Table 1.

Key New Lessons from Modern Nutritional Science.

Diverse physiologic effects of diet	Dietary habits influence a myriad of cardiometabolic risk factors, including blood pressure, glucose-insulin homeostasis, lipoprotein concentrations and function, inflammation, endothelial health, hepatic function, adipocyte metabolism, cardiac function, metabolic expenditure, and pathways of weight regulation, visceral adiposity, and the microbiome. Focus on single surrogate outcomes can be misleading. Based on these diverse effects, diet quality is more relevant than quantity, and the primary emphasis should be cardiovascular and metabolic health, not simply body weight or obesity.
Importance of foods and diet patterns	Specific foods and overall diet patterns, rather than single isolated nutrients, are most relevant for cardiometabolic health. The historical focus on isolated nutrients contributes to confusion about what constitutes a healthy diet, distracts from more effective strategies, and drives industry, policy makers, and the public toward diets which meet selected nutrient-cutpoints but provide little health benefit.
Complexity of obesity and weight regulation	Diet quality influences diverse pathways related to weight homeostasis, including satiety, hunger, brain reward, glucose-insulin responses, hepatic de novo lipogenesis, adipocyte function, metabolic expenditure, and the microbiome. For long-term weight control, all calories are not created equal due to divergent long-term effects of different foods on these pathways of weight homeostasis.
Individual, health systems, and policy approaches for behavior change	Multiple evidence-based strategies for improving dietary behaviors have now been identified, including at the individual (patient) level, in health systems, and in populations. Integrated, multicomponent approaches that include upstream policy measures, midstream educational efforts, and downstream community and environmental approaches may be especially effective