 10.5 How Do Humans Deal with Nutrient Excesses? 191 10.6 Conclusions 191 CHAPTER ELEVEN Perspectives 194 11.1 Expanding GF into Further Dimensions of Nutrition 194 11.2 GF and "Omics" 195 11.3 Nutritional Epigenetics and Early-Life Prevention of Metabolic Disease 196 11.4 Human Obesity 196 11.5 Nutritional Immunology 197 11.6 Modeling Nutritional Interactions: From Individuals to Ecosystems 198 11.7 Conclusions 199 References 201 Index 229