Patrick J. Stover, Ph.D., director of the Texas A&M Institute for Advancing Health Through Agriculture (IHA), said today that urgent, innovative approaches are needed to combat alarming rates of diet-related chronic diseases, guided by a responsive food system and environment prioritizing human health.
Delivering the prestigious W.O. Atwater Memorial Lecture, Stover outlined the historical context of America’s food system, tracing its origins to the Great Depression and World War II when it was designed largely to alleviate hunger, food insecurity and food shortages.
But that same system, successful in mitigating hunger, is now a major driver of diet-related chronic diseases that were not as prevalent during that earlier era. In the United States alone, nearly 50% of adults suffer from pre-diabetes or diabetes, resulting in annual total costs exceeding $327 billion, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Stover cited the uneven distribution of diet-related chronic diseases in the U.S., with the highest rates in underserved and under-resourced communities that has led to a decrease in life expectancy. He said scientific advances are crucial in reshaping a food system that not only addresses hunger and food insecurity, but also nourishes and sustains human health, reduces medical costs and improves overall health for all individuals.
“We have the tools and technologies to shape the food supply and achieve health outcomes from the food and agricultural system, and we must now shift to a lens including chronic disease prevention,” Stover said at Nutrition 2023, the annual meeting of the American Society for Nutrition.
In his lecture, “Enhancing the Purpose of Food,” Stover said “new expectations” of the food system can be met through innovative approaches such as precision nutrition, which aims to better classify the unique responses of population subgroups to food and dietary patterns. By considering the complex interplay between nutrition and individual biology, researchers can move beyond mere adequacy and deficiency in nutritional guidelines to focus on preventing and managing chronic diseases.
Stover said individual agency and the food environment play a significant role in influencing dietary choices, and agriculture and the food system must target not only hunger but also health outcomes. He noted the transformative potential of the food system, listing folic acid fortification that prevents birth defects as an example of how it can go beyond alleviating hunger.
“Agriculture and food environments can be responsive to the mandate of supporting health through nutrition while also considering the economic and environmental sustainability of the agriculture value chain—this is responsive agriculture. We need to produce ample food to support the growing global population in a way that also improves human health,” he said.
Stover said the newly established IHA’s research at Texas A&M aims to take a systems approach to human health by aligning precision nutrition, responsive agriculture and social and behavioral research, making agriculture and food the solution to the pressing health crisis affecting both young and adult Americans.
To advance the concept of responsive agriculture, he said the IHA is working with the Chicago Council on Global Affairs on a responsive agriculture study. In that collaborative effort, leading experts have joined committees to help develop a roadmap for responsive agriculture to reduce diet-related chronic disease.
The initiative seeks to identify actionable steps, both short-term and long-term, to align the food system with human health, economic viability, environmental sustainability and equitable access to healthy food.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture's Agricultural Research Service (ARS) established the Atwater Lecture as a tribute to Wilbur Olin Atwater, an influential figure in modern nutrition research and education. Each year, a scientist who has made exceptional efforts in improving the diet and nutrition of people around the globe is chosen to deliver the Atwater Lecture.
Stover, an international leader in biochemistry, agriculture and nutrition, is an elected member of the National Academy of Sciences and a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
He’s also a former president of the American Society for Nutrition and has served two terms on the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine’s Food and Nutrition Board.
Stover has more than 23 years of academic leadership experience, serving as vice chancellor and dean for agriculture and life sciences at Texas A&M AgriLife, director of Texas A&M AgriLife Research and director the Division of Nutritional Sciences at Cornell University.
He received his bachelor’s degree in chemistry from Saint Joseph’s University, a doctorate in biochemistry and molecular biophysics from the Medical College of Virginia and completed his postdoctoral studies in nutritional sciences at the University of California, Berkeley.