A METABOLIC UNIT FOR STUDIES ON HUMAN-NUTRITION

In clinical nutrition we are used to dealing with the clinical managem ent of patients, but of equal or greater importance is the study of ho w nutrition affects the development of diseases or modifies its manifi estations. This field is complex and links physiological studies of nu trition to the epidemiological analyses which form the basis of thinki ng in public health in Mexico today. Thus a number of studies have inv estigated the nutritional risk factors leading to the development of d iseases such as heart disease and cancer (1-10). This epidemiological research requires the difficult task of accurately assessing the food consumption of individuals: with poor methodologies the chances of err oneous results are very high. This has implications for both group and individual comparison. Physiological studies on the effects of highly controlled changes in food intake on risk factors then allows die epi demilogy to be interpreted in metabolic terms. In this paper we illust rate some of the benefits of metabolic studies and some of the require ments for this succesfull conduct.