Two researchers from LSU’s Pennington Biomedical Research Center have been named 2026 Excellence in Nutrition Fellows of the American Society for Nutrition, or ASN, recognizing their significant contributions to nutrition science and sustained engagement in the nutrition community.

Dr. John Apolzan and Dr. Leanne Redman were selected for the Fellows of ASN, or FASN, designation, an honor awarded to nutrition professionals who have demonstrated substantial impact in research, translational science and service to the field.

Anyone seeking to purchase healthy products at the supermarket needs clear guidance. Nutritional labelling schemes, such as Nutri-Score labels, are designed to help with that. The Nutri-Score front-of-pack label shows a five-colour system from favourable nutritional composition in green (A) through to unfavourable in red (E). The scheme is optional on products across the EU but has been adopted by companies in several countries, for instance, Germany and the Netherlands. Some supermarkets also print a grey version on the price tag, but the colourful version on the shelf also attracts more attention here. Researchers at Göttingen University – in collaboration with Osnabrück University of Applied Sciences, the German Institute of Food Technology and Giessen University – studied consumers’ visual attention on these label formats. Their research showed colourful labelling catches the eye more frequently and for longer than monochrome. Particularly frequent and prolonged glances at the dark green A or the yellow C were usually accompanied by choosing this particular product. The red E, on the other hand, did not have the desired warning effect: even when this unfavourable rating was viewed frequently, the products still ended up in shopping baskets. The study was published in the journal Food Quality and Preference.

Research increasingly shows that what we eat shapes health. But translating nutrition science into clinical care isn’t always straightforward. A new Food is Medicine Toolkit is designed to help providers implement evidence-based nutrition interventions for patients.

Eating is not only about getting enough calories. Animals also need to choose the right nutrients. When the body lacks protein, it must seek essential amino acids — the protein building blocks that cannot be made internally and must come from food.

A research team led by Director SUH Seong-Bae of the Center for Microbiome–Body–Brain Physiology within the Institute for Basic Science (IBS), in collaboration with researchers at Seoul National University and Ewha Womans University, has uncovered how the gut detects protein deficiency and directs the brain to seek out essential nutrients. The study reveals a previously unknown gut-brain signaling system that rapidly alters feeding behavior through coordinated neuronal and hormonal pathways.

Researchers in the lab of Mary Gehring at Whitehead Institute, a Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) affiliate, have developed a gene expression “map” of seed development in the model plant, Arabidopsis thaliana. Their findings reveal in which tissues and cell types genes that determine agriculturally significant traits, such as seed size and nutritional composition, are expressed. The work could guide future efforts to improve crop yield, nutrition, and resilience.